(Erie Times-News) During Drinking Water Week from May 4-10, Erie Water Works and Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful teamed up to take a cleaning initiative and install a 50-foot water litter boom at the Myrtle Street outfall.

A litter boom is a large floating barrier designed to prevent litter from continuing downstream.

The litter boom was installed May 8 at a storm outfall next to the Erie Water Works station. This storm outfall leads out to Lake Erie and the Presque Isle Bay area.

“It’s the proximity to our location,” Craig Palmer, CEO of Erie Water Works said. “It’s on our property and it’s important to us that we’re being leaders and leading by example, because if we’re not doing it, who else is doing it? We need to be more intentional and more thoughtful. We can’t just talk the talk, we have to walk the walk.”

The recently installed litter boom was just beginning to collect some refuse, mostly environmental items such as weeds and algae. Also on May 8, staff at Erie Water Works were out cleaning up the bay area around the Erie Water Works location.

Staff members and volunteers dragged multiple pollutants from the bay area, including small mattresses, tires and bags of trash.

When participating in cleanups around Pennsylvania, Don Benczkowski, program coordinator from Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful, says that the most common item they clean up is cigarette butts.

“They are all over the place,” Benczkowski said, adding that he wished people would keep the cigarette buts in their vehicles or dispose of them properly. “One (cigarette) butt adds up to 60,000, which is what we found during an international clean up.”

Read the entire article.