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Tireless Dedication

+ click to enlarge Photo courtesy of Robert Tremblay Corey DeLisle (in back), Mitchell Allaire, center, and Elijah Arwood pull tires out of the Nashua River in Leominster. + click to enlarge Photo courtesy of Robert Tremblay From left, Cierra Jones, Amanda Killay-Walsh and Luke Cooper fish for tires. ‘These students learned about the environment and our role in it, and took the initiative to undo decades of environmental neglect in the span of a school day.’ Robert Tremblay, environmental issues teacher TEMPLETON Armed only with canoes and canoe paddles, nine students from Narra­gansett Regional High School paddled a 5-mile, heavily forested section of the Nashua River in Leominster on Thursday, May 12, to remove long-discarded automobile tires from the river bed. The students designed this project as a “Green Deed,” which they decided to undertake to offset the negative environmental impact they made through the year while participating in the monthly field trips that make up their hands-on environmental issues class. In the 1960s, the Nashua River was one of the 10 most-polluted rivers in the United States. Today, it is a clean waterway, suitable for recreational use such as canoeing and kayaking. However, while the water is now clean, the riverbed and banks were still littered with tires that had been illegally dumped and left behind. The Narragansett students took on this project with enthusiasm and energy, and by the end of the day their six canoes looked like barges loaded well above their gunwales with dozens of tires. In all, the students removed 46 tires from the river. The tires were accepted by Monro Brakes and Tires in Leominster, and they will be ground up and recycled for playground turf, running tracks and other products. “I’ve never been more proud of a group of students in my career” said environmental issues teacher Bob Tremblay. “These students learned about the environment and our role in it, and took the initiative to undo decades of environmental neglect in the span of a school day. They are a shining example of what can be done when people act on principal and initiative.” Other Green Deed projects that are being undertaken by the environmental classes at Narragansett this year involve building and mounting bluebird nesting boxes, planting milkweed and wildflower fields for monarch butterflies and bees, and maintaining area hiking trails.