Your Help Needed - Emergency Beach Cleanup

Plastic discs on a NH beach. Photo courtesy NHDES

Your help is needed for an emergency cleanup of our beaches!

Recently, small white circular mesh disks, approximately 2" in diameter, were released into the Merrimack River from the Hooksett, NH Wastewater Treatment Facility following heavy rainstorms (see NHDES press release and WMUR news story). It's estimated that hundreds of thousands of the disks were released to the Merrimack River - these are now in MA and NH coastal areas and beaches.

Join us for a beach cleanup and help rid the beach of these discs before they wash back offshore, where they will litter the environment and have the potential to harm marine life.

Please join us and NHDES anytime between 12-5 PM on Thursday, 3/17 - you can pick up cleanup supplies at one of the following stations. Stay as little or as long as you can:

• North Hampton State Beach
• Hampton - At the beach parking lot across from the Ashworth Hotel in Hampton
• Seabrook - At the beach parking area south of the Hampton River Bridge (near the Yankee Fishermen's Co-op)

SAFETY NOTE: Preliminary results of the most recent sampling of disks in both New Hampshire and Massachusetts indicate no bacterial contamination with e. coli. However, out of an abundance of caution, DES and the NH Division of Public Health Services advise that citizens should treat the disks as though they may contain bacterial contamination. Therefore, if you do a cleanup on your own, please use disposable gloves and wear sturdy, close-toed shoes. Visit http://des.nh.gov/media/index.htm for more information.

Questions? Leave a comment here or call 603-431-0260