Request a Proclamation from Your Elected Official

It starts from the top down, and it’s more important than ever for our leaders acknowledge the immense value of the Tennessee River watershed.

Help get your local elected official involved by getting them to declare October as ‘Keep the Tennessee River Watershed Beautiful Month.’

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3-Step Process to requesting a 2024 proclamation:

  1. Go to the web site of the government through which your elected official serves and search ‘proclamation request.’ If that doesn’t work, call their office and tell them you’d like to request a proclamation.

  2. Submit a request with the proclamation text below to your elected official’s office.

  3. Send Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful an e-mail when you receive word that your elected official has opted to do a proclamation declaring October to be ‘Keep the Tennessee River Watershed Beautiful Month.’

 

WHEREAS The Tennessee Valley has over 41,000 miles of rivers, lakes, and streams; and

WHEREAS the recreation industry along the Tennessee River system generates almost $12 billion annually; and

WHEREAS shipments by barge rather than by rail or truck saves businesses about $1 billion each year in transportation of goods with 50 million tons of goods shipped each year; and

WHEREAS shoreline property owners contribute almost $1.04 million to local economies annually; and

WHEREAS the Tennessee Valley Authority resources the Tennessee River to help provide electricity to 10 million residents via 153 power companies; and

WHEREAS the Tennessee River watershed has been identified as the most biodiverse river in North America including 230 species of fish, which is twice that of the Mississippi River; and

WHEREAS Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful is the first Keep America Beautiful affiliate to focus solely on a river, striving to rally and unify communities along the river to keep the Tennessee River healthy for generations to come; and

WHEREAS 4,465 volunteers helped Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful to remove over 758,033 pounds of trash since putting their first boat in the water in 2019; and

WHEREAS last year alone, 994 volunteers came to Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful cleanups and removed a total of 218,729 lbs. of trash from shorelines.

WHEREAS the Tennessee Department of Transportation, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and Keep Tennessee Beautiful work to support and enable local organizations to protect the waterways within their communities; and

WHEREAS the Tennessee River brings us together as one watershed community within seven states, including Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina and Virginia; and

WHEREAS city ports along the Tennessee River are considered international ports given that we are part of a river system that feeds into the Gulf of Mexico; and

WHEREAS Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful and Keep Tennessee Beautiful serve to raise awareness of the importance of protecting our most abundant resource and unifying communities across the state of Tennessee to take action.

KEEP THE TENNESSEE RIVER WATERSHED BEAUTIFUL MONTH

Now, THEREFORE, I, , Mayor/County Executive ______________ of the City/County/Town of _________________, do hereby proclaim the month of October, 2024 as KEEP THE TENNESSEE RIVER WATERSHED BEAUTIFUL MONTH.