Guarding the Tennessee River Watershed…
After discovering a cove filled with litter that arrived from a runoff pipe in 2021, the Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful (KTnRB) team worked to secure a grant from the Tennessee Dept. of Transportation’s Highway Beautification Office to test a stormwater filter that catches the litter before entering the river system.
In 2023, TDOT awarded a grant that included funds to purchase up to five of these Runoff River Guards, as we call them, and in 2024, Keep Tennessee Beautiful gave supportive funding to help with the labor and equipment costs of emptying our Runoff River Guards.
Program purpose
This program aims to raise awareness of that fact that 80% of litter found in our waterways was originally littered on land. Tracking and analyzing the collected litter from each of the five Runoff River Guards in this pilot project will serve as a key performance indicator. The goals of this program are to collect and identify litter trends entering our waterways from roads, demonstrate the serious consequence of littering to the public through an evidence-based awareness campaign, and prevent less litter from occurring in the first place through this new awareness.
municipal partners needed
We will need to collaborate with partners to install up to five Runoff River Guards within the Tennessee watershed for 12 months and pursue these goals. Ultimately, the hope is to have a widespread system of Runoff River Guards protecting the Tennessee River watershed.
If you’re with a municipality that has an outfall drain that you think is a good candidate for this program, please complete the form below!