Northshore magazine showcases the best that the North Shore of Boston, MA has to offer.
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NORTHSHOREMAG.COM 66 SEPTEMBER 2018 Rocky Morrison stands at the helm of a 28-foot-long aluminum pontoon boat that he designed and built himself, zooming down the Merrimack River from Methuen toward Andover. He looks like you'd expect someone named Rocky to look: tall and tough, with calloused fingers, a shaved bald head, and a tribal tattoo inked around a thick bicep. e boat cuts smoothly through the middle of the river, which looks pristine from here, sparkling in the spring sunlight while birds swoop gently over the rippling current. But as the boat slows and closes in on a stretch of riverbank along Andover's AVIS Reservation, the scene changes. "at's a floating mess right there," Morrison says, pointing to a mass of trash bobbing in the water among a tangle of downed tree branches. ere are bleach, water, and wine bottles, a can of spray paint, a propane tank, Styrofoam takeout containers, broken toys, plastic coffee cup lids, and a battered black laundry basket. Over the course of two months, Morrison's nonprofit, Clean River Project, pulled 26.63 tons of trash out of the river in Andover alone. "Andover is a magnet for trash," Morrison says, thanks to factors like wind and the river's current, but it's far from alone. All along the Merrimack River, trash makes its way downstream toward the ocean, often collecting in spots like one in Haverhill that Rocky calls "tire cove," where Clean River Project has pulled 3,000 tires from the river in three years. And all along the river, from big cities to small towns, thousands of hypoder- mic needles wash up on the shore. "If we don't take that stuff out, you'll find it on Hampton Beach, Salisbury Beach," Morrison says. Clean River Project uses huge—100-foot- / I N - D E P T H / Rocky Morrison's (pictured) nonprofit, Clean River Project, pulled 26.63 tons of trash out of the Merrimack River in Andover alone. "As a young man, I'd seen how much pollution was out there. So I took action. I had to make a change." long—trash containment devices called booms that catch trash on its way downriver. Employ- ees and volunteers also wade into the river and along its banks to remove garbage by hand. "ere's a lot of miles of hand picking," Rocky says. "A lot of miles." T R A S H A LO N G T H E S H O R E L I N E For 117 miles, the Merrimack River twists and turns through communities large and small, including Morrison's hometown. "I was born and raised in Methuen. e river was my backyard," he says. "As a young man, I'd seen how much pollution was out there. So I took action. I had to make a change." In 2005, Morrison started Clean River Project, a nonprofit dedicated to cleaning up the trash in the Merrimack River, while working as a self-employed contractor. is past January, he finally started taking a small salary and now is focusing full-time on Clean River Project. e nonprofit operates out of a small trailer that sits on the riverbank in Methuen behind an auto body shop. "Before that I was working out of my truck," Morrison says. Now, Clean River Project has a small staff and countless volunteers, including ones from local corporations like 3M, which has several plants in communities along the Merrimack River on the North Shore, includ- ing Methuen, Haverhill, and Chelmsford.