Clean Up Day and Beautification Projects in the Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake Area

Scores of volunteers from preschoolers to octogenarians participated in the Ballston Lake Improvement Association and the Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake Business & Professional Association’s Annual Clean Up Day last Saturday. The project was in cooperation with the Towns of Ballston and Clifton Park which provided trucks to receive bags of road side debris, a consequence of a particularly harsh winter. Girl and Boy Scout Troops, family groups, elected officials and students fulfilling a Civic Class “Community Service” requirement participated in the very “hands on” effort which goes back as a forty year tradition. At the same time, Burnt Hills Rotarians got a head start on their annual “Town in Bloom” beautification project preparing planters to be filled with colorful flowers at strategic Town of Ballston locations.

Also an interesting aside:

Our volunteers pick up a variety of trash from candy wrappers and cigarette butts (disgusting) to bottles, cans, coffee mugs, etc. each year; but 2018 has the oddest “find” ever – an animal trap with a deceased skunk inside! It was all bundled up in a black plastic bag and the volunteer, a retired police officer curious about the distinctive odor, took a peek! He promptly double bagged it and tossed it into the Town of Ballston truck at the Ballston Lake Fire House.

Patrick Whitton took on the task of pulling tires out of the wetlands among Westside Drive and Outlet Road.

Photos by Joanne Devoe.