Trout Unlimited collects trash from river

BY DAN KEGLEY
Staff

They could have used the wheelbarrow, if it still had its wheel. Handles would have been nice.
As it was, the metal part was alone and collected as trash from the South Fork Holston River where members of the Mountain Empire Chapter of Trout Unlimited hauled it and smaller items from Buller Gorge on a recent Saturday morning.
Dr. Eric Sacknoff, chapter president, said this week the group brought out 15 bags of trash from more than 2.4 miles of river.
The cleanup began at Quebec, where landowner Roy Hayes “was very gracious” to the group, inviting them, boots and all, into his home, Sacknoff said. “He was telling us to watch out for copperheads and rattlesnakes. He let us go off his property” in accessing the river.
“It was a full day, very wonderful,” Sacknoff said.
After the cleanup, the group fished the river in the gorge.
“There are some big fish back in there,” Sacknoff said. “It’s a long way back in there if you want to walk that far, and most people don’t. That’s why the fish are so big. It’s really a jewel of a portion of the South Fork of the Holston. Gin-clear water.”
The TU chapter is a steward of the Buller Gorge portion of the river for the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries and the U.S. Forest Service, Sacknoff said.
Eventually, more people may experience the remote section of the stream. Sacknoff said signage and a parking area are planned for the entrance, and a trail “will skirt Roy’s property to protect his privacy.”

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