CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The Kanawha County Commission is recognizing two beneficial county-wide clean-up operations from the spring.
The county put on two clean-ups, one in Cabin Creek on April 12, and the other in Sissonville on April 26. The county typically does three clean-ups per season but scaled back this year due to budget reasons.
Lance Wheeler
The county reported during its Thursday meeting that 2,252 vehicles came to the locations across the two dates. The clean-ups saw over 372 tons of trash and 46 tons of metal be thrown away, and
3,205 tires were kept out of the river.
Commissioner Lance Wheeler says that prior clean-ups may not have been advertised as well, but this pair of events got the job done.
“How many comments have you seen of people saying they missed it?” Wheeler asked Commission President Ben Salango. “We used to get a lot of people who would comment, ‘Oh, I missed that. I didn’t know that was happening.’ I haven’t seen one Facebook or social media comment stating that. I think that the numbers prove that it’s because of the advertising and the word of mouth.”
Commissioner Natalie Tennant says Kanawha County does it right.
Natalie Tennant
“It’s fascinating,” Tennant said. “This was my first time to see this as a county commissioner. It’s amazing. It’s so organized.”
Wheeler says that the process has been so successsful that other counties want to see how
“For our Sissonville one, we had a special visitor from another county — we won’t say the county for public reasons just yet — but the came to witness how we do this and how to make it efficient because they want to copy us and be able to provide it for their citizens as well,” Wheeler said.
Kanawha County will hold two more clean-up events for citizens in the fall. Those will be in South Charleston and Clendenin.