Hofstra journalism students collect sound bites –– and trash –– in the wetlands

Eight Hofstra University graduate journalism students in Adjunct Professor Scott Brinton’s Issues in Science Reporting class grabbed rubber gloves and oversized garbage bags and headed by boat on March 24 to the archipelago of tiny islands and mudflats south of Bay County Park in East Rockaway to join in and report on a massive cleanup of the wetlands.

"It was just a fantastic morning," said Brinton, of Merrick, a senior editor with Herald Community Newspapers. "It was windy on the water, but the sun was shining. The wetlands are gorgeous. It would have been perfect if not for all of the trash."

When all was said and done, some 270 volunteers had collected more than 18 tons of rubber tires, Styrofoam buoys, aluminum cans and plastic bottles trapped amid the reeds and rushes.

Operation SPLASH (Stop Polluting Littering and Save Harbors), a Freeport-based, nonprofit environmental group, sponsored the three-hour cleanup. Volunteers came from across Nassau County’s South Shore, from Franklin Square to Bellmore-Merrick, and even as far as Suffolk County and New York City.

The students not only helped pick up garbage, but also interviewed participants in the cleanup, collecting video, sound and still photographs for their final multimedia project of the semester, for which they must describe the South Shore bays as an ecological system, identify the myriad threats to them and discuss solutions to the problems they face.

SPLASH hosts the annual spring cleanup not only to remove the trash that accumulates in the wetlands, but also to raise awareness of the human impact on the South Shore’s fragile environment. Many first-time volunteers said they were astounded by the amount of refuse that collects in the wetlands, which serve as breeding grounds for numerous sea birds and aquatic creatures.