'Creek defenders' wade into littered bays and creeks to clean Long Island waterways

Tom Kain braved rain and stiff winds Saturday morning to visit one of his favorite spots: Penataquit Creek in his Bay Shore hometown.

Not for the first time, he said, he was dismayed by the sight of trash floating downstream as the creek swelled with stormwater. Especially troublesome, he said, were plastic bags that could turn into microplastics swallowed by Great South Bay fish, which could in turn become meals for human beings.

The scene reminded him of a television commercial from his childhood — the one in which a Native American observes smog and litter, then turns toward the camera with a tear in his eyes.

“I remember seeing that as a kid and thinking, 'What are we doing here?' ” said Kain, 57, a volunteer "creek defender" with Babylon nonprofit Save the Great South Bay. “It’s tough to see when you pull up to a certain place.”

Officials of the nonprofit say that, even after decades of campaigns to discourage littering, Long Island creeks remain dumping grounds filled with fast-food wrappers, automobile tires and even discarded televisions.

It's a problem that affects not only creeks, but larger bodies of water like the Great South Bay that become the final resting spot for much of the Island's trash, nonprofit and public officials say.

Long Island litter estimates are hard to come by, but state Department of Transportation workers collected the equivalent of 4,200 bags of trash in two weeks during roadside cleanups last April — nearly twice as many bags as they had collected two years earlier, prompting a DOT official to conclude that littering had "gotten worse." 

Save the Great South Bay executive director Robyn Silvestri said the group began its annual creek cleanups about seven years ago, out of concern that dirty creeks would worsen pollution in the bay.

The nonprofit started with a handful of rivers and quickly grew the cleanups to about 50 locations in 2020, she said. 

The next round of cleanups starts Saturday with events at Willetts and Sampawams creeks in West Islip and Santapogue Creek in West Babylon. Both cleanups begin at 9 a.m. and run two hours, and volunteers are welcome, Silvestri said.

She counted Santapogue as among the most littered creeks she's seen.

“There’s so many fast-food places over there, and people just throw stuff out the window, so it ends up being a mess," Silvestri said. "Anything in that creek ends up in the bay.”

There are about 22 creek defenders, including Kain, each of whom is responsible for coordinating cleanups in communities from Massapequa to Mastic. 

“We consider the creeks [to be] like the artery to the heart," said Kain, a mortgage loan officer. "If the bays are sick, most likely the arteries need to be cleaned.”

The nonprofit works with towns to have trash carted away after it's been picked up, Silvestri said.

Rich Groh, chief environmental analyst for Babylon Town, said the volunteer cleanups help promote anti-littering efforts.

“We’re trying to get the word out to our young people, because still it’s a problem," Groh said. "We can’t seem to change human behavior with litter. … [People] might think, throw a bottle here, it’s no big deal. But it builds up.”

Creek defenders said they are moved to protect their little corner of the planet. Besides, they said, it's fun.

“When we do these creek defenders [events], we have a good time," said James Bertsch, 54, a creek defender from Sayville who also serves on the community's board of education.

“The people who show up are the kind of people you want to spend time with.”

By Carl MacGowan

carl.macgowan@newsday.comCarlMacGowan

Carl MacGowan is a Long Island native who covers Brookhaven Town after having previously covered Smithtown, Suffolk County courts and numerous spot news and feature stories over his 20-plus year career at Newsday.