Schuylkill Scrub Aims to Clean Up the River

Susan Phillips

Recent Stories

Susan Phillips tells stories about the consequences of political decisions on people's every day lives. She has worked as a reporter for WHYY since 2004. Susan's coverage of the 2008 Presidential election resulted in a story on the front page of the New York Times. In 2010 she traveled to Haiti to cover the earthquake. That same year she produced an award-winning series on Pennsylvania's natural gas rush called "The Shale Game." She received a 2013 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Journalism Award for her work covering natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania. She has also won several Edward R. Murrow awards for her work with StateImpact. In 2013/14 she spent a year at MIT as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow. She has also been a Metcalf Fellow, an MBL Logan Science Journalism Fellow and reported from Marrakech on the 2016 climate talks as an International Reporting Project Fellow. A graduate of Columbia School of Journalism, she earned her Bachelor's degree in International Relations from George Washington University.

March 27, 2012 | 4:13 PM

Hulton Archive / Getty Images

The Schuylkill River flows through Philadelphia, with the Fairmount Waterworks and the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the background.The river is cleaner today than it was when this photo was taken sometime in the 1970's.

The 130 mile long Schuylkill River flows through the urban centers of Reading, Pottstown, Norristown, and Philadelphia, where it joins the Delaware River and empties into the Delaware Bay. Along the way, the Schuylkill (that’s Dutch for hidden river), picks up a lot of trash.
A coalition of environmentalists have organized a clean-up of the river in conjunction with Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful. The Schuylkill Scrub, as it’s called, urges volunteers to pick up trash along the river’s route from April 1 through May 31.

“The Schuylkill Scrub is invaluable to our community because it not only makes our environment look cleaner, but also it has a positive impact on our drinking water,” said Nancy Kauffman of the Hay Creek Watershed Association. “Trash and pollution on the land ends up in our rivers and streams every time it rains.”

Those wishing to volunteer, or organize a clean-up along their stretch of the Schuylkill should visit the website www.SchuylkillScrub.org.