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Communities Host 11th Annual Rouge River Rescue Day

DETROIT (WWJ) - Saturday is the annual Rouge Rescue, where volunteers will gather at 35 work sites in some 20 communities to clean up along the Rouge River.

WWJ's Beth Fisher spoke with Cyndi Ross, Friends of the Rouge River Restoration Program manager, who explained what volunteers will be doing.

"Removing trash from the river or removing invasive plants to help improve bio-diversity as well as planting native plants to restore the landscape and help it reduce some of the impact from the frothy flows that we experience in the Rouge , the high water levels that result from rainwater," said Ross.

Ross said volunteers can just show up and they'll be given gloves and trash bags to get to work. She said maybe one day, these efforts will make it possible for people to swim in the Rouge River.

"The exciting thing is over the years, we have noticed remarkable differences that we don't see the trash dumping that we used to see. So over the years we've kind of evolved from that major big day to remove trash from the river to removing some trash but really focusing on stewardship of the river," said Ross.

For more information, visit www.therouge.org.

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