SUGAR NOTCH, Pa. — When you head out for a hike on the Sugar Notch trail near Ashley, you are signing up for some moderate exercise surrounded by nature.
But along the way, you might be surprised by what else surrounds you.
"Absolutely astonished. There's so many, and apparently, it's been over, like, 50 years since they've been here," said Ava Knipher, Drums.
Tires, hundreds and hundreds of tires.
"People may not understand and realize that this is all part of the entire Solomons Creek watershed, and Sugar Notch Run is just a major tributary that feeds Solomons Creek. We want to make sure the macroinvertebrates, bugs, and fish are living in a thriving, healthy ecosystem and not a bunch of tires," said Bobby Hughes, Executive Director of EPCAMR.
Bobby and a handful of other volunteers were able to get to the tires in hard-to-reach places along the edge of Interstate 81 and into a consolidated area, "So we had to touch all these tires three times before we can even get them to this point here," he said.
Now Hughes is working with the Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority, the DCNR, the Pennsylvania Environmental Council, local businesses, and community groups to remove and recycle all these tires.
"It's probably the largest tire pile that I've cleaned up in my 25 from close to 28-year history of doing tire cleanups here in the valley," said Hughes.
The initial site of all of these tires was very overwhelming, but volunteers were able to come up with systems at the top of the mountain and at the bottom of the mountain to make it a little bit more manageable.
"It's extremely steep, and there's lots and lots of rocks," said Knipher.
From beginning to end, volunteers set up assembly-style lines to get the tires to certain points before throwing or rolling them to the next one, where they are piled up again and eventually taken to the road as efficiently as possible or close to it.
The tires will fill this truck up about four times; eventually, all this waste will be recycled.
"It's quite fun, to be honest, tossing them down. It makes me feel hopeful in the community, especially because so many people are coming out to do this," added Ava.