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Updated: September 4, 2008, 4:05 pm	Share    Print    Email

Younger helpers Juliette and Alexander show their bigger friend that they are "there for the environment." Photos by Kelly Carroll

Sag Harbor - While many East Enders spent the Labor Day holiday basking in the sun, over 20 eager helpers were on the shores of the Elizabeth A. Morton Wildlife Refuge in Noyac on Sunday to clean-up the beach that they frequent all summer long.

"We want to make people aware of the garbage they accumulate," said Vittoria Marzot, a conservation education intern at the refuge.

For the Labor Day weekend beach clean-up, the Morton Wildlife Refuge, overlooking Little Peconic Bay in Sag Harbor, teamed up with the American Littoral Society, an environmental organization that hosts a coastal clean-up of New York State beaches on Sept. 20. According to Marzot, the clean-up in Sag Harbor was so close to the state date, the Littoral Society decided to include the refuge's efforts as part of its annual event. In 2007, the society documented more than 142,000 lbs. of debris along the shorelines of New York.

Refuge worker Bill Koch also helped clean up Target Rock in Huntington on Aug. 28.

"This is immaculate compared to Target Rock," said Marzot, who assisted in a clean-up at the National Wildlife Refuge in Huntington on Thursday, Aug. 28. According to Marzot, she and another Morton Wildlife Refuge worker Bill Koch, filled 25 bags with garbage and recyclable materials, overflowing the back of a pick-up truck.

"There were a lot of fishermen fishing near piles of garbage," she recounted.

The 187 acre-expanse that now comprises the Elizabeth A. Morton Wildlife Refuge has been handed down through three generations since the 1600s, according to Marzot. Once a working farm, an assortment of friendly creatures now roam the fields and wood, including deer, wild turkey, and chipmunks. A bevy of bird species also congregate there. In particular, the Piping Plovers, an endangered species on the shores of Long Island, have made the refuge their home. A good portion of the refuge's beach is closed most of the summer to help protect these birds during their nesting season.

Marzot said that the refuge was pleased with the amount of nesting pairs of Piping Plovers it found this year due to its strong protection efforts, and that the birds have had a good hatchling and fledgling turnout. The sanctioned portion of the beach is now re-opened for the fall.

And while the refuge's clean-up was in the forefront of the minds of its workers on Sunday, refuge Manager Debbie Long said that some of her employees were headed down to Louisiana to help in the evacuation and relief effort for Hurricane Gustav, a category 2 hurricane that touched down on the Gulf Coast this Labor Day weekend.

Yet those workers at the clean-up were able to keep to the task at hand, outfitting small children in work gloves and handing over green-gripping tools to the adults, practicing environmental conservation efforts that, from the looks of the refuge's beach, seem to be catching on. "I think people are pretty conscious here," said Marzot, who comes to the beach every morning to clean-up what she can. "The people here are pretty responsible."

Volunteers and refuge personnel picked-up trash along the beach Labor Day weekend, the farthest part of the beach having been newly re-opened since it was closed to protect the endangered Piping Plovers.