Lake Tuscaloosa-North River Waterfest: May 4-5 | Environment

The Lake Tuscaloosa-North River Waterfest is a two day event including the Watershed Festival and the Lake Clean-Up Day. The Watershed Festival will be held at the MaryAnn Phelps Activity Center on Friday, May 4, 2012 from 9 am to 4 pm. The Lake Clean-Up Day will be held on Saturday, May 5, 2012 from 8 am to 2 pm at the Rock Quarry boat landing, the Binion Creek boat landing, and the Lake Nicol Park boat landing. This event is being hosted by the City of Tuscaloosa, the University Of Alabama Museum Of Natural History, and the Black Warrior River Clean Water Partnership.

The Watershed Festival is a primary education event that focuses on educating and involving the community about what our water resources are, where they come from and how to protect and enjoy them safely. The event will include an educational expo, an information fair and activities for the public to enjoy.

This is the fourth year of the Clean-Up, with past participation boasting over 500 volunteers who cleaned over 50,000 pounds of debris from Lake Tuscaloosa. Volunteers are encouraged to bring their boats to help remove debris. Lake Nicol boat landing will be for non-motorized boats only. Alabama Outdoors has teamed up with UA Outdoor Recreation Program to provide different types of paddle boats on site with instruction for safe operation.

The overall goal of the weekend is the continued education and awareness of how important our water resource is and where it comes from, and how everyone can be actively involved with protecting it and ensuring it will be here for a long time. Registered volunteers for the weekend have the opportunity to win prizes such as a signed football from Coach Saban and gift cards to The Athletes Foot, Alabama Outdoors, Hudson Poole, and others.

For more information on the Watershed Festival, please contact Mary Wallace Pitts at northriverwatershed@hotmail.com. For more information on the Lake Tuscaloosa Clean-Up Day, please contact Dana Willingham at 205-349-0279, or dwillingham@tuscaloosa.com.