Volunteers Needed! Rx Round-up - October 29, 2011 - Saturday,October 29, BEAT will partner once again with the Berkshire District Attorney’s Office, Berkshire United Way, Pittsfield Prevention Partnership, Berkshire Health Systems, and others, to provide the public with an opportunity to turn in unwanted and unused medications and health-care products for proper disposal.  The Berkshire County Rx Round Up will help to get drugs off the street, and will help keep drugs our of our waterways and wetlands by ensuring that they are disposed of properly.  When prescription drugs, over-the-counter remedies, veterinary medications, and personal care products are disposed of improperly or flushed down the drain they often end up in our waterways.  Flushing medications down the drain is not an acceptable means of disposal.  Wastewater treatment centers do not remove or break down these products. BEAT  volunteers will again staff tables and help to educate people on environmental issues.  Last year the program took in over 900 pounds of pharmaceuticals in Berkshire County.  We need volunteers from 10 – 2.  We will train you on what the problems are with Prescriptions and Personal Care Products (PPCPs) getting into our water and waterways. Whether you can volunteer for the full time or just a couple of hours, please consider helping out in this important effort. Below are the locations.  If you can help, please email or call Jane – jane@thebeatnews.org Thank you! North Berkshire County: Adams- Adams Police Station (4 School St.) – need 2 people 10-2 Lanesborough- Berkshire Mall Food Court- need 2 people 10-2 North Adams- Spitzer Senior Center (116 Ashland St.)- need 2 people 10-2 Williamstown- Transfer Station (667 Simonds Rd./Rt.7)- need 2 people 10-2 Central Berkshire County: Dalton- Community Recreation Association (400 Main St.)- need 2 people 10-2 Lee- Lee Ambulance (177 Main St.)- need 2 people 10-2 Lenox- Lenox Town Hall (6 Walker St.)- need 2 people 10-2 Pittsfield- CHP Neighborhood Health Center (510 North St.) – need 2 people 10-2 South Berkshire County: Egremont- Egremont Town Hall (171 Egremont Plain Rd.)- need 2 people 10-2 Great Barrington- Police Station (465 Main Street)- need 2 people 10-2 Sheffield- Sheffield Town Hall (21 Depot Square)- need 2 people 10-2 If you can help, please email or call Jane – jane@thebeatnews.org Thank you! Participating in river clean-ups (May - Oct) - we will send you and email or give you a call when we need help. This usually happens two or three times a year. If you are interested, let us know that you would like to help with river cleanups. Streamcrossing surveys - BEAT is working with the Housatonic Valley Association to train and coordinate volunteers surveying streamcrossings - bridges and culverts - in Berkshire County. The idea is to make every major road repair improve ecosystem and wildlife habitat connections under the road. To do this, we will survey all the streamcrossings, that information will be fed into a database and each crossing will be graded on much of an impediment to fish and wildlife it is. That grade can then be cross-referenced with habitat information to see which crossings, if improved, would have the greatest benefit for fish and wildlife. If you would be interested in helping survey crossings please email Alison at HVA. Turtle surveys (June - July) - BEAT is working with the state Natural Heritage program and Mass DOT to find volunteers to survey for turtles along certain sections of road. If you know of a place where turtles frequently cross the road, or would just be interested in being assigned to a location to survey for turtles, please let Jane know. This will be starting in April or May, 2010. Do wetland replacement areas really work? - We need someone to go to their conservation commission and look at files to find 5 wetland replacement areas or wetland restoration sites. If you are interested, please contact Jane Certifying vernal pools - we will hold a training in April to teach you how to certify a vernal pool. This documents the pool and provides more protection under the Massachusetts Wetlands Protection Act. Many vernal pools have no protection unless they are certified. If you would like to be on the list of people to contact next April, send us an email. Watching public notices in area newspapers for environmental issues. BEAT checks the public notices in the Berkshire Eagle each week to put in The BEAT News, but we need people to check the other papers in Berkshire, Hampshire, Hamden, and Franklin counties, and let us know what is happening. If you could take responsibility for watching a paper in your area, and then either scanning or typing up the public notices for Conservation Commissions, logging, or other items of environmental interest, please let us know. Contacting conservation commissions - we need someone in each town or city who can call their town hall on an ongoing basis and find out when the next conservation commission meeting is and ask for an agenda to be sent to BEAT. Some towns, like Becket and Otis, automatically send their agendas to BEAT. Others, like Pittsfield, post the agenda on their website. Others, like Alford, have a set date and time, but we still need to get the agendas. And then there are real problems like Adams, which has no set schedule and we never know when there are meetings or what is covered. We could really use help there! (see Conservation Commission page) If you would like to help, please contact BEAT and let us know what town Conservation Commission you are interested in. Environmental movie night - A number of Berkshire County environmental organizations discussed having an Environmental Movie Night three or four or more times a year. We all could think of movies that would be great to show. We could have lively discussions after the movies as well. We might have someone related to the movie - a star or producer or.... come speak. The one big hold up - who would be willing to put in the time and effort to pull this together? If you would be interested in volunteering to organize an Environmental Movie Night, please email Jane or call her at BEAT's phone: 413-230-7321. Putting up posters to advertise events - we will send you and email or give you a call when we need help in your area to put up posters. This usually only happens once or twice a year. If you are interested, let us know that you would like to help with putting up posters. Helping with door-to-door flyer distribution to publicize issues and meeting - we will send you and email or give you a call when we need help in your area. This usually only happens once a year. If you are interested, let us know that you would like to help with flyering. Coming to governmental meetings when we need a crowd - we never can tell when this will happen. We will put a notice in The BEAT News e-newsletter asking for people to attend a specific meeting. (sign up to receive The BEAT News) There are other tasks as well, or maybe there's a task you would like to suggest to us. Drop us an email or give us a call at 413-230-7321. All volunteers are asked to keep track of their hours and let BEAT know how much time they have donated. These hours help in getting grants, so any amount of time you give has even more impact than you may ever know! We're sure there's a way you can help. return to top