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BY IVAN SANDERS
STAR STAFF
ivan.sanders@elizabethton.com
The Keep Carter County Beautiful board met via Zoom on Thursday evening as the group listened to updates on the placement of Trash Trout Traps from Jeff Wright, South East Coordinator, and Mike Mains, City Parks and Recreation Director.

One of the main topics was a Trash Trout Trap – not intended to catch trashy trout but to capture loose trash and debris.

Mains advised the group that the City Council and City Manager Daniel Estes had positive feedback on the project as Mains felt that getting approval shouldn’t be a problem.

The project entails placing a device called a Trash Trout Trap in the streams which is intended to catch litter and debris that may be flowing downstream.

With the devices, instead of volunteers having to comb through the streams to clean up trash, someone would only have to go to the trap which would be capturing the trash while sitting in the flow of the stream and clean it out on a regular basis.

Mains advised that he couldn’t see any problems getting funding and right now there is an opportunity to buy one and get one.

In a meeting with Wright, the biggest thing that seemed to be a concern was the location of the traps.

Those concerns were due to placing the traps where the greatest amount of trash could be captured and the second was the visibility of the traps.

Two areas that were specifically mentioned were the Covered Bridge Park and Edwards Island where placing traps in this area would take away from the beauty of the landscape in these areas.

Three areas that Mains mentioned that the traps could potentially be placed was the 19E Bridge on the upper side toward East Side Elementary school.

“The reason for this is there is a lot of traffic around there with the roadway and the linear walkway,” stated Mains. “You could see it from the trail and it would be educational for people to see it.”

Mains also mentioned downstream below the Rotary Pavillion and below the Broad Street Bridge where Mains said there has been a lot of issues with trash and debris underneath that particular bridge.

One good thing about the traps is that they can be moved and relocated at any time.

KCCB founder Edward Jordan said, “The sight of these traps would educate people that we are trying to get rid of the trash in the river.”

Board member and City Councilman Michael Simerly mentioned that he had spoken with Joe Barnett who talked about storm drains that dump into the river.

Barnett had mentioned possibly putting a netting system over the drain outlets to catch debris before it got into the river.

Simerly said that the City’s biggest concerns were the location of the traps and the cleaning of the traps. He said that the group could address both of those.

The board also received an update from Ross Garland in regard to the Wayfinding signage via email.

“I have received the Purchase Order from the Finance Director and have forwarded it on to Charity at Snyder Signs ($23,369.22),” Garland stated in his email. “Brad (Burke) had a couple of questions before we could submit any payment to them.

“I’m working with Seth Hice from the Chamber of Commerce on the County map with all the destinations. I have attached a smaller area version copy that we will use.

“I have compiled the list of tourist destinations and the appropriate directional information to submit to Snyder as well. There are 9 locations that I have included in this first submission: Blue Hole Falls, Gap Creek Park, Green Bridge Landing, Hampton Watershed Trails, Happy Trails Park, Hershel Julian Landing (Bear Cage Rd – Roan Mtn), Roan Mountain Community Park, Tweetsie Trail, Laurel Falls.”

One thing that the board will also be looking at will be the design of the signs to see if they have the right information that KCCB wants to present to those who see the signs.