A Sweeping Success
Harrison Sustainability Team leads Julie Ford and Lysle Sites, engineer V, have organized and implemented two adopt-a-highway cleanup events in 2021 and one in 2022, with a second planned for later this year.
June 8, 2022
| Keeping West Virginia Beautiful
The West Virginia Adopt-A-Highway Program was established in the late 1980s to encourage the state’s residents to help protect the environment by eliminating highway litter. Its objective is to increase public awareness and serve as an educational tool by focusing on the consequences that result when littering is allowed to continue unchecked. The program is co-sponsored by West Virginia’s Division of Highways and the Department of Environmental Protection. |
| Stewardship We positively impact our customers, communities and other stakeholders, and strive to protect the environment. |
Members of Harrison Power Station’s Sustainability Team are helping to ensure the road that leads to the Haywood, W.Va., facility is a clean one.
“We held a cleanup event in April, which was our third since joining West Virginia’s Adopt-A-Highway initiative in 2021,” said Julie Ford, senior scientist and team lead. “We collected tires and other debris that was discarded along the highway. The road we adopted – Route 20 – extends about a mile in each direction from the station’s main entrance, so regardless of which way people are traveling, they should see clean roadways as they approach our facility.”
During two cleanup events held in 2021, volunteers collected 2,240 pounds of trash and 720 pounds of recyclable materials. When the third cleanup was held in April, the team collected 1,080 pounds of trash and 340 pounds of recyclable materials. About a dozen employees and contractors volunteered at each event.
The Adopt-A-Highway Program provides safety vests and gloves for all volunteers, as well as orange trash bags, picker sticks and signs. The program requires that each participating group conduct at least two cleanup events per year.
“Harrison employees take a lot of pride in our work and our station, and that includes the section of road that leads to our facility,” added Julie. “The Adopt-A-Highway Program is a great way to embrace the company’s core value of stewardship while making sure the area around our worksite looks good for employees, contractors and visitors.”