Tom Marotta, 18, of Little Rocky Run organized a clean-up in Bull Run Creek off Route 28 and Compton Road in Centreville on Sept. 19. His objectives were to remove a 50-year-old dump site and a commercial portable toilet, both of which had been major eyesores for years. Some 34 volunteers, scouts, siblings, and parents showed up to complete the project in six hours, totaling 146 man-hours. He said it took about 18 hours to organize the project.
The dump site yielded 95 bags of trash, one tire, and a pile of recyclable metal. The total weight of all of the trash, including the portable toilet, was 4,045 lbs., most of it left as shown above for the Park Authority to remove. The metal was taken to the Ox Road landfill.
The portable toilet was located in a vernal pond at the base of a cliff, just upstream from Little Rocky Run. It is believed that it washed down from upstream soccer fields during the huge flood of 2006 The only way to remove it, since it was strongly suctioned to the bottom of the pool and partially buried in stream clay, was to cut it into chunks with a portable reciprocating saw and yank it out.
Volunteers were: David Chung, Andrew Shaw, Andrew Pan, Parth Desai, Kristie Taylor, Mari Marotta, Paris Marotta, Andrew Marotta JR, JoAnn Costello, Andrew Marotta, Tom Marotta, George Bolash , Ben Bolash, Alex Alvarado, Wilmer Alvarado, Timothy Kim, John Bowden, Kyle Burrell, Christopher Helme, Michael Helme, Chip Helme, Nick Carroll, Drew Boland, Daniel Clements, Nick Zempolich, Chris Zempolich, Logan Hillman, Bill Hillman, Alex Aquilera, Ricardo Aquilera, Ryan Buzzy, Keegan Collins, Vinnie Caporale and Ned Foster.
Chip Hunter, a local resident whose property borders on Bull Run Regional Park, was kind enough to let them use his property as the take-out point.
Thanks also to Colin Riley and the Izaak Walton League who are the state-designated adoptees of this section of Bull Run. Tom is the son of Andy and Paris Marotta. He is a senior at Centreville High School.