Recycled Christmas trees benefit Slade Dale restoration

POINT PLEASANT — Nearly 500 donated Christmas trees were upcycled and transported into the waters of the Slade Dale Sanctuary early Sunday morning for the American Littoral Society’s sixth annual Earth Day volunteer event, in an effort to improve the 13-acre preserve along Beaverdam Creek.

Scout groups, resident volunteers, the environmental commission, public works department and Good Shepherd Lutheran Church members all work together to make this project a reality, year after year.

Participants geared up in waterproof garb to begin staging the area, loading the trees up into the truck to be moved to the sanctuary’s entrance at the end of Dorsett Dock Road. With a few trips back and forth, volunteers brought the some 500 trees into the marsh by rowboat to then be stuffed and tied down in place.

Dennis Blazak, Point Pleasant Borough Environmental Commission chairman, former environmental engineer and member of the Point Pleasant Boro Rotary Club – was the catalyst for the restoration project.

The project initially started back in 2016 after the Rotary Club gave the Littoral Society $4,000 to kick-start the project.

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