Shoreline Cleanups

CSHH regularly organizes cleanups around the Hempstead Harbor shoreline and Scudder's Pond. Though CSHH has participated in the International Coastal Cleanup since 1992, the first Hempstead Harbor-Wide cleanup was in 2022. On Sept 17, 2022, over 115 volunteers removed 375 pounds of debris from four sites around the harbor - over a mile of shoreline.

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted all scheduled activities, including harborwide cleanups to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. To meet COVID guidelines for social distancing, CSHH created a harborwide Clean-a-Thon in September 2020 to encourage residents to work in small groups to collect shoreline and other debris.

 In April 2011, CSHH organized an emergency cleanup of plastic disks that were accidentally released from an aeration tank at the Mamaroneck sewage treatment plant. The cleanup resulted in the collection of over 27,000 disks from five beaches around Hempstead Harbor and helped convinced Westchester County to send crews to continue cleanup efforts.

The emergency disk cleanup inspired two local artists to create marine creatures and seascapes from the disks. These were featured in several exhibits, including one at Tilles Center, which opened in September 2013. Throughout the rest of the season, disks continued to wash up on Hempstead Harbor beaches as well as along the shores of other bays around Long Island Sound.