BART employees volunteer to clean up shoreline

Instead of donning shorts on Saturday, BART managers and union members slipped on heavy duty gloves and joined forces to clean up the shoreline at Jack London Square.   "Last year we spruced up the streets of Oakland and this year we’re helping to clean up the shore environment," BART General Manager Dorothy Dugger said. "Volunteering to keep Oakland clean is BART’s way of giving back to our home base."   Dugger was part of the BART crew who cleared away about 300 pounds of debris from the shoreline.

BART worked with the Port of Oakland to coordinate the event and provided trash bags, bottled water, gloves and snacks to the crews who worked from 9:00 a.m. to noon to clear litter from the estuary. Leadership from two of BART’s unions, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) help to complete Saturday’s clean up team.  "AFSCME believes we should all work together to protect our planet and this clean-up event was just one simple way we can make a difference in our community," AFSCME Union President Jean Hamilton said.  AFSCME represents professional-level BART employees including supervisors and middle managers. 

This Earth Day-inspired activity is part of BART’s overall green mission. "This is part of BART’s legacy of being a clean alternative form of transportation," SEIU BART Professional Chapter President Deslar Patten said. "(Cleaning up the shoreline) needs to be done. Who's going to do it if people don't volunteer to clean the environment?"  SEIU BART Chapter Vice President Rhea Davis captured the sentiment of all who volunteered on Saturday:  "This will make a huge difference to the environment. If everybody does a little bit, then we can make the world a beautiful place."

To view a BARTtv News story about BART’s shoreline clean-up effort visit www.bart.gov/news/barttv.