Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful and TVA, along with about 11 volunteers, led the efforts to remove 5,320 pounds of trash from Chickamauga Lake, including a fishing boat, truck bed liner and lots of tires, during the ninth annual Keep the Tennessee River Watershed Beautiful Month® presented by TVA.

Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful, a regional river cleanup nonprofit headquartered in Knoxville, is celebrating its 10th anniversary as the 1st Keep America Beautiful affiliate in the country to focus solely on a river. The nonprofit launched the annual month-long initiative in October 2018. In 2025, the organization achieved a significant milestone of one million pounds of trash collected from the Tennessee River watershed.

The only river cleanup nonprofit with a fleet that travels to all seven states within the Tennessee River watershed, Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful takes volunteers in the organization’s two 26-foot workboats to clean shorelines and averages 35-40 cleanups and 200,000 pounds of trash removed a year.

“Our collaboration with partners like Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful helps us achieve one of TVA’s core missions of environmental stewardship,” said Suzanne Fisher, senior program manager. “Working together, we can amplify our efforts to remove debris and litter from the seven-state watershed, helping preserve the natural beauty of our region and supporting local communities and economies.”

The cleanup in the Chattanooga area on Oct. 14, started at Harbor Lights Marina in Soddy Daisy as TVA team members embarked on the mission. Items removed from the water and riverbanks included a 1,000-pound fishing boat, a 5-foot dock, a truck bed liner, a water ski, a glass Gatorade bottle and numerous tires.

“While we can calculate the impact in pounds, the overall impact far exceeds a single measurement,” said Kathleen Gibi, executive director of Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful. “We have boats in the water and boots on the ground. What still amazes me even after years of working with now nearly 6,000 volunteers is just how much volunteers can achieve for their local waterways, like the TVA team members did today. Beyond the impressive impact numbers, they helped to protect our drinking source and a vital ecosystem, bolster regional tourism and beautify one of the most scenic natural assets in the Southeast!”

While some trash items enter the water through direct dumps, such as tires and appliances, most of the debris originates from litter on land that washes through storm drains into our water system or because of destruction inflicted by natural disasters, such as Hurricane Helene.

Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful also offers an Adopt a River Mile program that has become so successful that some sections previously cleaned don’t require large-scale volunteer follow-up events. In early 2026, the program reached 357 total adopted miles with support from 237 adopters.

Supporters can also Adopt a Storm Drain to retrieve litter before it enters our water system. An overview of the organization’s programs, including education and awareness, is available at keeptnriverbeautiful.org/programs.

Keep the Tennessee River Watershed Beautiful Month was established by KTnRB in 2018 with support from then-Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam. The month of awareness also has included partnerships with Living Lands & Waters, a nonprofit established by Chad Pregracke in 1998 and headquartered in East Moline, Illinois. Living Lands & Waters has removed more than 14 million pounds of garbage from America’s rivers.

In 2015, Living Lands & Waters hosted the Tennessee River Tour on the organization’s barge for river cleanups in the four states touched by the river’s main stem from Knoxville to Paducah, Kentucky. Knoxville’s Ijams Nature Center kicked off the cleanup tour with the Ijams River Rescue, a multi-county initiative.

The 2015 effort led to the formation of Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful after Pregracke told TVA and Keep Tennessee Beautiful leaders that the Tennessee River was the most beautiful river he had ever traversed and the cleanup needed to expand beyond a one-time campaign. Initial funding for Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful came primarily from TVA, along with Keep Tennessee Beautiful through funds from the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT).

The designated month also includes proclamations by governors and mayors celebrating October as Keep the Tennessee River Watershed Beautiful Month; and pledges made by Tennessee River watershed residents and visitors to eliminate single-use plastic or Styrofoam items from their daily routine for one year.

Last month, the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) honored Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful with the Governor’s Environmental Stewardship Award in the Natural Resources category presented by Gov. Bill Lee. The highly prestigious award honors individuals, businesses and other organizations for their commitment to preserving the state’s natural resources and recognizes innovative efforts to preserve, protect, restore and enhance Tennessee’s natural, geologic and ecological resources.

The nonprofit’s Cigarette Litter Prevention & Recycling Program has recycled the plastic from more than 1 million cigarette butts since 2019, preventing toxins and microplastics from entering nearby waterways and reinforcing private-sector leadership in watershed protection.

The 652-mile Tennessee River, which forms in Knoxville at the joining of the Holston and French Broad rivers, eventually empties into the Ohio River in Paducah, Ky., and is an integral part of the economy, tourism, environment and scenic beauty.