Groton Open Space Association

GOSA Sponsors Annual Cleanup Day At Haley Farm State Park

GROTON — GOSA members and other volunteers collected an estimated 80 pounds of trash during the 2002 annual GOSA-sponsored Annual Haley Farm State Park Cleanup Day.

The trash included beer and soda cans, plastic water bottles, candy wrappers, a bicycle bag, an asbestos panel, a rubber sandal sole and two large pieces of plastic foam.

As would be hoped, the trash wasn’t easy to find. Many would-be collectors came back empty-handed after walking well-used trails. Proving more productive were remoter areas, such as the Chester grave site, as well as the marshes, the ground next to walls and‹for cigarette butts‹the parking lot.

Among those taking part were Priscilla Pratt, current president of GOSA, and Sidney Van Zandt, who became GOSA’s first president after the organization was formed in 1967.

Several park users signed up as GOSA members, and a number of others took membership applications with them.

GOSA was instrumental in establishment of Haley Farm as a state park in 1970, and it pays for winter mowing of the farm’s fields.