By LINDA KELLETT

C-S-E News Staff

FORT PLAIN — There may not have been a hundred empty bottles of beer on the ground, but a dozen area volunteers had something to croon about after gathering 74 discarded tires from ditches and embankments along Otsquago Club Road during the seventh annual Erie Canal Clean Sweep event on Saturday.

Freeing the heavy and often water-logged rejects from overgrown brush along the roadway was no small task for the dedicated crew that pitched in to clean up a litter-strewn stretch of the Mohawk Valley waterway in the vicinity of Lock 15, one day before the 42nd Earth Day.

As noted on the state Parks and Trails website, over a thousand volunteers took part in the statewide clean-up of the canal system, which also heralded the opening of the 188th navigational season.

Other local initiatives scheduled to take place over the weekend included the cleanup of the Canalway Trail bike path between Fort Plain and Canajoharie by members of the Forest Preserve Snowmobile Club; the cleanup of Riverfront Park in Canajoharie by students and members of the Canajoharie-Palatine Chamber of Commerce; and brush-cutting and cleanup at the Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site.

Fort Plain-event organizer Immaculata “Micki” Lieber noted the tires retrieved along Otsquago Club Road by members of the Friends of Fort Plain and other volunteers were most likely deposited during 2006 and 2011 flooding events. They represented just a small portion of rubbish collected during the local cleanup event.

Palatine Bridge resident Dave Montanye, who tidied up a section of riverfront area between River Street and Otsquago Creek in Fort Plain with his wife, Andrea, and grandson, Jack, 7, of Canajoharie, said the most common items he found were plastic shopping bags.

Andrea recalled that participants of the first cleanup back in 2005 found bicycles, parts of bicycles, and “probably almost a full change of clothes — crazy stuff.”

Additional items recovered during this year’s Fort Plain-area cleanup included paper trash, scrap metal, bales of hay, balls of various shapes and sizes, motor vehicle parts (including a license plate), part of a rake, a partial set of white and yellow-rimmed Corelle dishes, the frame of an old TV set, and even a Buzz Lightyear toy blaster.

“You have dinner and a movie over there,” quipped Fort Plain resident Tammy Jones about the latter items.

Fred Lieber and Jeff Jones, both of Fort Plain, were tasked with the transport and stacking of discarded tires at the entryway to Lock 15, where they were to be later picked up by state Canal Corporation workers.

As they unloaded the heavy cargo from the back of a pickup truck, they exchanged wisecracks: “If you see anything that’s the right size for your car, feel free to take it,” said one of the men.