Eric Goodwin is trying to drum up support for a “Friends of the Nezinscot” group.
TURNER – For Eric Goodwin, once wasn’t enough when it comes to the Nezinscot.

The river activist, who last summer led a Buckfield-to-Turner cleanup effort that fished about 8 tons of refuse from the Nezinscot, this year is hoping to create a “Friends of the Nezinscot” group.

Continuing the river cleanup would be a part of the group’s work, along with protecting the waterway and its tributaries.

“The Nezinscot River is famous locally for its trout fishing and canoeing,” Goodwin said. The formation of this club would represent a significant step in the fight to protect the Nezinscot River and its tributaries into the future.”

Goodwin sees the effort as being sound environmentally and also a means of community building. Last year, the 27-year-old created Communities Getting Involved, a nonprofit tax-exempt entity that helps foster ties that Goodwin hopes will lead to people bonding in common interests.

“Communities Getting Involved is sponsoring this meeting as part of our river and lake cleanup program,” Goodwin said about a 7 p.m. June 15 “Friends” founders’ gathering. “One of the directives of this program is to implant long-term conservation efforts into river and lake areas that need a more sustained effort to assure their health into the future.”

Goodwin said a wide range of actions could help local people, as well as the state and federal government, maintain and improve the Nezinscot and its area waterways.

“Many of these actions are easy to complete and cost effective; we just need an organized, dedicated entity to do them in the interest of long-term improvement,” he said.

Goodwin said the meeting will include discussion of people’s interest in the river and its adjacent lands, the scope of a friends group, its organization structure and governance, what similar groups are doing and how the Nezinscot group might affiliate with them, and an open forum.

Anyone interested is welcome to attend, he said. The meeting location will be posted at www.communitiesgettinginvolved.org as the date draws nearer. He said people can also call 235-2591 for more information.

This year’s Nezinscot cleanup is planned for Sunday, May 16, he said. People interested in helping – usually canoes, paddles and life jackets are needed as well as volunteers and trucks – can call the same number.

May 15-23 is National River Cleanup Week, an event organized by the group American Outdoors, Goodwin said.

Goodwin said the nonprofit Communities Getting Involved this year is trying to raise enough money to hire full-time trash collectors and buy them the equipment needed for river and beach cleanups all summer long, to hold cleanup events and develop new programs.