Saturday, November 15, 2025 – 10:00-11:30am at the Flats near Seth Green Drive

A Joint Project of Our Lady of Mercy High School and Genesee RiverWatch

Join us the morning of Saturday, November 15, for the season’s final cleanup of the Genesee River shoreline in Rochester.   This cleanup event is the brainchild of Heidi Duran, a senior at Our Lady of Mercy High School who is doing a capstone project on the Genesee. Heidi asked Genesee RiverWatch to help organize the effort, and we readily agreed to partner with her.  

The event will give you an opportunity to visit one of the more unusual and dramatic settings on the Genesee – the flats near the base of the Lower Falls in Rochester. A historic hydroelectric plant and the Driving Park Bridge loom just upstream while Seth Green Island and the heavily forested sides of the river gorge can be found downstream.

Hundreds of anglers visit the area each fall to fish for spawning salmon and trout, and they leave litter and debris that needs to be removed. Heidi is recruiting other Mercy students to join the cleanup, but there’s a considerable area that needs to be cleaned, so more volunteers are welcome. The City of Rochester has agreed to provide work gloves and plastic bags, and to pick up the trash that we collect.  

The Mercy-RiverWatch event runs from 10 a.m. to 11:30 am on the 15th. If you come, dress warmly in clothes that you don’t mind getting a little dirty. Wear shoes or boots with good, solid tread so you can walk safely on the rocks that line the shoreline.   You must be fit enough to walk a half-mile down into the gorge on Seth Green Drive and then walk back up again. If you have a grabber or a pole with a hook, you might bring that with you.  

There’s a parking lot at the top of Seth Green Drive; it’s not enormous and if you can share a ride with someone, that might be helpful. The pin on this map will help you find the lot.   https://maps.app.goo.gl/6y82h8wxVfDepkDKA  

Hope to see you there!