Oct. 16, 2026
Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful® and Knoxville Utilities Board, along with 20 KUB Cares volunteers, led the efforts to remove approximately 4,490 pounds of trash from Fort Loudoun Lake of the Tennessee River, including a fridge, a television, and an abandoned boat, during the 9th annual Keep the Tennessee River Watershed Beautiful Month® presented by TVA.
Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful (KTnRB), a regional river cleanup nonprofit headquartered in Knoxville, Tennessee, is celebrating its 10th anniversary as the first Keep America Beautiful affiliate in the country to focus solely on a river. The nonprofit launched the annual month-long initiative in 2018. In 2025, the organization achieved a significant milestone of 1 million pounds of trash collected from the Tennessee River watershed.
The only nonprofit with a fleet that travels to all seven states within the Tennessee River watershed, KTnRB takes volunteers in the organization’s boats to clean shorelines and averages 35-40 cleanups and 200,000 pounds of trash removed a year.
“KUB employees enjoy giving back to the communities we serve, and this river cleanup aligns with our commitment to provide safe and reliable drinking water while being good stewards of the environment,” KUB President and CEO Gabriel J. Bolas II said. “Our work to bring the highest quality water to our customers starts with the Tennessee River. And there’s no better time to give our river the care it deserves than during the 100th anniversary of our water treatment plant.”
The cleanup in Knoxville on Oct. 16 started downtown at Gov. Ned McWherter/Riverside Landing Park as KUB volunteers boarded the organization’s two 26-foot workboats. At the cleanup, the KTnRB crew took volunteers to clean shorelines of the Holston River, French Broad River and Fort Loudoun Lake of the Tennessee River. Items removed from the water and riverbanks included appliances, a 200-pound dock, an abandoned boat, a television, two tires and 49 bags of litter.
Six cleanup events so far this month in Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and North Carolina have involved a total of 73 volunteers and 20,331 pounds of trash removed from the Tennessee River watershed, which covers more than 40,000 square miles in seven states.
“Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful started 10 years ago forming out of a Tennessee River-wide project spurred by the City of Knoxville, so hosting a cleanup here in Downtown Knoxville is a full circle moment as we mark a decade of water stewardship,” said Kathleen Gibi, executive director of Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful. “Our intent was to protect the Tennessee River watershed with boats in the water and boots on the ground to remove trash that has accumulated along shorelines – some over years and some with recent natural disaster events, threatening not only the most biodiverse river system in North America, but our very drinking source and a key driver of our regional economy.”
While some 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 the 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 adoptees.
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.
In the summer of 2026, 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 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, Kentucky, and is an integral part of the economy, tourism, environment and scenic beauty.
About Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful®
Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful® is a 501(c)3 nonprofit and is the 1st Keep America Beautiful affiliate in the nation to focus solely on a river. Its mission is to rally communities along the Tennessee River and its tributaries to preserve, improve and protect the river for generations to come. To date, 5,620 volunteers have helped the organization remove 1,135,434 lbs. of trash at 276 cleanups along the 652-mile Tennessee River and its tributaries that reach into seven states. Going beyond the crucial river cleanups, the organization manages conservation programs such as Adopt a River Mile and a freshwater mussel conservation program and has a network of partners helping to manage various forms of Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful infrastructure that either prevents or mitigates litter presence in our waterways. The Tennessee River watershed reaches into the seven states of Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia, is the most biodiverse river system in North America, and generates an annual $12 billion just in the recreation industry alone. For more information, visit keeptnriverbeautiful.org.
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