For 24 years, Jim Thorpe-area residents and others who care about the Lehigh River have been turning out on Earth Day weekend to conduct a trash cleanup in the river.

This year's cleanup, held Saturday morning, netted dozens of bags of debris from the Jim Thorpe section of the river."It was obviously a prosperous cleanup this year, just look at it all," said Shelli Holland, looking over the collected trash on Saturday.Many of the participants in the river cleanup are river users who want to ensure that it is beautiful for locals and tourists, as well as wildlife."The rafting companies use it, we use it to go tubing, people use it to fish in, obviously," said Holland, who owns Horizons in Jim Thorpe. "But it's an important thing for all the living things in the river as well, not just us."