Adopt-A-Highway Spring Clean Fling and new safety video announced

The view from Wyoming’s highways will improve in the coming month as Adopt-A-Highway volunteers get out to clean their two-mile highway sections during the annual Spring Clean Fling.

Now in its 27th year, Wyoming’s Adopt A Highway program has nearly 900 participating groups statewide, and the members are encouraged to get out as weather permits in June to make the first of their two required cleanups for the year.

During past Spring Clean Flings volunteers around the state removed more than 50 tons of litter from along the highways.

WYDOT has created a new video to help the volunteers stay safe during their cleanups. It can be found on the Adopt-A-Highway page, or on DVDs available from the department’s five district Adopt-A-Highway coordinators around the state.

Adopt-A-Highway volunteers range from retired people to elementary school children, and represent fraternal, civic and social clubs, youth groups, employee and professional organizations, schools, churches, government agencies and families.

Signs identifying the groups are posted at each end of their adopted section, and WYDOT supplies orange safety vests and trash bags to the volunteers for each cleanup.

WYDOT’s litter control budget is more than $2.5 million a year. Without the help of the Adopt-A-Highway volunteers cleaning along about 1,800 miles of highway, WYDOT’s spending would be higher, and many of the state’s roadsides wouldn’t get cleaned every year.

“WYDOT values and appreciates the efforts of the Adopt-A-Highway volunteer groups,” State Maintenance Engineer Kent Ketterling said. “The commitment and dedication shown by these groups to keep the roadsides around their communities clean is a testament to the quality of citizens we have in our great state.”

Anyone interested in adopting a highway section can contact a district AAH coordinator at:
• 745 2100, for Laramie, Albany and Carbon counties;
• 473-3200, for Natrona, Converse, Platte, Niobrara, Goshen, northern Carbon, and southern Johnson counties;
• 352 3050, for Sweetwater, Uinta, Lincoln, Sublette, and western Teton counties;
• 674 2300, for Sheridan, Campbell, Crook, Weston, northern Johnson, and northern Niobrara counties; and
• 568 3400, for Park, Fremont, Hot Springs, Washakie, Big Horn and eastern Teton counties.