Boats full of tires and garbage wait for volunteers to empty them at an access point along the Connoquenessing Creek on Sept. 9. The Allegheny Aquatic Alliance held two creek cleanups in the summer, which broke a record for total garbage collected from the creek by Alliance volunteers in one summer.

Christina Handley, president of the Allegheny Aquatic Alliance board of directors, said the 2017 cleanup was the most successful of the six annual events held so far.

Handley said the two Connoquenessing Creek Cleanups held in the summer removed a record 85,732 pounds of garbage, including 1,436 tires, from a 19-mile stretch of the creek between Evans City and Ellwood City.

She said 190 volunteers and scores of sponsors and donors helped make the sixth annual cleanup a success.

The cleanup focuses on a different stretch of the Connoquenessing Creek each year. In 2000, the creek was rated the second most polluted waterway in the United States, second only to the Mississippi River.

While all six annual Connoquenessing Creek Cleanups have been held in Butler County, the effort next year will move to the creek's final section in Beaver and Lawrence counties next year.