as probably the hardest working river in America, because it was lined from Worcester to Pawtucket, with factories of many different kinds, starting with the Slater Mill in 1793.

(sheep bleating) My name is Irene Zebiker.

I'm a resident of North Smithfield, Rhode Island, and I and my co-leaders took part in Operation Zap, 50 years ago.

- My name is Dave Quinn, I'm 75 years old now.

So going back in 50 years, I think I have a pretty good memory, but 50 years, eh, you know, because of industrialization, that was the only dumping ground they had.

So it poisoned the birthplace, the Industrial Revolution.

- [David] The Blackstone is our river of life in this area.

It meanders past 30 communities for 51 miles.

It's a big, beautiful flowing river, but this river has problems.

(birds chirping) The river is strewn with debris, thousands and thousands of truckloads of debris in the wetlands, and in the floodplains all along its 51 miles.

And the question arises as to what we're going to do about these problems.

- Project Zap is a dramatic one day effort to clean up the banks of the Blackstone River by using the volunteer effort of the people who live and work along its banks.

This wheatfield is only a first step, and a spectacular step.

We're not kidding ourselves, we know that this isn't a one day problem.

We know that this is a one year, two year, four year, five year, in some cases, maybe even a 10 year project before the Blackstone River is again the kind of a river it was 60, 70, 80 years ago.

We hope we can do it, and we're sure gonna try.

- On behalf of the 85 member companies of the Rhode Island Road Builders Association, we're pleased to pledge support of over 250 pieces of equipment, and from 250 to 300 skilled operators.

- [David] The community response has been very positive.

Each community will take full responsibility for all debris in its area.

Operation Zap is ready to go.

- Broadcasting live at WICE with Bob Hollands here at 2:30, and we're broadcasting from the banks of the Blackstone River in Pawtucket, we'd like you to come on down.

- So we had been assigned a kind of backwater off the main river to work on there cleaning the edges of it and so forth.

They were rather dark, and forbidding and oily, you know, they looked gross.

And there were a lot of things kind of protruding from them.

You know, it was not a place that you would go unless you had to.

- I think it's going very well, considering that we have so many volunteers at 11 o'clock, I think we're in very good shape.

There's a lot less confusion than I had really anticipated.

At this point, I'm pretty happy.

- We are all doing a good job, I think.

We're trying hard anyway.

We have about 15 girls and their children with us.

It's a little exhausting, but we just think it needs to be done.

- I worked a lot down that way and I helped pull that stuff out of the water.

Like we pulled this great, big, huge, I don't know what it was, it was a piece of a door, like a size me and two the door was huge.

- [Interviewer] Would you guys rather been out playing baseball today or what?

- I'd rather do this.

- I'd rather do this.

- The guy in the middle is me, 50 years ago.

Because there were people all over the place, now I was busy running around from place to place.

But I finally went to where they were dumping all this stuff up in Cumberland.

And there were military machines there moving things around.

There were tens of thousands of tires that they were moving around people got from the river.

There was a helicopter flying overhead up and down the river to check what was going on.

It was unbelievable, to me anyhow, you know.

I never seen anything like that.

It was like a little mini invasion of something.

- [David] The response was overwhelming.

More than 10,000 volunteers showed up for work, bringing rakes at shoves.

Stretched out over 10 miles of riverbanks, this constituted a virtual army of school kids, housewives, engineers, truck drivers, factory workers, and a multitude of others, all working together.

- This was the time when you had a lot of your folk music and so forth that was leading you to think of your environment.

(guitar music) Pete Seeger had been active, so this was a huge draw.

He was giving a concert in the evening, and all of those who had participated in the cleanup during the day were invited down to this big field where the Autopark is now.

And there was a big flatbed in there, bring your chairs.

And Pete Seeger stood on that flatbed and just played and sang.

It was absolutely the most wonderful ending for an effort that we had put in to making the world a cleaner, better place.

- Finally, tonight,