Stroke by stroke, workers and volunteers with the East Mississippi Foothills Land Trust are on a mission to help keep waterways clean. This is National River Week.

The non-profit group, with help from the U.S. Navy and the Dusty's Social Club are picking up trash in and around the Chunky River in Chunky, Miss.

Formed five years ago, the trust is working to keep local waterways clean.

"I would like people to realize what they do does impact their environment," said Tommy Vinson of East Mississippi Foothills Land Trust.

Vinson said this impact is in more ways than you might imagine. In fact, he says during a previous pickup, more than 40 bags of trash were collected.

"Everything from beer cans and tires, shopping carts, you just can't imagine," Vinson said.

Unfortunately, Friday he said some things haven't changed.

"A lot of beer bottles and beer boxes and soda bottles, a lot of cigarette butts," said Navy volunteer Vanessa Sims of the trash she found.

When it comes to problems caused by the clutter, Foothills officials say they can be many. Aside from people not wanting to use an area because it's an eyesore, they say pollution can kill fish. Newscenter 11 found a dead catfish along the bank.

"When you pour out oil in a ditch, that goes to a waterway," said Vinson. "That goes into our aquifers and we may drink that water. Don't think about when you're throwing it in a ditch somebody might pick it up. It's going to a waterway somewhere."

To help keep the waterways in this area clean, the ultimate goal of the Foothills Land Trust group is to acquire conservation easements along local rivers from property owners.

They say even just getting rid of litter can go a long way to protecting the environment.

Following the cleanup, workers had a bit of fun. Dozens of rubber ducks were marked and then "raced" downstream.

"We had some very slow moving rubber ducks," said Andrew Covington of the East Mississippi Foothills Land Trust. "The water wasn't moving very fast. It was kind of low. But it was still fun, and I think there were 13 people who won little prizes, donated by Wal-Mart."

Officials estimate they picked up between 400 and 500 pounds of debris.