For the past two weekends, volunteer crews with Cape Fear River Watch have fanned out across downtown Wilmington's Northside, cleaning up trash left by crowds attending concerts at the new Live Oak Bank Pavilion at Riverfront Park. Cape Fear River Watch — a non-profit environmental group that aims to protect and improve the water quality of the Cape Fear River Basin — says the volunteer-led efforts aren't sustainable. But the group, and some of its volunteers, have also said they believe that Live Nation Entertainment, which manages the concert venue for the city of Wilmington, will step up its efforts to clean up after future shows. A minor controversy erupted last week after multiple people posted accounts to Facebook about trash left by concert-goers in and around the park and amphitheater after three consecutive concerts by the band Widespread Panic. When Cape Fear River Watch posted an Aug. 1 event called "Riverfront Amphitheater Cleanup," many commenters wondered, pointedly, why a non-profit group and its volunteers were cleaning up instead of the city, which owns the park, or Live Nation, a for-profit company. In response to the comments, CFRW posted, "We acknowledge that asking people to volunteer their time to do the work of a corporation is NOT a viable long-term solution. In principle, we totally agree that the people (both individuals and entities) responsible for pollution should clean it up. That being said, in practice, there may be times that groups like ours can take action more quickly to remove a threat to the environment when waiting for those responsible, who might take longer than necessary." The post went on to say that "we have spoken with the Sustainability Director at Live Nation, and they assured us that this would not happen again and that they are taking steps to prevent large-scale littering in the future. We told them that we were happy to help with this cleanup but also serious about preventing this from happening again." On Sunday morning, around four dozen volunteers, many of them wearing bright orange safety vests, could be seen picking up trash in the area, working alongside members of the Live Nation "sustainability" crew, who were separating trash into recycling and compost bins. Cape Fear River Watch volunteer Sue Allen said "there were some bad spots" Sunday morning but that the overall situation "wasn't too bad." Saturday's concert with electronic pop artist GRiZ — scheduled to be his second in two nights — was actually canceled due to weather, although crowds had gathered as they waited for the venue's gates to open. In cleaning up trash, volunteers focus not just on the park itself but on the roads leading to it, paying particular attention to areas around storm drains as a way of keeping trash out of the river.

Cape Fear River Watch volunteer Anne Terry said she wasn't there after Widespread Panic but had heard from other volunteers that "this weekend wasn't as bad." "I have faith that Live Nation wants to do the right thing," Terry said, but that in her opinion neither the city nor Live Nation was fully prepared for the amount of trash left in and around the park. "But they will get there," Terry said, adding that she'd like to see some highly visible Live Oak Bank employees out there volunteering — "their name is on this" — and that she thinks the city needs to "come down hard" by writing tickets to people who litter. In an email, Jennifer Dandron, media manager with city of Wilmington, wrote that "Live Nation is responsible for clean-up within the park and city crews are responsible for the public areas outside of the park. Cape Fear River Watch reached out to Live Nation with a proposal to volunteer to enhance clean-up efforts – not replace work being conducted by Live Nation or city crews. The proposal aligns with Live Nation’s sustainability goals and ongoing 'Green Nation' program." "We appreciate the community’s efforts to help keep downtown clean and the shared commitment of everyone involved," Dandron said. Also on site Sunday was Virginia Holman of Island Wildlife, a chapter of the N.C. Wildlife Federation serving the Cape Fear Region. She was there because she was told Cape Fear River Watch "wanted some help cleaning up." Holman said her group is also "really concerned about wildlife" and wants to prevent animals from ingesting or getting entangled in various types of plastic and debris. All told, according to CFRW, 45 volunteers "diverted 485.7 pounds of trash and recycling from draining into our waterways" on Sunday. The cleanup was also a "Trees4Trash" event, which means that the N.C. Wildlife Federation will plant 19 trees as a result of Sunday's cleanup. Other groups active at the event were Keep New Hanover Beautiful (KNHB), which will send hundreds of cigarette butts collected on Sunday to TerraCycle US for recycling, and the Plastic Ocean Project, which provided supplies. Contact John Staton at 910-343-2343 or John.Staton@StarNewsOnline.com.