Tracy Bowen, 46, is the executive director of the Alice Ferguson Foundation and organizer of the annual Potomac River Watershed Cleanup.

Did you grow up on the water?

I was a suburban concrete girl, and I was never exposed to the outdoors until I turned 18 years old. One of my high school friends took me backpacking. She took me and this other girl with no water, just apricot brandy, out backpacking, and it was a transformative experience for me.

What drew you to the water here?

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When I moved to Washington, D.C. [from Michigan], I got into kayaking, white-water kayaking. I spend a lot of time on the Potomac River. The Potomac is the mecca for white-water kayaking.

Who’s responsible for trashing the river?

A lot of people think that the trash on the river is coming from fishermen and people doing sports, but most of the trash is coming through the storm drain systems in our communities, and it’s flowing to the river. There’s outfall from the city and the suburbs into the Potomac. Then there’s an incredible amount of dumping.

Find anything unusual during this year’s cleanup?

It was amazing to find a prosthesis — a leg. It flowed down the river to our farm. Why did someone throw away a leg? How did this leg get in the river? That’s a puzzle.

What’s your target?

We’ve set a goal for a trash-free Potomac by 2013. That’s our 25th cleanup. That is our last. We don’t want to do them anymore. That’s not the solution. We have a trash treaty that now over 100 elected officials have signed ... and we are in the process of developing an anti-littering campaign.

Is it a realistic aim?

That goal is totally achievable. It requires political will and public will. We have to change a lot to get people not to litter. But it’s not rocket science.