The day dawned beautifully with a crisp note in the air as the Lake Cleanup brigade took to the waters of sparkling Lake Glenville on Saturday the 10th of June. Dozens of watercraft participated in what will become an annual event to keep the waters of Lake Glenville the safest and cleanest East of the Mississippi.
Two refreshment boats laden with coffee, donuts, orange juice and refreshments for the children and grandchildren and identified by an orange flag, also emerged from Signal Ridge Marina and into the lake to keep the cleanup brigade nourished.
Over the course of the next four hours, a flotilla of boats of all shapes and sizes from Ike Eichhorn's bright red kayak to John Boats, jet skis--the most active of which belonged to Ray JImison, FLG's Treasurer --to speedboats and pontoons all did their part in ridding Lake Glenville of a large variety of trash and dangerous logs and dock pontoons. The biggest surprise was the number of pontoons found floating in the lake and tucked in to shore at numerous locations. Participants had to rope them and drag them often a mile or more to the take out at the Pinecreek Road Boat Ramp.
There a group of FLG volunteers notably Don Ross and Isaac, Jim Geddes, Sandi Eichhorn, Ray Jimison and Lynn and David Leach removed the debris and either loaded it into The Trashman Company pickup trucks or, in the case of the floats, towed them out using a unique fabric belt tied to the back of Don's 4 by 4. These floats were left at the edge of the road leading down to the ramp for Duke to dispose of.
Many participants noted that the lake itself was fairly clean with no evidence of tree stumps or circles from cut down trees floating just below or at the surface which had occurred during earlier lake clean ups from 1998 to 2008. Multiple bags of household garbage were removed including fishing lures, a toilet seat, shoes, a plastic propeller to name a few.
All in all 20 dock floats were removed, several wooden steps leading down to docks, sawn lumber and plastics of all kinds.
FLG would like to thank all the participants who got an early start and helped remove so much hazardous material from the Lake. It was noted that much of the smaller garbage could not be removed even by the smaller vessels due to the water line being almost at full pool. Consideration will be given to performing another clean up later in the season when the water has gone down but this time perhaps the clean-up will be on foot along the shoreline. This will depend on interest from Members and the General Public to do so.
Thanks, too, to our sponsors The Trashman Company for their generous provision of the two take-out pick up trucks, to Signal Ridge for the coffee and to Ingles for providing all the other refreshments. Also to the Cashiers Chronicle for their articles on the upcoming event which were very useful in drumming up local support.
