Clean Up Underway At Lake Martin

by WAKA Action 8 News

Even though summer is over, Lake Martin was a busy place Friday.

That’s because almost 100 people were out for Alabama Power’s Renew Our Rivers clean up campaign. 

You might not think one bottle thrown overboard makes much of a difference, but it adds up. Alabama Power has picked up tons of trash over the 15 years they’ve been doing this. 

Over 90 tons to be exact. And that’s just from Lake Martin alone. 

Hundreds of people come out each year to volunteer their time and clean up the lake. 

Organizers want the impact from today to last long after the trash is thrown away.

“It’s important more from an education standpoint. The more people you get involved, I know we’ve got a lot of school children involved now, to learn not to leave things where it can get loose and blow away and wash in to the lakes,” said Mike Clelland with Alabama Power.

It’s not all just water bottles. Volunteers find things like old chairs and water-logged docks trapped as the water level drops for the winter. 

Clelland says things are getting easier year by year.

“2004, 2005 was probably a peak year for our poundage of trash. But it’s been slowly going down and declining. But our volunteer numbers are staying up,” said Clelland.

Jackson Dozier works on the lake every day year round. That’s one of the reasons he’s glad to lend a hand with all the trash, which he says can quickly get out of hand. 

“There’s a lot of debris that comes down to the lake from the spring rains every year and as the water comes up it gets to the back of these sloughs, gets behind logs and other natural debris and then it’s not able to come out to the main and get flushed out,” said Dozier.

With all the success, Alabama Power plans to continue this into next year, so you’ll see them out here again next November.

Crews will be out cleaning again Saturday. If you’d like to volunteer, call 334-323-7880 for more information.