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Small flotilla targets trash on Claytor Lake

The "Canoe the Coves" cleanup was part of the the National Day of Service and Remembrance, which is taking place at state parks.

DANIEL LIN | Special to The Roanoke Times

India Crowder (left), a Claytor Lake State Park employee, and Karen powers, the Radford University Wildlife Society faculty adviser, help pick up trash around a Claytor Lake boat launch on Saturday.

DANIEL LIN | Special to The Roanoke Times

Virginia Tech student Joshua Mayne and Radford University student Michelle Torney collect trash Saturday. "I just came out to clean up the waterways and try to help the environment a little bit," Mayne said. (L-R) Virginia Tech student Joshua Mayne and Radford University student Michelle Torney collect trash next to a bank of Claytor Lake as part of the National Day of Service and Remembrance Canoe the Coves Clean-Up.

DANIEL LIN | Special to The Roanoke Times

A trash bag filled with garbage sits in a canoe on Claytor Lake. By the end of the day, volunteers and state park employees had filled nearly a dozen 33-gallon plastic trash bags.

DANIEL LIN | Special to The Roanoke Times

Karen Powers (left), the faculty adviser for the Radford University Wildlife Society, and India Crowder, a Claytor Lake State Park employee, pick up trash Saturday. “Natural phenomena along with man-made trash are starting to take their toll,” Crowder said.

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Laurence Hammack | 981-3239

Sunday, September 8, 2013

Most of the casting about on Claytor Lake on Saturday was for bass.

Largely unnoticed by the anglers competing in a bass tournament was a smaller group that set out in canoes and a kayak to fish for plastic bottles, beer cans, cigarette butts, chunks of Styrofoam and other debris left floating in the water from a day on the lake.

“I just came out to clean up the waterways and try to help the environment a little bit,” said Joshua Mayne, a Virginia Tech student who volunteered for the cleanup.

The “Canoe the Coves” cleanup was part of the National Day of Service and Remembrance, which is taking place at state parks around Virginia.

Each September, the event commemorates the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks while preserving the state’s natural resources.

Saturday’s turnout was small. Just three volunteers joined a handful of Claytor Lake State Park employees to comb the shoreline of a cove near the public boat landing.

By the end of the day, they had filled nearly a dozen 33-gallon plastic trash bags.

“It’s a good thing to do,” said India Crowder, an interpreter for the state park who has noticed more trash than usual in the lake this year.

Heavy rains this summer have washed more debris from the New River and tributaries into the lake, which at the same time has seen more recreational use.

“Natural phenomena along with man-made trash are starting to take their toll,” Crowder said.

But combined with other cleanups throughout the year, the efforts are starting to make a difference, she said.

Matt Wright, a park ranger at Claytor Lake, said volunteers are often surprised by the variety of trash they find.

“If it’s man-made,” he said, “we’ve probably pulled it out of the lake.”

Saturday, September 14, 2013