Michael Lobue uses extra caution when navigating his pontoon boat around Leesville Lake, zigzagging amid tree limbs and logs to avoid snagging anything in the boat's propeller.

"It [debris] tends to be worse when the water is up," he said. "Today really is not too bad."

Nonetheless, Lobue stopped the boat twice to raise the prop and once used a boat hook to untangle a limb.

Leesville Lake's water level fluctuates between 600 and 613 feet depending if water is being pumped in or out. It is the lower reservoir in Appalachian Power Co.'s two-reservoir hydroelectric project. Larger, more developed and more populous Smith Mountain Lake is the upper reservoir. Both border Bedford County.

Appalachian is conducting a debris study on both lakes as part of the Federal Energy Regulation Commission's relicensing process.

The process, which has been under way since late 2002, will culminate in March when Appalachian files for the new license.

The extensive relicensing process explores more than a dozen areas from debris removal and navigational aids to recreational use and sedimentation. When FERC approves the license, it will serve the lakes for approximately the next 30 years.

Thursday, two groups, the Tri-County Relicensing Committee and the Smith Mountain Lake Association, will hold the first of two public forums on the relicensing process at 6:30 p.m. at Trinity Ecumenical Parish in Moneta.

Debris may surface as an issue in the forums. The Leesville Lake Association, a nonprofit organization of lake-area citizens that receives funding from the counties surrounding the lake, spent approximately $45,000 on debris removal projects over the past four years, Lobue said.

"We requested $25,000 for fiscal year 2007-08 from all three counties," said Lobue, who serves as LVLA's vice president.

He hoped for an additional $5,000 from Appalachian for a major $80,000 debris removal effort.

However Bedford County gave $15,000, and Campbell and Pittsylvania counties each appropriated $5,000.

"Leesville Lake has never been cleaned up completely," said Bob Camicia, president of the Smith Mountain Lake Association.

Lobue also said some debris flows in from the Pigg River. Because Leesville Lake is dammed on both ends, most of the debris is continuously washed around and likely has been circulating since the dams were built in the 1960s.

Camicia suggested a large one-time cleaning to rid the 17-mile-long lake of debris, which he said mostly comes from the shoreline because of changes in the water level.

Lobue estimates that more than half of Leesville Lake's shoreline is in Pittsylvania County, approximately a third in Bedford County and the remainder in Campbell County.

Compared with Smith Mountain Lake, few houses have sprouted up along the shores of Leesville Lake. Most of the shoreline's natural wooded land is still intact.

"It's going to change," said Lobue, citing proposed developments and residential construction on the Pittsylvania County side of the lake.

As Leesville Lake grows and sees more boat traffic, floating debris raises serious safety concerns for recreational users.

In an attempt to remedy the problem, Appalachian operates a mechanical skimmer to glean debris from the surface of both lakes. Frank Simms, hydro support manager, estimates the skimmer is on Leesville Lake approximately 30 percent of the time and at Smith Mountain Lake the remainder, although there is no set schedule as to how the skimmer's time is dispersed. It operates six months a year, generally from April to October.

Teresa Rogers of Appalachian said the skimmer, which the power company purchased in 1991, costs approximately $200,000 annually to operate.

"The skimmer typically utilizes a crew of three to four people," she said. "One crew member operates the skimmer and positions it into place. The other crew members utilize pipe poles to direct floating debris into the conveyor on the skimmer."

At the subdivision dock at the Brumfield development in Bedford County, crews from Appalachian have collected a pile of debris that measures more than 870 cubic yards, Lobue said. Appalachian will burn the pile at the site as opposed to transporting it to a county landfill.

The counties "would prefer to not have woody debris in the landfill," Lobue said. "Over time the woody debris will decay and the landfill settles."

Rogers said Appalachian removed a total of 418 tons of debris from both lakes in 2006.

The Tri-County Lake Administrative Commission has worked with other lake-area organizations to host annual cleanup days at Smith Mountain Lake for the past 20 years.

In the last fiscal year, TLAC spent approximately $116,000 on debris removal. The commission's lake management and project coordinator Pam Dinkle said more than 1,000 tons of debris was removed from Smith Mountain Lake during that time.

TLAC received $280,000 from Bedford, Franklin and Pittsylvania counties. Under the provisions of a cooperative agreement, Bedford and Franklin counties each provide 45 percent of the funding and Pittsylvania appropriates the remaining 10 percent, Dinkle said.

Compared to TLAC, the LVLA is a relatively new organization. Formed in 2003, the organization is made up of more than 300 family memberships.

"We are trying to learn from SMLA and TLAC," Lobue said.