Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 20, 1990 TAG: 9005200093
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DEBORAH EVANS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: MONETA LENGTH: Medium
Passersby see only miles and miles of shimmering blue water. But a quick boat ride to any of the numerous coves along Smith Mountain Lake's 500 miles of shoreline reveals bottles, plastic-foam burger boxes, tires, paper, driftwood - items that at the least detract from the view and at most present a navigational danger.
But that doesn't necessarily mean the lake is dirty, said Ron Pasmore, executive director of the Smith Mountain Lake Partnership. Pasmore and about 250 partnership members participated in the third annual lake cleanup Saturday. It was a day to "Take Pride in Smith Mountain Lake" by making it a little cleaner, he said.
"The lake is not a dirty lake. It is a clean lake and we are keeping it cleaner," he said, adding that Smith Mountain Lake is the only one in Virginia in the last 25 years to have its beach designated a state park.
Hundreds of nearby residents and lake enthusiasts from as far away as West Virginia joined the cleanup.
The lake has become a catchall for anything that can be washed down from the roads and nearby trash dumps, Pasmore said.
"Most of the stuff in this lake doesn't come from the people in the lake or on the lake; it is washed in from storms," he said.
In 1989, a cleanup crew of 300 collected more than 350 tons of debris and won the national "Keep America Beautiful" campaign. The 1989 effort also is a finalist in the national "Take Pride in America" campaign, said Smith Mountain Lake Association president Bob Hawlk.
The 1989 award also may have generated more interest in this year's cleanup, but Hawlk said he couldn't determine exactly how many participated Saturday. Estimates ranged widely, from several hundred to several thousand.
Participants included six members of Boy Scout Troop 141 from West Virginia. The boys were using rakes and nets to collect trash on the lake, which is a popular jamboree site.
Bob Rhodes, a Smith Mountain Lake store owner, spent the morning rinsing glass bottles in a barrel of water as part of a model recycling project.
Lake resident Lou Raffluer, working with four friends, used a pontoon boat to go from cove to cove picking up debris. After about two hours, they had collected eight bags of trash, including a bucket of tennis balls.
Pasmore, who moved to Smith Mountain Lake only a year ago, said the cleanup was a matter of pride for lake residents, even newcomers.
"They haven't come into an area that is dirty or filthy or anything else and had to fight it," Pasmore said of Smith Mountain residents. "It is just a matter of preservation, rather than having to redo the whole world, and that has made it nice. Everybody who lives out here wishes they were the last ones [who will] move here."
by CNB