Katherine Miller has a motto for beautifying Logan Martin Lake: “CITO,” which stands for “cache in, trash out.”
Miller, a geocaching devotee who enjoys putting her GPS skills to work, recently led a spring cleanup at the Preserves at Double Cove Park on Logan Martin. Miller helped lead the April 15 cleanup, which was part scavenger hunt. As volunteers searched for areas with debris – which doubled as geocache sites – they removed trash along lakeside trails, the shoreline and pavilion.
Before the cleanup, Miller marked sites with GPS-listed geocache boxes for discovery by cleanup volunteers, some of whom drove more than 2 hours from Huntsville to help.
Cleanup volunteers seek clues for a geocache find. (Garret Parker / Alabama Power Shorelines Management)
“Most geocachers are very environmentally oriented,” said Miller, whose family has taken part in geocaching since 2009. “The world is our game board – keep your game board clean. This cleanup was the bonus because we want to take care of the environment.”
Miller’s home is located near Logan Martin Dam.
“I live directly across the lake from Double Cove Park,” said Miller, a former assistant scout master in the Boy Scouts, who taught her sons about the importance of conservation. “This park is in my backyard. It’s my little area of the world, and I take pride in keeping it clean.”
From about 9 a.m. to noon, about a dozen volunteers explored the trails and areas around the park, noting the geocache sites. On the return walk down the trails, volunteers collected debris and placed it in Renew Our Rivers trash bags.
“We left the area absolutely clean, pristine,” she said.
Afterward, Steven Posey, Recreation Development assistant for Alabama Power Shorelines Management, used a tractor to scoop up debris collected by volunteers.
“They picked up a good amount, around a trailer load,” said Posey, who worked at the 3-hour event with Shorelines Recreation Team Leader Garret Parker.
Parker was happy to be a part of the volunteer effort and pleased with the results. “This effort isn’t possible without volunteers,” said Parker, who has worked at Alabama Power for 10 years. “For such a small area like this, volunteers removed a lot of debris.”
Cleanup participants were rewarded with snacks and an Alabama Power Preserves T-shirt.
Many years later, Miller still recalls the Boy Scouts’ rules.
“Our motto was, ‘Leave a place better than you found it. If it’s on the ground, it’s ours,’” she said. “It’s a culture, it’s education – we have to teach adults to teach their children that littering is bad for our environment on so many levels. And we need to take pride in our surroundings.”
Learn more about The Preserves, lakeside lands preserved by Alabama Power, at apcpreserves.com.
