With temperatures dropping slightly, volunteers are returning to Alabama lakes to help with Renew Our Rivers (ROR) cleanups for fall.
Since cleanups began 25 years ago at Plant Gadsden on Lake Neely Henry, more than 133,000 volunteers have removed 16.8 million pounds of trash in ROR events on lakes and waterways across the Southeast.
Now in its silver anniversary year – with the first cleanup at Valley Creek on March 1, 2024 – more than 1,600 ROR volunteers have thus far removed 66 tons of trash.
After a short summer break, Alabama Power ROR Coordinator Mike Clelland leads Smith Lake Civic Association (SLCA) volunteers Sept. 18-19 in cleaning Smith Lake in Walker County. He noted that two earlier ROR events at Smith Lake were cancelled because of bad weather.
On Wednesday and Thursday, Smith Lake resident Roger Treglown, who helped coordinate the event, will join 16 SLCA volunteers on the water at 8:30 a.m. to work. Treglown said SLCA members will break at noon for lunch, then work until 5-6 p.m. Lake levels at Smith already are lower for fall, making it easier to remove some items.
Clelland said, “After 25 years, the cleanups are going as strong as they ever have been. A lot of that is because there are newer folks and newer generations of folks getting involved.” Clelland continues the cleanup work at Lake Demopolis on Sept. 20-21.
He’s seen a slight decrease in trash collected on the lakes: “It’s not a sharp decline, but I think overall, you can go back and look and see where the height of it was in poundage, and it’s slowly been dropping down,” said Clelland, who has worked at Alabama Power for 17 years. “There’s still plenty out there, though.
“Right now, we’re running pretty close to doing what we’ve done the past five or six years. COVID slowed the numbers, but now we’re on par for participation and trash removal,” he added.
At Smith Lake, Clelland expects to remove some big dock floats that loosened during storms. When possible, cleanup volunteers leave docks in a dumpster and haul them to a landfill. However, some floats are so heavy and waterlogged they can’t be removed.
“We’ve been concentrating on the smaller hand trash that’s been washed up in back of some of these little pockets,” he said. “It will be more bottles and cans.”
The cleanups end Nov. 15. After that, Clelland will begin setting the 2025 schedule.
“ROR events are a great opportunity for people of all ages to come out and get involved in improving our waterways,” Clelland said.
2024 fall ROR cleanups
Sept. 20-21: Lake Demopolis (LOCATION TBD)
Contact: Jason Arledge at cjarledg@southernco.com
Sept. 28: Village Creek
Contact: Marilyn Roberts at marilynvilcreek@bellsouth.net
Sept. 23- 28: Neely Henry Lake (Coosa River)
Contact: Lisa Dover at 256-549-0900
Oct. 1: Dog River (Mobile County)
Contact: Angel Daw at tadaw@southernco.com
Oct. 2-3: Mobile River (Plant Barry)
Contact: Jeff Reeves 251-829-2746
Oct.5: Lake Mitchell (Coosa River)
Contact: Dale Vann at 205-910-3713
Oct. 10: Plant Miller (Locust Fork)
Contact: Marybeth Vines; 205-488-2033
or mewillis@southernco.com
Oct. 22-24: R.L. Harris
(Tallapoosa River-Lake Wedowee)
Contact: Crystal White at 256-396-5093
or Scott Teal 770-301-7494
Nov. 1-2 Lake Martin (Tallapoosa River)
Contact: John Thompson at 334-399-3289 or
https://www.lmra.info/contact-us
Nov. 14-15: Smith Lake (Winston County)
Contact: Jim Eason at msgjeason@yahoo.com.
