Community Corner
Lake Murray Cleanup Crew Not Awash with the Usual 200 Volunteers
California Coastal Cleanup Day is Saturday, but the local crew is 27 people short of customary.
California Coastal Cleanup Day is San Diego’s largest environmental volunteer event, and coordinators I Love a Clean San Diego and San Diego Coastkeeper are expecting roughly 10,000 volunteers to take part.
Right now they have 173 people lined up to beautify Lake Murray―which makes them about 27 volunteers short of their typical 200.
“It’s a very popular site for families and Scout troops,” said Morgan Justice-Black, a San Diego native and the director of development and marketing for I Love a Clean San Diego.
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“There’s a boat that transports people across the lake so they can pick up fishing line and other things that get stuck in the rocks.”
In 2010, volunteers collected 350 pounds of trash from Lake Murray alone and 200,000 pounds total from throughout the region.
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“When you consider that most of the trash is cigarette butts and fishing line, it’s a pretty significant amount of debris,” Justice-Black said.
The Lake Murray site will be led by Barbara Cleves Anderson, a columnist for the Mission Times Courier who writes Friends of Lake Murray. To register to volunteer for the27th annual all-day event on Saturday, Sept. 17, visit www.cleanupday.org.
