Piles of garbage, dozens of old tires, a motorcycle — those are just some of the gems being pulled out of Canyon Lake this week thanks to the exceptional drought gripping Comal County.
The lack of rainfall has lowered the water line at the lake to record levels, allowing the Water Oriented Recreation District to hire a contractor to clean up trash and random refuse along large portions of the shoreline.
“Basically with the lake so low, we decided to use what was a not-so-good situation and turn it into something positive,” WORD General Manager Mike Dussere said.
WORD hired Pristine Rivers for $10,900 to give the lake the most thorough, full-scale cleaning it’s ever received.
The lake level was at around 898 mean feet above sea level Friday, almost 10 feet below the normal level.
Pristine will be cleaning from the normal water line down to the current level, which based on the grade of the terrain, can be as much as 300 or 400 feet, Dussere said.
He said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and marina owners have been more than willing to let the contractors work on a lake that has been badly in need of cleaning.
Canyon Lake Chamber of Commerce President Mandy Stewart said residents had been pushing for months to get trash cleaned up on the shoreline, and now a severe drought will allow it to be done more effectively than ever before.
“Every cloud has a silver lining,” she said. “Unfortunately the lake is as low as it is, but it creates this great opportunity to get it cleaned up.”
