Beltzville State Park: Part 1 (24-Oct-2016)

Back to Beltzville again while the water is still low. For this trash collecting trip I started at the top of the lake where the channel for Bauer Creek flows in. An old road which once ran through the valley before the dam was put in place acts as a trail down to the lake now. The above photo was taken where the road ends. This is a place I have come to many times before for clean-ups. A small cove to the left of where this photo was taken seems to accumulate a lot of trash. I figured I would find more than most places around the lake in the now dry cove and be able to access some spots on the shoreline that aren't easy to get to when the water is at regular levels. 

Working my way to the cove I started scouring the lake bed. Glass bottles and aluminum cans made up the majority of the trash that littered the bottom. 

Portions of the old road have long since weathered and washed away. Some sections though still sit on the bottom as I found out walking to the waters edge. As I was washing out a can this crayfish popped up onto a portion of the remaining asphalt in front of me. As I was photographing it another popped up.

This is the cove, approaching I wasn't sure what to expect or how much trash was going to be at the bottom. 

Penny was tied up at the top edge of the cove as I picked through the mud, leaf litter and branches. Removed a decent pile of trash from this area, some items like pull tab cans have been in the lake for a good amount of time. Packed everything up after I was confident I found most everything there and headed up the channel to continue my search.

Most times I have visited this area I don't run into anyone at all. On this occasion I passed a woman reading and then not too far up the channel I came across something really unexpected. There was a man sitting on a tree stump, on the waters edge, playing a banjo. I found it odd. It looked as though he was playing away, yet I couldn't hear anything and I wasn't that far away. I decided to turn around because he also had a small Pug, it wasn't on a leash and had started walking in my direction. With Penny along turning around and heading down the shore in the other direction was the best thing to do. 

Instead of walking back the lake bed I cut up a trail and to get back over to the old road. In doing this I found not one, but two diapers discarded on the trailside.

I already had accumulated a decent amount of trash so I left a bag on the old road before continuing on. The area above doesn't have any maintained trails, so this is the first time I have been able to walk this spot. 

By the water I started seeing Bryozoans on branches of downed trees. Bryozoans like this are not a single organism, but a colony of organisms. When I first started finding these in local lakes I thought they might be egg masses of some kind. They do resemble some amphibian egg masses, but the textured look on the outside is a giveaway that they are not. 

This spot showed me I had to be careful on where I was letting Penny walk on the lake bed. This looks to be an old dump sight that was flooded when the dam was put in place. Most of the items here were broken glass, but I did find a couple old jars. I did not pick up all of the broken glass, I did remove some of the larger items. 

The far edge of this bed was as far as I could walk. From that point on down the bank it was a shear drop from the tree line down to the water. 

This was all that was collected. I loaded everything into my car and I took the non-recyclables down to another park access that had dumpsters. I then did another clean-up in a different section of the park. That post will be up sometime soon.

You too can help with taking out the trash! If you get out hiking take a grocery bag with you, give it a second use and fill it with trash while you are out! Every bit helps. You can also help contributing to this project here: Help Fund Taking Out the Trash

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