JONESTOWN, Texas -- From an old lawn chair to a piece of twisted metal to an old tire randomly scattered over several acres, trash is an ugly sight that's all too common when a lake dries up.
The Sandy Creek Arm of Lake Travis in Jonestown is dried up, leaving behind an eyesore.
"It's actually not terribly bad this time. It can be worse," said Gary Mermelstein lives along Sandy Creek Arm. "It gets worse when the water comes back because you have all this stuff that's on the bluffs, and starts raining real hard and washes it all down into the water, so you get this real murky mess down there that's accumulated for a long period of time.”
Marilee Pfannstiel is Director of Development for the City of Jonestown. She said the city cleaned the lake in 2009, before the drought. Pfannstiel said there are no plans to clean up the mess.
"If there is a complaint to our department, we will come out and investigate it, and if we can pinpoint a property owner, we will contact them, but at this point in time, we haven't received any complaints in our office," said Pfannstiel.
The Lower Colorado River Authority will remove any debris that poses a navigation hazard to boaters when the lake is filled. A spokeswoman said it's a homeowner’s responsibility to remove trash that's on their property.
Mermelstein said he and his neighbors are not throwing trash into the lake.
“When the water starts coming through, it lifts these docks, and it mangles them all together, and the debris from the docks get dumped all over the place, brings everything down from upstream, washes it all along here," he explained.
Mermelstein said the next time it rains, the problem will happen again.
"It's going to be bad when it starts raining and washing everything down into the new water," he said.
It's a matter of vigilance when it comes to keeping the lake clean, whether it has water or not.
