Volunteers at Alabama’s Logan Martin Lake take part in Renew Our Rivers cleanup
LMLPA volunteers pose with their haul of litter after a hard morning’s work. (Joey Blackwell, Alabama News Center)
A dozen volunteers dotted the shoreline near the boat ramp at Lakeside Park in Pell City on Thursday morning. While the cloudy skies loomed overhead, the grim forecast didn’t muddy the spirits of the smiling participants.
“If anything, these clouds make it cooler and easier to be outside today,” one volunteer was overheard saying to another.
Sporting bright blue shirts and armed with grabbers, gloves and trash bags, volunteers from the Logan Martin Lake Protection Association (LMLPA) picked up trash along the shoreline as part of a week-long Renew Our Rivers cleanup at Lake Logan Martin. The session lasted just under two hours — enough time for the volunteers to remove several hundred pounds of trash from the banks.
“I think the partnership that we have with Renew Our Rivers is critical to keeping the lake clean and healthy for everyone,” said Neal Stephenson, president of the LMLPA. “We gather tons of material each year through the lake cleanup campaign — and that’s just the tons that we measure through that specific week.
“We have a lot of our members that continue to collect litter and debris and stuff throughout the year, so there’s countless tons of debris that we’ve been able to keep out of the lake by the cooperation between the two organizations.”
Each year at Logan Martin Lake and dozens of other lakes and waterways across the state of Alabama, Renew Our Rivers partners with organizations to clean up waste from waters and shorelines. The latest cleanup by the LMLPA was just one of multiple scattered throughout the week, in which the group annually removes several tons of garbage from the lake.
When Gene Phifer, an Alabama Power employee at Plant Gadsden, grew concerned with litter he’d spotted dotting the shores of the Coosa River in 2000, he helped establish the Renew the Coosa project to help combat the waste. The program continued to grow and, in 2004, mushroomed into Renew Our Rivers, one of the nation’s largest river cleanups.
Over the course of the program, more than 100,000 volunteers have cleared approximately 13.4 million pounds of debris. Last year alone — the Renew Our Rivers’ 25th anniversary — around 3,000 volunteers removed over 107 tons of trash from Alabama’s lakes and waterways.
“For the past 26 years, the Renew Our Rivers program has highlighted Alabama Power’s commitment to environmental stewardship and reinforced our dedication to preserving the state’s natural beauty and ecological diversity,” said Alabama Power’s Teisha Wallace, who was also present at the Logan Martin Lake cleanup. “Through partnerships with organizations like the Logan Martin Lake Protection Association and the dedication of thousands of volunteers across the state, Alabama’s waterways and shorelines will continue to flourish, ensuring their vitality for future generations.”
The 2025 cleanup season launched on March 1 at Valley Creek in Bessemer. This year, there are 28 cleanup events lined up through Oct. 31, with additional dates to be announced.
“We got off to a good start last weekend with six cleanup sites around the lake,” Stephenson said. “Looking forward to a big finish this weekend.”
For more information about the Renew Our Rivers initiative and to find a cleanup event in your area, click here. For more information about the LMLPA and to join their efforts, click here.
