Trash has taken over eastern parts of Lake Arrowhead after many visitors took to the area for their Memorial Day festivities.
It’s leaving residents concerned and city officials left with a mess to clean up. Officials advise if you’re visiting this summer, make sure you clean up.
Doris Harvell lives down Pawnee Point in Lake Arrowhead. She says with public access to the lake just a second away, collecting trash becomes a huge problem.
“Whenever people throw it out of their car, iIt not always hits the dumpster, it hits the ground,” Harvell said. “So I go out there and pick it up because it looks trashy.”
Harvell says trash accumulates even more right outside of her family’s home.
“They don’t pick up trash like they should. They just throw it and if it hits, fine. If it doesn’t., it’s fine too,” Harvell said.
Before heading down to the boat dock, you can run into trash cans packed passed the rim, cracked glass bottles on the ground and debris as far back to the shoreline.
Viewer photos by a resident near the Henrietta Bridge shows more trash left behind and fire pits washed out on the ground. It’s all racked up from the holiday weekend.
“It’s a mess because you have to pick up what people throw down, you know? That they don’t put it in their trash can like they should,” Harvell said.
Wichita Falls parks superintendent Terry Points says the city has an agreement with Clay County on the maintenance in the area.
On Wednesday, Points says sanitation crews swung by to clean up the mess near the lake but have to return Thursday to do more clean up.
With Lake Arrowhead also being the city’s prime water source, he suggests that if you’re headed to cool off to the lake this summer, to leave the area much cleaner than when you came.
“You can’t make people throw stuff in the trash,” Harvell said. “It’s just that they do it because they want to.”
Points says this typically happens every year, especially during the Fourth of July.
They’re looking at having a temporary dumpster in the public areas for Memorial Day and any holiday people come to visit the lake throughout the year.
