Littered shore

To the editor:

On May 19, two friends and I were fishing at Perry Lake. It was a beautiful spring day, and Perry’s water clarity was virtually crystalline.

But to our dismay, several sections of Perry’s shoreline from the Slough Creek causeway to Perry Marina were littered with cardboard boxes, plastic bottles, aluminum cans and a hodgepodge of other debris that anglers and boaters had thoughtlessly deposited into the water and along the shorelines.

My friend called it a disgraceful eyesore, and it provoked us to ponder some remedies that might fix this mess.

The trash phenomenon isn’t isolated solely to Perry. It has become an appalling problem at many waterways in northeastern Kansas, but Perry’s litter looks to be the worst of all.

We concluded the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks should develop a program similar to the Kansas Department of Transportation’s Adopt-A-Highway program, which began in April 1990 and encourages community groups, churches, businesses, families and other organizations to remove the litter that befouls our roadways. At Perry, perhaps some of the folks who dock their boats at Perry Marina could be persuaded to adopt several miles of the shoreline and remove the trash twice a month from May through September.

Maybe the KDWP could convince fishing clubs and other outdoor organizations to adopt portions of Perry’s shorelines. And once the Perry project is successfully implemented, the KDWP can expand its horizons and employ similar programs at all of the waterways that grace northeastern Kansas.

Ned Kehde,

Lawrence