Dear Nancy:

Having recently moved to Dallas from Kaua'i, I immediately joined For the Love of the Lake and began doing their regular clean ups as well as my own unscheduled ones. This January "clean up," my partner and I gathered three blue bags of recyclables and two black bags of trash while enjoying the beauty of the lake, the ducks, geese, cormorants, pelicans, etc. and of course the runners in a race taking place while we were cleaning.

Unfortunately, while walking back to the car, we were disheartened to find too many newly-tossed plastic bottles left by the runners. We gathered as many as we could hold and deposited them in the recycling bins.

There must be a way those who organize the race can ask runners to:

1) Toss empties by the containers as they run by

2) Have a waist belt that can hold unopened and empty containers

3) Wear camel backs

4) Some other creative yet unimagined solution

Also, after the big rains last week, I spent an entire day at Lawther (adjacent to Arboretum) gathering the recyclables and trash and was encouraged by all the passers by on bikes, running, walking, driving, who thanked me and the few who inquired where they could get the appropriately colored bags and long-handled tweezer pick up things.

So... the reason for this letter... I am hoping you might write something in the White Rock Lake Weekly regarding the races at the lake encouraging runners to be conscious of tossing their plastic bottles and inform people of the FTLOTL office where they can be equipped to assist in cleaning White Rock Lake.

With Gratitude,

Latifa