Clear Texas Lakes

Our Initiative 

Founded in 2020, Clear Texas Lakes is a non-profit initiative dedicated to enhancing the environmental quality of Texas Lakes by continuously removing trash and debris from Texas Lake shorelines.  Our goal is to ensure the safety of people and wildlife while creating a quality experience for locals and tourist who utilize these valuable natural resources.  We are accomplishing this by implementing rigorous and ongoing trash and debris removal programs at each North Texas lake served.  What makes us unique is that we have the watercraft, equipment, and expertise necessary to collect debris that is hard to reach and not accessible through normal means. The Clear Texas Lakes initiative is already greatly improving the safety and esthetics of the lakes and surrounding areas, raising awareness through public education on the benefits of good lake hygiene, and creating jobs in our community. 

Clear Texas Lakes has secured a signed MOU from the US Army Corps of Engineers providing us access to boat ramps and use of trash bins to assist with our mission.  As you may know, trash and debris can be harmful to humans, fish, and all other wildlife. This pollution can cause harm to drinking water, wildlife habitat and is generally not safe to be around.  During the due diligence process when forming Clear Texas Lakes, we discovered that the state of Texas provides close to $50 million annually to keep our roads and highways clear of unsafe trash and debris while zero ($0) funds are set aside to do the same for our lakes and shorelines.  Your donation is vital to the Clear Texas Lakes initiative in keeping our lakes and shorelines clean and safe for people, aquatic life, and wildlife alike while providing a beautiful and inviting environment for recreational and other activities.

Predicted outcome

Initially, Clear Texas Lakes will remove large and dangerous trash and debris that has accumulated over years of neglect at each lake served.   We call this the deep dive cleaning which covers items such as large foam blocks from old docks, tires, abandoned boats, large barrels and more.  The deep dive cleaning is followed up with of a lower effort continuous maintenance schedule removing less impactful trash and debris at each lake on a regular basis.  Our five-year footprint spans Lewisville Lake, Lavon Lake, Grapevine Lake and Lake Ray Roberts.  We estimate each lake will take approximately one year for the deeper dive cleaning and approximately three months to establish and implement a regular maintenance schedule.

Measurable outcome

Completion of the deep dive clean for the four major lakes served by the Army Corp of Engineers (Lewisville Lake, Lavon Lake, Grapevine Lake and Lake Ray Roberts) with a regular maintenance schedule deployed at each lake served by year end 2027 (approximately 1720 miles of shoreline).  Additional resources and manpower and funds will need to be secured to sustain this effort as each lake is onboarded.

We track our trash collection efforts while performing deep dive and regular maintenance activities.  For example, on one of our maintenance excursions we targeted a high traffic area on one section on Lewisville Lake approximately one mile in length.  This effort yielded 15–50-gallon trash bags with an average of 40 pounds per bag upon initial clean-up. Three months later the cleanup effort for that same stretch yielded only 1-40-pound trash bag.  We track each area covered separately by counting the number of bags filled, adjusting for the additional weight of larger items too big to fit in a 40-gallon bag (i.e.: tow along float toys, construction materials, etc.).  We have also installed trash cans in popular hiking areas with high trash accumulation encouraging patrons to dispose of their trash in a manner that reduces the effort required for cleanup and disposal. 

In 2022 to-date, Clear Texas lakes has collected and disposed of approximately 42,500 lbs. of trash from Lewisville Lake alone.  This lake has 233 miles of shoreline to cover has been our primary focus completing 35 percent of the deep dive cleanup effort and implementation of a regular trash removal program.  We look forward to expanding our efforts to other North Texas Lakes soon!