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The Troup County Sheriff’s Office is taking an initiative to clean up the shorelines of West Point Lake before the water rises again. 

“While the water level’s down, we can get to the shoreline and pick up the trash that’s been deposited by the current,” said TCSO Capt. Nathan Taylor. “The purpose here is to try to get as much of the trash picked up as we can before the levels come back up. We have four inmates who have volunteered their Saturday today to help clean up. They are already on work detail but today was their day off, and they still volunteered to come out and clean up the lake.” 

Partners like Leaving LaGrange Better Than We Found provided clean up supplies and Dairy Queen provided lunches for the inmates and TCSO volunteers cleaning up. 

Volunteers spent Saturday morning cleaning up the shorelines by the Wade R Milmam Jr Bridge on Roanoke Road.  

“It is so important we control the trash in our vehicles and on our boats because a lot of this trash is coming from fishermen too,” Taylor said. “We are finding a ton of worm buckets and stuff that flies off the back of boats.” 

Taylor said people with trucks transporting trash need to remember to make sure everything is tied down securely. 

“I spend a lot of time out here fishing and on my boat, and I am just appalled by the amount of trash on the lake that we see every time we go out,” Taylor said. “There is West Point Lake social media pages that complain a lot about the trash on the lake and rightfully so. I went to the sheriff and asked if there was anyway on my off day if I could take inmates out and pick up trash.” 

Taylor said he hopes to continue to have inmates and volunteers helping pick up the shorelines in the weeks to come. 

“Taylor wanted to make an impact on our lake and certainly I was for it,” Sheriff James Woodruff said. “He got his group together and they went out there and did a remarkable job in my opinion. They got a big pile of trash, and he gets all the credit for putting this together.” 

Taylor and the inmates filled almost 80 trash bags Saturday morning filled with trash from the shoreline, the roadside and the bridge. Taylor said they picked up tires, a refrigerator door and more. 

“We hope to see this grow because West Point Lake is truly a remarkable lake, and it’s a big drawing card for Troup County for fishermen,” Woodruff said. “We’re hoping this is just going to grow from here.”