By Robert Pore
robert.pore@theindependent.com

What Taylor has volunteered for, and what he is encouraging other members of his congregation to become part of, is the CLeANebraska program.

The program stands for Clean Lakefronts Across Nebraska, which is a public service project of the Izaak Walton Leagues of Nebraska, in partnership with the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Like the adopt-a-highway program of cleaning roadsides of litter and trash, CLeANebraska aims to provide a similar public service to the state's lake fronts.

The idea behind the program, according to Dan Davis of Lincoln, who is organizing the program statewide, is getting church groups, service clubs, businesses or schools to adopt a length of lakefront and clean it twice a year, preferably in the early spring and the fall.

For Taylor, it was an opportunity to participate in a community-spirited program that accomplishes something good for the neighborhood.

"After all, it's our neighborhood," Taylor said.

So far Taylor has enlisted a member of his congregation to volunteer for the program. An article about the program will appear in the church's newsletter to entice others to help out with the program.

"We are hoping to get a team of six to 12 people," he said. "I don't think we will have too much trouble doing that."

How Taylor learned about the program was a brochure he received in the mail about the program from Davis.

Taylor said it didn't take much to persuade him to be involved with the CLeANebraska program.

"I have been involved with things similar to this, like the adopt-a-highway program," he said. "I always enjoyed doing that, and this was a good idea."

Taylor has been at the First Christian Church for six months.

"We have a number of people here who are avid outdoors people and I think it's something that they would like doing," he said.

For Taylor, who has witnessed the great crane migration for the first time this spring, a project like CLeANebraska is also a spiritual endeavor.

"It's not hard to see how we are part of creation," he said. "If we leave things around, like trash along a lake shore, we are ruining creation."

Davis said a staff member at the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality, Pat O'Brien, who works with water quality issues, came up with the idea of the program of cleaning up state public-access lake fronts.

Davis was contacted to coordinate the program. Davis operates Davis Consulting Services in Lincoln.

With experience working with the National Parks Service, Davis was able to get the Izaak Walton League of Nebraska involved in the program.

The Izaak Walton League of Nebraska was an ideal partner as this nationwide organization is dedicated to protecting this country's natural heritage and improving outdoor recreation opportunities for all Americans.

The program was funded by the Environmental Protection Agency.

The whole idea of starting the program was there was a needed to do something to address the litter and trash problems at Nebraska lakes.

"They are just terribly littered," Davis said.

Nebraska ranks second to Minnesota with the number of lakes within its border. Nebraska also has more miles of rivers than any other state. Davis hopes one day to expand the program to also include litter cleanup along river and stream banks.

He said there's a similar program in Omaha which cleans one of the major lakes in the area that has great success in getting volunteers.

"We wanted to take that kind of initiate statewide," Davis said.

Along with the aesthetic aspect of cleaning up a shoreline, he said there are also environmental and safety concerns for members of the public who frequent those areas and the aquatic life in those lakes.

"It's a continuing problem in Nebraska and one of a whole slate of issues involving water quality," Davis said.

Still in its beginning stages, Davis said there are already about a dozen groups that have signed up for the program.

"They are mostly located in the eastern part of the state and we are beginning to push across the rest of the state," he said.

Their goal for the first year is to have about 60 groups organized for the program.

Davis said that because of funding cuts, Nebraska Game and Parks have been hard pressed to do trash collection.

"We want to assist in their effort by having volunteers do that," he said.

For more information email: www.cleanebraska.net or call 402-488-5157.