What's the right thing to do?

[Silver Duck]

All

Ice out is just around the corner, and I expect that there will be the usual floating debris for the first few weeks.

I've seen and heard of some pretty large items floating around; the small stuff like branches I can pull aboard, break up, and find some way to dispose of. But what can be done with large items? It's not right to just haul them up to somebody's beach, but somebody could get hurt if they're just left floating.

Is there somebody (maybe the MP) that's responsible for dealing with this junk? Or maybe some town that would haul it away if it were left near a launch ramp? What do the rest of you do when you find debris too large to ignore floating in the lake?

Silver Duck

[upthesaukee]

Items that are easily picked up can and should be picked out of the lake and disposed of. Larger items that may not be easily picked up and placed into your boat should certainly be reported to the Marine Patrol, and I would try to stand by the hazard to navigation until the MP gets there, if at all possible. Many of us can now give GPS coordinates when we report so that if we have to move on, we can give some pretty exact position reports on where the hazard is. Also, trying to get a large or bulky item into your boat could be a physical hazard...falling into the lake in April and May can be dangerous due to exposure and rapid body temp loss.

[Island Girl]

A few years ago, we came upon a huge log, the type used for building breakwaters at the SE tip of Rattlesnake Island. It was dusk on a Thursday or Friday night. Somehow Island Guy got a rope around it and we towed it home. I shudder to think how much damage that would cause someone especially after dark.

I pull all debris into the boat. The spring is the season to be particularly vigilant about watching the water at all times. This stuff appears out of nowhere.

By the way, are those logs treated with any preservatives?

[ApS]

Originally Posted by Island Girl

A few years ago, we came upon a huge log, the type used for building breakwaters at the SE tip of Rattlesnake Island. It was dusk on a Thursday or Friday night. Somehow Island Guy got a rope around it and we towed it home. I shudder to think how much damage that would cause someone especially after dark.

Last year, I found a lot of stuff after ice-out. There were wooden chair sections, storm debris, plastic bags, 4X8 dock sections, a giant fiberous flower pot like you see around the lake, a size-11½ flip-flop (Merrymeeting remembers ). Most was thrown away after I reported it here. The wooden chair sections I actually later matched up with a chair set "upstream" -- but they didn't want it back.

Of the two very different dock sections, I towed one home before the wind kicked up: By morning had lost track of the other which had only an 8-inch galvanized cleat sticking up above the water to be seen. (Should have towed that one first).

After I called the M("Keep us posted")Ps, I winched the first section up on shore. It turned out to have been used as a concrete "form". I mention this because most of the floating "dimensional" (squared) wood objects in the lake are construction-related.

Originally Posted by Island Girl

By the way, are those logs treated with any preservatives?

While most of the dried natural wood debris (and untreated concrete forms) makes great fireplace stock, the old "PT" pressure-treated stuff (greenish) should be sent to a landfill.

That log, if it was "huge", probably originated in the Pacific Northwest -- like the NH Lake Region's telephone/utility poles! Go figure.

[Just Sold]

Trash and other debris on the lake is an all season event. Last year I picked up my share of small and medium items right after ice out. All during the season I still found bagies, styrofoam, pieces of wood etc.

I would not want to hit any type of debris so I always pick it up and dispose of it properly.

People just do not care. As an example my wife and I were standing in front of a Dunkin D and a customer who was just leaving the drive up was throwing paper trash out of the car window. If someone will do that in front of people standing in front of D D they would see no harm in doing it on the lake.

[Silver Duck]

Small stuf I can pick up and deal with. What I had in mind were the kinds of things that Island Girl and APS described, and I don't have the luxury of owning a personal piece of shoreline to which I can tow them.

I take it then that the MP will deal with such things? I would have no objection to standing by until they arrive...

Silver Duck

[Mee-n-Mac]

Originally Posted by Silver Duck

Small stuf I can pick up and deal with. What I had in mind were the kinds of things that Island Girl and APS described, and I don't have the luxury of owning a personal piece of shoreline to which I can tow them.

I take it then that the MP will deal with such things? I would have no objection to standing by until they arrive...

Silver Duck

I'm not sure the MP will deal with such things. Most of this stuff just eventually finds a shore to call home, hopefully w/o someone hitting it. Given you (and others I'm sure) have no place to tow the larger debris to, I wonder if a cheap marker flag on a pole couldn't be attached to a float of some sort and the whole shebang tethered/tied/nailed to the debris. This way it would at least be visible from a distance ... Just a thought.

I've generally found empty plastic bags of all sizes and the styrofoam guts from the newer buoys. The latter get amazing heavy when water logged.

[fatlazyless]

If that piece of flotsum & jetsum is one of the olde all-wood spar markers, it's probably best to call the Marine Patrol. I did just that and they told me they did not want it, I could have it, and they were upgrading to the more visible, longer lasting, lighter weight, pvc spars. One of those olde spar markers is a very large piece of a tree, like maybe 14' long and 10"sq s at its' center, and weighs plenty, like maybe 300lbs or more, when thoroughly soaked but still able to float. I have seen these olde spar markers used as driveway furniture, and cut up into landscape timbers.
Supposedly, these olde spar markers will sink to the bottom when saturated. And , get this part. Surprise surprse, in the early Spring, the cold water temps decrease the negative boyancy of the sunken spar and back up to the suface it floats.......good grief!

[ApS]

Right you are.

I collected a red spar five years ago, and it's still on my shoreline now. I had thought about using it as you suggest (landscape timber) when it dried out, but two of us can't lift it today -- even to cut it up for the woodstove.

The wood spars didn't fare well in night-time/GPS collisions, I guess.

PVC pipe is cheap -- and doesn't scratch the graphics.




UPDATE!
1) Two wood items were found: a 2x4x5' lumber, and a soggy (and very heavy) piece of oak. It had been cut, diagonally, but mostly lengthwise with a chainsaw. After puzzling over it a while, I realized it was the scrap created when "sharpening" a piling to be driven into the lake bottom.

2) I didn't risk recovering all the Styrofoam objects sailing/flipping by in yesterday afternoon's strong winds, but did rescue a rather expensive -- and large -- mooring buoy.

Describe it, and I'll deliver it personally to you.

(Otherwise, I'll just add it to my collec-- er, crawl space storage area).

What to do about The Tree?

I don't know what to do. Until that monster floe melts, there's no hope. If the wind changes, The Tree will be "out there" -- somewhere.