Calling all fishermen, campowners, hunters, swimmers, hikers, boaters, bass club members and Boy Scouts, it’s time to step up and do the right thing for the environment.

Save Our Lake’s Trash Bash is less than a week away. This is a golden opportunity to remove litter and other eyesores from the waterways and land of Lake Dauterive-Fausse Pointe. 

The twin lake system is used and abused by slobs who leave their trash and undesirables on the water and all along the shoreline and roads leading to the access points at Lake Dauterive Boat Landing and Marshfield Boat Landing, both near Loreauville. 

Linda Dugas of Loreauville, Save Our Lake president, and her hard-working board members are reviving the once-popular and highly effective Trash Bash. It is scheduled from 8 a.m. to noon Saturday out of Marsh Field Boat Landing. Dugas urges anyone who cares about the environment, the way our natural treasures look to residents and visitors alike, to bring a boat and dip net, check in at the headquarters and go out and help clean up this mess.

There will be food and refreshments provided after noon. T-shirts will go to the volunteers who “Help Keep Our Lakes Clean and Beautiful for Future Generations.”

This could and should be a family outing. But if you and your friends want to bash the trash, go ahead.

Campowners are urged to bring trash from on or near their property to the boat landing, where bins and trucks will be at the ready to haul everything away.

Butane bottles and batteries won’t be accepted, Dugas emphasized.

The Save Our Lake’s board has scheduled one last organizational meeting before the event. Dugas said it will be held at 1:30 p.m. Monday in the meeting room of the Iberia Parish Council.

The Save Our Lake president said the Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office has committed to keep order at the site and provide boats, as has the St. Martin Parish Sheriff’s Office, she said.

Dugas said she is proud of the support generated thus far and is hopeful more donations, contributions and volunteers get on board with the project this week.

“It’s going pretty good, you know. We’ve got a handful of donations and we’re looking to get more. I like to give to the people who give up their Saturday to pick up trash,” Dugas said Friday.

She is getting more and more excited as the date approaches. 

Joel Dugas, an Iberia Parish Councilman, has rolled up his sleeves and hit the ground running to help, Dugas said. 

The board has added a new board member, Shane Sigur, she added.

Lynn Dugas, her husband, has a map showing the areas of the lake that need targeting. Those include Lake Dauterive Road, Marsh Field Road, Choupique Road, Teche Lake Canal, the houseboat canal at Lake Dauterive Boat Landing, Bird Island Chute, Calvin’s Cove, Big Dogleg, Texaco Field, Sandy Cove, Coon Slough and Roy Breaux Chute, he said.

“He went ride to see where (cleanup efforts were needed) and put it all down on the metal board where to go,” she said.

Volunteers should sign up to indicate where they are going to clean up, she said, so there are few repetitions.

Bags and gloves are being provided by Iberia Medical Center, she said.

“We’re still not finished. We’ll see what we have,” Dugas said.

DON SHOOPMAN is outdoors editor of The Daily Iberian.