Posted: Sun, 13 Sep 2009 02:35 PM - 6,552 Readers

By: Andrea Lorenz

A lawn chair. A casette player with a Merle Haggard tape. A decades-old blue Dr Pepper can. Spent shotgun shells.

These items were pulled from Lake Travis on Sunday during an annual cleanup by Keep Austin Beautiful, the Colorado River Foundation, Travis County and the Lower Colorado River Authority.

About 1,000 volunteers scoured the bottom and edges of a historically low Lake Travis. At about 630 feet above sea level, Lake Travis is at its third-lowest recorded level and is about 35 feet below its average for September. For the volunteer divers on Sunday, the drought meant more recovered junk. Organizers delivered the items to recycling and waste facilities Sunday afternoon. They estimated that this year's haul was similar to past years, when they've removed about four tons of trash from the lake.

"They clearly are getting to areas that they've never been able to dive to because the lake is so low," said Brian Block, executive director of the nonprofit Keep Austin Beautiful.

Divers found more than 30 car batteries, about 100 tires and countless bottles and cans.

The 15th annual cleanup is meant to raise awareness of the need to keep Lake Travis clean because it provides drinking water to much of the Austin area and a home to wildlife, Block said.

The cleanup also serves as a history lesson of sorts.

The low lake level meant divers could pull up corroded engine blocks that were once too deep to lug to the surface, volunteer diver David Wahlgren said.

The engine blocks were once used to anchor docks, Wahlgren said. Divers also uncovered sunken barrels used as pontoons for floating docks.

Wahlgren won a prize for making the most unusual find of the day: part of a newspaper from Dec. 12, 1951 — it was still readable.

The paper had been wrapped around a cast-iron pipe that was sticking out of a part of the lake bottom that's now dry, surrounded by protective shingle material or tar paper, Wahlgren said.

"You don't expect to find a readable newspaper underwater," he said. "It would have been 50 feet underwater."

An advertisement on the fragile pages showed a sale for 17 cents on a bushel of pears. Wahlgren said he thinks the newspaper is from Taylor.

"You never know what you're going to find at the bottom of the lake," Wahlgren said.

The cleanup should serve as a reminder to people to take care of the lake, Block said.

"Don't throw stuff overboard or along the shoreline, and be aware of what can rush in (to the lake) if it's in the floodplain," he said.

*  Story Contributed by: Andrea Lorenz