Through a grant from the National Conservation Resource Service and U.S. Department of Agriculture, work crews are cleaning out Bogue Lusa Creek from the Verret Street Bridge to the bridge on Columbia Street.

Work crews were at Cassidy Park with an excavator on Monday cleaning out debris that included sunken and floating logs. Most often, crew members from E.C.W. Recoveries of Leesville, waded out into the creek in an attempt to feel debris with their feet under the shallow water.

“We’re cleaning all this debris from the canal. In some spots, there is a lot of debris,” E.C.W Recoveries Michael Easterling said. “A lot of it you can’t even see. We even found an old boat in there. It was an old, wooden boat from probably around the 1930s. It was like a canoe. You could tell it was old. I would have kept it if I had a place to put it. You could tell they put a lot of time into it. And we’ve seen a bunch of trees that were cut down.”

The work crew out in the water included Michael Ellis, Ryan Easterling, Connor Evans and Angel Marcello. Tim Watts operated the excavator.

Work began July 11. Easterling estimated there are about two more weeks of work before the job is completed.