BATON ROUGE - Volunteers teamed up to remove hundreds of pounds of litter from waterways and roads around the Capitol Lakes on Saturday afternoon.

Marie Constantin, a persistent volunteer, spends her time cleaning up litter regularly around Baton Rouge's waterways. 

"This is where our drinking water comes from. This is where our seafood, our wild ducks we are shooting and we're eating this stuff," said Constantin. 

The watershed is designed to drain stormwater back into this lake but with so much trash, the water is backed up which can lead to flooding.

"If we had a storm water program, none of this would be in here," she said. 

Volunteers say since the pandemic began, the trash has been getting worse. 

Last year, the mayor announced a $15 million storm water master plan to solve the problem. Mayor Broome made litter abatement a priority for her new term. 

Until the city takes action, volunteers will continue to pick up the pieces.