It took 39 volunteers less than two hours Saturday to spruce up Beltzville Lake State Park and plant a "living fence" 120 shrubs to keep geese from fouling the water.

The volunteers, from the Carbon County Interfaith Council of Churches, poured into the park at a little after 8 a.m., shovels, rakes and trash bags in hand. They worked steadily, picking up diapers, bottles, cups and other trash, putting down fresh mulch on the playground, and planting the shrubs.Organizer Gary Schoenberger said the day of service came about as a result volunteer efforts some two years ago in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy."After the destruction caused by Sandy, the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints put together a program to clean up all the state parks because of the damage," he said.An LDS meetinghouse is on Pohopoco Drive, a short distance from the park."Now the state realizes the value of volunteerism from what we did then. So now they are looking to establish that type of volunteer program," Schoenberger said.When he was asked by the church if they would be willing to again pitch in, he suggested the Interfaith Council get involved as a group. His meetinghouse asked the council, which agreed to participate.Schoenberger asked Park Manager Devin Buzard how the group could help. Buzard explained about the geese, and that rangers could really use some help to get the park ready for visitors.Last summer, Beltzville Lake was closed six times last summer due to high bacterial counts in the water.The Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources officials said feces from molting geese were causing bacteria. Large flocks overgraze on nearby food sources, causing an excess in excrement, which can wash into the water after heavy rainfall."I believe the geese contributed to that fecal coliform bacteria," Buzard said. "They drop one to three pounds of feces a day. It's a shallow area, and it warms up rather rapidly. The idea is to make the grassy area surrounding the beach less attractive to the geese. The volunteers coming down here and planting a living fence gives an aesthetically pleasing way of deterring geese from entering the grassy portion adjacent to the beach. Hopefully, that will reduce the amount of bacteria."DCNR chose which shrubs to plant: bottle bush, dogwood, chokeberry, pepper bush and blueberry. The park provided the shrubs."They did a great job out here today," Buzard said of the volunteers. "It's an outstanding service to the public, and to public lands."Buzard encourages people seeking to volunteer to visit DCNR's web site,

www.volunteers.dcnr.state.pa.us/index.aspx.