Officials crack down on vandalism at Pine Lake

HENDERSON CO., Tenn. — Officials ask for help after discovering vandalism at a family-friendly lake.

“Four-wheelers and trucks coming out and doing donuts in the grass, and we’ve tolerated that for a while now,” Keith Wish said.

Wish is the director of Beech River and Watershed Development Authority, and he says that tolerance is coming to an end.

Wish says over the past month Pine Lake in Henderson County has been vandalized.

“To pull a grill out that has a hundred pounds of concrete in the bottom with a pickup truck is going over the top,” Wish said.

Lake officials say this past Saturday trash cans were thrown into the lake, filling it with debris.

“I’ve talked to Sheriff [Brian] Duke, and he has upgraded the patrol to have more out here,” Wish said. “So they are doing everything they can, and we’re trying to do everything that we can.”

In addition to help from authorities,Wish is asking for help from the public.

“The best thing to do is call the deputy, have them come out,” Wish said. “Get a license plate number, get the color of the truck. Anything you can do to identify these people so we can find them and bring them to justice.”

Employees at the lake say it is disheartening to see some people take such a serene area and vandalize it.

“Those people really don’t seem to, some of them don’t seem to care,” lake supervisor Harold Rushing said. “We have good people, and then we have very few, but some, that will be destructive.”

Wish says he plans to prosecute anyone who vandalized the lake to the fullest extent of the law.