Salem — From one to three times each week in the summer, Maria Todd makes the short drive from her home in Uncasville to Gardner Lake State Park to relax and enjoy the beach with her children.

“If we see trash, we pick it up,” Todd said, as 1-year-old William, the youngest of her five children, snuggled next to her. “If everybody would play their part, we could keep this place cleaned up. We’re all adults here.”

Todd, occupying a spot near the water on a hot summer afternoon Sunday, was among about 60 families enjoying the small state park on the lake that extends into Montville and Bozrah.

Despite limited facilities consisting of a few picnic tables and grills, two port-a-johns at the beach and three at the adjoining boat launch, the beach, with no admission charge, is a popular spot throughout the summer, sometimes reaching capacity.

The 9 3/4-acre park was created in 2001, giving the public access to the 528-acre natural lake for boating and swimming.

“The water’s clean,” said Michael Taylor of Norwich, sunning himself on a blanket near the swimming area, which is not staffed by life guards. “It’s nice for the kids.”

Emily Rosa came with five others from her home in Hartford to enjoy the beach for the first time Sunday.

“We just found this place,” she said, lighting a grill to cook some burgers and hot dogs. “This is a very good place.”

While the scene there Sunday of families swimming and picnicking looked pleasant and orderly, with most trash picked up except for three bags left near one of the port-a-johns, some local residents say that isn’t always the case.

Problems with overuse of the park, unruly behavior and litter that have surfaced in past years have been worse than ever this summer, according to some local residents.

On Thursday, the Gardner Lake Authority, the three-town body that oversees the lake, approved Chairman Russell Smith of Salem sending a strongly worded letter to the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection listing the problems and calling for action.

“We’re asking for DEEP to take a proactive role,” Smith said in the letter, which he read aloud at the meeting.

The letter listed the lack of police and DEEP presence, a lack of trash cans, persistent use of alcohol despite signs prohibiting it, overflowing port-a-johns on busy weekends and DEEP’s “history of non-attention.” Port-a-johns are emptied on Mondays and Fridays, and checked by staff in between, according to DEEP spokesman Dennis Schain.

Smith showed photos of two port-a-johns knocked over into the lake during a busy July weekend, and a huge mound of trash piled beside another.

Because there is no gate on Route 354 to close off access to the park after dark, loud drinking parties sometimes take place there until the early hours of the morning, others at the meeting said.

Smith said Thursday he planned to send the letter to DEEP as well as to officials of the three towns and to the region’s legislative delegation. Similar problems have been raised in past summers, he said, but “very little has improved, and it’s gotten worse.”

Roxanne Gardiner of Montville agrees.

“If they put waste receptacles down here, maybe people would use them,” she said, as she walked her dog there one morning this week. “It’s a free beach and people come from all over and leave their mess behind. It’s too bad. It’s a beautiful place.”

Tom Tyler, director of state parks for DEEP, said his agency had not received the letter or been informed about the problems but will respond. When similar concerns were raised in the past, he said, “we certainly have been responsive.”

Littering is an issue at Gardner Lake and several other state parks, he said, and vandalism is also a concern. Both issues are difficult to control without regular staffing or police presence, he said.

Providing dumpsters, he said, can cause additional problems, because some people use dumpsters to discard household items or other refuse, especially after dark.

“It is often a balance between the staff resources needed to clean up litter versus the staff time and money to provide dumpsters, but also to open and close gates each day,” he said. “We continue to look closely at Gardner Lake to determine if additional changes to waste handling are appropriate.”

He said DEEP’s policy of “carry-in, carry-out” has been in place for about 20 years and “works very well in most locations,” drastically reducing the need for daily trash pickup at hundreds of park and forest locations throughout the state.

DEEP’s Environmental Conservation officers regularly patrol Gardner Lake State Park and recognize that use of the park has been increasing, Tyler said. On July 5 and Aug. 2, the parking lot filled and cars had to be turned away, he said.

Since the beginning of the year, EnCon officers have made 111 calls to the park, he said. Of those, 54 were routine patrol checks and 24 were a response to violations that resulted in infractions or warnings being issued to people breaking park rules. He did not provide information on the other 33 calls.

Tyler said drainage and erosion problems at the beach are slated to be repaired later this year.

“There are an awful lot of people who enjoy that park,” he said. He urged local residents concerned about trash, vandalism and other problems to “reach out to a park supervisor.”

“Let us know in a timely way and we’ll try and react to them,” he said.

j.benson@theday.com

Twitter: @BensonJudy