All kinds of mysteries lay beneath the surface of lakes across California and the U.S. divers with Clean Up the Lake have made it their mission to remove the junk and litter and debris in our lakes and preserve them for future generations. Their work is now captured in a new docuseries, "What Lies Unseen." Clean Up the Lake founder Colin West joined Lisa McRee on "LA Times Today" to talk about the series and their continued work.

Clean Up the Lake's mission is to protect the environment in and around lakes through trash cleanups, invasive species documentation and community outreach. West talked about the series and its first episode featuring Marlette Lake in Nevada.

"We got to work with Travel North Tahoe Nevada to come in and bring this story to life. Marlette Lake actually sits within the Tahoe Basin, just kind of east northeast of Tahoe itself. And it used to be one of the most important water sources for Virginia City back in the old mining days in Nevada, and still feeds water down there as well as Carson City. So there is a bit of history there. And we knew that we had to be careful because we couldn't be removing anything that was 50 years or older as it's against the law," West shared.

West and his team stumbled upon several historical objects under the surface of Marlette Lake. The Clean Up the Lake team found an old, unopened crate from the late 1800s that they documented in the episode. He explained how they work with state agencies to document and preserve those archeological finds.

"When we have our divers down there and there's any question whether or not that can be 50 years or older or have some kind of historical significance, we actually will document it with photo and video," West said. "And our surface support team actually has a more high tech form of GPS, pinpointing it a device called the Eos arrow that they use in order to log that very specific location down to three feet. And we use an old archeological survey software. And we'll fill out these forms and we'll put that into a more technical map that we can share with state historical preservation offices, or even the tribal historical preservation offices, if there's more Native American significance."

Lake Mary in Mammoth Lakes is featured in the second episode of "What Lies Unseen." West talked about the importance of community outreach highlighted in the episode.

"This was the biggest lake in the basin that and we got to work with some different use groups as well, and some community foundations and Mammoth. And to get that message out to the kids and try and show them what's actually going on, because a lot of the stuff we see and the litter was there before I was born. And so this is something I don't want these children to be unaware of. We want to really bring to light what lies unseen, if you will," West said.

Episodes of "What Lies Unseen" drop monthly on YouTube at Make A Difference Creative.

Click the arrow above to watch the full interview.

Watch "LA Times Today" at 8 and 11 p.m. Monday through Friday on Spectrum News 1 and the Spectrum News app.