The sculpture was revealed at the new Tahoe Blue Events Center.

Last year, Clean Up the Lake's scuba dive team completed its 72-mile clean-up of waste from Lake Tahoe.

Over 25,000 pounds of trash were recovered in their efforts.

You might wonder, where did all that trash go?

Well, parts of it went into this brand-new sculpture called Surfaced, at the new Tahoe Blue Event Center. 

"It's an amazing legacy to the volunteers and the staff who really worked so hard day in and day out for an entire year to do a full circumnavigated clean up at Tahoe and so for them to see their work on display here, is awesome. It's an honor," said Colin West, CEO and Founder of Clean the Lake.

After it was decided to use some of the waste to make an art piece, the Tahoe Fund wanted to make sure they put it in a perfect spot.

"We wanted to do something really special with this art piece and we knew it needed a very special place to live and when they were developing this new beautiful event center, they were putting such a focus on sustainability," said Amy Berry, CEO of the Tahoe Fund. "We just kind of knew in our hearts this is where this sculpture needs to live."

Others involved with the event center want the statue to serve as a special reminder to help preserve the lake. 

"I want people to walk by and to know that not only can they make a difference and helping preserve the environment, but as a community, one world, we only got one shot here and we all need to be incredibly aware, acutely aware of what we do of our litter, our trash," said Matt Levitt, Founder and CEO for Tahoe Blue Vodka.

While this is the first sculpture that was made from trash that was picked up from the lake, the Tahoe Fund and Clean up the Lake says that there may be more in the future.

The artists who made the eagle and Lahontan cutthroat sculpture said it was quite the process.

"Like not only having to dig through, sort, and clean the various materials, as you can imagine when you collect trash from the bottom of the lake that's been there for decades potentially, it is full of filth and algae and sand," said Joel Stockdill, Artist of the Surfaced sculpture.

The piece took around six months to be built.

Both Stockdill and his partner Yustina Salnikova have worked together for eight years.

Being offered the chance to create this piece for Lake Tahoe, they say they felt some pressure.

"As people that don't live in Lake Tahoe, we are always nervous about bring a piece to a community we're not directly a part of," Salnikova said.

For starting the process, the artists gave the community the chance to pick what animals were chosen for the project.

That's when they voted on the eagle and the Lahontan cutthroat trout.

After cleaning and sorting through the materials, they design the frame of the piece when their group of engineers helps them to bring it to life.

"Then once we have all that constructed, we begin the very slow, laborious process of putting all the skin of the trash one to the piece," Stockdill said.

More than 450 pounds of trash was used to bring this piece to life.

The ponderosa pine stump is made from anchor chains and sheet material.

The fish is made from fish lures, sunglass, and other plastics.

For the fins they used traffic cones.

The eagle is put together from anchor parts, rubber, and paddles.

"Everything was extremely tedious," Salnikova said. "We wanted to really show a lot of the trash, but also pay tribute to the species we were creating."

After all the hard work the artists say it's great to see the finished product.

"Setting it here in front of this new event center has just been an amazing feeling like this eagle has landed in a wonderful spot," Stockdill said.

The two say they would love to be able to dig into more of the collected trash to bring more art to the area. 

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