Diverdon
Contributor
I finally heard back from the folks at Marquette County Solid Waste Management about last years' Lower Harbor cleanup here in Marquette, Michigan. I posted a video to YouTube and may even have linked it here shortly after the cleanup last August. That was before I had learned of the total tonnage that we removed during our event on August 10th, 2019.
So now I know that last year we removed 4 tons of tires from Marquette's Lower Harbor. 8,000 pounds of tires! We didn't get them all as we had a limited amount of time to stage the tires. The harbor is very silty so what we did was locate a few tires and dig them out of the silt and made little piles that we could then remove during the event. We were also able to move about 30 close to shore to give our free diver something to do while others loaded boats from further out.
It took local divers many hours to prepare for this and thanks to social media, word got out and many divers volunteered to come up and help during our event. We had divers come from downstate Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana driving many hours and spending their hard earned cash to come and help out. This was not a pleasure dive. It was dirty work but I saw no frowns and we made several new friends that day.
Fast forward to January 2020. We once again secure a grant to dispose of the tires that remain. We still have at least that many tires to remove from the harbor, and I'm confident that we'll get most of them this time around. If any divers want to help prepare for the cleanup starting in June, please let me know. The date of our 2nd annual cleanup is tentatively scheduled for July 18th.
Here are two links of videos that I put together last year. The first shows the gathering of tires and staging them in order to make it easier for the volunteers. Many of these tires were underneath boats and I didn't want any potentially inexperienced volunteers to find themselves in a silt-out only to rise above it and clunk their head on the hull of a boat. Yes I was having fun with sound effects in this one.
The second video includes footage taken prior to and during the event. The photos of the tires filling the dumpster are impressive. In it you will see the large dumpster that we had nearly filled.
If anyone here would like to participate your help is very welcome.
So now I know that last year we removed 4 tons of tires from Marquette's Lower Harbor. 8,000 pounds of tires! We didn't get them all as we had a limited amount of time to stage the tires. The harbor is very silty so what we did was locate a few tires and dig them out of the silt and made little piles that we could then remove during the event. We were also able to move about 30 close to shore to give our free diver something to do while others loaded boats from further out.
It took local divers many hours to prepare for this and thanks to social media, word got out and many divers volunteered to come up and help during our event. We had divers come from downstate Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana driving many hours and spending their hard earned cash to come and help out. This was not a pleasure dive. It was dirty work but I saw no frowns and we made several new friends that day.
Fast forward to January 2020. We once again secure a grant to dispose of the tires that remain. We still have at least that many tires to remove from the harbor, and I'm confident that we'll get most of them this time around. If any divers want to help prepare for the cleanup starting in June, please let me know. The date of our 2nd annual cleanup is tentatively scheduled for July 18th.
Here are two links of videos that I put together last year. The first shows the gathering of tires and staging them in order to make it easier for the volunteers. Many of these tires were underneath boats and I didn't want any potentially inexperienced volunteers to find themselves in a silt-out only to rise above it and clunk their head on the hull of a boat. Yes I was having fun with sound effects in this one.
The second video includes footage taken prior to and during the event. The photos of the tires filling the dumpster are impressive. In it you will see the large dumpster that we had nearly filled.
If anyone here would like to participate your help is very welcome.
