How much trash did they remove from Lake Tahoe waters? See divers clean up shoreline
A year-long effort to recover submerged litter from 72 miles of Lake Tahoe shoreline finished today with 24,797 pieces of trash — totalling 25,281 pounds — recovered by scuba diving teams, according to organizers.
Divers who circumnavigated the lake not only recovered plastic bottles, cans and other normal types of litter, but some interesting items, too. Those items included engagement rings, 1980s Nikon cameras, entire lamp-posts, “no littering” signs, massive pieces of broken boats and engine blocks, vinyl records, a Walkman with a Tower of Power tape inside, pieces of a claw-foot bathtub, a garden hose reel, an old Tahoe Yacht Club flag, wallets, cordless home telephones, a blackberry mobile phone and more, Clean Up The Lake officials said in a news release.
Divers also removed:
▪ 171 tires
▪ 4,527 aluminum cans
▪ 468 tennis and golf balls
▪ 127 anchors
▪ 295 sunglasses
The project was funded by a $100,000 matching donation from Tahoe Blue Vodka, contributions from more than 135 Tahoe Fund donors, such as Vail Resorts and the Nevada Division of State Lands’ Lake Tahoe License Plate program, and other grant-giving foundations.
“Over the past year, despite winter weather, covid and wildfire related challenges, our dive team has been in the water at every opportunity to complete this unforgettable effort,” said Colin West, founder and executive director of Clean Up The Lake, in a statement.. “While the dive team has removed many expected and unexpected items along the way, ultimately what we hope people remember is the length that one group of individuals was willing to go to in order to protect their home and their planet, and in turn people should ask themselves how they are choosing to contribute to preserving our environment today.”
In over a year of lake clean-up, there were 81 dive days, 189 separate clean-up dives, 626 cylinders of air used, 136 volunteers trained and deployed and 6,715 volunteer hours undertaken.
Clean Up The Lake announced four other projects scheduled this year, beginning as soon as next week with the monitoring Lake Tahoe and Donner Lake, and cleaning nearby Fallen Leaf Lake and June Lake in the Mammoth Lakes region.
This story was originally published May 10, 2022 at 2:57 PM with the headline "How much trash did they remove from Lake Tahoe waters? See divers clean up shoreline."
