Divers give Lake Stevens a good spring cleaning

Published 9:04 am Thursday, May 21, 2009

LAKE STEVENS — Thanks to a new group of scuba divers, the lake is about 800 pounds lighter than it was last week.

The Everett Mud Sharks Dive Club collected bottles, cans, boat parts, a car jack, a hand-held radio, an inline skate and much more from the lake bottom in a 3-1/2-hour cleanup last Saturday.

The 14 divers collected trash from the North Cove public boat launch, docks and swim beach; the N. Lakeshore Drive swim beach; and the swim beach at Lundeen Park.

“This was a great opportunity for us to use our skills from a sport that we all love and put them to use helping the community and the environment,” said diver Jeff Lambier, who helped organize the event. Lambier lives in Lake Stevens and is a police detective for the city.

Members of the Lake Stevens Police Explorers Troop collected the trash from the divers as they brought it to the surface. The city public works department took the bags to the Allied Waste garbage collection site at Lake Stevens High School, where it was weighed, said Diane “Scotty” Swift, community programs planner for the city. The Explorers troop later separated the recyclable items from the trash.

Lake Stevens District 8 firefighters and members of the police department’s marine patrol unit provided security for the divers, “basically keeping boaters away from the docks,” Lambier said. The city and local businesses provided snacks and lunch for the divers and support personnel.

The cleanup, done in conjunction with the Lake Stevens citywide cleanup on Saturday, helps keep swimmers and animals safer by removing glass, plastic and other debris from the water, Swift said.

Swimmers often cut themselves on bottles and cans, and birds often get caught in plastic, she said.

“The environmental and safety impact caused by that garbage is pretty significant,” Swift said.

The Everett Mud Sharks were inspired by another group of divers who did the first-ever underwater cleanup last year, Lambier said. Neither he nor Swift could recall who led that effort, but because no one had cleaned up the lake bottom near the shorelines before, it’s believed last year’s group brought out even more than this year, Lambier said.

Much of the debris found ­Saturday at North Cove and North Lakeshore — last year’s group didn’t collect at Lundeen — had accumulated since last year, Swift said.

Bottles and cans were the most commonly found items. Many of the bottles had been put back in their cardboard cases and apparently thrown overboard from boats, she said.

“We just want people to dispose of things responsibly,” Swift said, adding that recycling and trash receptacles are located at the boat launch and the parks. “Please use them,” she said.

There wasn’t as much debris under the water at Lundeen Park as at the other locations, Swift said. Still, plastic pop bottles were found where a lot of children swim, she said.

The divers had a wide range of experience, said Lambier, who didn’t go into the water so he could coordinate the event from dry land.

Paul Gorham of Everett, who has been diving since 1991, is an assistant instructor at Underwater Sports in Everett. He usually dives in Puget Sound and had never been diving in Lake Stevens before Saturday, he said.

“It was a lot of fun, good times, the weather was good and we got a lot done to help out the parks and Lake Stevens people,” he said.

The recently formed dive group has 20 to 30 members, Lambier said, indicating potential for an even larger event in the future.

“It turned out great and we’re going to do it again next year,” he said.

Bill Sheets: 425-339-3439, sheets@heraldnet.com.