Underwater Garbage

[crab bait]

For the past 4 years a few of us from the Tyee Club of B.C. have been doing this in February, during the "fisheries window". When we replaced our wharf five years ago, at low tide you could see half a dozen tires on the bottom. We thought we would send a diver down, hook them up to a rope, and get rid of them. We stopped pulling at 50 tires.

To date, we have removed 300+ over the past 4 years. They have all been used as bumpers, and fallen off and sunk to the bottom. The dock owner sees a bumper missing, and replaces the tire, and the cycle continues.

The 142 were from 100yds of dock, the divers said we got 70% maybe. There are another 6-800 yards to do. There has to be another 1000-2000 tires down there.

The CR Estuary has been busy for the last 70+ years, which has resulted in the tire accumulation, but I bet it's no different than every estuary on Vancouver Island that has been used the same way. How many tires are in the mouth of the Nanaimo? Stamp? or the Fraser?

Yes, the are fairly inert, may help a bit as habitat, but bottom line is, they are garbage, and don't belong there.


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The Tyee Club in partnership with the Pacific Salmon Foundation braved the elements on Saturday and using divers recovered these tires from the bottom of the Campbell River estuary. Front row: Dylan Smith (diver), Josh Prahl (Diver, Doug Rippingale (Tyee Club) and back row: Burt Campbell (Tyee Club), Floyd Ross (Tyee Club) and Phil Griffith (Tyee Club). / Photo submitted

The Tyee Club in partnership with the Pacific Salmon Foundation braved the elements on Saturday and recovered tires from the bottom of the Campbell River estuary using divers.

This is an accumulation that goes back decades. This is the fourth year this has been done and, to date, have removed approximately 300 tires and other misc. items from the floor of the estuary. On Saturday, 142 tires were retrieved from a relatively small area after half-a-day of effort. It will be next year before the fisheries window allows them to do it again.

“We plan on ramping up things next year with more volunteers, divers and boats,” said Tyee Club member Floyd Ross. “The more debris we get off the bottom the easier nature can restore itself and provide better habitat for young fingerlings.”

The clean up was made possible with assistance from Corilair, C&L Rentals, Contain-A-Way Services and Deep Search Diving Ltd.


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[Prawn Star]

Great job. Did you guys find anything other than tires?

 

[Wild Bill]

Great job! Diving off north end of Galiano once we found a shelf and at the bottom there was at least 100 canon balls and one downrigger! Never did go back for the canon balls but took the downrigger!

 

[crab bait]

The divers said there was a huge amount of small garbage, bottles, cans, anything that will sink, accumulated from 60+ years. I would imagine most of it has sunk in the muck. 2 cell phones

We did find a 40ft boat last year, that no one knew about.

Each tire had 30lbs of muck in it, which had to be shaken out and hosed off. My back will be sore for weeks. 1000 more to go.

 

[agentaqua]

Really great to get those cannonballs out. Lead is a bad thing for the food chain. Some rivers have quite a bit of lead weights that get lost from anglers that then get to roll around in the bedload and deteriorate into ever increasing smaller lead chucks and get into the sediments and water quality....

 

[TheBigGuy]

Wow that's unreal. Hard to believe that many tires could accumulate in the river just from falling off the docks. Bizarre. Good on you guys for cleaning up the river bed.

 

[Wild Bill]

Yeah well I don't know if I would find the place anymore. Just all sitting on clean bare rock.
It was when we used to camp on Mac Blows beach so about 30 years ago, in fact I might be mistaken and it might have been a Queen Charlotts trip Lol!

 

[spring time]

Under a marina should see the garbage, tool, tool boxes, batteries everything that people put in there boats are under a marina warf

 

[SpringFever552]

Some great guys rite there..good on them for all their hard work

Remember a few fun trips to winter harbour with Doug,Floyd,Phil his bother and and bunch of others
Ask Doug about retrieving a 40lb+spring at the cabin..he'll know what your talking about..great story
Great times..gotta get them all together again for a reunion up there sometime

 

[sly_karma]

Thanks so much to the club and the other volunteers and businesses that helped with this. Doing something for your community is an essential part of being a citizen.

 

[TheBigGuy]

I'm considering a move to Campbell River. 10 or more years ago it would have been very low on my list of places to retire because of how badly the fishing had declined. These days I have great hope for the area. It seems to have the most dedicated community on the island involved in trying to enhance habitat and rebuild stocks there. The residents there truly seem to appreciate the importance of flourishing Salmon runs in their community. What a fine example of good citizenry they are setting there. With that kind of dedication there may be still be hope that they can return their local Salmon runs to their former glory.

 

[crab bait]

Spring fever - I WAS TALKING TO THE 40LB DROPPER YESTERDAY A.M. (he is still embarrassed) and I was in Dr Mike's chair yesterday afternoon!

Big Guy - CR Salmon Foundation banquet on Mar 11th. Usually raises $70,000 all for local enhancement!

The Tyee Club (separate from above, but working together) has a focus on conservation and enhancement. We hauled 60 tons of old wharfs, boats and garbage out of the estuary a few years back. We have had a "net pen" at the mouth of the Campbell River for 10+ years. We are working with the Quinsam Hatchery on a specific head recovery program, all while trying to preserve the fishery and tradition. There is an increased focus on catch/release and working with FN's on sharing the river.

We do not want to point fingers or lay blame, it's broke and needs fixing. Looking at that tire picture disgusts me, but heads down, gloves on and plow ahead. Next year we need to get better organized, more divers, boats and a bunch of "heavy lifting" volunteers. I think we could do 500 tires and a couple of tons of small garbage in one day, winter 2018.

 

[TheBigGuy]

Spring fever - I WAS TALKING TO THE 40LB DROPPER YESTERDAY A.M. (he is still embarrassed) and I was in Dr Mike's chair yesterday afternoon!

Big Guy - CR Salmon Foundation banquet on Mar 11th. Usually raises $70,000 all for local enhancement!

The Tyee Club (separate from above, but working together) has a focus on conservation and enhancement. We hauled 60 tons of old wharfs, boats and garbage out of the estuary a few years back. We have had a "net pen" at the mouth of the Campbell River for 10+ years. We are working with the Quinsam Hatchery on a specific head recovery program, all while trying to preserve the fishery and tradition. There is an increased focus on catch/release and working with FN's on sharing the river.

We do not want to point fingers or lay blame, it's broke and needs fixing. Looking at that tire picture disgusts me, but heads down, gloves on and plow ahead. Next year we need to get better organized, more divers, boats and a bunch of "heavy lifting" volunteers. I think we could do 500 tires and a couple of tons of small garbage in one day, winter 2018.

Keep up the good work. It's really impressive how much you've accomplished.

 

[agentaqua]

Really great to get those cannonballs out. Lead is a bad thing for the food chain. Some rivers have quite a bit of lead weights that get lost from anglers that then get to roll around in the bedload and deteriorate into ever increasing smaller lead chucks and get into the sediments and water quality....

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