A scuba tank hisses as divers from nonprofit Clean Up the Lake check their gear in preparation for their second dive of the day.
Floating aboard a pontoon boat off the shore of Ski Run Marina in South Lake Tahoe, we can see skiers flying down the slopes. Today most people would opt to ski over taking a plunge in the frigid 38-degree water.
But for Colin West, Clean Up the Lake’s founder and CEO, it’s a perfect day to retrieve sunken litter near the marina. It is safer to dive in the dead of winter when there are less people on the water, he said.
“When you have boats and jet skis and tourists and people in and out, we couldn't stay there too long. So that's why it was 19 degrees when we woke up this morning, [and] we've got divers in the water,” West said.
Clad in wetsuits, scuba divers Ludo Fekete and Klemen Robnik step off the boat into the icy water. Before disappearing beneath the surface, they tap their heads to show everything’s good.
Floating above them is a kayaker and a free diver who act as surface support.
As the scuba divers comb the lake bed 13 feet below, they fill up mesh bags with the litter they find. When these get full, volunteer free diver Max Garufi dives to retrieve it.
Once back on the surface, he hands it off to volunteer kayaker, Danny Voellinger, who ferries it back to the pontoon boat. The latest catch is a one foot by one foot solar panel, a rusty grill cover and glass bottles.
On one of his dives, Garufi resurfaces with a large metal beam — although cumbersome, he is able to swim it over to the boat. Voellinger said this is not always the case with large items.
“Some of the items that are under there are too big for them to get. Every once in a while there will be illegal buoys. Since they're so expensive in the summer people will make their own – pour concrete, drop them down there and then abandon them,” Voellinger said.
When they find a heavy item, they mark its location to retrieve it later with special equipment.
In 2022, they cleaned the 72-mile circumference of the lake’s shoreline to a depth of 25 feet, but Tahoe is not the only lake they clean, West said.
They work with projects throughout the country. And dive in lakes all over the Sierra, including Marlette, Donner, and Fallen Leaf lakes.
“We’ve pulled out over 81,000 pounds of litter from the lakes in the last four years. And as far as Lake Tahoe goes, we've removed over 47,000 pounds of litter. Most of that – over 40,000 of that has come from under the surface,” West said.
After about 40 minutes under the surface, it’s time for the divers to come up. Once on shore the volunteers begin to weigh today’s haul, which includes an apple watch, construction materials, and a lot of glass bottles. The total weight – 129 pounds.
This litter will be sorted and catalogued to keep track of the type of litter and where it was found.
Recreational debris, fishing gear, and construction materials make up most of what they find, but most litter ends up in the lake by accident, West said . In order to protect local waterways people should make sure they pack out what they bring in; secure any loose items while boating; and replace single-use plastics for reusable items, he said.
“If you grab your litter and then you set it on top of a garbage can as you walk out, that's full and overflowing, you're part of that problem, right? You gotta make sure things are properly disposed of, because litter accidentally makes it into our environment more than probably intentionally,” West said.
