Link: APP - The heap from the deep
Not for the estimated 50 to 60 underwater divers who searched the Shark River for garbage Saturday morning.
One source of the garbage is direct dumping into the water, said Joe Skimmons, owner of Divers Two, an Avon dive shop that organized the cleanup.
“Why do people throw garbage anywhere?” Skimmons said. “It’s a quick fix. (In) the water, nobody can see it.”
Another source is nonpoint-source litter draining or blowing into the river, Skimmons said.
So, volunteers — another estimated 40 to 50 on shore — turned out Saturday morning at the K Street beach for the 20th annual Divers Two Shark River Underwater Cleanup.
Al Avizius, 48, of Neptune figured he has dived in this cleanup about 10 times.
“Some people are slobs and I just like seeing the water clean,” Avizius said.
“I see a fisherman throw a beer can in the water; they think it goes away,” Avizius said. “It doesn’t. There’s not supposed to be a beer bottle on the bottom.”
Over the 20 years, Skimmons said, the cleanup has hauled out more than 30,000 pounds of garbage — fishing tackle, car batteries, household items, plastics.
“You name it,” Skimmons said. “Anything you can picture on land, picture underwater. We once picked up a bowling ball. Cremation urn.”
The event has its roots in cleanups organized by the Professional Association of Diving Instructors, an international organization.
“We saw that and thought it was the greatest thing,” Skimmons said.
“It’s not just a cleanup, it’s awareness,” said Steve DiGuiseppe, a Divers Two worker and event organizer.
Diving as a team were Freehold Township brother and sister Michael DiVita, 26, and Montana, 21, and Ariel Petchel, 15, a Lacey sophomore at the Ocean County Vocational-Technical School District’s Marine Academy of Technology and Environmental Science (MATES) in Stafford. They found bottles, plastics and a pair of sunglasses.
Onshore, MATES senior Athena Jones, 17, of Brick recorded the trash collected.
Mostly glass bottles from the water, with fishing line and cigarette butts along the shore, Jones said.
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The borough would haul away the garbage for proper disposal.
Because of a “fine line between (marine) habitat and garbage,” the divers were trying not to disturb garbage in which crabs and other sea creatures have made home, Skimmons said.
One item divers knew about, but try to avoid for safety, is what Ryan O’Hara, 20, of Lacey called the “monofilament mountain,” which is believed to be at least car-size and sits in about 10 feet of water just off the pier. Basically, discarded fishing line snags other discarded fishing line and so on, forming the bundle.
“It’s kind of a dust-bunny kind of thing,” said Jim Frostick, a member of Neptune’s Shark River Hills First Aid Squad Answer Dive Team, which was picking up garbage and on hand for any first aid needs.
“Whenever it gets bigger, it gets easier to catch things,” said O’Hara’s brother, Dylan, 15, a MATES sophomore. “It’s really dangerous, so many hooks and stuff (in it).’’
“Disgusting,” said Ryan O’Hara, MATES Class of 2009. “The bigger it gets, the easier it is to get bigger.”
And too big for divers to haul out of the river.
“We’ve always done this area,” Skimmons said. “We have bathrooms, parking, it’s (a borough-designated) underwater marine park. It’s the perfect location.”
The diving portion lasted about 45 minutes to an hour, or “one bottle, one can of air” that the divers carried, Frostick said. Volunteers rounded up about 100 pounds of garbage, Skimmons said.
Divers believe the small amount was attributable to a combination of arm-length underwater visibility that blocked views of garbage and the area simply being clean thanks to past cleanups.
“So, we’re making progress,” Skimmons said.
“A lot of people coming to clean up the Shark River,” Jones said, “It’s really touching.”
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