Over 100,000 old tires need to be removed from Puget Sound

Back when I was in junior high and even into high school, I used to go scuba diving with my brother Michael. We did a couple of dives off of Golden Gardens, also near the Edmonds ferry at an old sunken dry dock, and off Alki point in Seattle.  

One of the things I noticed while diving off Alki Point with my brother was the occasional submerged washing machine and old wrecked car. (about 15 to 20 feet down) My brother told me that they were placed there by his diving club to offer underwater habitat like artificial reefs in Puget Sound. This is nothing new. 

Back in the 1970s through the 1980's, the Washington State Department of Natural Resources got on board with the concept of artificial reefs in Puget Sound and came up with the idea of using tires. Stringing thousands of tires together in long rows and dropping them into Puget Sound. 

We've now discovered that this did not work well. 

Over the years, the ropes would deteriorate, the tires would come loose and destroy natural habitat.  

According to king5.com,
‘In one reference, DNR said these bundled tires went from "reefs" to just piles of tires more quickly than anyone could have anticipated.
Concerns have been growing around the environmental impact they may have on the local environment and species that exist around them.’ 

Obviously, it seemed like a good idea at the time. If you're a diver and you've seen how underwater wildlife can latch onto and live around sunken washing machines and cars you know that artificial reefs are a good thing. What we didn't anticipate was the negative results of using tires. Now we have tens of thousands of old vehicle tires that need to be removed from Puget Sound to again, help the habitat and rehabilitate fisheries, especially for bottom fish. 

The first thing that has to be done is to actually map out where these piles of tires are. Then the next step is to try to remove them. This is not going to be cheap, by the way. Initial estimates say that there's about 100,000 tires in Puget Sound, but other people say there could be easily 30 percent more than that number. Don't even ask how much this is going to cost. They haven't even figured out how big the problem really is. 

Every place where old tires have been removed from Puget Sound sea life returns and thrives. 

I hope that eventually we can afford to clean this mess Up

Sixty years later: More than 100,000 tires from failed reef plan are coming out of Puget Sound | king5.com 
Puget Sound Tire Pile Removal Project 
Scientists link common tire chemical to mass Coho salmon deaths | king5.com 
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