On October 17, a crew in Houston started pulling discarded tires out of Addicks Reservoir. By the time they were done, they had removed 515 of them.
According to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Galveston District, those tires piled up over time from illegal dumping.
Who Did the Work
Two Corps natural resource specialists, Jerry Meece and Daniel Lopez, gave the crew safe access to the reservoir. Meece led the effort and coordinated with the local partners. The hands came from Harris County Precinct 4 Parks staff and Keep Houston Beautiful volunteers.
It reads like a simple cleanup. The reasons behind it are not simple.
Why a Tire Is a Problem in a Reservoir
The Corps operates the Addicks and Barker dams and reservoirs for flood risk management, and loose tires can work against that.
"Big tires are caught by screens on the upstream sides of the dams, but if they dry rot in the reservoir, small pieces of tire can float into the hardware that operates the dam gates," Meece said. "Picking them up out here keeps them away from the dams."
Removing the tires also keeps them from catching fire and releasing toxic smoke, he said.
So a dumped tire is not just an eyesore. Left alone, it can break down into pieces that reach dam machinery, or it can burn.
The Part Nobody Sees
The Corps story includes one line that deserves more attention than it will get: disposing of tires is not free.
The Houston Energy Corridor District put up a $5,000 grant to pay for tire disposal. Spread across 515 tires, that is a little under $10 a tire, and that only covers getting rid of them once they are out. The people who dumped them paid nothing.
That is the math of dumping everywhere. The cost does not go away. It moves to whoever cleans up.
The Same Math Applies Under Utah's Water
Debris that goes into a lake or reservoir does not leave by itself. Our Utah Waterways Submerged Debris Atlas documents an estimated 499 submerged items across 20 Utah lakes, including 56 vehicles and 103 vessels that are individually confirmed.
The vehicles are the biggest version of the problem. A submerged vehicle carries a fuel tank, engine oil, ethylene glycol and a lead acid battery into the water. Under the Clean Water Act, a discharge that leaves a visible sheen on the water is reportable. And at its research site near Bemidji, Minnesota, the U.S. Geological Survey has tracked petroleum contamination persisting in groundwater for decades.
What We Do Now, and What We Are Building
Fathom Restoration is a disabled-veteran-led Utah 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Today our volunteer divers carry trash out of Utah's lakes and reservoirs by hand. Since September we have logged volunteer dive cleanups at Deer Creek, Sand Hollow and Strawberry, about 93 pounds of trash by our estimate across 63 volunteer hours.
The vehicles will take far more than hands. We are working to start recovering submerged vehicles, and we are doing it in order: insurance, permits and commercial dive certification first.
Somebody Pays
In Houston, a local district paid to haul away 515 tires that other people dumped. Debris in the water always ends up as somebody's bill and somebody's work. In Utah, we intend to keep doing the work.
Fathom Restoration is a disabled-veteran-led Utah 501(c)(3) nonprofit running volunteer dive cleanups on Utah's lakes and waterways and building toward the recovery of submerged vehicles and vessels. Donate or volunteer at fathomrestoration.org.
