The Lake Looked Clean. The Bottom Held 2,433 Pounds.
Upper Twin Lake, outside Bridgeport, California, is the kind of water people photograph. Clear surface, trout rising, the Sawtooth Ridge behind it. Twenty five feet down, divers found something closer to a landfill.
In August, a crew from Clean Up the Lake, the Tahoe nonprofit, spent five days working the roughly four mile perimeter of the lake. Over 18 scuba dives, 23 volunteers brought up 4,999 individual pieces of debris weighing 2,433 pounds.
What Came Up
The list reads like a history of every summer the lake has seen. 1,376 cans. 24 tires. 31 boat anchors. Six foot lengths of metal pipe.
On a single dive, the crew also found two small .22 caliber handguns, an old derringer and a revolver. Founder Colin West said both looked like they had been down there a while. They went to the Mono County Sheriff’s Office, and West noted it was not the first time his divers had pulled weapons out of a Sierra lake.
None of it was visible from shore. That is the point worth sitting with. Twin Lakes draws cabin renters, anglers and hikers every year, and decades of that traffic settle on the lakebed even when the surface looks untouched.
Who Paid for It
The project was funded by the Mono County Fish and Game Fine Fund, which turns state wildlife penalties into local restoration money. Fines collected for breaking the rules on the water went back into cleaning the water.
That is a model worth noticing. Underwater cleanup is slow, cold, careful work, and it does not happen without someone covering the boats, the air fills and the hauling. Here, the money came from inside the system that is supposed to protect the lake.
The Same Story on Utah Water
Fathom Restoration is a disabled-veteran-led Utah 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and our volunteer divers do this work on Utah lakes and reservoirs. We go under the surface and bring up what has settled where nobody on the bank can see it.
On a recent crew dive at Deer Creek Reservoir, four of us worked one small area and came up with roughly 40 pounds of trash, estimated rather than weighed. A boat ladder, a speaker, fishing poles and a pile of cans. Smaller scale than Twin Lakes. Same pattern.
Tires and Anchors Are the Small End
Tires and anchors are heavy, but a diver can still rig them and bring them up. Some of what sits on the bottom of Utah water is much bigger. Our Utah Waterways Submerged Debris Atlas documents an estimated 499 submerged items across 20 Utah lakes, including 103 vessels and 56 vehicles that are individually confirmed.
A sunken vehicle carries a fuel tank, engine oil, ethylene glycol and a lead acid battery. Under the Clean Water Act, a discharge that leaves a visible sheen on the water is reportable. The U.S. Geological Survey has tracked petroleum contamination persisting in groundwater for decades at its research site near Bemidji, Minnesota.
We are building toward the recovery of submerged vehicles and vessels, and we are doing it in order: recovery insurance, sovereign lands permits and commercial dive certification first. Until then, our work is the work the Twin Lakes crew did. Get in the water, bring the debris up, and count what you found.
Come Back for the Rest
A pilot dive at neighboring Lower Twin Lake pulled 70 pounds in a single pass, and Clean Up the Lake plans to return. That is how this works. One lake reveals what the next one is probably holding.
A clean surface is not the same as a clean lake. The only way to know is to go look.
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.
Photo: activenorcal.com
Source: https://www.activenorcal.com/divers-pulled-2400-pounds-of-junk-and-two-handguns-out-of-a-high-sierra-lake/
