winter-like chill<\/a>, dozens of divers and volunteers spent hours in and around the Hillsborough River Tuesday morning, removing trash and large debris during an annual cleanup aimed at protecting one of Tampa\u2019s most important waterways.<\/p>\nScuba divers with the Tampa Police Department Dive Team partnered with the City of Tampa\u2019s Green Team and Keep Tampa Bay Beautiful, braving air temperatures in the 40s and murky river conditions to search for trash beneath the surface.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a little chilly, but we\u2019re used to it,\u201d said Detective Josh Kennedy with the Tampa Police Dive Team. \u201cWe dive in this all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kennedy said visibility in the river was extremely limited, forcing divers to rely on touch rather than sight.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe visibility was really difficult to deal with because of the soot that was down there,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cSo, we could only see about a foot or so.\u201d<\/p>\n
Divers remained in the water for nearly two hours, pulling out smaller debris such as beer cans, beads, and plastic \u2014 along with much larger items. Those finds included electric scooters, a bicycle, construction cones, tables and chairs, and other heavy debris.<\/p>\n
Ben Ha with the City of Tampa Green Team said many of the larger items appear to be intentionally discarded.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say, probably happens, unfortunately, when they are under the influence,\u201d Ha said.<\/p>\n
Back on shore, volunteers carefully sorted through the recovered items, checking for wildlife that may have attached itself while submerged. Any living creatures found were returned to the river.<\/p>\n
\u201cJunk out, and any living species back to its natural habitat,\u201d said Green Team member Jamie Quillen.<\/p>\n
The large dive-team presence initially alarmed some visitors in the area, but those concerns faded once people learned what was taking place.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that\u2019s pretty awesome that they do that,\u201d said visitor Kim Redick. \u201cAnd I think that\u2019s why the city is so beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Organizers said this year\u2019s cleanup resulted in less trash pulled from the river compared to previous years \u2014 something they see as an encouraging sign.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m glad to see that as years have gone by, it\u2019s gotten way better,\u201d Ha said. \u201cAs far as first getting 100 scooters \u2014 it\u2019s progressively gotten way better as we\u2019ve done this every single year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Organizers say the sharp drop in scooters found in the river may be tied to stricter enforcement and fines by rental companies for improperly returned devices \u2014 a change they believe is helping keep Tampa\u2019s waterways cleaner.<\/p>\n
All recovered items will be documented before being properly disposed of.<\/p>\n
Organizers say the annual deep-water cleanup typically occurs a couple of weeks after Gasparilla.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the meantime, the City of Tampa Green Team and Keep Tampa Bay Beautiful hold monthly surface cleanups and are always looking for volunteers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Braving frigid conditions, volunteers and divers cleared debris from the Hillsborough River. TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 Despite a winter-like…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167813,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-167812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}