Divers head out onto Lake Superior for the second annual Marquette Lower Harbor Underwater Cleanup at Mattson Lower Harbor Park in Marquette Saturday. (Photo courtesy of Don Fassbender)

MARQUETTE — You can’t see all the trash in Lake Superior from the surface by Mattson Lower Harbor Park, but it’s there — and clean-up volunteers have the garbage to prove it.

The second annual Marquette Lower Harbor Underwater Cleanup took place on Saturday, and as with the previous year, generated a lot of unwanted materials from the lake.

Avid local scuba aficionado “Diver Don” Fassbender again spearheaded the effort.

Batteries, bicycle frames and other items were pulled from the lake, he said, including huge tractor tires that were along the bulkhead to act as bumpers for large boats.

It wasn’t that easy.

“I’m definitely going to have to come back next year because some of these tractor tires I was unable to sling,” Fassbender said. “They’re like buried in muck and stuff, so you’ve got to kind of dig around to get to them and then sling them so they can bring them up with that tractor.

“It’s kind of involved. It’s not something you can just go hook up and then take out of the water. You have to do some preparatory dives first.”

Fassbender said volunteers for the event, who came to help with diving and operating vending booths, were from around the region, including the Superior Watershed Partnership and MooseWood Nature Center.

However, the volunteering contingent was mostly composed of individuals from throughout the Midwest, Fassbender said, “coming out to do the good work.”

One of those individuals was Michigan Tech student Alex Hromada, who decided to take part even though he hadn’t been scuba diving since he was certified in October.

“Thought it was a good cause,” Hromada said.

A return volunteer from 2019 was David Lowrey of downstate Portage.

On Saturday, he pulled up tires as well as scrap steel and other items.

Progress seems to be made with extracting garbage of all kinds from the Lower Harbor.

“It’s coming up, every year,” Lowrey said.