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Local volunteers do great job cleaning up Lower Harbor

A group of intrepid volunteer divers supported by volunteers and others on shore spent a good part of Saturday at Marquette’s Lower Harbor, bringing a wide variety of objects to the surface for disposal, including but not limited to tires large and small, car batteries and metal shelving.

Motivated by a love for Lake Superior and reverence for all things natural, participants labored from mid-morning to late afternoon. Well-known area diver Don Fassbender led the event, who predicted the cleanup would become an annual occurrence.

“It’s just insane how much stuff we got out of there,” Fassbender said for a Journal story on the matter.

Sarah Goodman, a crew leader with the Superior Watershed Partnership’s Great Lakes Conservation Corps, said the GLCC helped with ground support at the cleanup.

“The divers are doing the really hard work, bringing the tires and small pieces of trash up from the bottom,” Goodman said for the Mining Journal story, “and we’re trying to get it in the dumpsters and get it taken care of.”

The cadre of divers found piles of debris at different places in the Lower Harbor including concrete, trash and even a kitchen appliance. Fassbender speculated — correctly, we’d say — that much of this illegal dumping has occurred under the cover of darkness.

We salute these volunteers and any others who assisted in the cleanup. This is exactly the kind of community effort that makes Marquette and the surrounding area the wonderful place it is.

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