West Seattle diver/photographer Laura James has shared undersea stories here before – including previous reports on the ongoing project to get old batteries up and out of the water. Now the total number of batteries they’ve retrieved and recycled is into double digits, and Laura shares an update, in the five-minute video clip you can watch here. (For background info, there’s an FAQ of sorts on her website.)
ADDED 9:45 PM: Commenter Nick asked how the batteries got down in the first place. We asked Laura – and she shared some additional info; read on:
There used to be an old marina at Seacrest. Boaters would just dump batteries over the side of the boat when they were no longer good. Everyone tells me ‘this is a long-since-abandoned practice’ which indeed seems to be mostly the case (as the majority of the batteries are old style) but at least one of the batteries we found was far newer, probably dumped within past 3-5 years, so I would hazard a guess that it still goes on from time to time. We mostly recovered from the area directly out from the beach, and have not yet covered the area under the fishing pier and passenger ferry docks which seems to have an abundance there as well. The smallest battery we recovered was around 40 lbs, the largest a huge marine battery weighting in at 160 lbs, with many being in the 60lb range.
This video may seem a bit ‘light hearted’ for the subject matter at hand, but what I am trying to show is a story about the cleanup itself, about people who are doing something good, removing the discarded batteries and enjoying themselves in the process. Not another sad hopeless story about how we have trashed or are trashing the ocean. Proactive reclamation … There is always a lot of talk about not adding to the problem (the influx of storm water, garbage and other pollutants into the Sound), I’m trying to encourage and perhaps inspire people to take action and reclaim their waterways. Not just a once-a-year thing, but a continuing consistent process, because that is how we will make a dent in this mess and perhaps even start making things better.
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