Video: Army divers clean up underwater junkyard

Larger screen

To sink used tires to the bottom of Puget Sound and create an underwater reef seemed like a good idea 30 years ago. But now scientists know that tires don't belong there.

Piles of tires at the bottom of Puget Sound looks like an underwater junkyard. They're part of a toxic mess that must go.

"We're just now beginning to understand there is a lot more down there. Not just tires but other debris, other litter we've left behind over the years," said Ginny Broadhurst, director, Northwest Straits.

And who better to get it out than the United States Army.

Army dive teams are preparing to solve our environmental problem and get themselves some valuable training at the same time.

Divers splash down in about 50 feet of water off Salt Water State Park. They locate the piles and use inflatable pillows to bring 30-year-old mistakes to the surface.

When they tires were sunk, it was hoped the tire bundles would become manmade reefs capable of providing the perfect habitat for sealife. But it didn't work very well and biologists say this sealife is attached to something it shouldn't be.

"They have toxic materials in them and invertebrate life lives on them, and when that life lives there it gets those toxins in their systems and when big critters eat those critters those toxins work their way up the food chain," said Mike Racine, Washington Scuba Alliance.

The tires must go and, sadly, so must the members of the contaminated communities growing on them.

They are collateral damage in the latest attempt to undo the damage we've done even when we thought we were helping.

State Ecology will use a federal grant to properly dispose of the tires.

Agencies believe there are at least a dozen more such sites throughout Puget Sound.