Groups working to remove thousands of tires from Puget Sound

WASHINGTON — The Washington Scuba Alliance (WSA) has teamed up with Coastal Sensing and Survey to locate 500,000 tires that were put underwater in Puget Sounds and Hood Canal in the 70s to create fish habitat.

The organization said a recent study revealed the decomposing tires are poisoning sea life including Coho salmon.

“These tires do leach chemicals they are known to not support life, they are known to kill some forms of life that we want in the environment," said Ben Griner, the owner of Coastal Sensing & Survey.

Side-scan sonar, multi-beam sonar, and remote operating vehicles are being used to locate and count the tires underwater. “We really have to know where the tires are at, how they are bundled, whether they are on top of the sediment, in the sediment, and what would it look like from a difficulty standpoint to remove them," said Griner.

James Trask, the president of the Washington Scuba Alliance said they have gone out and found tire reefs that contain more than 9,000 tires at a time. On Wednesday, one tire reef they located contained 100 tires. While each reef varies in how many tires they find. Trask said they are still out there and on the lookout for them.

WSA said they are still working on their research, but as soon as it’s all done they will seek funding to start pulling the tires out of the water.

This project is being conducted using a grant from the Department of Ecology.