Lake is not great

[Spiel]

Lake is not great

 

Sept. 28, 2008

AMY CHUNG / Toronto Sun

 

 

Police divers put on wet suits and dove deep into Lake Ontario yesterday to recover submerged litter in a bid to help ensure it truly deserves to be called a Great Lake.

 

"I found a toilet, kitchen sink, fire extinguisher, scooter, pop cans ... garbage and lots of it," said Const. Steven Balice, who was at the foot of Bathurst St., near the National Yacht Club yesterday.

 

The police dive was part of the kick-off for TD Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup, which starts tomorrow and runs to Sept. 28. Some 60,000 volunteers are expected to help tidy up stretches of shoreline, including Ashbridges Bay and Woodbine Beach.

 

Among the rubbish pulled from the water was an electric scooter covered in zebra mussels -- an indication that it must have been in the lake for years, said organizers.

 

Every year, 1 million of the world's birds and 100,000 marine mammals and turtles die because they become entangled in or eat litter.

 

"Divers find what most cleanups don't," said John Nightingale, president of the Vancouver Aquarium. The Toronto Police marine unit dispatched eight divers to pull trash from the lake yesterday.

 

"One week every month we train our divers. This week we're killing two birds with one stone," said Const. Gary Gibson.

 

The shoreline cleanup first started in Vancouver, where participants discovered cigarette butts and plastic articles were the most common types of underwater litter, Nightingale said. "Plastic breaks down pretty quickly into small pieces which last forever. We have ducks and fish ingesting that plastic and that can get into their digestive system and the chemicals can also interfere with reproduction."