Diving for trash, not treasure

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Alaskan scuba divers spent Friday preparing to take the plunge into the icy harbor of Whittier on Saturday for their annual Whittier Harbor Cleanup.

Dive Alaska is hosting the event, as they have been for the past three years. Drawing as many as 120 volunteers, the organizers say they’ve been able to pull up as much as 5,000 pounds of trash from the harbor in years past and expect to gather around the same amount on Saturday.

“We had the idea to do it all over the state and we started honing into Whittier the last couple of years,” said J.D. Stimson, one of the organizers with Dive Alaska. “It is a massive community event. So, Dive Alaska is just a small, small, small piece of the pie. This is really a just massive community event in the middle of winter when everybody’s itching for something to do.”

The effort takes hours, and plenty of preparation, from rigging scuba tanks to loading food for the crowds who will gather to help in the cold.

Whittier became the perennial choice because of its importance to the Southcentral region.

“So, it’s not just Whittier. It’s Anchorage. It’s the Valley. It’s people coming from Seward to go there if they don’t want to go out in Resurrection [Bay],” Stimson said. “It’s the gateway to all of Prince William Sound, and so it sees a ton of traffic, and we’ve noticed that it really needed a little bit more love.”

Stimson, a born and raised Alaskan from Cordova, said he’s been scuba diving since he was 11, and nothing is quite as rewarding as seeing the impact of the Whittier Harbor clean up.

“Everyone walks away stoked about it happening every single year, and I’m excited to just keep that momentum going,” Stimson said. “We start planning the next year’s harbor cleanup the moment the current year’s cleanup is over with, and it takes a full year to get this planned out to make sure that every every piece and part of this is moving the way it should. It’s a lot of work, but the payoff is so endearing and rewarding.

“And to see every community member show up and just, you know, even when we had miserably cold years, head down, working hard. Everyone’s a team. Everyone’s working together.”

While unfortunately the harbor seems to regain a lot of the garbage they clear out each year, J.D. said the growing focus on ocean and waterway cleanup around Alaska in the last decade has been encouraging.

“There has been so much traction in Alaska through all these different communities, all these different organizations, all over the state to get out and clean up our waterways, and it’s awesome,” Stimson said. “There’s all kinds of recycling happening. There’s all kinds of like fishing net recycling happening. There’s plastic recycling. There’s industrial supply recycling.”

“The amount of traction that’s being gained in recent years is through the roof and it’s epic to see.”

Anyone is free to participate in the clean-up efforts, diver or not, as the group needs onshore support as well. Volunteers should arrive for the 9:30 Whittier Tunnel opening and should mention they are there for the harbor cleanup and the tunnel attendant will waive the usual fee.

“None of us, none of us are doing this for the glamour, the glory. That’s not the dive industry,” Stimson said. “We’re doing this because we love every single second of this. We love our community.”

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