PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – During an extensive river cleanup operation in downtown Pittsburgh, dozens of decades-old cars and a lot of debris were recovered from the water.
The organization, which provided a ship and an excavator, told KDKA-TV that more work lies ahead and that crews will return in the first week of September.
About 120,000 pounds of cars, boats and debris have been recovered from the Allegheny and Monongalia rivers in downtown Pittsburgh. And the cleanup for Pittsburgh is not yet complete.
“There’s more to come. And if there’s more after that, we’ll pick as much as we can,” said Callie Schaser, communications specialist for Living Lands and Waters.
She didn’t believe the crews would be able to fill their ship as quickly as they had done in three and a half days of work last week. Or that they would be able to recover 60 sunken vessels.
Schaser said this is the largest number of cars recovered from one area. Many of them are believed to have come from an old parking lot on the Allegheny River and may have been washed away by flooding or dumped there. The vehicles recovered from the Allegheny had been in the water for more than half a century.
“The cars we towed were definitely from the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s. They’ve been around for a long time. Oh, and we had a tow truck. That was pretty cool. A station wagon, and you could tell from the headlights that the Beetle was super old,” Schaser said.
Ten to twelve of the cars recovered from the Monongahela River were newer and intact.
For this large-scale cleanup, Living Lands and Waters partnered with Three Rivers Waterkeeper and was assisted by Pittsburgh River Rescue and a team of divers from Cincinnati.
All the bent and rusted metal ends up in the scrap yard and Living Lands and Waters gets paid for the scrap, which in turn goes to the nonprofit organization.
The organization returns the first week after Labor Day weekend to resume its work on the Ohio River.
“More boats, docks and other things that have been an eyesore in the central Pittsburgh area along the Ohio River will be removed,” Schaser said.
The organization plans to eventually travel down the Ohio and conduct a coastal cleanup.
“Go down the Ohio and get the big boats we’ve seen, 50-gallon drums, tractor tires and things we can’t get by hand, and continue to clean up the shorelines that way,” she said.
The company hopes to make another trip to Pittsburgh as early as fall. Schaser said all the work is worth it because all the corroded garbage poses a danger to humans and animals.
“The stuff we removed seeped into the soil and mud. When we pulled it up, you could smell the fuel. It wasn’t a pleasant smell. But the fish and wildlife are getting healthier and the water quality is getting better,” she said.
Jessica Guay
Pittsburgh
