More than three miles of tangled fishing line and at least 600 pounds of lead weights, ulua hooks and stainless steel leaders were scooped up recently by volunteers wanting to protect and beautify Maui’s ocean environment.
The amount of the fishing debris found in the ocean off of the scenic lookout and the pali tunnel heading to Lahaina showed the magnitude of the burden placed on nearshore ecosystems and gave a hint of the harm facing Maui’s fragile ocean environment.
“All underwater trash is disturbing to see and affects the beauty, but more importantly, much of it kills coral and other marine life,” said Rene Umberger, who coordinated the two-day ocean cleanup in April.
Umberger said the lost shoreline fishing gear gets attached to the reefs’ rocks, ledges and coral, which can cause them to break. The monofilament fishing lines can also entangle and kill coral polyps.
Umberger, who is the owner of Octopus Reef, which does guided underwater tours and Scuba certification, corralled fellow dive boat companies and divers to scour the ocean.
The cleanups are part of an effort by the Maui Reef Fund, a group of marine tour operators, educators and conservationists that want to protect and preserve the environment as well as to create sustainable marine tour businesses. So far, several campaigns have attacked debris in waters off of the Lahaina pali. Since 2005, cleanups along the pali have netted more than 1,500 pounds of fishing gear.
April’s cleanup celebrated a belated Earth Day and Hawaii’s International Year of the Reef.
Carey Morishige, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Marine Debris Program outreach coordinator, applauded the group’s efforts.
“Removal of marine debris from the marine environment is definitely beneficial. . . . The debris can cause damage to marine habitat such as coral reefs, entangle or ensnare marine animals from small crabs to turtles and Hawaiian monk seals, be a navigation hazard for boats and pose a safety risk for people,” Morishige said.
Groups around the state are also conducting similar cleanups, as overwhelming amounts of debris are a problem statewide, including in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, where NOAA-trained divers conduct the cleanups, Morishige said.
In the April cleanup, 10 overstuffed 18-gallon storage bins of marine debris were taken to Maui Sporting Goods, a fishing and diving shop, for recycling.
Store owner Brian Yoshi- kawa said things like the lead weights were recycled and reused.
But the line could not be recycled because it was too tangled with the wire leaders.
However, his shop has acceptedand continues to accept fishing line for recycling.
A company on the Mainland sends Maui Sporting Goods boxes to fill up with discarded fishing line with shipping paid for by the company, Yoshikawa said.
The monofilament fishing line is melted down into raw plastic pellets that can be made into plastic products such as tackle boxes and toys.
“It doesn’t cost us anything, just space,” Yoshikawa said.
Yoshikawa, an avid fisherman and diver, also supports the cleanup efforts and adds that losing hooks and lines is inevitable.
“I don’t care how good a fisherman you are, you going loose sinkers; you going to lose line.”
Umberger agrees that battling ocean debris, especially from fishing, is a challenge. It is estimated that it takes from 450 to 600 years for fishing line to degrade in the ocean, she said.
It would help if fishing lines could be made from something that was biodegradable or not harmful to the environment, “but I think that’s a long way off,” she said.
In the meantime, groups like Maui Reef Fund will continue their efforts to rid the ocean of trash. In the cleanups, volunteers are armed with wire cutters and burlap shopping bags to collect items such as glass bottles, discarded cellular phones and fishing gear, said event spokesperson Leslie Mullens in a release.
The volunteers were also pleased with their recent efforts.
“When we lead dives, I can’t spend a lot of time picking up the trash that’s down there,” said Maui Dive Shop employee Jason Mann, in a release. “It’s something you always want to do but don’t have the facilities for on your own.”
“We’re so happy to give back to the resource and help in any way we can,” said Maui Dive Shop General Manager Jeff Strahn, in the release. “It was even more successful than we’d hope, so we’re looking forward to tackling more sites in the future.”
Other groups that participated in the event were Maui Diamond II and Maui Dreams Dive Co.
Another cleanup is planned for September.
For more information on the Maui Reef Fund’s efforts, see the Web site www.wildhawaii.org and click on projects. For information on marine debris, go to the Web site http:// marinedebris.noaa.gov/.
• Melissa Tanji can be reached at mtanji@mauinews.com.
