Underwater surveys use high resolution, low-light video recording camera monitored on deck. Navigational chart/mapping software and GPS equipment provide pinpoint locations marking.

The 14th Annual Sinclair Inlet clean up, a local effort commemorating the 34th Earth Day, netted another success the weekend of April 17 and 18.

“We had a fair turnout considering the construction issues and collected more trash than I expected,” asserted Mike Shepherd, Bremerton City Councilman, summing up the returns of the day. “Each of us in our own way does what we can for the environment. For these dedicated folks around Sinclair Inlet, it is spending a few hours along the shoreline to reconnect with why we live here — and cleaning up a little in the process — that puts into action what we feel.”

While divers collected massive amounts of discarded trash below the sea level, troops of young people were being lead along the shore by Bremerton City Councilman Darren Nygren.

Aboard one of the vessels operated by Dale Thoemke’s “Ghost Nets and Derelict Gear of Washington State” underwater video surveying service, Shepherd wielded the pole attached to an underwater video camera like a seasoned KEY GRIP as he assisted Thoemke. Images of fish and underwater splendors were interrupted by piles of refuse, stockpiles of glass bottles, cans, and other unidentifiable unwanted objects.

“Steady here, we’ll catch this on tape and mark off the GPS coordinates so we can return and pick it up,” Thoemke instructed. Shepherd wielded the camera over the area for a closer look as Thoemke shouted orders, “Okay, a little to the right, lower – got it!”

“That’s quite a lot of bottles,” Shepherd remarked, “It may just have been a stockpile dumped off a boat visiting the inlet.”

Thoemke had been collecting derelict nets from the Minter creek area, Dyes and Sinclair Inlet, weeks before. After reading about this opportunity in this KPBJ column last month, Thoemke volunteered to help Bremerton out.

His craft is well known in the Hood Canal, where he has been working with the Hood Canal Salmon Enhancement Group (HCSEG) in a 5-year project to locate and remove derelict or lost fishing nets that threaten the survival of marine life.

The HCSEG received grants through the Salmon Recovery Funding Board in 2000 to survey and document locations of lost fishing nets in Hood Canal and a second in 2003 to aid in recovery. Thoemke contracted to carry out this project using underwater video equipment capable of surveying 60-90 foot cross-sections of the marine bottom in one pass. The low light, high-resolution underwater cameras offer clear visibility up to 200-feet deep with future plans to reach 800-foot depths. Surveys began at Union covering both shores and will continue until completed to the bridge.

Underwater divers, occasionally victims themselves, dubbed these abandoned traps “ghost nets” because they often lay hidden in the murky depth then continue to trap fish, crabs, birds, seals, crabs and other life that become ensnared.

“Lost gill nets are extremely lethal because of how easy organisms become tangled in them and become bait for predators which also then get caught in the net. In addition, the lead lines associated with nets can be pushed by the tide and scrape away eelgrass beds and other marine habitat causing exponential damage to our salmon ecosystem,” explained HCSEG Habitat Biologist Lee Boad.

Thoemke has used underwater video since the 1990s, first to understand how a fish approached a lure in order to teach people how to catch fish and now to give something back to the fish. He recently designed an underwater robot that will free most types of nets without risk to divers.

Even experienced divers have fallen victim while attempting to retrieve nets or tangled fishing line, run out of air struggling to free themselves only to perish in the pursuit. If you sight a ghost net, stay clear of it and call (253) 857-7402. State officials also urge volunteers to stay clear of ghost nets and offer instead a hot-line for reporting (800) 477-6224 or go to the website at www.wa.gov/wdfw/fish/derelict.

For more information on the ghost net projects or to volunteer, call Dale Thoemke at (253) 857-7402 or contact Boad at the Hood Canal Project office at (360) 275-3575.