Two divers who have devoted countless hours to the removal of hundreds of thousands of pounds of debris and ghost gear from the waters around Newfoundland are looking for funding to keep their efforts going.
The Clean Harbours Initiative is made up of Shawn Bath and Trevor Croft.
Bath was a commercial sea urchin diver who in 2018 turned his attention to the shocking amount of garbage he saw littering the harbours.
Since that time, their efforts have been sought out to help clean up the mess caused by Hurricane Fiona, and their work has even been highlighted in the feature documentary Hell or Clean Water.
Trevor Croft told VOCM Open Line with Paddy Daly they’re doing important work, and they need some support.
“This year the government didn’t release any ghost gear whatsoever, so we didn’t get any funding at all this year, which is pretty disheartening” says Croft “last year $4 million came into this province, and we didn’t get in on that funding at all. We applied for it, but we didn’t qualify is what they told us, which, again, is pretty disheartening.”
Croft admits they’re struggling and are trying to raise money through a fundraiser, offering up a $35,000 side-by-side, but even that is proving challenging.
“We’ve got tickets up for $50 dollars each, and we got $5 raffle tickets available, and we’ve only got a couple weeks left to sell them” after paying off the machine on Wednesday. “We’ve only got 10 days of profit” left to raise.
Tickets are on sale at Kent in Mount Pearl today and Princess Auto this Saturday and Sunday.
