30 electronic scooters pulled from the Scioto River during cleanup effort

COLUMBUS, Ohio ( WCMH ) – In June, Columbus residents with mobility issues expressed frustration with those who leave electronic scooters parked in the middle of neighborhood sidewalks.

Columbus police and the city’s Division of Refuse Collection are now finding scooters to be a hazard elsewhere: in the Scioto River.

Officers, metro park employees and volunteers with Keep Columbus Beautiful pulled 30 scooters out of the Scioto River under the Rich Street Bridge on Wednesday during a dive cleanup effort.

“We had some people walking on the bike path and they were asking why there were so many scooters down there. And the closer they got, they realized that we were pulling them out of the water. And they were shocked,” said Sgt. Bryan Mason.

Crews recovered the mud-infused scooters, which included those by Uber, Bird and Lime, along with metal scraps, chairs, an object that appeared to look like a fire hydrant, and other items along the Lower Scioto Greenway trails near Genoa and Bicentennial Parks. It is not currently known why the scooters were in the river.

Mason is with the division’s Underwater Search and Recovery Unit. He said they train in the water once a month. He said this is a win-win for the team: helping the environment and getting their training in.

“It just keeps our edge sharp. So when we deploy to an actual event, we know we’re doing a good search and we know what we’re doing,” Mason said. “So we get called all kinds of different events. It’s 70 to 80 missions a year.”

He said there is no visibility in the water so everything they do is by touch. He said there is no solid answer for how the scooters got down there, but said some seem like they have been in the water for a long time.

“One of the interesting things he told us was some of the companies have those restrictions and others don’t. And it was evident that that policy of restricting those in those areas helped because some scooters we recovered more of one brand than we did of another,” Mason said. “So it kind of turned into a little bit of a science experiment there towards the end.”

Representatives from the City of Columbus’ Department of Public Service said they do not condone vandalism or unsafe usage of e-scooters, and littering in the waterways is unacceptable.

Mason said it was cool for their team to do something a little out of the ordinary and help the community.

He said they will be partnering with Keep Columbus Beautiful to do another clean up in September. This time they will clean under the Broad Street bridge.

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