Meet the Diver Cleaning Up Trash From Around Big Island

Bonnie Menigo says she doesn’t really mind strapping on her snorkel and picking up trash thrown into Lake Minnetonka by the fleet of recreational boats who drop anchor and party each summer near her beloved Big Island.

She’s kind of used it after more than 30 years, and—besides—she says it’s a good workout.

“Why do people do it? I honestly have no idea,” Menigo, a lifelong scuba diver and dive instructor, said. “I think it’s just out of sight, out of mind. I think the mentality of the people that go there to party is that they just don’t care. It’s not their responsibility, so they just don’t care.”

Menigo doesn’t live anywhere near Lake Minnetonka, but a cabin on Big Island has been in her family for more than 110 years. She tries to visit once a week during the summer and rarely heads for home without at least a few dives to collect trash.

“I think we’re the only ones that snorkel and dive for trash around the island,” Benigo said. “We mostly snorkel because we don’t want to have to pay for the air we need to dive. We can get so much if we just snorkel, though.”

A recent Patch post reporting on the mess left on and around Big Island after the recent Fourth of July weekend drew strong reaction on social media, but Menigo says litter has always been a problem.

“It’s every weekend, not only the Fourth of July—it’s just the worst after the Fourth of July,” she said. “It’s just everyone is talking about it now because there are pictures on Facebook. It was pretty gross. The day after the Fourth I started making piles of cans. We’re still picking up piles. There’s so many. It’s ridiculous. They do it because they can—because they don’t think about anyone else.”

On Wednesday, nearly a week after the Fourth of July, Menigo and her crew of nieces and nephews picked up six full contractor bags worth of garbage off the bottom of Lake Minnetonka.

“Someone dumped a whole case of beer bottles—full,” Menigo said. “That was our reward for the day’s work.”

The family docks their boat at the Carribean Marina, and Menigo says ownership has been instrumental in enabling the family to continue their trash collecting tradition.

“There would be no way we could do it if they didn’t let us put the garbage there,” Benigo said.

Most of the trash Menigo and her family find are alcoholic containers of some sort—although beach towels, shirts and Mardi Gras beads are collected regularly as well. The finds also include sunglasses—and lots of them.

“Whoever comes to visit us on the island gets their pick of sunglasses, and at the end of the year I take them to Mexico with me,” Menigo said. “I go to Cozumel every year, and so I bring all the extra sunglasses down there and give them to the dive masters, the dive shops and they distribute them to the kids and whoever else.”

Menigo is a full-time resident of Pine City, where she owns the Old Oak Inn and is president of the chamber of commerce this year.

“I go to the Cities to go to my cabin, it’s a big joke up here in Pine City,” Menigo said.

Menigo went on to add she has no problem sharing Big Island with recreational boaters but was quick to stress she has been generally disapopinted with how the public treats the island.

“We’re really protective of Big Island because the cabin has been in the family for so long,” Menigo said. “It’s our spot. We don’t mind sharing it with people, but not when they do this kind of stuff. They don’t even allow camping anymore because nobody picks up their garbage on the land—much less in the water.”