TAMPA, Fla. — It's been over two months since the city of Tampa changed its parking requirements for e-scooters. Now, your ride will continue to rack up a bill until you bring the scooter to a designated parking area. If you don't, you will face a fine.
That change has positively improved the Hillsborough River's ecosystem because it's harder for people to chuck the e-scooters into the water. Over the last few years, hundreds of e-scooters have been fished out of the Hillsborough River by volunteer divers through Keep Tampa Bay Beautiful.
"Oh, it's quite difficult. It's quite a workout for sure," said Steven Seifert.
Seifert works for Adventure Outfitters and has volunteered his time and gear to help clean the waterways.
It takes muscle and a team of people to pull water-logged and barnacle-covered electric scooters from the water.
"If you look at them, they're pretty heavily damaged," said Cpt. Al Antolik, gesturing to the pile of e-scooters weighing down his pontoon boat. "They've been down there for quite a while, so there's a lot of barnacle growth, and one's actually coming apart."
On Wednesday, a total of 22 scooters, seven bikes, two skateboards and several other small items were removed from the water today.
The city of Tampa said its new parking program is making a difference.
"In April, we saw about 1,100 notices of out-of-corrals go out to our different customers," said Austin Britt, the parking and micromobility planning coordinator. "That number increased a little bit to 1,200 in May."
Keep Tampa Bay Beautiful said the fact that all scooters pulled on Wednesday have been in the water for so long goes to show the city programs are working, no new scooters have recently been tossed in the river.
"So I am hopeful that means that this program will be successful moving forward," Antolik said.
It's the non-profit's seventh dive to remove e-scooters. If you ask the boat captain, he'll tell you he's sure there will always be more work to be done.
"Is there more work to be done? Sure," Antolik said. "We will always come out here."
There has been an overall decrease in the number of scooters found underwater.
"Yeah, so I will say while I'm happy to hear it's less, zero is the goal," Britt said. "If we have to even take one scooter or bike out of the river, that's too many."
These dives are made possible through volunteers and donations.
"So our line handlers, support staff, the divers, they're all here, you know, donating their time and their equipment to make this happen," Antolik said.
The goal is that one day their efforts won't be needed.
The city of Tampa plans to expand the e-scooter parking requirements to the entire city. Right now, parking corrals are in place in Tampa Heights, Armature Works, Downtown and Grand Central.
The city has yet to announce when city-wide changes will take effect.
Malique Rankin is an Emmy award-winning general assignment reporter with 10 Tampa Bay. You can email her story ideas at mrankin@10tampabay.com and follow her Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram pages.