Magnet fishers clean up Rouge River to celebrate Earth Day

Magnet fishers celebrated Earth Day on Saturday at Fort Street Bridge Park in southwest Detroit where they did their part to clean up the lower Rouge River. 

Magnet fishers toss an ultra-strong magnet attached to a rope into the water to see what sticks, and then fish it out.  

Carl Lowing of Sparta, near Grand Rapids, pulled in an old lock, a 1936 license plate and a two-foot long pipe wrench on Saturday morning.

"We’re trying to make the planet better," Lowing said. "Every little bit of metal in the water is bad for the wildlife, so we're pulling it out."

Lowing's son, 16-year-old Xan Dulyea-Lowing, pulled out an old crescent wrench, and daughter Alani Dulyea-Lowing, 8, caught some beer bottle caps — and also pulled out a small tree. 

The three were invited to the area by the Motor City Magnet Fishers, who worked with the Friends of the Rouge and Ecorse Creek Conservancy on Earth Day cleanups at area parks. 

"We got a real strong magnet and it gets everything," Lowing said. "It cleans up the waterways."