"We’ll never be done."

Officials for years have been cleaning up tire after tire from the ocean floor off Broward County — removing what was once meant to create a fish habitat but turned out to be an environmental mess. Hundreds of thousands of tires so far have been pulled out. And as more of them are taken away, the work grows more challenging.

The cleanup was easy when the “diver just had to tie them up and send them up,” said Pat Quinn, a biologist for Broward County who is supervising the tire removal work. But now, the remaining tires are partially or fully buried in the sand. That makes them heavy to pull out because of the suction. Equipment would be needed to lug some tires to shore, and with that, comes the higher cost.

“We’ll never be done,” he admits.

Still, could the cleanup effort be nearing its end? State officials say it’s time to look at what could come next.

Read more at the Orlando Sentinel