About 100 electric scooters, roughly 50 skateboards, child car seats, shopping carts, bicycles, light fixtures, speakers and other items were pulled from the Arkansas River near downtown Wichita last week. The city lowered the river roughly 2 feet to make “some minor modifications to the fish ladder/boat pass in order to reduce long term sediment build-up,” the city said in a news release. Veo took advantage of the lowered river to get out its rental scooters and other items. Veo operations manager Steven Miller said they also had volunteers from Boats & Bikes and Kansas Alliance for Wetlands and Streams help with the cleanup on Tuesday and Wednesday. They spent about 250 person hours. Miller said some of the scooters were several years old. There were also about 100 skateboard and a 12-foot chain link fence that they weren’t able to get to with a grapple hook. Walking out into the muddy slush would be nearly impossible, he said. “It’s not a scooter problem. It’s just a problem with bad actors doing bad things, and it’s unfortunate,” he said, adding he wishes he had an area of river like Wichita does where he lives in Oklahoma. “It’s such a pretty area to go out and enjoy time with your family and friends. I don’t know what drives people to do those kinds of things but it is just sad to see that people want to destroy the nice parts of the city and/or vandalize property. It’s just sad.” He said the scooters had been accumulating for as long as five years.
Source: Local News | Wichita Eagle
