EVERETT, Wash. -- Workers and volunteers from the State Department of Ecology (DOE) removed over 26.8 tons of tires and wheels and about 1,720 pounds of garbage from a gulch in Snohomish County.

The Japanese Gulch that runs between Everett and Mukilteo was used as a dumping area for years until the DOE decided to clean up this area, along with 66 other tire dump sites, using money from new tire sales. For every new tire bought in the state, $1 goes to the cleanup project.

Workers said they pulled out about 2,700 tires from the area along with hot water heaters, sinks, toilets, and a set of drums.

Although the DOE had hoped to have been able to recycle the majority of the tires they found, only about 50 percent of the tires were considered recyclable. The non-recyclable tires will be reused for fuel or shredded and put in a landfill.

Officials said last Tuesday that the tires will be trucked to a recycling plant in Portland. The garbage will be disposed of by Snohomish County Public Works.

It took crews four days to clean up the dumping site, which will now be a fish-spawning area after volunteers restore the area with native vegetation and spawning gravel.

So far the DOE has cleaned up 126 former dumping sites in the region.