As many as 100 tires are stuck in the Eagle River. An effort is underway to remove them for good
The Eagle River Coalition is organizing an event Aug. 20, and money and volunteers are needed
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If all goes well in a fundraising and volunteer-seeking effort now underway by the Eagle River Coalition, a pile of tires that has been sitting along the banks of the Eagle River in Edwards will soon be removed.
Attempts to remove tires from the Eagle River in Edwards have been taking place for three decades, with the annual Eagle River Cleanup event tracing its history to one of those efforts.
A pile of tires that has remained in the years that followed is stacked in a hard-to-remove location.
“They’re on private property, a mile upriver from the boat ramp, with very difficult access above them,” Rumble said.
Local Realtor Brad Ernest with Re/Max Elevate Vail Valley said he has been staring at the pile for the better part of a decade, so he asked the Eagle River Coalition about it.
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“They said the biggest hold-up that hasn’t been taken care of yet is funding,” Ernest said. “I figured that was something I could help tackle.”
Ernest is now managing a fundraising drive, with a goal of $10,000 identified as the amount needed to remove the tires. A fundraising page has been created at Secure.qgiv.com/for/projectsupportedwardstireremoval.
A lot of collaboration with other companies will be required, as well. Timberline Tours has volunteered its boats to transport the tires on the water, and Trinity Recycling is providing a small dumpster for non-tire debris and trash. Colorado Tire Recyclers out of Denver will ensure they’re properly disposed of.
“It’s not just getting them out of the water; we have to coordinate the end of life of the tires,” Rumble said.
Occasionally, Rumble said, tires can be seen buried alongside rivers as a way of hardening the surface of those areas, but if that’s done properly, the tires will not be placed in a way in which they can leech chemicals into the water.
“These tires were not part of a bank stabilization project,” he said.
Instead, Rumble said, the tires that ended up in the Eagle River were part of an unfortunate practice that occurred decades ago and has proven very difficult to remedy. An area of Edwards that once housed a tire shop and a service station has been suspected as the primary source of the deposits.
Melanie Smith with the Eagle River Coalition said the effort to remove the last remaining tires will require quite a few volunteers. The project is scheduled for Aug. 20, at a time yet to be determined.
A volunteer sign-up page has been created at EagleRiverco.org/event/2025-tire-removal-project.
“We will need people probably in and near the river picking up tires,” Smith said. “We estimate that there’s about 100 tires out there.”
—This story was edited to remove information suggesting that no new cleanup efforts have taken place in recent years
