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Armada's Quest: Waters Free Of Debris

Tribune photo by KATHY MOORE

Brothers Vince, John and Jeff Albanese, from left, started the Green Armada with a cousin. It has been so effective, a Los Angeles chapter is opening soon and others are being created.

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 7, 2008

TAMPA - Jeff Albanese leans over the starboard side of the Green Armada boat and scoops a large plastic bag from the Hillsborough River. He shakes his head while watching water drip off it and through his rubber net.

"This kills animals," he says. "Dolphins and turtles think it's a jellyfish and eat it. It eventually suffocates them or plugs their digestive systems."

Cleaning the rivers, bayous and coasts of the Tampa Bay area has become an all-consuming quest for Albanese, 48, a former systems analyst and computer programmer from Palm Harbor. Now, you could call him the admiral of the Green Armada.

The nonprofit group removed 124,000 pounds of trash from area waterways last year, its first full year of operation.

"The Green Armada is a pretty unique operation," says St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Baker. "They are filling a niche in our communities and attracting a lot of national attention because they are so different.

"Very few of us would quit our jobs to do something like this, and people are impressed with that."

Albanese, his brothers, Vince and John, and cousin Mark Maksimowicz created the Armada in October 2006. Maksimowicz, 48, gave up a job as a museum operations director. He has since left the Armada to found another organization, Ocean 101, which aims to place catch baskets for debris under the pipes that divert stormwater runoff.

Vince, 49, of Palm Harbor, still works as a health care company executive, while John, 45, of Tampa, is a software developer. On top of his paying job, each works about 30 hours a week to help keep the Armada afloat.

The brothers and cousin also pitched in $200,000 to pay for the boats, nets, hooks, trash bags and other supplies.

The Armada grew from a dinner the four shared earlier in 2006 at Fish Tales, a restaurant on Salt Creek in St. Petersburg.

"We watched the trash flow by," Vince says, "and we asked ourselves, 'What happened to the Old Florida we fished and boated on as kids?'"

Their inspiration, though, was his sister, Linda Albanese. She died in 1993 at 27 of a malignant giant cell tumor. The four men blame the illness on her exposure to an area phosphate manufacturing plant across the street from where she worked.

"She had problems for over five years," Jeff says. "It started with facial paralysis and night sweats. They thought it was a nerve disorder, and she went to Germany for treatment. By the end, she was paralyzed from the neck down, and her bones just disintegrated. Doctors asked if she had been exposed to radiation."

John adds, "What happened to our sister impacted us all."

"I wished I could have died for her," says Jeff . "We wanted to use our lives to help others, and that was the birth of the Green Armada."

Their first cleanup was on the Tampa side of the Howard Frankland Bridge.

"You drive over the Frankland and you don't see what's under it," Jeff says. "But it was knee-deep in trash."

Sixty-two tons of trash later, they have been honored as heroes by People magazine, Reader's Digest and CNN. They've been featured on the "CBS Evening News" and "NBC Nightly News."

With the help of more than 1,100 volunteers, they've hauled in shopping carts, Styrofoam cups and boxes, hypodermic needles and enough cans and bottles to start a recycling center.

Jeff scoops cigarette butts out of the river and says: "Birds make nests out of these cotton filters, and that exposes them to toxic pollutants."

He shrugs his shoulders.

"I'm a tree-hugger, what can I say?"

The Armada has been so effective, a Los Angeles chapter is scheduled to open this month at Marina del Rey. Other chapters are being organized in more than a dozen cities nationwide. Each will follow the blueprint for success established here.

Vince says the challenge is to assure the new chapters are strong.

"This is not just a family hobby," he says. "It's a business proposition and still a risky venture."

The Armada has three full-time employees: Jeff , executive director Rick Husk and ship Capt. Cliff Conatser. Their success depends on getting the media and sponsors involved. And they've developed relationships with leaders in Tampa, St. Petersburg and Gulfport. Their largest cleanup project was Clam Bayou, which is in both Gulfport and St. Petersburg.

"They organized 500 volunteers for that cleanup," Baker says. "They pulled out 9,500 big bags of trash and 200 tires, all kinds of stuff."

The city of St. Petersburg is providing supplies to build the catch baskets Maksimowicz and the Albanese brothers envision beneath runoff drains. The city will help install them, too.

"What this is about is taking a risk for something important," says Vince. "You don't grow unless you risk."

"And this kind of brings us all together," says John. "It's been the year of a lifetime.

"And our sister would have been out here with us if she was still here."

Go to www.GreenArmada.org for information. Reporter Steve Kornacki can be reached at (813) 731-8170 or skornacki@tampatrib.com.

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