[nggallery id=122]

The Berrien County Sheriff’s Department Dive Team puts its skills to good use, removing everything from jewelry to weapons to bones from local lakes, rivers and ponds.
And vehicles? It’s a regular part of the job.
“We don’t dive for giggles,” said Lt. Randy Miller, a member of the eight-person team.
The team pulled an Oldsmobile Aurora from the St. Joseph River in Niles Monday afternoon. Later that day, they located a safe submerged in a lake northwest of Dowagiac after receiving a tip it had been dumped after it was stolen from a Sodus Township business a couple years ago.
Dive team members learned of the submerged car — sunk in 16 feet of water and 30 feet from the riverbank near the French Paper Co. dam — during a training day recently. They were testing out new sonar equipment when they scanned a vehicle under water. A dive was planned to relocate, extract and investigate how and when the vehicle may have ended up in the river.
Miller explained that sunken vehicles are usually stolen or involved in an insurance fraud case. The perpetrator will float the vehicle with its windows down off a boat ramp; where it sinks often depends on the speed of the current if it’s in a river.
Lt. Don Goulooze said the car “may have been in here a while.” It was covered in mud and its paint color wasn’t easily identifiable. The keys were still in the ignition, but officers weren’t able to open the glove compartment.
The only items of interest immediately found in the car were fish, which were swimming around on the floor because the car hadn’t been fully drained yet.
Jeremy Clanton of Precision Auto & Body Towing pulled the car out of the river. Divers, who were wearing dry suits, hooked a towline onto the car, which was upside-down on the river bottom. Visibility was at about six feet.
The sheriff’s department had not determined at press time any information about where the car came from.
Miller said the dive team also extracted a Dodge Durango from a body of water near Benton Harbor a couple months ago.
They spent three days locating human bones in the Galien River last spring. The remains have not been identified.