South Saint Paul used to paint a warning by the sewers on each street corner, it said something to the effect that anything going down that hole will end up in the river. Besides runoff, that would include idiots dumping drian oil or old antifreeze. I also would think that grass clippings full of lawn fertilizer wouldn’t do Pool 2 much good either. Before the sewers were seperated a lot of that stuff went through the treatment plants. They would also remove a lot of the big stuff…pop bottles, plastic, dead cats, etc. The flipside, of course, is that a major rainfall would overwhelm the treatment plant and they’d have no choice but to dump directly into the river. I think what Jon was referring to is the incredible amount of trash that comes down river every time we get a good rain in Minneapolis and St. Paul. The garbage laying in the streets ends up in the river and eventually flows down river.
I’ve lived next to Pool 2 for 55 years. I remember well when there weren’t ANY game fish down there. You were as likely to see a mayfly as you were to see a Blue Whale. I remember when the river ran in colors and smelled bad. It still amazes and delights me that I can go down there and catch Smallmouth Bass and Walleyes out of that same body of water. There are Eagles and Turkeys and heck I even saw an Otter down there last fall. The turnaround has been remarkable.
But we have a long way to go…
Rootski
