Monday, December 5, 2011
Enviro Southwest Atlanta creek mysteriously turns gray
Posted by Thomas Wheatley @thomaswheatley on Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 9:10 AM
- Andisheh Nouraee
- WACKY WATER Perkerson Park creek changed colors on Saturday
Twitter master, former CL columnist and all-around decent human being Andisheh Nouraee this weekend noticed that water flowing from a tunnel into a creek in Perkerson Park, a popular recreational area in Capitol View, was an ominous gray color.
"Whatever it was, the quantity was huge (relative to the creek's flow)," he writes in an email. "The entire creek was steadily flowing that awful color for at least several minutes. I couldn't hang around to see if it cleared up."
He snapped several photos, which we've posted above, and called the state Environmental Protection Division, which took a report about the incident. An EPD official later contacted Nouraee and said the city would have to be involved in investigating the incident. (One environmentalist CL contacted said that, based on the photos, it looked like "sheetrock mud" washed from tools and buckets.)
"I'm very angry," Nouraee said. "This has been going on forever."
Neighborhood residents for years have tried to combat possible pollution and dumping in the creek. Two years ago the creek turned neon green. In 2003, the state EPD and Environmental Protection Agency fined an auto-recycling facility $45,000 after it dumped about 200 gallons of oil into a storm-water drain which empties into the creek. The facility later signed a consent decree that required the business to obtain a general storm-water permit, prepare a pollution-prevention plan and immediately cease the dumping. (Two years later it was fined an additional $25,000 for not fulfilling all the consent decree's requirements.)
City and state EPD officials did not immediately respond to our request for comment over the weekend. We'll update when we hear word.
Comments (11)
Showing 1-11 of 11
Well those are some really chickenshit fines, which can't be much of a deterrent. I wonder if the penalties have gotten stiffer between 2005 and now?
Haha! I'm sure they haven't :)
like
dislike
Bad news: the bottle I used to scoop that water had some Gatorade left in it. Good news: Electrolytes!
The City of Atlanta has ignored this part of town for a long time and has no plans to stop. Shame on Kasim Reed for not giving a damn and shame on Joyce Sheperd for letting him get away with it.
I lived near Perkerson Park for a while in the 70s and now my hair is turning gray.
This is an outrage.
the EPD destroys jobs. if obummer would let us dump shit wherever we wanted i could afford to hire a guy just to dispose of rusty nails near playgrounds. fucking fascists
i just realized that the government would take immediate action if the creek turned gay
Eric--
If you could declare the creek a corporation, it would be a person with constitutional rights. If it were gay, not so much.
Latest in Fresh Loaf
-
Vernon Jones wants to return to the Gold Dome and other interesting qualification tidbits 1
Qualifying period ends, dust settles, campaigns begin
-
Suspects in Pittsburgh gay bashing slated to go to trial Tuesday
The men accused of beating Brandon White in Southwest Atlanta already headed to court
-
Film Clips: Men In Black 3
Men in black are back, Chernobyl's tourism industry is booming, and music festival romance all this weekend 'at the movies.'
- More »
More by Author
-
First Slice 3/25/12: Kasim goes to China 10
Mayor and economic development honchos, businessmen go overseas
-
Should the public pay to help retrofit downtown's skyscrapers and buildings? 25
Invest Atlanta OKs making $8 million available to help make private buildings more energy-efficient
- More »
