There is enough trash in Dog River to sculpt a work of ironic art.

The title of this post is credited to JD Crowe. I got another letter from ADEM today concerning my complaints about One Mile Creek trash, some of which is hazardous, in the water and filling the adjacent wetlands. It basically says, ADEM continues to monitor the City of Mobile's progress toward compliance with its regulatory obligations. Are they going to make the property owners, Mobile, or the State of Alabama remove the hazardous trash that is polluting the waterways all the way to Mobile Bay? Dunno. To be continued.

Violations specific to One Mile Creek were not alleged in the consent order ADEM issued to the City of Mobile, but ADEM indicated my concerns will be appropriately addressed. ADEM is monitoring the City of Mobile's overall return to compliance with its MS4 permit.

I demanded the trash dump be cleaned up and actions be taken to prevent the public from dumping their trash into WATER and sensitive wetlands. ADEM has said a pile of litter isn't a trash dump. We'll see whether any of these paper pushers hiding behind walls of regulations so complex that normal people can't understand, will ever get anyone out there to actually clean it up. Stay tuned.

It is the public's trash and if people want to live like pigs, that's cool. The majority of the litter is only plastic, right? Yup. The City isn't concerned about floatables, right? Yup. We drink out of plastic bottles, so it is safe, right? Nope, not according to research. Plastics continue to be implicated in hormone disruption and linked to diabetes and obesity. America got obesity? Yup. 2 out of 3 people are overweight. Do you think leaving plastics floating in the water is a wise thing to do? The City of Mobile does.

Unemployment is rampant. Back in the last depression, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was formed by the government. CCC was a public work relief program that operated from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for the unemployed. We definitely need a litter relief program. Add another cent or two to taxes, tax the vehicles entering into the state, tax property owners who won't keep litter off their property, and put any army of unemployed people to work removing the plastic pollution from the water. Leaders are too chicken to do anything - its an election year.

Why are leaders too chicken to hold people responsible for keeping their property free of litter? The below image, by J.D. Crowe, Press-Register was right on target!

Where might some of that trash that ends up in Dog River come from? Here is the view at a City of Mobile Park, Law Enforcement Agency maintained property, as of yesterday. It looked like this last year in December. Maybe the abundance of litter in Mobile is simply a reflection of what Mobile leaders and Law Enforcement expect and a reflection of how Mobile Leaders and Law Enforcement treat taxpayer property.

Here is a photo of the City of Mobile pool at the same facility. That's a turtle circled in red. Several turtles were seen in the mosquito breeding pool. The sad part is the turtles had no platform, no step, or anything to rest on and no way to get up the three foot pool walls. How sad...