Denver Direct: Contamination from City Park Lake Flows to Platte


Monday, August 16, 2010

Contamination from City Park Lake Flows to Platte

(Click to enlarge)

The “green water” report this morning sent me scurrying to 38th St at Arkins Ct, right after you pass the Pepsi bottling plant. The letters on the aerial view are referenced in the clip below.

I guess it’s no wonder that a lake system that includes effluvia from Lowry Landfill would be subject to extreme ecological fluctuations. I know it’s only algae, but that just what you can see. Look at what’s being added here.

So we went “upstream” to see what City Park Lake looked like, with a quick check of Duck Pond.
Duck Pond – birds gone, water almost completely evaporated. Dried bottom has that same gray-white chalky look that they were sandblasting out of the Thatcher fountain here before they switched the fountain over to tap water.
Ferril Lake – going green fast – algae about to bloom. Only one duck in the lake who hadn’t gotten the memo.




(Music by Gilliam Welch – Time, the Revelator )



Oh, and by the way, Aurora’s new Prairie Water Project (cute name for recycling the purple pipewater discharge from City Park to use for drinking water) is dipping its straw into the Platte downstream from where this toxic brew is being spewed into the Platte. Good luck with that, Aurora!