BoatBanter.com - In Florida - Don't Go Near the Water

On Tue, 16 Aug 2011 18:52:34 -0400, LilAbner wrote:

On 8/16/2011 4:54 PM, John H wrote:
On Tue, 16 Aug 2011 16:34:28 -0400, wrote:

On 8/16/2011 2:11 PM, X ~ Man wrote:
TITUSVILLLE — Hundreds lined Max Brewer Bridge on Monday evening to drop
flower petals in honor of 16-year-old Courtney Nash, who died Saturday
from a rare amoebic infection contracted after swimming in the St. Johns
River.

Schoolmates, friends and entire families stopped to pay tribute to the
girl as they crowded on one side of the bridge.

Many wore T-shirts in memory of Nash. "R.I.P. CJN," read one. "I love
you, Courtney," read another.

- - -

One wonders if flajim had been swimming in that river earlier...
One of the first things you will be told on The Savannah River is to not
touch the water. They wear rubber gloves when docking or undocking.
You can watch railroad tanker cars being cleaned with steam and the
discharge running down the rocks and into the river a little above the
island and a short ways to the ocean. The water stinks but there is
still fish in it.
The Dolphins won't come much beyond the island. I think it is because of
the pollution. If they knew what they were in I'm sure they wouldn't
come near the river at all.
There are many rivers in bad shape. The one I use to fish, just about
every evening, most of the mussels died at least one year. You could see
what appeared to be marshmallows floating all over the water. It was
dead mussels out of their shells.
I found one big mussel shell and it was paper thin years ago. The
biggest ones now, where there are any are about the size of your thumb.
One year when we came back in there was stuff all over the water. It was
hell cleaning the boat. It was human feces. they found a lot of syringes
and stuff that year. The little nooks and slack areas of the lakes are
full of every conceivable piece of plastic, garbage, old tires, tampons,
and you name it.

Well, I'll have to admit that even with all its problems (including the f**king swans), the
Chesapeake isn't quite that bad.

If I were you, I'd take some pictures, post them, and let all of us send them to Bobo.
The sighting of the RxR tanker cars was two years ago. Anyone taking the
cruise in Savannah can see it.
The other stuff ain't the half of it. When it rains too much upstream
they discharge sewage along with the runoff untreated. Sometimes they do
it anyway. thirty years ago the State was going to make that city clean
up it's act supposedly until the city said they couldn't afford it. They
still expanded the city limits and the sewer system even though the
plant couldn't handle it. Signs were made up to be posted to not eat the
fish and not to swim in the river but the city howled and others that it
would kill tourism. The few signs that went up came down.
One year I had to as well as many others clean sewage from our boat hulls.
They found syringes and hospital waste down river where we launched
about 20 miles. This kind of stuff goes on all over the Country. latest
howl about EPA going too far has some foundation but now you can do
anything there are not enough State pollution staff, so to speak, to
even answer the phone.

Now it's starting to sound like our Anacostia River, which flows through some not too careful
sections of DC. What a mess, and probably the source of about 90% of the Potomac's pollution. Of
course, I'll be called a racist for whining about it. But, what the hell.