Revisting a River “Killed” in 1997
19 Dec
That a river in Ohio, the Cuyahoga, caught fire in the 1960s is commonly known.
That an acid spill ten years ago on the Alafia River in Florida killed everything in its 42-mile path was news to us at Canoeing.com.
The Ledger, a Lakeland, Florida newspaper brought the disaster to our attention recently after it sent reporter Tom Palmer back to the Alafia — with a notepad, a canoe, and a photographer — to assess the state of the river a decade after a December 7, 1997 dam-burst sent 56 million gallons of acidic waste-water from a fertilizer plant rushing into the river.
As Palmer notes in THIS story, the spill killed an estimated 1.3 million bait-fish and shellfish, 72,900 game-fish, and caused 377 acres of damaged vegetation along the river. Some 350 tons of nitrogen was sent into Tampa Bay. A 2002 insurance settlement of $3.7 million has yet to be spent on restoration of the watercourse.
Palmer, exploring by canoe HERE, found a river today that is stressed more by mundane pollutants like dumped tires and littered beverage containers, but which shows signs of recovery from the epic catastrophe.
A photo gallery from the trip is viewable HERE.
