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Venice on the web
A semi-regular column
Sludge
Right next to youth soccer and baseball fields, right
across the street from residential housing, lies some of the nastiest stuff you
ever laid eyes on, and it's laid there unattended and ignored for 13 years (a
story in progress)
-- John Patten, 02/13/04
--
jpatten@veniceflorida.com
Got a comment?
Make
it here.
This is just a rough page showing a story in progress, but
I wanted to get this up and out.
The city, the county and the state are all in discussions
currently about what to do with this mess.
At a recent city council meeting, one resident was
overheard stating that if this sludge really existed it would be in the
newspapers. I have no response for that -- there's a lot of things that don't
get into the papers.
Nevertheless, under the guidance of Utilities Director
John Lane and former city manager, George Hunt, this sludge has been left
unattended for well over 13 years.
Pictures of this sludge appeared on this web site about a
month ago which started a dialog about the sludge. County Commissioner Jon
Thaxton and Venice City Manager Marty Black have promised that information will
be forthcoming shortly about cleanup plans. Former city council candidate Gary
Anderson is raising bloody hell about this mess, and it was Anderson who brought
the sludge pits to the attention of this web site.
Currently there is a barrage of letters and e-mails flying
around the state to rectify the situation.
I'll be updating this page in a few days with a total
re-write and a full story, but for now, this is what the problem is and where
the sludge is located.
I don't know why it's not in the papers. It damned well
should be, this is a big story.
| Pics below are
thumbnails -- click on any pic for a full-sized blown-up version. |
 Map
which shows the location of the sludge pits in Wellfield Park. Dotted line
indicates the fence that surrounds the sludge pits. Map courtesy of Yahoo
Maps. |
 U.S.
Geological Survey photo, taken in 1999 before the tennis courts were built.
This pic is annotated to give you a better idea of the location. |
 Closeup
of the same USGS 1999 photo, road going to tennis courts is drawn in (the
road didn't exist when this pic was taken), dotted line indicates
approximate placement of fencing around the sludge pits. The tennis courts
are directly adjacent to and south of the drawn-in road. |
This is a pic of the "newer" sludge pit, taken at the
northwest corner of the pit facing due south.
Now
you see those little mounds that are everywhere in this pic? Spongy stuff --
it's like jello with crunchy dirt sprinkled on top of it. Ya step on this
stuff and it all kind of wobbles and bubbles around. It's almost like if you
stepped on one mound and pushed it down a bit, a mound next to it would puff
up. But yeah, crunchy jello (that feels like it could turn into quicksand in
a heartbeat) is the best description, this is one very wobbly landscape.
This unlined sludge field is estimated to be around 30 feet deep and it is
about two acres (?) in area. It may be more, I dunno, I'm really terrible
when it comes to estimating 'area,' but this is no small swimming pool or
even backyard sized area, this is a major-sized plot of land, big enough to
build three or four houses on.
This is, incidentally, a place where local teens go to to play paintball.
I have received firsthand accounts from teen paintballers of kids getting
sucked up into the sludge up to their chests quicksand-style. Other tales I
have heard firsthand include kids actually tunneling in the sludge as a form
of fort-building. There have never been any
signs around the area warning of toxicity problems, nor has the city ever
made any attempt to educate the surrounding public, despite the fact that it
has been common knowledge that kids have been going back into the sludge
pits for years. |
 Another
shot of the "newer" pit.The
water is green. It looks like the green is reflected from the plants behind
it, but if you look straight down on the water, it is greenish and crystal
clear. No insects anywhere around this area, which is odd. No birds either,
although a few dead ones can be found in the area. |
 Closeup
of the crunchy bits that sits atop the jello-like
whatever it is. The white stuff is crumbly and chalky, just like
crumbled damp chalk or lime. |
 And
it is all a literal stone's throw from the northernmost baseball fields in
Wellfield Park, whose lights you can see in this photo This last pic shows
the older sludge pit, taken from the northern end of the
pit facing south by southeast.Now this
pit is all dried up and powdery, which makes it even more dangerous. On dry,
windy days, the lime powder can be blown around and out of the area as an
aerosol -- this is not good stuff to be breathing at all, airborne lime can
burn and permanently scar lung tissue. Yet this dried up pit is surrounded
by nature trails with nary a sign warning anyone that it even exists. The
nature trail to the east of this pit is around 40 yards away.
Lovely, ain't it? |
Want
more Wellfield sludge pics? -- The complete set of our Wellfield sludge pics, downloadable in a single
2.8MB ZIP file. These pics (and these pics only) may be freely
reproduced on the web, in print or whatever without obtaining prior
permission from us -- use 'em as you see fit, absolutely free with no
copyright protections attached (please give credit to venfl.com; this
applies ONLY to the photos in the ZIP file)
John Patten is the head of Web Operations for Creative Pages, and has worked in broadcasting for over 12 years. He
can also be incredibly rude at times. |
