What would I have done with all those bottles had I come into possession of a net and been able to get it across the Chattahoochee? Well, that question did occur to me – so after a while I abandoned my net fantasy. But I didn’t abandon my curiosity about where all those bottles came from. It was several days after the second flood, after the water had returned to near normal level, so I wondered if maybe these bottles had been lodged somewhere for a while and then, that day, in some post-flood cleanup upriver, dislodged. All I know is that there were hundreds and hundreds of them, and that they floated by for a long time. I’m not sure exactly how long they floated by, but they were already there when I arrived, and they were still floating by when I left about an hour later. There were some dead tree limbs, too, but not much else that I could discern.
Here are some photos:
Most were out in the channel, but this one came close.
When we helped clean up a creek for Rivers Alive, we discovered that some of the trash was so high on the steep, wet banks that we couldn't get to it. (I almost broke a leg trying to climb just such a steep, muddy bank.) A lot of that trash might have been dislodged by the next rain and flood. Also, after that really big flood in Atlanta, businesses were handing out cartons and cartons of bottled water to folks whose homes had been damaged in the flood. Some of those bottles might have ended up in the Chattahoochee, too. In your long-range photos, the plastic bottles look like beautiful sparkling lights in the river--a conceit that your luminous close-up doesn't quite deny.
ReplyDelete"What would I have done with all those bottles had I come into possession of a net and been able to get it across the Chattahoochee?"
ReplyDeleteI'd help you recycle your catch, Ms. Fussell! We'd load all those bottles into the back of a pick-up truck and tootle on down to the recyclin' station. You'd have called me up as soon as your river-wide net arrived in the mail, so as to get me into position on the Phenix City riverbank in time to catch a-hold of the other end of that bottle-collecting mesh when you cast it upon the waters.
My desire to somehow corral all the recyclable trash I see floating in any body of water--ESPECIALLY the Chattahoochee--is so intense that sometimes I have to physically remove myself from the premises in order to avoid the incapacitating sight, or I'd lose my marbles and jump in with a garbage bag.
I second Anita's comment. Your great photography gave me the ability to shift my focus back and forth between the reality of bottles in the water and the images of "sparkling lights" bobbing and twinkling in the river!