Georgia-Pacific: Pollution is easily observed at Rice Creek
Posted: July 1, 2011 - 12:00am
Letters from Readers
A few years ago it was my privilege to cruise up the St. Johns River from Jacksonville to Sanford.
The river was teeming with life - bald eagles, ospreys, herons, egrets, kingfishers, woodstorks catching food, building nests. There was an occasional gator, lots of turtles.
There were also boaters, skiers and fishermen enjoying the river as a source of food and recreation.
The one exception to this picture of life was when we left the main channel to go up a creek.
I had heard of Rice Creek and its degradation from industrial waste for a long time but had never experienced it personally.
As we entered the creek, the 50 people on board immediately became silent. There was no sound anywhere, no wildlife except for vultures in the trees along the banks. A deathly pall hung over the area. Even the trees looked sickly and stressed.
The poisons being released into the creek had turned it to a place of death. We learned the tragedy went deep below us to many organisms which, if they survived, would be unable to reproduce.
The images are haunting as the fate of the St. Johns River and the community of life that interacts with it is being decided. The current plan by the Koch Industries subsidiary Georgia-Pacific is to divert their effluent, containing dioxin and other toxic chemicals, into the main channel of the river through a 3.5-mile long pipeline.
What kind of new nightmare might be created from this action?
The attempt to bury the truth, to dilute the evidence might lull some into a state of denial, but for just so long. Consequences of ill-disposed toxic waste inevitably come back and show themselves, dramatically or in more subtle ways.
The Department of Environmental Protection should provide a different ending to this story, standing up for the principle that no one has the right to despoil a body of water from which we all derive life, and supporting models of industrial practice that safeguard the health of the community.
Dumping toxic waste into the river does not qualify.
Pat Jeremiah,
Jacksonville
Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/opinion/letters-readers/2011-07-01/story/georgia-pacific-pollution-easily-observed-rice-creek?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+JacksonvillecomsNewsSportsAndEntertainment+(Jacksonville%27s+Most+Recent+Headlines+-+Jacksonville.com+and+The+Florida+Times-Union)#ixzz1QsdC1652
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