Sunday, September 27, 2015

The Journey of the Blue Barrel


A few weeks ago I was down on the beach opposite the Post Office and south of the Hennepin Avenue Bridge and I noticed this blue barrel that was wedged in some tree debris.  I was not going to try to bring it up.  A few days later we had a pretty good storm.


The next day I noticed a blue barrel upstream on the north side of the Hennepin Avenue Bridge.  I walked back to the Post Office beach where I saw the first barrel.  Not there.  Ok, it's the same barrel and the wind just moved it against the current.  The power of wind and water.


No, I didn't swim out after it.  It eventually made its way to the beach where other trash floated in as well. It's plastic so no wonder it floated upstream so easily.



I left it in the corner at First Bridge Beach.  Days later when I looked for it people had started using it as a makeshift trash can.  This just confirms my thoughts that we need more trash cans. 


Today I was back over there.  Blue barrel is still in the corner but what you really notice is how the water level is going down. (Compare it to my second photo!)  The area under the Hennepin Bridge is now accessible to me.  The water along the wall is about 2 inches deep and it doesn't take much effort to hop across the rocks that have been exposed.  This was one of those areas that bugged me to no end last spring when I started my obsessive trash cleaning.  I thought I would need a canoe or a rope ladder. Who knew that I just needed to be patient and let nature do its thing.  I hauled out a couple bags of trash but that's not even half of what's there.  There was the usual stuff plus a fishing pole and a Virgin Mary picture frame.  Now that the water is really low you can see that there is a lot of old metal junk laying in the water.  What got dumped here?  I wonder how much of the Mississippi River in other states is like this?





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