With the City of Mobile spending over $30,000 for the DESMI litter trap installed just north of Holcombe Avenue, already repairing it several times, and spending another $600,000 for a new bigger and better litter trap installed just north of McVay Road, one would think the storm water trash problem in Eslava Creek has now been solved.
Wrong.
This volunteer who has been monitoring the storm water trash problem in Eslava Creek and Dog River since 2011 and documenting the trash finds absolutely ZERO improvement in the trashy scenery along the Eslava Creek and Dog River.
I went kayaking today to monitor the effectiveness of the old and new litter traps. Someone has to do diligent research as to whether the litter traps work or not.
The DESMI litter trap was covered with vegetative debris. No litter was in the litter trap basket. Based on past observation that indicates the DESMI trap went under water in the most recent rain storm allowing ALL the storm water trash to float over the DESMI litter trap and continue on downstream. DESMI litter trap effectiveness this past rain: ZERO.
How did the new expensive Stormwater System's Band-a-Long litter trap do? It had captured about one garbage bag of trash in the huge litter basket. Meantime, there was 10 times as much storm water trash floating around Eslava Creek both upstream and downstream of the litter trap. That means the Band-a-Long litter trap was about 10 percent effective.
Tides and wind will move storm water trash not physically in a litter basket back and forth until the trash finds a home along the bank of the creek. The wide gap in the Band-a-Long litter trap boom will allow some of the constantly moving storm water trash to pass by the litter trap and continue on downstream into Dog River.
To this kayaker, despite two litter traps, what I saw while kayaking in Eslava Creek today is still unacceptable.
But, a nasty storm water trash polluted waterway is the expected consequence of a City, County and State whose combined Storm Water Management Plan fails to earmark a single laborer to remove trash from the obviously trash polluted waterways.
Idiots must think all storm water trash is magically going to jump into a stationary litter basket for easy removal. Wrong.
The reality is, if a community wants clean waterways, it has to have a plan to remove the trash from their polluted waterways after rains.
When will the news people ever ask the City and State why there are no full time workers out on the polluted waterways removing the storm water trash? The litter traps are proving totally ineffective at cleaning the waterways.