Well, my brothers, the local rag from the nearest biggest city has deemed our beloved Poplar River front page newsworthy. A color photograph adds touches sure to roil the hearts and minds of those who grow their own granola. A good aerial shot it is. The brown river slurry is contrasted sharply with the lake water, which looks as if it could be used by vacationing snorkelers, looking for tropical fish. In reality, as we know, those good old staples of tannin and clay will do just the same for any river in the right conditions.
At any rate, as the article states, this river has been declared Dirty Enough To Think About. Furthermore, it has also been observed that only the last two miles of this river has turbidity (shit in it, sediment only, the stuff that can't be ignored right away like fertilizer and fuel oil), and that only the last two miles have been heavily developed.
A pie graph visually depicts the culprits:
Ahhh, let's see here. Ok, we got Golf. That's one percent. No Worries.
Channel Incision, three percent. Source of incision not listed. What else.
Ok, we got the naturals, Megaslump (big dirt/clayslide) Twenty-six percent. Forest, fourteen. Gullies/Ravines, eleven. Other Landslides, ten.
Then the rest. Here's Ski (alpine resort) thirty-three percent. Seems kinda heavy. And developed, one percent.
That's a whole lotta land to river love for two miles!
This gets me thinking about solutions. I mean real solutions. Somebody has to pay for this, right? We have the feds hiring researchers already, MPCA and the rest of the state agencies, and the locals. It's just one river forthelovapete. This is getting expensive, the taxpayers really don't dig this. They can SEE it. It's in the papers. But at least they don't live in the river with the fish!!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
Alright, I'm done fuckin' around. Here's the deal. This is it:
Get the meetings at the stupid fucking town hall over with. Pull the wool, whatever.
Then put that Megaslump in shock and awe mode. It needs it. If that thing can just sit there and think it belongs there because the river made it, then we need to KICK ITS ASS. Do the same for the other gullies and ravines and landslides. It's concrete time, pour away and bring in the big ass rock.
Ok, that's it for all the big natural contributors. Except the trees. Special plan. Cut em' down. Takes care of that. Then more Ski Hill. This will call for more development but that's fine, they're only at one percent. After that, we encourage a nice, clean, non-profit organ, feed them state and fed grants, and give 'em the go to channelize the whole valley. Make sure some trout get thrown in there from time to time, and find some cheap deep root wonderbrush for the banks. The greener the better. Miniature chinese dinasaur whatevers. Nice.