Test the Water, Please!
July 12, 2010
Plastic vodka bottle floating with fossil fuel remains in Father Hennepin Park #134
Above is the surface of a toxic stream that I just asking for someone to test for heavy metals and petrochemicals. No luck so far. The rivulet sits in Father Hennepin Park on the East bank of the Mississippi River across from the heart of downtown Minneapolis, MN. The water bubbles up from under a cement block wall that sits under a Xcel energy high voltage transfer station. I have no idea who or what is the cause of this devastating addition to our drinking water here in the Twin Cities. I am just asking for the water to be tested.
Made in China rubber ball in toxic stream # 133 Father Hennepin Park Earth Day “clean up” of stream #146
The above two images were also created in the Father Hennepin Park stream. The Made in China rubber ball itself will be displayed in my next exhibition in a museum specimen box along with a sample of the water it was sitting in. The water in the specimen bottle is so noxious that I will not let anyone even take a whiff. On Earth Day this year the photograph on the right shows ten percent of the plastics plus I removed from a fifty foot section of the stream in an hour. I only work for an hour at a time in this rivulet until the off gassing from the water surface and the earth there starts making me feel ill as it settles into my lungs. I am just asking for the water and soil to be tested.
I have contacted both my US Senators, the mayor of Minneapolis, my Park Board Representative (voted in on a eco-friendly platform), and my State House Representative (I lived on Nicollet Island near her, just upstream from the park for a year and a half. She stopped me one day complaining that I had sent the email with my concerns to her other non-official email address and to not do that again). I had my City Council person visit me on Earth Day at the site and she smelled the petrochemicals in the stream, but I never heard from her after that. I have filed my complaint also by phone and online with the MPCA (Minnesota Pollution Control Agency) to no avail. I am just asking for the water to be tested.
Footprint in melting toxic stream in Father Hennepin Park #139
These are powerful images that go right to the heart of our deepest environmental problems: our personal and institutional indifference to the source of our own well-being — water. I hope more and more people will become aware of your work. I’m planning to tell everyone I can about it. I know your work will inspire them to action.
I just found out after contacting the Mississippi Watershed Management Organization Water Resource Manager, Kari Oquist, today that the water is getting “investigated”. Thanks Kari for you prompt response. Let’s see what happens next.
[...] My pleas to get the water in Father Hennepin Park tested as stated in this post of July 12th had been heard. It just took another plea to another government office to find that out two and half months later. Last week I sent out another email plea, that included my photos documenting the toxins in the water, to Kari Oquist of the Mississippi Watershed Management Organization. This is the Watershed District entity where the stream in question resides. Her response was quick and efficient. [...]