Complaints Grow about Pine River Smells

Grom EPA staff and their contractors working near the Pine River in the Velsicol site clean-up, local government officials and residents who come near the river, especially at one of the parks or public spaces along the river are complaining about the odor and algae blooms covering the river. These seem to be worse than in the past, possibly because of the drought conditions. Below is a photo showing the algae by the dock in the park just upstream from the Superfund clean-up (one of the sites of the ‘fishing derby’ in June 2023..

As one local resident observed, “For the millions and millions of dollars the EPA has poured into the Velsicol Site, it would be a shame that our potentially beautiful Pine River continues to look this way. “ If you read the story on the 2023 Fishing Derby, you will se it concludes with criticism of the algae blooms.

The continuation of this contamination is one more example of the problem of ‘bad ancestors’ and not learning from our past discussed under the lessons heading of this website. We need to start acting like responsible ancestors.