Lake Conestee, June 13, 2002
Ellen Goldey, Department of Biology, Wofford College
I put my paddle down and lift the camera, but not in time to snap the kingfisher
that had settled on the branch in front of me. He takes off with a noisy trill
and heads downstream. I’m in awe of the wildlife all around me, and I take
my time to capture images of yellow water primrose and my four companions nearby.
We’re exploring the Reedy River and Lake Conestee by kayak – an experience
that gives us a distinctly different perspective than the one we got last year
standing with 18 college students on the bank next to “The Pit Stop”
overlooking the old mill, the impressive dam and a small, trashy corner of the
lake.
I’m still amazed by what Dave and his colleagues of the Conestee Foundation are trying to accomplish. They’re trying to save this lake, polluted by years of industrial effluent and poorly-treated sewage.
The paddling is fine, but my body will feel the effects of lifting my kayak on my shoulder and carrying it down to the first put in. The first glimpse of the expanse in front of me clarifies Dave’s mission in my mind. It is magnificent. An oasis for cormorants, wood ducks, kingfishers and more – otters inhabit these waters Dave says. But the water is thick with suspended particulates and algae, and I can’t help but think about all of the toxic compounds that Dave has identified in the sediment at the bottom – just a few feet below me: PAHs, PCBs, dieldrin, heavy metals. It reminds me of the work I did in my lab at the Environmental Protection Agency. But there the PCBs were in a syringe with a long, blunt, curved needle that I was forcing down the throats of pregnant rats. But here, in Lake Conestee, was the reason I had been given for doing that work. These toxic compounds were here, in this natural world – in sharp contrast to the seemingly make-believe world of my laboratory. All of our collective ignorance was trapped in these sediments, a terrible reminder of our disregard for the consequences of our actions.
Greenville will surround this place over the coming years, and thanks to the Conestee Foundation there will be a place for people to come and see wildlife and, perhaps, paddle a kayak as we are doing. But the task of turning this area into a park and environmental education center is overwhelming to me. At the end of our journey, I drag my kayak through a sea of primrose and swamp grasses to the shore where we’ll pull our kayaks up the hill to the cars. I sink to my shins in the “black mayonnaise” of muck and I can’t help but think of the dermal exposure that I’m getting to the very compounds that sat in pristine little bottles on the shelf in my EPA laboratory. I’m in awe of Dave’s mission, and guilty with the realization that I would never have attempted it.