This path was created by Alison Morgan.
Lagoon
As the morning continues it gets hotter and the fish are not baiting as much. After a couple hours at the lagoon, he packs up his things and begins the walk back to the path. On the bike ride back home, the boy enjoyed seeing the wildlife flash by. But then something popped into his head, he had noticed a drainage pipe at the other end of the lagoon, the white pipe was sticking out of the bank. As the day went on he went to the beach to cool down in the ocean.
As the week rolled on he returned to that lagoon to fish twice more, again noticing the pipe that was now present at the lagoon. In the years to come that pipe would cause more trouble than he could have guessed. For years the quiet lagoon has provided a wide variety of animals with the necessities for life, trees for the birds to build a nest in, water for fish to swim in and animals to drink. The mighty alligator has known this lagoon since he was no bigger than a man’s arm, but now he is being threatened by something that not even he can overpower. The land has been a peaceful sanctuary for those lucky enough to come across it, but soon this colorful landscape will begin to change.
It was not known to the boy that the pipe that he had seen at the lagoon was connected to a water treatment plant that was a mile away. The pipe had been installed to pump chemically treated sewage into the lagoons and creeks nearby. Yes, the chemicals work and those at the plant do their job well enough that a large majority of the water that is pumped back into the lagoons is safe and will cause no harm to the local environment. However, this pipe also takes excess runoff into the lagoon as well, bringing with it all of the pollution that comes from the side of the road as well as pollution from the drains. When that all adds up that pipe on the edge of the lagoon does not look so innocent.
A few years passed since the pipe was installed and the boy had not returned to the lake since then. Things had gotten in the way and he needed a break from it all, he decided to return to a place that gave him joy on the inside, the kind of place that reminds you that everything will be alright, the type of place where you can forget about the world around you and just enjoy nature. As he walked down the gravel road he took an abrupt turn and ducked into the trees. As he walked quietly among the trees he remembered how the lagoon had looked when he last saw it, full of life and alive. He saw the shimmering water ahead and stepped out from among the trees and stopped. The lagoon looked different, the animals and birds were still there, the water was still shimmering but as he looked to the left he noticed that a brown sludge had begun to build up where the lagoon formed a horseshoe and the water was still. It shimmered but not because of the sun, small traces of oil slicks could be seen no more than 5 feet long. It had rained the other day and water was trickling out of the pipe across the lagoon, the brown sludge led right below it. The boy noticed that the birds where avoiding that section of the lagoon and no fish were swimming in there either, the only fish he saw in that sludge were belly up. Other than that the lagoon looked normal, an alligator poked his head above the surface and looked at a heron stalking fish on the bank. The boy unhooked his lure, cast it into the lagoon, and forgot about the sludge. He reeled in a nice bass and smiled, he was prepared to enjoy a nice morning of fishing. As the sun rose higher in the sky, the boy began to notice the hot sun on his face. He reeled in his lure, looked around the lagoon one last time and headed into the trees. He left behind him a quiet scene, one that he would return to in years to come.
As the years went on the boy grew up into a man, he did not have the same amount of free time that he used to enjoy. No more were the days spent fishing after school and during the summer, they were replaced by work and responsibilities. As the man grew older he imagined that the scene at the lagoon had not changed much, the herons were still nesting in the trees hanging over the lagoon, the mighty alligator still patrolling the banks of the lagoon looking for an easy meal. He imagined that peaceful setting that he had encountered and wished that he could one day return to that.
However, the lagoon did not stay the same, in fact things had changed drastically. The pipe that stuck out of the ground had begun to spew raw sewage into the lagoon. The treatment plant could not treat all the water that came through after heavy rainfalls and runoff became mixed with raw sewage. The sewage than ran through the pipe and into the lagoon, out of sight and out of mind, at least that is what the people at the plant thought. Instead the sewage was in the sight of the animals at the lagoon as it spewed into the water. The water was now mixed with countless numbers of pollutants from rain runoff as well as raw sewage. This turned the once clean water into a disease infested cesspool. No longer were there fish darting about in the water, instead their decaying bodies riddled the bank. The birds no longer nested in the trees because of the lack of fish and clean water to drink. The alligator moved on to another lagoon because who would want to swim in raw sewage. The lagoon no longer provided life to the local wildlife, but only promised death.
The young boy was now an older man, having moved out of state and starting a family he never had the chance to return to this lagoon until now. As drove down the road he thought what the lagoon would look like, he still imagined the shimmering water and the joy he had fishing there as a boy. He parked his car and walked down the path, again taking an abrupt turn into the trees. As he made his way through the trees a putrid smell reached his nose that he had never smelled on his walk towards the lagoon. It grew stronger as he approached and when he poked his head from among the trees and laid his eyes on what used to be the beautiful lagoon his jaw dropped and he stopped dead in his tracks. The once brackish water had turned into brown sludge, all the color was gone from the lagoon, all the animals had left, and all the beauty that once made this place special to a young boy was gone. It was all gone. Everything that he had remembered was gone, all but one thing. The pipe.
