"Contaminated Water rb2@gr5t Mildred"

B

Boating Buddy

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We heard that there are signs posted rb2@gr5t Mildred saying the water was contaminated and warning about swimming. Does anyone have any information about this or did someone just want a private lake for the weekend ?
 
Sounds like some ingenious leg-pulling going on out on Mildred. I can't believe San Joaquin County Health Dept. gives a hoot about the water quality there.

On second thought, if there was some herbicide or insecticide going on maybe that would warrant some posting.
 
Or it might be related to the fire at Little Mandeville. It was reported that lots of contaminates poured into the water when the fire spread and burned. This would especially be the case if there was a meth lab involved.

Whatever the cause, this is bad news for the waters all the way out to the San Joaquin Channel and south toward Discovery Bay as well. Unless they are containing this from spreading, only good strong winter rains will flush these out!

Another stab in the heart for the delta.
 
I never heard any notice and it didn't seem to scare anyone away including the Sea Ray club with their circle of boats this weekend.

Maybe the warning was posted by LA County who probably offered to take the contaminated water away from us free of charge.
 
We have a crew out there today, as of right now they have not seen any signs. I have asked them to check the openings at Mildred to see if anything is posted and have asked that they take a picture if one is found. I will try to find out exactly what is going on. I can tell you it was not us and if a sign was posted, we probably should have been notified. I will keep you posted.
 
Thanks so much - will be looking for more information. I knew there would be some answers here. I guess I also learned to spell out AT from now on.
 
Buddy

Where exactly did you see the signs? Did they look like "offical" signs. Interesting that DBW knows nothing about it. Maybe it is someone's idea of a [sick] joke!
 
We didn't see the signs ourselves but were told about them from our friends who berth right next to us. Here's what we were told.

"When I saw ___ he said that his neighbors had been out there the weekend before and then had gone out during the week and had seen the signs and were very upset because they had been in the water and wondered what they had exposed themselves to."
 
Thanks for the clarification, Boating Buddy. So... the information you got was one party removed from the eyewitness, which makes the account "third party" information.

However, Delta lore often has a basis in fact. I'd like to read more on this story. I'd like to see a photo, too.

"Delta drug labs" is another interesting bit of Delta lore. I know of only one actual example of that ever happening, but the story keeps going around and around. In fact, most boats are too small to make a decent drug lab. And it's tough to haul the needed chemicals to those boats unnoticed. The 'necks up in the foothills do a lot more cookin' than Delta boaters.

"Delta pot farms" is a different story, though.
 
yzer, this guy had 10 vessels at his disposal. I do not think that his reputation at Bethel Island when he was docked over there were exaggerated by much.

About 10 yrs ago there was a really nice 50 ft houseboat which was berthed next door to Donovans'/Sugar Barge. One time in December his houseboat causght fir and burned to the waterline. VAAA almost lost one of there boats due to the heat while he was trying to assist. The owner said he was tuning up his genset which caught fire, but a later investigation showed he had a meth lab which went up.

Things on Bethel Island are much much better now. The old ways are gone! And I doubt growing pot is very prevalent on Bethel Island for where would they hide the growing plants?
 
Flutter, that's the drug lab incident I remember. California meth production has changed during the last few years. Restrictions on bulk sales of cold capsules have driven most of the commercial producers south of the border. Mexican drug traffickers now handle 80% of all the meth used in the US. The Mexican traffickers also operate the remaining meth "superlabs" in California. Most are in southern California, but there are still a lot of labs being busted closer to home. Recent lab seizures are still in the courts: this 2004 info is the most recent I could find.
http://ag.ca.gov/bne/images/calabmap.gif

As far as Delta pot goes... who can forget the 95 pot plants seized from Delta tules by USCG Station Rio Vista back in August of 2002?

cgrio82002.jpg
 
I remember a story about this small country store up in Mendicino County that was the largest seller of Sudifed in California. Must have been a real bad case of the flu going on up there.
 
yzer, prior to the houseboat lab incident, there was a trailer on Piper Rd which burned to the ground suddenly one night. Yup, another meth lab gone awry!

If I remember correctly, that pot bust was at Quimby Island?
 
I spoke to the members of our crew working in that area yesterday.
They were unable to find any signs. This is one of the most experienced crewmember on the Delta that we have, so I trust his judgement. Maybe this was some kind of ploy to have Midred's unoccupied. Anyways, I thank you for the observations as it is important to us this kind of thing is investigated and cleared.
 
The person who told me about the signs is very reliable and I don't doubt for a single minute that the signs were there. Thank you so much for checking this out.
 
If Mildred was contaminated then the whole delta must be too. There are many breaches all around the island so water flows freely with the change of the tide continuously flushing it out in the process.

On the major breaks at the north and south of the island it looks like a river flowing through there.
 
quote:
Originally posted by Flutterby

yzer, prior to the houseboat lab incident, there was a trailer on Piper Rd which burned to the ground suddenly one night. Yup, another meth lab gone awry!

If I remember correctly, that pot bust was at Quimby Island?

Click to expand...


I can't remember the location of that 2002 bust. I do remember another Delta pot field two or three years ago. A pot patch and campsite was found on the other side of Brannan Is. Rd. from that dry storage facility near Perry's. The grower was camping there, but he got away.
 
pkjryan

Thank you so much for confirming that there is no official closing of Mildred due to contamination!
 
Excellent work Boating Buddy!

I've only been boating for 11 years in the Delta. I thought this blue-green algae bloom was just normal for this time of year.

Well, I was out in the Delta last week and spent a lot of time in the water. With the heat, I took a couple of dips even when the tide carried a lot of the "green cornflakes."

I'm not dead yet, but I'm not happy to hear any of this news either.

On the plus side, this may be another nail in the coffin for those huge water exporters.

I downloaded "Microcystis_Presentation_5-19-05".

The "admiral" is a microbiologist and very interested in this development. She remembers many summers spent boating on the Delta during the '60s and says there was no aglae bloom at all back then.
 
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