Hello 〽️emphis. We interrupt this hiatus to share my last bits of time running around this city I ❤️. McKellar Lake, w/its industry, isn’t a destination many today would pick. But a thing you should know is it was once “the spot”—& its pollution is interconnected w/drinking water
Mr. Batsell Booker, retired #Memphis Fire Battalion Chief is the one who told me about McKellar being the spot back in the day. I went deep in the archives because it’s so hard to imagine. But it was such a part of city life, The CA had a Boating Editor commercialappeal.com/story/news/202…
Also pictured above is the Stone Soul Picnic gospel music festival. When it first launched at MLK Riverside Park on the McKellar waterfront in the 70s, the festival drew 55,000. There was also once a Ms. McKellar Lake beauty contest (& wow do those creepy write ups not age well)
What hasn’t changed: + The appearance of oil sheens on the water; an occasional mass fish kill + Citizen demands officials step up to protect a natural resource; this time with the stakes raised to the Memphis Sand drinking water aquifer What has changed: + Scientific research
The map above comes from Sagar Pandit of @CAESER_UofM, showing rivers + some of the breaches in a clay layer that largely separates shallow groundwater from the #MemphisSand drinking water aquifer further below + well fields from which drinking water is pumped.