A Crappy Moment on the Gowanus

We don't know for a fact that this brown mass we found floating on the Gowanus on Saturday is, uh, crap. However, it looks disturbingly like what might happen if King Kong had the runs at the Carroll Street Bridge. (Actually, we watched the mass of whatever it was float from the Union Street Bridge to the Caroll Street Bridge.) Or, maybe, they're just decomposed leaves that got washed out storm drains. Regardless, the Gowanus suffers from what are known in the trade as Combined Sewage Overflows or CSOs, meaning that untreated sewage flows right into the canal when it rains hard enough. Friday, it rained hard enough to do this. So, this was Saturday's treat. If it's any comfort, the smell wasn't as bad as one would have expected. The blueish sheen on the water is oil which constantly bubbles up to the surface of the water next to the Bayside Fuel Oil facility near the Union Street Bridge. There is a meeting on February 12 to discuss such issues.