Environmental activism

Today I paddled my plastic touring boat for about 100 minutes on McKellar Lake.  McKellar Lake is actually a slackwater harbor off the Mississippi River below downtown Memphis, and once upon a time there was no place more glamorous for the Mid South's bathing beauties:

These days, while a few die-hards continue to swim and sun themselves here on hot summer days, McKellar seems more like a parking lot for barges:

McKellar also has become known for its mass quantities of floating trash, and is a regular stop each year for Chad Pregracke's Living Lands and Waters cleanup project:

Another water quality issue is what brought me to McKellar Lake today: TVA's Allen Fossil Plant, located near the mouth of McKellar at the Mississippi River, burns coal and discharges heavy-metal-laden water from its ash ponds directly into the lake.  TVA is abiding by all existing laws and EPA regulations; the problem is that there are no laws prohibiting the heavy metals in question from being discharged into our nation's waterways.  Here's a picture I took today of the point of discharge:

The local chapter of the Sierra Club organized a peaceful demonstration for today to call attention to this problem, and I was happy to participate.  Here we display our message for the local media:

I'm the guy on the far right who's almost been cut out of the picture.