Greenville More Brown Than Green

Aside

The city of Greenville has long had a problem with littering; one can find trash alongside roads, sidewalks and city establishments. For years the excess waste has lined the city’s creekbeds and rivers. Having spent the largest part of my childhood here, I remember yearning to splash and walk in the creeks that ran by my neighborhood, but I was never allowed and told they were too dirty to play in, even though I always wanted to. I never touched them until last Thursday, when I went wading and looking for fossilized shark teeth in the stream at Green Mill Run, down Fifth Street past Wahl-Coates Elementary School. After putting on a pair of chest-high Cabela’s waders, and ensuring that my camera was tucked in safely, I was ready to explore.

The stream bank ran alongside the park and I carefully trudged down it, the whole time trying not to fall while wearing the unfamiliar waders. I stepped into the water one foot after the other and enjoyed the cool sensation I could feel, even though I was completely dry. I had the newly found freedom to explore the stream, and I was just as excited about that as I was about finding fossils. I waded down the stream, which came up past a good portion of my legs, toward the babbling part where the cool, clear water ran over slick, algae-covered rocks and past strewn-aside logs. We found many fossilized shark teeth near these logs, presumably because they had been lodged there over the course of many years.

We were so preoccupied with looking for small teeth that we were afraid we had thrown aside any large teeth we may have found, without even seeing them for what they actually were. While searching, we also found numerous shards of glass, glass bottles, aluminum cans, and various other pieces of trash and sharp, pointy things that could easily injure someone. No wonder my mom told me not to play in these streams. I am still shocked and saddened that this city’s wild(er) regions have been allowed to remain in such a state. The city of Greenville should make an effort to clean up its waterways, sidewalks, bike paths, parks – and any other place for public enjoyment that isn’t looking its best. The pollution in this city has gone unchecked for too long, and with a relatively small amount of effort, things could be made a lot cleaner, and a lot greener.

As “The Once-ler” said in Dr. Suess’ The Lorax, “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing’s going to get better. It’s not.”