Burnt Bridge Creek Poem – 1977

		I
		 am
		   Burnt
		    Bridge
		     Creek.
		      I  wander
		       through
		       eight miles
		      of Clark County
		   starting in the east and
		  carrying silt and water,
		  septic tank effluent and sludge,
		    tossed-about garbage, a few faithful
		     bacteria and too few restoring algae
			to Vancouver Lake.  I am the hope of
			   Vancouver Lake.  I am the playground of
			    countless children and wandering tired
			   adults.  I am a haven for birds, otters, deer,
			  meadow voles, shrews, pheasant.  I wander
			 through a city paved over and also serenely
			maintained lush farmlands and grazing areas.
		       Without rain, I dwindle and stagnate.  In
		      storms, I grow more restless and now must
		     bear the rush of city water, suburban water,
		    mud from bulldozed developments and green
		   belts destroyed, and the brown ribbon around
		  the shores of the lake is my evidence that I
		 no longer fill this county with fresh, clean
		water.  Once I offered swimming holes for
		laughing children, fishing derbies where
	       hundreds of children competed for my  healthy,
	       edible trout, salmon, perch, bass and blue gill.
	       Once before the dawning of Clark County, I lured
	       the Hudson Bay Company to my banks where beavers
		 had ponded on my rich organic peat soil where now
		   prime agricultural land is threatened by encroachment
		      and right of eminent domain.  Once orchards of plums,
			pears, peaches and filberts grew in tended rows, where
			   now roads carry people to the edge of the lake and
			     around.  The quality of my water requires that I be
			       posted along my length so that children will not
				  swim in my cooling glades.  My coliform count
				  indicates that hepatitis, salmonella, other
				  harmful bacteria and virus and parasites may
				   lurk to endanger these children.  The homes
				  built with pride along my shores and in my
				 drainage basin empty their wastes into septic
				tanks now old and often in disrepair, whose
				drainage fields flood sewage on the top of a
			       clay formation and empty into my banks.  Where
			       once I carried with speed and splashing, I
			      cleaned the water on my way, now my shores
			     swollen with silt merely drain into the lake
			     pond and dare the fish to exist for hopeful
			    fisherman along the shore.  Some see me as a
			  possible paradise for urban man, with discovery
			  trails, canoe runs, picnic areas, golf course, and
			  quiet natural arbors.  There is potential in my beaver
			    ponds and in planned villages around storage ponds.  An
			      advisory committee technically debates my future and
			       talks of hundred year floods and deals with
				 statistics on oil, grease, lead, pesticides,
				   herbicides, and storm runoff from rooftops
				      and roads, talks of options left for my
					existence, of culverts, pond, water fees,
					  and, worst of all, of miles and miles of
					   cement banks for me.  Inevitable is the rain,
					     yet inevitable too the growing community of people.
					      With these people comes life and hope and playful
						  generations who will wander my shores, who will
						      seek me.  Will I still exist of green and
							growing – or of cement, and have disappeared
							  down a storm drain to exist only somewhere
							     invisible underground?

By Pat Blackwell
Distributed by the League of Women Voters of Clark County
August, 1977

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