Saturday, October 22, 2011

A River Paradise?



Sometimes things are not what they appear to be.



Google Earth reveals a large reservoir nestled in between beautiful rolling wooded hills.



The Tereble-Ritskaya hydropower plant is located just off the Rika River, but the plant siphons water from the nearby Tereblya River via a 2.3 mile long pipe that runs up and over the mountain range.



The plant is the reason the Tereblya has a reservoir.



What a gorgeous mountain lake.



However…



Floating on top of the water’s surface are thousands of discarded bottles, and possibly other disgusting underwater debris! To make matters worse, the trash is not relegated to one area, but instead pollutes the entire lake.





Despite the ugly floating trash the view is quite beautiful.



The piling up of trash is likely due to local residents tossing it into the river upstream, which the reservoir then ends up collecting further downstream.



In order to fill the land with trash, unlike the river, people must come and intentionally leave their garbage behind.





Many people still take a dip despite the amount of trash piling up around them.