“Visit Pensacola! You’ll love our shit!” There’s your Chamber of Commerce bumper sticker.
Like water sports? Fishing, swimming, water skiing? Come to Pensacola. But just don’t go in Bayou Texar for any of that. The Health Department has closed it for the umpteenth time due to excessive levels of fecal contamination.
It happens so often now, that the Health Department no longer calls it what it is like they used to. Now they’ve sanitized the warning. Now they just call it ‘bacteria.’ You have to call the Health Department to find out the nature of that bacteria. I called to ask. It’s the same as it has always been. Fecal bacteria.
What’s worse, the reaction to it is also the same. After having abandoned the study to find out the sources of the contamination years ago, the city and county officials continue to ignore the problem. Apparently, unless it has anything to do with BP, they’re not interested in cleaning up their own back yard.