Project Muck-Up: Turkey In The Straw

The muckbeds installed in some parts of the city are a little better in that they don’t seem to get as gooey as before. Some warm weather dried them out to the point where they were like cracked clay.

Then more work was done, tilling and raking them up, making the strange crap look more like normal soil. (I still would like to see a report of the materials that make up the mysterious muck or at least know its source. Did this stuff originate in a sewage treatment plant?) More grass seed was put down and this time straw was layered over that, apparently to keep the new seed from blowing away and to stop the pigeons from feeding on it again.

But as you can see from the following images, the straw in a few places has been blown off, ending up in all over the place, especially the gutters. I wonder if the straw will clog up the street sweeper when it vacuums through the next time. Anyway, the seed is exposed again and so the straw has put down for nothing.

When Miller Street was renovated near the post office, they put down layers of green sod in the medians between the sidewalk and the street. After a while the sod took and now those medians are properly restored; viable lawns grow.

Maybe after enough taxpayer money has been wasted with muckraking, grass seed, and straw, the city will wise up and use real soil and sod again. Plattsburgh will decide it’s the last straw for this turkey project.







Here’s some straw that pooled up in someone’s parking lot. How would you like to clean up a mess like this in your driveway?




Even after drying, tilling, raking, seeding, and strawing, the median crypto-fill still becomes mucky when wet enough, as seen in the image below. So be advised: watch your step.