It’s not fishy in a good way

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By Barb Ickes | Thursday, June 26, 2008 11:32 PM CDT | () comments

What a foul stench.It smells like the fish ate rotten eggs before they died.

I took a walk Thursday along the muddy riverfront — from the Quad-City Times building at 500 E. 3rd St. to the city skatepark just west of the Centennial Bridge.

The dozens of dead, decaying fish along the low-lying tracks beneath the Government Bridge explained the smell. They obviously got stuck when the water went down.

I do not recommend walking the Davenport riverfront just yet. Besides the smell, it’s still super muddy. But it does reveal a bit of perspective. For instance, the river yuck still clings to the fencing along the old Dock restaurant — all the way to the top, which is at least 4 feet.

As I continued along the bike path in front of the reopened Rhythm City Casino, I encountered a dive-bombing red-winged blackbird. The thing smacked me in the head twice, and I started running — swinging my notebook over my head. I looked really cool.

At Beiderbecke Drive I could hear the sad refrain of LeClaire Park singing the Brown Grass Blues. The whole lawn is so terribly yellow-brown and soggy that I wonder whether it will come back at all this season.

And there at the edge of the park was a collection of Davenport firefighters, blasting hoses at the pudding-like piles of brown yuck that were deposited by the floodwaters without the courtesy of a graham cracker crust.

District Chief Rick Flynn said that a crew of 14 firefighters worked 10-hour shifts Wednesday, and teams were back at it early Thursday.

He was kind (and patient) enough to give me a try at the hose. I could see that the concrete washing was hard work — both because of the pressure of the water and the weight of the hose. Plus, these firefighters are on those hoses for several-hour stretches.

And the mud doesn’t just wash away on contact. You have to stick with the same spot for a while before you can move on.

“You push it as far as you can with all the muck,” Flynn said. “Hopefully, tomorrow it (the water) will come down some more, and we’ll push it a little farther.”

In my brief little stint at the end of the hose, I could see that I wouldn’t last long. The hose, filled with water and pressure, pushes against your side. You feel it in your hip, arms and legs.

“We’re usually pretty sore by the end of the day,” the chief admitted.

The firefighters are in demand, too. In fact, shortly before I arrived, Parks Director Dan Sherman was on the horn with Flynn, asking him to take his crew to the city skatepark for a going over. The problem is, there’s no hydrant at the park, so they’ll have to shut down a portion of River Drive long enough to haul a hose across it.

I continued on to Modern Woodmen Park and suddenly had an image of the mustached guy from the old Dunkin’ Donuts commercial who was always saying it was, “Time to make the donuts.” I was reminded of it because of the guy operating the city-owned front loader, going back and forth and back and forth across the stadium entrance: “Time to take the sandbags.”

It’s near the ballpark entrance that the downtown riverfront looks the worst. The whole area of Centennial Park that’s under the bridge is just loaded with several inches of smelly mud. It’s going to take some time for it to go away.

The skatepark is in much better shape. It’s not exactly in skateboarding condition, but there’s only one deep spot where there’s still standing water. In fact, I was standing there in my soggy shoes, taking pictures of it when a young city worker came along and told me I shouldn’t be there.

Maybe he was afraid I’d stink it up.

Barb Ickes can be contacted at (563) 383-2316 or bickes@qctimes.com.