I did not remember that I'd made a webpage about Oakland Lake Park on my Eyes on Texas website, until this morning's feedback email on the subject reminded me.
When I made the webpage about Oakland Lake Park I was still calling the lake Oakland Lake, likely because signs naming that body of water, Fosdic Lake had not yet appeared.
In this morning's email we learn what may be the real reason swimming is banned in Fosdic Lake. That and we also learn how the cool oak trees that line Oakland Boulevard and Martel Avenue came to be....
You were wondering on your blog / photo page of Oakland Park about the toxic lake.
I grew up in East Fort Worth and we never believed the lake was toxic.
But what I do remember happening is this:
Back in the late 1970s, teenagers from south of Lancaster Avenue were venturing up to Oakland Hills park to use it as a swimming pool, because there were no other nearby ponds deep and clean enough to swim in and there were no public pools (and of course no private ones either) in the area south of Lancaster in those days. The park quickly (in a matter of weeks) became an attractive location for petty criminals from outside the local neighborhood, with the sudden onset of muggings and violent crime in a park where there had been no crime at all prior to the lake becoming an impromptu swimming hole.
If I remember right, a man was killed by muggers while visiting the park with his wife / girlfriend at about the same time. For some reason, I think he was a policeman.
So the local community convinced the city to put up the toxic water signs and swimming in the pond almost immediately stopped, and the non-local resident users of the park went elsewhere.
That's at least how I recall it.
Wes Taylor
Former East Fort Worth Resident
PS.......my great great grandpa planted all of those huge oaks along Oakland Blvd and adjacent streets.
There was an off-duty police officer killed in Oakland Lake Park, but at a different date.
ReplyDeleteDonald James Manning - Saturday, June 26, 1993
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While off duty, Detective Donald J. Manning was on a date in Oakland Lake Park, 1645 Lakeshore Drive, when he and his female friend were approached by a group of male subjects who attempted to rob them. An exchange of gunfire occurred and Detective Manning was shot. He was taken to Harris Methodist Hospital and died the next day.
http://www.fortworthpd.com/fwpd/memoriam.aspx
My understanding of the swimming ban is that it's due to chlordane runoff. A nasty, but slow neurotoxin, it was widely used against termites, until replaced by organophosphates.
This being Texas and all, no one really thought there was anything dangerous about toxic materials, so no doubt it was used on anything and everything, with the excess draining to the lake.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlordane
Stenotrophomonas, I was a little surprised to have someone tell me that swimming in Fosdic Lake took place in the past. I can't imagine walking into that lake. Sounds like east Fort Worth used to be more dangerous than it is now.
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