Catfish Used to Clean Pools on Foreclosed Properties

Faced with dozens of smelly, swamp-like swimming pools on foreclosed properties, Florida officials are getting extremely desperate. With nearly 9 percent of upscale Wellington’s homes in foreclosure, they needed to find a fast and cheap way to deal with the problem. Their solution? Amazonian catfish, the very same fish used to keep aquariums naturally free of algae.

From the Sun-Sentinel:

Most bottom-feeders don’t make it past the guard gate. But Amazonian catfish, fashionably leopard-spotted and wearing fins as flamboyant as pool party caftans, are living the good life in several upscale Wellington neighborhoods hard-hit by foreclosures, including Olympia and Versailles.

“The water looks lighter around the edges,” said Debra Mitchell, the village’s lead code compliance officer, peering into a pool in Versailles, whose water is a putrid olive green.

The village has started a pilot program using the algae-eating fish, called pterygoplichthys and commonly known as “plecos” or “sailfin catfish,” in slime-choked swimming pools. Mitchell said she hopes the slime-eaters will be an inexpensive and eco-friendly way to clean up abandoned pools, an all-you-can-eat banquet of scum.

Unlike mosquito fish, which were dumped into swimming pools on foreclosed properties by California officials last summer, Amazonian catfish are already a part of the local ecosystem. They’re not native, of course – like many other species in Florida, they were dumped by irresponsible pet owners and subsequently flourished. They’re present in canals and lakes all over the state.

Using these fish – which were provided by a local fish farm that caught them in a nearby lake – will cost Wellington officials $700 for a year, versus the $7,000 that it would have taken to maintain the pools using chemicals and other traditional methods.

While it’s nice that officials consulted (and received encouragement from) the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Science before they did this, it’s hard not to be concerned about using live animals in such a way – particularly when, as the Sun Sentinel article states, the fish will be ‘destroyed’ when the houses are sold.

Link [Sun-Sentinel]

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Contents of Foreclosed Homes Going to the Dump. Where are the Green Entrepreneurs?

‘Foreclosure Alley’: that’s the nickname of one area in Southern California that’s been so hard-hit by the mortgage crisis, there’s barely a home in the neighborhood that’s still occupied.  The beautiful valley filled with spacious homes with formerly sparkling pools and manicured lawns is now decaying.  So many homes have been foreclosed, the banks can’t clean them out fast enough.  So, they’re resorting to the cheapest way to empty the homes of their contents: hiring companies to haul it all away to the dump.

Check out this video from KCET SoCal Connected:

Shocking, isn’t it? Surely there’s a better way. Especially once you consider the fact that the vast majority of this stuff is perfectly good – better than the quality that most charities receive as donations for people in need.  It’s sickening to see giant trash bins full of clothing, bedding, televisions, brand new computers, cookware, toys, baby supplies and other valuable items being poured into a dump truck.  The company featured in the video ‘trashes out’ an average of 15 foreclosed homes a day.  That’s a lot of trash.  Apparently, they’ve tried to donate this ‘trash’ to charities, but the charities aren’t well-organized enough to get the stuff fast enough to please banks that are eager to keep things fast and cheap.

Max Gladwell speaks for a lot of us when he asks, “Where are the green entrepreneurs?”  This is a prime opportunity to step in and not only make a big profit, but get items to people in need AND prevent all of this stuff from crowding landfills.  It’s a win-win.

From Max Gladwell:

We envision an operation that rents cheap warehouse space in strategic locations near current and pending foreclosure areas. One would partner with the trash-out companies and hire teams of low-cost labor to work with them to identify and recover the most valuable items in a highly strategic manner. Much of it can be sold through eBay and Craig’s List. Other items can be Freecycled. As the operation scales and diversifies, one could take over for the trash-out companies and offer banks a green alternative. As the company gains momentum and scale, it could operate more cost-effectively than the non-green competitors because revenue would be generated at both ends, while also saving on the landfill fees.

Somebody jump on it!

Link [Max Gladwell]

Officials in California Filling Pools with Mosquito Fish

For months, there have been little mentions here and there about how officials all over the country are worried about mosquitoes breeding in the brackish pools behind abandoned, foreclosed homes. You would think that the standard response would be a) drain the freaking pools, b) put forth some kind of community effort to either get people back in the homes or c) drop some mosquito dunks in there. But, the brilliant officials in California have decided that mosquito-larvae-eating fish are the solution.

From Treehugger:

The mortgage crisis is not only wrecking peoples’ lives, it’s not doing much good for the environment, either. The swimming pools of abandoned homes are perfect mosquito breeding grounds, there are worries about rampant West Nile Virus infections. In California, authorities are using airplanes to find green pools and are filling them with the Gambusia affinis, or mosquito fish, which eats the larvae.

“They are real heroes,” says Josefa Cabada, a technician at the Contra Costa Mosquito & Vector Control District, a government agency, in the Wall Street Journal. “I’ve never seen a mosquito in a pool with mosquito fish.”

The problem (despite the obvious one of, uh, fish in swimming pools) is that these fish wreak havoc on each new ecosystem they’re placed in. They’ve displaced native species all over the world, and are apparently ‘master escape artists’, able to travel in as little as 3 millimeters of water.

Surely, there is a better solution than this – it sounds like a story in The Onion.

Link [Treehugger]
Photo credit: DAVID CARLSON / The Californian