OTUS THE HEAD CAT : Bathroom off-limits during ’gator hunt
Posted on Saturday, August 25, 2007
Dear Otus, The oil company I work for sent me out of state for the past two months, so I didn’t hear what was going on with that planned alligator hunt. I had sent in a request for a permit, but since I haven’t heard back, I suppose I’m out of luck this year. Can you fill me in on when it will be held and if there’s some sort of waiting list I could get on ? A ’gator killed my favorite dog when I was a kid, and I really would love to get even.
— Lex Talionis Standard-Umpstead Dear Lex, It was wholly a pleasure to hear from you, but not so much to inform you that you’re too late. The 40 permits for the Great Alligator Hunt have already been randomly allotted. The only restrictions were hunters had to be 5-foot-10 or shorter and undergo a rigorous three-part training camp. The alligator trouble began during the torrential downpours last spring when so many of the city’s sewers overflowed. Manhole covers were forced off in the Fourche Creek, Rock Creek and Murray Park corridors.
At the height of the overflow, treatment plants were trying to handle roughly 38 million gallons a day (three times the normal flow ), and an estimated 187 manholes were open and exposed for three weeks before crews could wade in to attend to them.
Those weeks of standing water turned low-lying areas into fetid swamps up to 4 feet deep. The alligators followed their instincts and moved into the security of the sewers.
A spokesman for Little Rock Wastewater Utility noted that most of the alligators were juveniles, typically about 4 feet long.
“The monster ’gators, those up to 12 or 13 feet, are too big to fit into the manholes,” Ricky Burger said. “It’s those midsize ones we have to worry about.”
City survey crews estimate that there are between 175 and 250 alligators living in the 67 miles and six underground reservoirs of the Little Rock sewer system.
Photos taken by a camera lowered into the vast 400-million-gallon holding tank in the Little Rock Industrial Park uncovered a pod of 50 to 75 in that facility alone.
“The fear is that with the drier August weather there are a number of ’gators that have migrated back up the system along the six main 64-inch pipes and into the reservoirs in the Heights, Mabelvale, St. Charles, Otter Creek and Chenal Valley areas,” Burger said.
“If those critters are allowed to build nests and winter over, we’ll have baby alligators in the spring, and those are the ones small enough to get up the pipes to residential customers.”
The distinct possibility of snappy little 6-inch ’gators emerging into folks’ bathrooms is what prompted city officials to authorize the alligator hunt, scheduled from 11 p. m. Sept. 21 to 5 a. m. Sept. 22.
The mop-up hunt will take place the following Friday during the same hours. Both hunts will be sponsored by Bass Pro Shops and filmed for ESPN 2 ’s American X-Hunter With Buck Dooley.
City residents will be asked not to use their bathroom, kitchen or laundry facilities during those hours so as not to hamper the hunters tracking the alligators.
“We know that’s an imposition,” Burger said, “but consider the alternative. If we don’t eliminate those ’gators before mating season, we’ll be hip deep in hatchlings. Literally.”
Burger said more information is on the city Web site at www. littlerock. org. Click on the LRTV link or tune into Comcast’s Government Access Channel 11 for the community bulletin board.
The first two ’gator hunt workshops were held Aug. 4 at the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission regional office in Hope. Hunters were taught how to dazzle the ’gators with spotlights and dispatch them quickly using shotgun-caliber “bang sticks.”
The third workshop was held last weekend at the C. A. Vines Arkansas 4-H Center in Ferndale. Hunters were divided into 10 four-man teams with assigned sewer routes, given GPS devices and trained on two-way radios so they can keep in contact with their support teams on the surface.
A dry run will be held in the North Little Rock Burns Park sewer system at 10 a. m. Sunday. The public is invited to watch and encouraged to have their photos taken with the alligator called Becky T. Don’t worry, the ’gator is stuffed. In fact, it’s the same one that used to hang in the old Gators restaurant on Riverfront Drive in North Little Rock. The critter now “lives” in the office of North Little Rock Mayor Pat Hays. Until next time, Kalaka reminds you that although there’s no danger of ’gators in the plumbing, he’d keep the lid down just in case. Disclaimer: Fayetteville-born Otus the Head Cat’s award-winning column of
humorous fabrication appears every Saturday. E-mail: mstorey@arkansasonline. com
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