INSIDE THIS ISSUE
APRIL 2017
Tale of Fiction TCSD Contacts Board Members
TRIATHLON CLUB OF SAN DIEGO
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Member Profile Weekly Workout Calendar TCSD Conversation Amino Acids
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Woman for Tri Swim Truth Coach’s Corner In Memory of
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TriNews The
Fat Lady
APRIL CLUB GATHERING Sunday, April 2nd Special Guest
LIONEL SANDERS presented by Babbittville Radio Schedule: 4pm Food 6pm Feature Presentation Location: Challenged Athletes Foundation 9591 Waples St. San Diego, CA 92121
A Tale of fiction
T
by Barbara Javor
he flat expanse of salt ponds at the south end of the bay was Lacey’s favorite place to run. The salt works encompassed over ten square miles of shallow evaporation ponds crisscrossed by dirt levees that the company used to access them. They ranged in a series from normal seawater where it entered the system to crystallizer brines saturated with salt. Culverts connected ponds. Lacey was in charge of determining how much brine needed to flow from pond to pond for making salt. Her runs along the levees weren’t just for exercise. She regarded them as part of her responsibility to know everything about the salina. Once or twice a week Lacey ran alone on the levees after work. The ponds were on private property, and locked gates prevented most people from entering though she occasionally found runners or dog-walkers who had slipped around the
barriers. Because the winds usually blew from the northwest, the southeast corners of the ponds often accumulated flotsam and jetsam. It was usually composed of dead algae that grew in the ponds, but often included anything that blew in and floated—dead seabirds, sticks, tennis balls, and plastic junk. When the afternoon wind picked up, it stirred the rafts of flotsam and decaying matter with the soft, black muds below. The problem of floating debris where pond five drained into pond six had resulted in frequent clogging in the culvert that connected the two ponds at that corner. The company had decided to install a new pipe through the levee about 100 yards further west to mitigate the problem. Lacey selected her route this late afternoon to check on the progress of the construction. As she entered the long levee that separated the two ponds, Lacey knew something was amiss. The depth indicator in pond five was too high, meaning the pond was filling but not draining properly. The contractor hired to construct the new culvert was supposed to build a small, temporary dam, excavate the levee to install a new pipe, rebuild the levee, and then remove the dam. Had the original culvert clogged up again during the construction? If pond five kept filling at this continued on page 6