A River Of Black Sludge Barreled Through Arizona
Twitter/Official Pima CountyA troubling flash flood of ash and debris barreled through Pima County, Arizona, this summer.
Authorities in Pima County, Arizona must have thought they were having a nightmare when a steaming river of black sludge tore through their area in mid-July. As the county’s official Twitter page noted, this piece of odd news was a rather unpleasant reminder of what a taxing year it’s been for the environment in particular.
The incident itself is a well-known natural phenomenon. Known as a flash flood, it is not uncommon for rivers of rainwater to tear through Arizona during the rainy season. But why this particular river appeared demonic is a different story.
This torrent of black ooze is actually charred forest debris that was left over from the wildfires that raged in Pima County this year. When the soil became too charred, however, it could not properly absorb falling rainwater, resulting in a gush of black water.
In Pima County’s case, the flash flood resulted from a northern Tucson flood where 0.83 inches of rain accumulated over five hours at the top of the Cañada del Oro watershed in the Santa Catalina Mountains. The flood formed following the Bighorn Fire, which ravaged over 119,000 acres of land beginning in early June.
Hundreds of locals were notified of the danger, as these floods can destabilize roads and walking paths, contaminate groundwater, and severely affect local fish populations. Flood control district hydrologist Joe Cuffari notes that, in this case, everyone got lucky.
“Those 431 letters went to what we identified as residences that needed to be notified, that were close enough that homes could be at risk if there were a debris flow,” he said. “If it was worst case scenario? Bridges demolished, culverts washed out. We look at the worst case scenario for this.”
Thankfully, that didn’t happen, which downgrades this scary news story to simply a weird news story.
