Special places archive
May 2005
Sprol
According to its tagline, Sprol is about planetary scrutiny. It’s a blog whose entries use Google satellite photographs and acerbic text to highlight places of environmental disaster and degradation.
A river that sits above a hundred square miles of underground lead and zinc mines. Most are abandoned, and have filled with water because nobody is operating the sump pumps. The groundwater for dozens of miles is thereby so acid that if you dig a well and drink it, it will injure your esophagus. [Picture and text from Abandoned lead and zinc mines, Tar Creek, Sprol, 20 June 2005.]