A trip on a different kind of love boat

Last Updated: June 17, 2003

Jim Stingl  |  ARCHIVE

Aboard the Pelagos - There are a million stories in the city when it gets naked, and too many of them are ending up afloat here in Lake Michigan.

I invited myself for a ride on the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District's boat, which lately has been patrolling the harbor south of Summerfest in search of pre-owned condoms that have been slipping through the sewage treatment process.

"We're pretty sure some of the condoms are coming from the plant. We are finding condoms in the final stage of treatment, which is disinfection, and we're not sure how they're getting there," said MMSD spokesman Bill Graffin, who rode along.

Catch Of The Day   Photo/Dale Guldan Dan Landis (left) and Mike Roddy, with United Water Services, fish for condoms near the Port of Milwaukee dock Tuesday after the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District alerted them to something floating. The district routinely checks the quality of water and the amount of debris in Lake Michigan.   Recent Coverage   Condoms: Found floating in Milwaukee harbor (6/16/03)

The plant then spits the condoms into the lake and, as you might imagine, some people have complained. The district, which doesn't need another public relations headache, says it's doing everything it can to fix the problem short of asking Milwaukee to hold off for a while on all the lovin'.

It's been suggested that the problem here could be faulty equipment, a condition evidently not shared by the men of Milwaukee.

When you see this mess you don't know whether to call the sewerage district or Planned Parenthood. These tough little buggers survive 8 to 10 hours of sewage treatment, which is pretty long considering that they usually need to last only 8 to 10 minutes for their intended use.

Our city can do without this kind of publicity. Maybe we could come up with some new tourism slogans to make the best of a bad situation, like: "Lake Michigan - send us your best swimmers." Or: "To get to our fabulous new art museum, turn left when you see a giant slick of condoms."

We found about half a dozen condoms bobbing with the alewives during our two-hour tour Tuesday morning. The surest way to require condoms in this town is to get some ale into the wives first. Sorry, gals, I'm just ribbing you.

The sewerage district has suggested that fishermen may have been mistaking the fish for condoms, which could be disastrous when contraception is the goal.

Two men in hard hats, goggles and gloves - they don't want to risk getting spunky pox or cryptospermidium - leaned over the side of the boat, scooped up the nasty prophyLAKEtics in pool skimmers and dropped their catch in a television-sized box lined with plastic.

You wouldn't want to touch this stuff with a 10-foot pole, but for Mike Roddy and Dan Landis that's exactly their job. My hat is off to them for bringing in the sheaths.

Most of the condoms were floating along the seawalls in the slips where the huge ships dock in the port. Our mission in that area, it seemed to me, was berth control.

We passed under the Hoan Bridge, or as I like to call it, where the rubbers meet the road. I thought about the people who dropped these things in distant toilets, never dreaming their tattered remains would be intercepted by our crew of seamen, and reported and photographed as news.

My memory rewound to the day when a bunch of us kids got a hold of some condoms as we hung around the Journal shack waiting for the papers to come. We figured out that if you want to see a condom inflate to a ridiculous size and then blow to bits, all you have to do is fit one on the tailpipe of a car and start the motor. Guys, I challenge you to try to get that image out of your mind the next time you wear one.

I respect the sewerage district for taking responsibility for this problem. It would have been easy to claim they floated up here from Chicago or that they were actually bratwurst casings.

Let's just hope they find a solution before Milwaukee is flush with bikers from all over for Harley-Davidson's 100th anniversary this summer. These folks love to party, if you get my meaning.

Mmmm-mmm, I bet you folks in New Berlin can't wait to start getting your drinking water from Lake Michigan. Suddenly that groundwater probably seems pretty tasty.

Our skipper, Eric Waldmer, a supervisor in MMSD's water quality research department, turned the love boat around and took us back to the dock.

There would be other days to fight the Trojan war.