Mysterious green foam seeping up through storm drain alarms residents
If there's something strange in your neighborhood, who you gonna call?
Residents in this Utah town surely must have imagined some element of science fiction was at play when they saw this strange green foam bubbling out of a storm drain.
"We got a report that there was a green foam bubbling up out of a storm drain here in Bluffdale," Nicholas Rupp of the Salt Lake County Health Department told KSTU. "We sent some of our environments, scientists out, our emergency response team, to take a look."
Tara Dahl, who lives in the neighborhood, told KSTU that she could see the foam from almost a block away.
"Kind of bubbling a little bit, and then you got closer and you could see it start rising," Dahl said.
Obviously, Dahl's instinct was to run -- but curiosity got the best of her, so instead she went and got a closer look.
"I was amused by it, so I just kept getting closer to kind of examine, to see what it was," Dahl said.
She may have wanted to look at it, but she certainly wasn't about to touch it.
"I don't want that stuff on me, I don't know what it is," Dahl said.
Firefighters apparently felt the same way, wearing heavy-duty masks and gloves as they hosed the green substance back down from which it came.
But before you go believing the alien-green foam was the result of a "Flubber" experiment gone wrong, there's a simpler explanation.
KTSU reports that the source of the foam is the nearby Welby Canal, which is connected to the Jordan River, which is connected to Utah Lake. The same lake that has recently been troubled by toxic algae.
"It's certainly possible that the water in the Welby Canal here does have some of that particular harmful algae that produces toxins in it," Rupp said.
Just to be 100 percent positive that the foam is not toxic algae, Salt Lake County has taken some tests, and they are expected to have the results back by Friday.
Residents are urged to take precautions and refrain from panicking and/or calling Ghostbusters.
