Sure, the West Fork of the Trinity Looks Beautiful From the Freeway. But Up Close ...?

On the way out to the ballpark a couple of weeks ago, as we drove down 30 over Belt Line, the boy noticed for the first time how close the Trinity River runs next the freeway. I told him that's known as the West Fork of the Trinity, which merges with the Elm Fork when it hits Dallas. He suggested we hop out and talk a hike; instead we took in a ballgame.

But, so happens, I know a few guys who did scope out the area, among them photographer Steven Wallace, who posted this photo to his Facebook page yesterday. It was taken Tuesday at that very spot: I-30 and Belt Line, which looks lovely when you're zooming by at 65 miles per hour.

"When you're driving by you don't actually see it," Wallace says this morning. "But it's disgusting. I've never seen anything like it. I saw a turtle swimming in it, and I was like, 'Oh, really?'"

Wallace says he was down there shooting a film for a big project we can't say much more about till later this summer. But he was accompanied by two other familiar faces: photographers Hal Samples and Dylan Hollingsworth -- who, last September, took those photos of that "wasteland" of trash along White Rock Creek that prompted an impromptu clean-up effort. Dylan's photos will be part of the same multimedia project.

That's Dylan and Hal at right; at left is environmentalist Tammy Chan, who runs Keep Grand Prairie Beautiful. As opposed to this.