The Iowa DNR says 800 gallons of milk that spoiled during the Derecho power outage was dumped into a storm drain outside an Ankeny Hy-Vee and is now flowing towards Fourmile Creek.

According to a news release from the DNR, officers responded to a tributary of Fourmile Creek in Ankeny this morning to investigate reports of the water turning white and fish struggling at the surface. The DNR was able to trace the white liquid to the storm drain at the Hy-Vee Store at 410 N. Ankeny Boulevard.

The DNR says the store reported 800 gallons of milk were dumped into the drain. The store lost power for 19 hours this week after the derecho storm blew through the state, leaving the milk unusable.

Full story here.

We’ve all been in a situation similar to this. You’re pouring 6 months worth of bacon grease down the sink and mom starts screaming at you for some reason, or you flush one condom down a toilet and your girlfriend doesn’t like it because “it’s her toilet and you’ll ruin her septic system.” I don’t know how pipes work. I don’t know how toilets work. I don’t know how storm drains work. As far as I know it’s where the scary clown keeps all the dead kids in IT and that’s the extent of my knowledge. To further that point, who’d have really thought bad milk was not good for fish? I have trouble comprehending things I can’t see, so when you tell me that if I put 800 gallons of spoiled milk down a storm drain it’s going to wipe out 6 generations of river trout in a curdled sludge of 2%? It makes sense. But when I’m holding 800 gallons of spoiled milk, do really you think my first instinct isn’t going to be to pour it down the storm drain? 

That being said, 800 gallons is an absurd amount of milk. I say again, an ABSURD amount of milk. Any time I forget the expiration date and have to pour out a gallon of milk into the sink (no idea where that milk goes, probably outer space) I marvel at just how much liquid a gallon is. It’s incredible. It never stops. Can you imagine pouring that times 800 into anything? I’m talking storm drain, sink, bathtub, even the goddamn ocean. If you pour that amount of milk into the Atlantic, I’m pretty sure it’s the equivalent of a small oil spill. It’s technically a  natural disaster. And in our situation, how much thought went into that? I could be wrong but 800 gallons of anything seems like it could start a flash flood, so it doesn’t surprise me that Hy-Vee essentially wiped out an ecosystem.

I have no other background information on this but the image of a Hy-Vee employee pouring out 800 1 gallon milk jugs into a storm drain has got to be one of the funniest images of the year. I assume that’s what it had to be, right? It’s not 1845, we’re not keeping milk in vats anymore. We’re not transporting milk in giant milk tankers that are at risk of getting hijacked by mad max ruffians; because we’re not heathens, we just know where storm drains go.

p.s. I don’t remember much from high school/anything before I lost my virginity at 18 but I’m pretty sure in studying the ground water cycle we learned that more or less everything you put into the soil makes it into our streams, rivers, and oceans. By that logic, this employee almost did the earth a solid by sparing the ground animals from 800 gallons of rotting dairy, and just delivering it straight to where it was gonna end up anyway!

Boom. Drink for your milk, Earth. You’re welcome.