Published: 15 August, 2013
by TOM FOOT

EACH year, to mark the St Patrick’s Day festivities, the City of Chicago spends thousands of dollars dyeing its river system in a striking shade of Irish green for March 17.

Forty pounds of powdered vegetable dye are used during the celebrations in what organisers grandly describe as “…on a par with the parting of the sea by Moses and the Pyramids of Egypt”.

But, in Camden Town, no such effort is needed… a similar modern-day miracle (if you are a fan of sludge) arrives naturally – and for free.

The summer menace of duckweed returned with a vengeance this week to Camden canals, turning the rank water emerald seemingly overnight.

The New Journal’s music editor Roísín Gadelrab, who took the photograph, above, said: “The green sludge is prettier than the usual Camden Canal brown slime.”

The fast-growing clover-like water-plant starves oxygen from the water, threatening fish and waterbirds. It grows quickly by splitting its leaves in two.

The Canal & River Trust sent in its “weedman” with a giant mechanised scoop in a special boat.