Dan Stamm
NBC Philadelphia
June 18, 2013
A hole opens up in the street and a fluorescent green fluid appears inside.
What is that stuff?
It sounds like a scene from an episode of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a Nickelodeon slime show or a toxic waste dump.
But this isn’t science fiction, this sinkhole filled with fluorescent green goo is reality and it’s located on a Philadelphia street. Steven Reitz can prove it. The Northern Liberties resident shot a photo of the “radioactive-looking” sinkhole along Randolph Street near Girard Avenue last week.
Reitz’s photo was then shared around the world after he posted it to the social discussion site, Reddit. Since then, hundreds of Reddit users weighed in on what exactly was the green liquid in the sinkhole. More than a few mentioned the Ninja Turtles as a possibility.
There would be no “Splinter” in this story however even if there was still a mystery.
It seems the mystery of what caused the bright green water and who was responsible might be answered by Philadelphia Gas Works — since their name “PGW” is stamped on the traffic barricade — or the Streets Department — since this is a hole in the street – but a few phone calls revealed that the radioactive-looking water came from the Philadelphia Water Department.
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