You won’t find Micky Mouse ears or Walt’s frozen head in the Rivers of America at L.A.’s Disneyland. Instead, the man-made waterway is filled with “hundreds of cellphones, countlesss pacificiers and half a canoe,” according to the Los Angeles’ Times.
To minimize the environmental impact this time, the park collaborated with the Orange County Water District and drained the water through a valve, purified it and added it to the county’s reserve.
That’s about 6 million gallons of water saved, park officials figured. The island and the waterway, which used to be stocked with fish, are as old as Disneyland itself. The park opened in 1955, and photos show Walt Disney on the bank of the island with a fishing pole in hand, [Disneyland Resort spokesman John] McClintock said.
Once the river was drained, employees at Disneyland spent the week repairing and cleaning Tom Sawyer Island as well dredging the “river” basin and shore.
No word yet whether Disney plans to make repairs and exorcise ghosts from the Tower of Terror.
Full story: Disneyland, theme parks: Disneyland’s Rivers of America about to be back in business – latimes.com