No, it only looks toxic

​All hell breaks loose in the new science-fiction film District 9 when the member of a multi-national peacekeeping group gets sprayed in the face with

“alien fluid.” You’ll have to see the movie to find out what

happens, but this dramatic point in the film’s plot line has slightly similar overtones to the far less serious 1984 cult film Toxic Avenger (where

tormented weakling Melvin Ferd falls into a drum of toxic waste and is

“irradiated and deformed” into a hulking, vengeful creature).

Which reminds us: Scattered all around Kansas City are various puddles

that look as if somebody took an accidental tumble into one of them, he

or she may easily be transformed into something … bad.

The scary, oily-looking patch (pictured above) has the unique distinction of being located directly across the street from the Kansas City Health Department at 24th and Troost. Thinking that the Toxic Avenger might be climbing out of it at any given moment, the concerned citizens at The Pitch made a phone call to Jeff Herschberger, the Health Department’s public information officer.

Herschberger, accompanied by one of the department’s environmental

inspectors, actually walked across the street to look at the messy goo

and reported, “It looks like it’s the regular run-off from the hill

here, which is lifting up some oil that was already on the surface of

the street and there’s a lot of algae growth — a lot of orange

algae — and that’s what it looks like to us.”

It’s not as terrifying as this black algae recently discovered in Alaska, but just as unattractive. And, apparently, as harmless.
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