Just imagine - you're at a party and someone asks, "What do you do for a living?" And you reply, "I'm a Weeki Wachee mermaid." Wouldn't that be great?
Much less believable is that the Southwest Florida Water Management District is known as Swiftmud.
Ballet-dancing mermaids of Florida win reprieve By Robert Green for Reuters
WEEKI WACHEE, Fla. (Reuters) - Florida's endangered Weeki Wachee mermaids got a reprieve Tuesday when a state agency voted to keep their aging theme park open while renovations are made.
The park, about 80 km north of Tampa, has been presenting underwater ballets with women in mermaid costumes since 1947. But attendance has been falling for decades since the opening of more elaborate parks such as Walt Disney World and Universal Studios near Orlando.
The Southwest Florida Water Management District, known as Swiftmud, threatened this summer to close the park because of concern that problems with the sewer system might contaminate Weeki Wachee Springs, which pumps over 455 million litres of water into the nearby Gulf of Mexico.
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