With fountains gushing green, Savannah starts St. Patrick's week

SAVANNAH - Eddie Fahey tipped the inky dye into Forsyth Park&#39;s 144-year-old fountain and within seconds its cast-iron swans spewed green water glimmering like some radioactive, sci-fi gel. <br> <br> Spectators cheered for television cameras broadcasting live Friday as Fahey, grand marshal of the nation&#39;s second-largest St. Patrick&#39;s Day parade, gave the official green light to Savannah&#39;s weeklong celebration. <br> <br> ``This sets off the week,&#39;&#39; said Fahey, 74, who will lead the parade next Saturday. ``That green comes out and, to an Irishman, it&#39;s just like holy water. It gets everybody in the mood.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> Dyeing a dozen fountains to a gushing green in Savannah&#39;s parks and oak-shaded squares has been a tradition for more than 30 years. But its ceremonial pomp and pageantry started as a St. Pat&#39;s shenanigan. <br> <br> Nobody&#39;s sure who the culprit was. But somebody slinking though the squares after nightfall years ago slipped dye, food coloring or who knows what into the fountain water. <br> <br> ``First, it was just a prank. Then they kept doing it because everybody liked it,&#39;&#39; said Jimmy Burke, a past grand marshal who&#39;s helped organize St. Patrick&#39;s parades since the 1960s. ``People would say, `How&#39;d the fountain get dyed green?&#39; Nobody knew. It just happened at midnight.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> The city took over the greening of the fountains by the 1970s, and now it gets carried out like a clockwork ritual. City groundskeepers clean and repaint Forsyth Park&#39;s 1858 fountain before every dye job. <br> <br> And they mix gallons and gallons of industrial dye, a rusty orange powder that turns verdant green when it touches water. It takes 10 gallons of dye just to turn the park fountain&#39;s water green for a few hours. <br> <br> ``We have to continually freshen that fountain up,&#39;&#39; said Jim Parker, arborist for the Savannah Park and Tree Department. ``We&#39;ve got a dye that gives us a particular amount of colorfastness, but it doesn&#39;t just stay and stay. That would ruin the fountains.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> And though the 35-pound cans of powder from Arizona-based Pylam Dyes Inc. say it&#39;s safe for coloring food, drugs and cosmetics, ``you don&#39;t want to try to drink this or try to stain your beer with it,&#39;&#39; Parker said. <br> <br> Green fountains and green beer may have stuck in Savannah, which has held St. Patrick&#39;s Day parades for 178 years and expects up to 500,000 people to attend this year. But some attempts at green ingenuity have gone horribly wrong. <br> <br> Pranksters one year dumped detergent in one fountain, causing it to foam like a broken washing machine and causing a headache for city workers. <br> <br> And in 1961, the city tried to dye the Savannah River green by pouring barrels of dye from barges. The experiment produced only sickly green streaks, and has never been repeated.

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