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Re: [at-l] GSMNP Proposed Itenerary redux



--- Coosa <coosa@fox21.net> wrote:
> Water isn't water -- I'd suggest that the purity of water today vs 50 years
> ago isn't comparable -- leeching, acid rain, fertilizer runoff, etc, ad
> nauseum.

### OK, here comes the nauseum part.
50 years ago, we didn't have a EPA -- the federal Environmental Protection
Agency -- brought into existence by things like whole dead rivers that caught
fire and burned without recourse for days.
Today, we have not only a federal EPA, but separate agencies in each of the
50 states to mirror, supplant, and even go beyond federal pollution control
mandates in air, soil, and water.

50 years ago, leeching killed whole streams, valleys, lakes, from mines, mine
tailings, open pit chemical waste dumps, leaking barrels stored outside, etc.
Today, mines (as destructive as they truly are) are required to recondition
the land before "they" leave it, and as the dirtiest sites are removed from
the federal SuperFund list (anyone remember Love Canal? New Yorkers? New
Yorkers? Bueller?), the sites being added are getting smaller and smaller.
Thats good news -- does it make a ripple in the media? No. They just want you
to know that "more" sites were added. Gee, no bias there.

Acid Rain? Really, it's acidic deposition -- as most is deposited as a dry
dust, but that doesn't sound so interesting. Never has. Anyway:
Smell that sulfur from the back of your car? Yes? Blame the power company,
instead. But realize that as of January 1, 2000, "Phase II" of the Clean Air
Act Amendments of 1990 went into effect, reducing utility emissions of acid
rain components to levels less than half of 1980 levels, which had already
been reduced by the *previous* versions of the Clean Air Act. {A little more
history: the original "Clean Air Act of 1963" didn't even define "air
pollution"; the federal government was powerless to mandate air quality
standards till 1967; and the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970 gave the first
power to require SIPs -- state implementation plans -- to bring air quality
to "acceptable" levels.} Just part of the story, but you can see that the
requirements have been tightened tremendously from 50 years ago. But again,
nobody wants to hear the good news.

Fertilizer run-off? I'll go gentle on you: reread the paragraph above,
substituting "Clean Water Act" where appropriate. Good news, but "shhhhhh."

A little story:
when I was a kid (let's be kind and say 30 years ago), we would occasionally
find ourselves using US8 up the Naugatuck River valley in Connecticut, from
the shore up through the Mass border. (The next valley over, the Housatonic,
holds US7 AND the Appalachian Trail.) To ride that road, we had to drive
fast, windows up no matter how hot it was, and pray that no one needed a pee
break, 'cause of the asphixiating stench from the bare slimy banks of the
dead river. All the Nauga's that were slaughtered to give us Naugahyde were
dumped in that poor river.... But at one point in the early 90's, I *did*
have to stop and get out, and I was shocked: there was no stench, the banks
were lush, the river bubbled brightly, THERE WAS A FISHERMAN FLY-CASTING,
..... I stood there with my mouth agape.... Holy Cow. I NEVER would have
thought that possible IN MY LIFETIME.

Now where does all that leave the unfiltered water consumed on the AT before
say 1990, to where we are now? You're safer now than you've ever been.
Doesn't mean you won't get sick. It DOES mean it's less likely than before,
when nobody "knew better."

In health,

=====
Sloetoe


   "I strive to be the man my children think I am."

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