[at-l] LNT

[ellen at clinic.net (Bob C.)]

The recommendations of "Leave no trace" seek to remind people in the outdoors
that they should lessen their impact on the natural environment. I personally
think their slogan works against achieving the LNT goals. Since very few, if
anyone, is capable of leaving no trace, I suspect that many, perhaps most,
simply tune out the message as being an impossible goal.

 This was also the belief of the guy who dreamed up the concept in the 60s and
 70s. Paul Petzolt, who founded the Outdoor Leadership School, developed the
 basic guidelines, but abandoned the idea later as being impossible to achieve.

 I first heard of the idea 25 or 30 years ago when the Wall Street Journal did a
 funny piece about some guy in the west (Paul Petzolt) training people about how
 to lessen their impacts by drinking their dish water.

 I thought it pretty funny too, until I remembered I'd been doing the same thing
 for years. I use my cup/bowl for my oatmeal. Use the unwashed dish for TANG,
 then for black coffee -- by which time all I needed was to drink a cup of water
 and the dish was clean.

 The Leave No Trace concept flourished despite it's abandonment by Petzolt and
 is now a major organization with multi hundred thousand dollar a year
 executives, and scores of paid practitioners -- something like an environmental
 AVON or AMWAY.

 The slogan is copyrighted and technically it is wrong for us to bandy about the
 words without paying our fee to the LNT organization. MATC got its bill for the
 right to use the slogan just last week.

 I don't detect that the concepts have changed much in 30 years, which is part
 of the problem. They are based in part on commonsense, part on the
 environmental myths of decades past. I don't detect much updating. The constant
 reference to "biodegradeable" soap is an example. Detergents 40 years ago
 contained phosphorus, a plant fertilizer, which if injected into a lake, pond
 or slow moving stream in sufficient quantities caused excessive algae and plant
 growth. Now only special purpose detergents contain phosphorus. Ordinary hand
 soap, I like Ivory, have always been "biodegradeable." For decades all the
 popular liquid detergents have been biodegradeable.

 The recommendations dealing with body and dish washing certainly will protect
 waterways. The question in my mind is whether the stringency does any practical
 good. Two hundred feet is a long ways to carry a quart of water for a wash.

 Half the households in Maine use wells for drinking water and septic tanks and
 leach fields for waste water disposal. I can place a leach field designed to
 handle 300 gallons of water a day as close as 100 feet from a stream, lake,
 pond, river or a neighbors drinking water well. If the neighbor signs a waiver
 I can move as close as 60 feet from his well.

 These are conservative distances. Years of experience shows that these
 distances are sufficient to prevent contamination of water sources. In
 emergencies leach fields have been placed within 20 feet of streams with no
 resulting evidence of contamination.

 That's why I think the LNT rule that I must be 200 feet from a stream before I
 spill a quart of wash water in the woods lacks any scientific basis.

 I'm in favor of a healthy environment. I think that is best achieved by more
 rational guidelines and an achievable slogan that ordinary people will
 recognize as useful and are more apt to comply with.

 Weary
 

Bob