Buffalo, Coyote, white pelican, marmot, pronghorn and even a garter snake!!!  And yes the bison are that close (I am in the car).

I just returned from a week in Yellowstone and the Grand Teton National Parks.  Both are parks that demonstrate why it is that we set lands aside.  Yellowstone is a caldera of a volcano.  The park has 4 distinct areas – big lakes/water, boiling water and geysers, wide valleys, and forested areas (often dry).  The elevation is 6,000-8,500 ft in most areas, and the park is bigger than Rhode Island.  The Tetons rise out of the lakes at their base.  No other mountains anywhere around really.  Wildlife was limited in Yellowstone (although I did see deer, elk, black bears, bison (in the middle of the road of course) and at long last a coyote – first time in years).  Lots of spouting, very hot water.  Saw more wildlife in the Tetons – elk, deer, bison, pronghorn, moose.    No grizzlies and no wolves.  56 mi of hiking.  Lots of photos – took almost 1700.  Here are a few,  More to come…

I hope you had the opportunity to watch the eclipse.  I figured out how to photograph this!  I finally figured out how to use my Canon Rebel XTI and the sunshades to take photos.  So best we can do using reflective lenses on the Sun.  At 300 mm.

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Today is the first complete solar eclipse in the US since 1979.  Eastern time 130-430 is the time.  Peak at 300 in my area  If you can, and have the correct glasses – take a look.  I will try to get a photos or two!  Be safe and hope for clear skies.

I thought this was an interesting graphic.  It says a lot about Washington and a lot about policies emanating from Washington.  There has been this idea that the federal government borrowing money expands the economy, which is good.  The idea is that the investment via borrowing will be recovered by increasing revenues in the future.  But that is not what the graph shows.  What is shows it exactly what we should have known would happen when we decrease the tax rate, while increasing borrowing.  The tax revenues do not grow (and they look to be on a downward trend), while the debt we owe increases.  I think Grandma could have explained that.  Why Washington politicians don’t get it I am unsure.  Reagan increased the debt.  It declined under Clinton (recall he balanced the budget).  The orange bar is the interest we owe.  Seriously!  We do not pay any principal.  Try that with your bank.  I recall a lot of people getting into trouble with that in 2007/2008.  Yet the real issue is the revenues.  Federal spending has been as much as 23% of GDP, yet Congress is keeping it at 18% of the current GDP going forward. That means the tax cuts from the past, have caught up with us.  We cut too much, and now we can’t pay the bills we need to pay.  The tax cuts did NOT stimulate the economy as Art Laffer and Jack Kemp have been telling us, and selling us, since Reagan.  Supply side economics is a failure.  And now we need to fix that problem and pay our bills!  Keep in mind that Clinton raised taxes, balanced the budget and the economy grew wildly (ok maybe too wildly).  But maybe there was less magi and more science in that policy than many gave his team credit for.  Maybe they were onto something that Eisenhower, Truman, Roosevelt, Kennedy and others had figured out (recall that prior to 1964, the tax rate for those earning over $200,000 per year was 90% – yes your read that right – ninety – 9-0 percent, and the economy still grew quickly).  Maybe Clinton got it right, and the others have had it wrong since 1980.  Maybe a little higher tax rates that allows us to pay our bills, and pay down some of that principal was just better fiscal policy and one we should return to if we want the economy to grow faster.  Just food for thought.

August  already and time to graduate our summer kids.  We don’t have that many, but congratulations.  I will be leading you in this am!

Here is my television thoughts..

http://mms.tveyes.com/transcript.asp?StationID=2760&DateTime=7/25/2017%206:13:48%20PM

past it in your browser…

A recent article on the front page of the SunSentinel – covering most of the front page – was entitled “Getting the drop on Water Safety.”  The article notes that residents can now search a database to find out what is in their water.  The group that created the database is Environmental Working Groups a non-profit organization.  The website is www.ewg.org/tapwater.  They say the goal of the project is not to “freak people out over contaminants,” nor is it to “beat up on local water utilities.”  So far so good, and better than the filter guys who offer to test your water for free and then tell you about the scary chlorine and calcium in your water (you need both).

But these seemingly benign statements are followed up with their goal to “let people know what steps they can take to protect themselves.”  Ok that sounds scary.  Then they noted that there is scary stuff in our water like hexavalent chromium, chlorate and radium 226.  Now that sounds bad.  They followed up in the article by saying that “while water may meet federal drinking water standards …. that doesn’t mean it is safe.”  Whoa!!!  That is scary!  What to do?

Statements like this scare people for little reason.  It oversimplifies the water industry information and ignores a lot of effort, study, science etc. that goes into creating drinking water standards.  It also ignores years of efforts by people who understand risk and response.  Setting a standard involves figuring out exposure, risk, dose response and a host of other measures.  It takes time and study, and it is not done by public perception.  For example, we have been regulating lead and chromium since the 1940s because we knew they were a problem.  Once in a while we alter a standard when we learn more.    Better detection allows us to find constituents at ever smaller levels, but that does not mean they negatively impact us at those levels.  In fact, we want some amounts of certain constituents in our water like calcium, magnesium, chlorine and fluoride.  It also ignores real effort to find problems like Flint before they happen.  In theory regulatory agencies, when they are adequately funded, perform this task.

The website also ignores prior waterborne disease experience. Flint &Walkerton were cascading issues that did not manifest as problems until they were in the headlines because prior to the errors made, there were no issues.  In Milwaukee, a little known, little studied protozoa called cryptosporidium was the issue.  We found out about after the fact.  Who knew?  We did not even test for it and there was no real reason to because we had never seen an outbreak before.   The group also points to trihalomethanes, throwing Pembroke Pines in front of the proverbial bus again.  But this is also misleading. In 1974 trihalomethanes (chloroform, bromodichloromethane, dibromochloromethane, and bromoform) were discovered to be formed during the disinfection step of drinking water if free chlorine was the disinfectant (USEPA, 1979). Potential health effects from ingestion of TTHMs in water include liver, kidney and central nervous system problems, as well as an increased risk of cancer based on tests in rats.  All four trihalomethanes, when administered via food or drugs through a tube leading down the throat to the stomach, are carcinogenic.  Ok we don’t do that in most people.  But there is more to this that creates a potentially misleading perception.

While researcher found that chloroform was carcinogenic in mice when administered by via feeding tube, it was not carcinogenic and did not promote liver cancer when administered in the drinking water (Jorgenson, et al., 1985; Klaunig et al., 1986; Pereira et al., 1985). Furthermore, cell proliferation was enhanced by chloroform administered by feeding tube but not in drinking water (Larson et al., 1994; Pereira, 1994; Pereira and Grothaus, 1997). Read that again.  That is 6 different studies that said Thms in DRINKING WATER DID NOT PROMOTE CANCER in mice.  Yet the perceived hazard to the consumer’s health led the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to amend the National Interim Primary Drinking Water Regulations to include a maximum contaminant level of 0.10 mg/L for total trihalomethanes.  Hence, sometimes we regulate on perception vs science because we simply are not sure.  And there is a big tendency among risk analysts to be conservative (i.e. set the value lower or suggest carcinogenic potential) when public health is involved.

That leads to one of the real goals of the group – not education by the group says that one of their goals is stricter drinking water standards. They appear to be setting the stage to sue the federal government for failure to comply with the requirement of the Safe Drinking Water Act because they have not conducted the 6 year UCMR reviews.  This ignores the prior UCMR work – a lot of chemicals did not show up very often, and if they did, not at levels that people were concerned about.

Ultimately the article provides no guidance to customers about what to do – only to scare them under the auspices of “informing” them.  Information without context is not useful – it is propaganda.  Just listen to the discourse at the federal level.

Articles such as these are a boon for point-of-use treatment system suppliers, which have a purpose (private wells, irrigation systems, certain small systems with challenges).  Treating potable water is not one of them.  Carbon filters remove chlorine which is there to keep your pipes clean and keep bacteria out of your water.  Failure to change a carbon filter is worse – lots of stuff grows on those filters.  RO systems are not the answer either – they create water that is too clean – it attacks your pipes. You want lead or copper in your water, an RO POU system is a great way to get it.  And you have a concentrated solution to dispose of – no your sewer or septic tank is not the right place, nor is the back yard.  Ion exchange means you have to discharge salty water somewhere.  And your sewer department, back yard or septic tank does not want salt water either.  This is why water plants treat water.  It is why we have chlorinated since 1914.  It is why the greatest health achievement in the 20^th century were penicillin and disinfecting drinking water.  Do problems occur?  Yes? Is one sample indicative of a problem?  No. Do water utilities provide safe water to their customers?  Yes.  There are 54,000 community systems and lack of regular, ongoing health incidents would indicate yes, they provide safe water to their customers. Hence why articles like these have another purpose.  They are not informing.  They are propaganda trying to change people’s behavior by scaring them.  And that is just not right. And it encourages distrust, something we desperately need to avoid in our communities.

My thoughts next time – on camera…

There are many reasons I enjoy Colorado, but one that should be included is interesting flavors of ice cream.   How about lemongrass basil (Grand lake).  Spearmint chip (Georgetown).  Guinness (Estes Park).  Gotta love it.