Fouling Our Waters

The first two are about frakking.

This first one raises an issue that frakking water was taken to routine wastewater plants, which are not designed to remove salt. If the refuse water went to an ion exchange plant, that would treat for salinity, so regulations are behind the curve of use. The second may be the same thing. Or it may be that waste from frakking just made it to drainages and then to the creek. Either way, everything is dead. Then the question becomes "How do you restore it?' I know natural gas is cleaner than coal, but maybe we need a long-term energy policy wherein we use mostly renewables.

The other story is that yet another substance is found to be a gender bender. There is tons of evidence we have affected the planet. I don't think anyone ever thought that the rise of sensitive new age guys could be related to production of plastics, pharmaceuticals, pesticides and herbicides where they all seem to effect the endocrine systems and actually change aquatic species to either all female or hemaphrodites.

rojo

Get Your Mood Changers Here!

No, I am not talking about the outside of a String Cheese Reunion show.

It's simple, really. Take too many drugs and it comes out your urine and feces. Take unnecessary drugs, the same. And guess what? It goes down the toilet and into the water. Wastewater plants are designed to remove some solids and process the organic demand and sometimes removes nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus), but pharmaceuticals, metals, not so much. So these come out in the discharge and in coastal areas this discharge is taken in by filter feeders (shellfish). Guess what is in their cellular mass. Great!

At least I ate my dosage of anti-depresseants at one of my favorite restaurants last night in Brentwood, CA in the Delta. Shutter's Brasserie. Yahoo! If you are ever in the area....worth the trip.

Rojo