Heal the wounds of Mother Earth
To the editor,
Aug. 8, 2015. 6:14 a.m. On the banks of the Animas River, Durango, Colorado.
In the San Juan watershed south of the Weminuche Wilderness, north and east of the canyons of the Colorado River, west of the Rio Grande.
The birds are quiet this morning. All of us are in shock, looking at this yellow-green river, flowing slowly with arsenic, lead and cadmium. What will the herons and eagles eat? How toxic are the fish that are still alive in this poisoned bloodstream of this valley? Now I hear the geese, calling to each other – where shall we land?
Mourning doves in mourning for their tasty insects, now a doomed hatch.
Who would have thought that our precious Animas would fall victim to a toxic spill? And yet, we’ve known that Silverton, our neighbor to the north, has tons of undealt with mine waste. It’s been easy to look the other way, ignore what is just under the surface of the Earth, just under the surface of our consciousness.
I was watching BBC News the other night and there was an interview with a woman in Kenya. She is a farmer, owns a cow, sells her produce, lives in the country. By our standards, she is “uneducated” and poor. She lamented, “We are humans, we pollute our environment.” We are all beginning to understand that this is a flaw in the nature of our species.
Joanna Macy teaches us that, until we are willing to feel the grief of how we have impacted our Earth, we will not be able to access the anger we need in order to heal the wounds we have caused to our Mother, Gaia.
We need to be willing to feel this grief in our own bodies. Our bodies are Earth’s “local representative.” We need to understand on the deepest of levels, that we are totally Interdependent with everything. All is interconnected, One Being.
As the sun rises this morning, just past midsummer, moving farther south along what I call “Visionary Ridge,” I can see that some of the mustard yellow is shifting to brown in what I hope will soon be crystal clear water of the River of Lost Souls. I know the
Earth will return to balance. There will be some casualties along the way. I pray that all my relations will be healthy and whole once again.
– Jessica Zeller, Durango
Money can’t buy you life
To the editor,
This quote, attributed to a Cree Indian proverb, comes to mind after what has happened to our dear Animas River. “When the last tree is cut, the last fish is caught, and the last river is polluted; when to breathe the air is sickening, you will realize, too late, that wealth is not in bank accounts and that you can’t eat money.
– Jim Dodson, Durango
Debunking fairytale pretense
To the editor,
NBC News nabbed me on the river this morning and did about a 30-minute interview.
Incompetent reporters from other questionable sources have been breaking stories claiming all species OK, no permanent damage ... grossly irresponsible BS!!
An NBC news team and I could NOT see nor find any living thing in or along the Animas River Monday morning – no bug larvae, no birds of any kind – not one. Only saw a couple of midges in the air no bigger than 1/16 inch. Very spooky to be looking at an entomological, ornithological and salmonid “barren” riparian environment.
The errant Durango Herald journalist who implicated & faulted the EPA as guilty should apologize! Read the complete article to see that the research contractor hired by both the EPA and Colorado Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety made this blunder, not the EPA. The contract mission was to “Determine how best to safely proceed with the Superfund cleanup implementation logistics!”
Unfortunately, the mine owners had created the booby-trapped mine by dynamiting the mine entry closed, fracting the geologic super structure above, causing extreme watershed drainage into the mine. Thus the entire mine filled as a huge subterranean reservoir of toxic waste. A gargantuan volume of toxic contamination under extreme pressure ... a monumental environmental disaster-in-waiting for a hapless contractor.
Mine owners and their “eco-cloaked coalition” had attempted to keep the EPA and subsequent Superfund at bay. Their stop-gap effort to avoid financial responsibility scores as one of the more consequential blunders in our history.
The City of Durango, La Plata County, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, Southern Ute Tribe, all vested property owners and others should have got off their complacent irresponsible “duffs” years ago and took charge as class-action litigants.
Meanwhile, we have bleeding-heart eco crybabies and their lawyers obsessed with halting the E Bland Wolf Creek project when we have real issues with catastrophic watershed contaminations throughout America.
It seems politics and fervor propel misled psychotics who are unable to identify & address matters of utopian importance ... errantly gravitating to those topics that seem to have a fashionable band-wagon for sentimentalistic do-gooders.
Hopefully there is a message here in recognizing and prioritizing looming matters of extreme consequence. Remember my letter to the Telegraph directed at the Animas River environmental concerns some months ago ... which got assorted rebuttals by those who dream with visions of sugar plums and apathy.
Now we suffer the economic and ecologic price of pleading Animas ignorance.
The Animas River will not likely recover in my lifetime ... of not continuing to live here.
Yes, fish that have just been restocked by CPW or those that sought refuge in cleaner water at the mouths of such tributaries as Junction, Lightner, Hermosa and Cascade creeks have been able to survive past breaches of Silverton area tailing ponds and the siltation of turbid water.
Those of us who are avid or professional fly fishers have caught fish many times where such streams enter a swollen muddy Animas River during melt or rainwater run-off.
We are seeing many photos of dead fish, so there is evidence of kill.
Perhaps more alarming is the continued degradation of our entomology in the Animas. Stoneflies are gone, caddis and mayfly populations are nearing the critical mass that will at least require long-term recovery, and midges, which are the primary subsistence for trout, are at levels too low to allow larger trout to survive. No bugs, no fish.
The exception to the above need be noted, in that the CPW continues to stock significant numbers of smaller fish in the river, post high water. These stockers are merely subsistence for the larger, more resilient carnivorous browns. By the end of August, the stockers have been eaten.
Additionally, in recent years, the numbers of spring spawning rainbows and fall spawning browns returning to our local “redds” has been declining at an alarming rate. Only a few fish now attempting to spawn, versus many hundreds in years past.
Notice the Durango area absence of fly fishers on the river and guided trips by local fly shops. A serious impact on that economy.
Meanwhile exists the fairyland pretense that the health of the Animas River is “just fine.”
Prove me wrong, and I’ll be the happiest guy in town.
– L. David Grooms, Durango