Be Part of the Solution

I recently attended the 25^th anniversary of the first environmental conference sponsored by what later became the West Virginia Environmental Council, or WVEC.

It was simultaneously inspiring and disappointing. Inspiring because I was among long-time movers and shakers in the environmental movement in WV like Norm Steenstra, Cindy Rank, Vivian Stockman, Jim Kotcon, Bill Price, and Wendy Radcliff, who  spoke about issues they were working on and passionate about. Disappointing because I was one of only about fifty people in attendance.

One reason this was my first time attending a WVEC conference is that I’ve never considered myself an “environmentalist” or an “activist” on environmental issues.  However, I went because I have come to realize that due to the scope of problems facing our state and our world, all of us must, to some degree, become environmental activists.

The precipitating event for me was the January 9, 2014 Freedom Industries chemical spill which poisoned the water supply of 300,000 people in nine counties of West Virginia including the state capital, Charleston, where I live. I call it Aquageddon. If you experienced it, you haven’t forgotten it. Even if you didn’t, you likely remember the extensive national news coverage of the chemical, “crude MCHM”, about which little was known.  After only a few days, state officials and the Center for Disease Control declared the chemical was present in small enough amounts not to be a health risk.  But even a month or more later, the affected public continued to be highly suspicious of water that had the telltale odor of licorice, which the chemical emits. Questions about what level of exposure might result in long term health risks remain unanswered, and almost a year later there are still people in the affected areas who refuse to drink the tap water.

Prior to Aquageddon, I considered myself a supporter of environmental issues. Given a choice, I always voted for candidates who were more likely to support environmental protection, and on occasion I attended fund raisers, made contributions to environmental organizations, and attended rallies.

In the wake of Aquageddon, I attended rallies and led the singing of “This Land is Your Land,” with new lyrics I’d written about the water crisis and mountain top removal (MTR) mining. I attended public meetings and went to E-Day at the legislature to lobby for the tank storage bill, a bill that passed by a unanimous vote of the WV House and Senate. UNANIMOUS! How often does that happen?

I wondered if this would be a “come to Jesus moment” heralding the beginning of a new day for recognition of environmental catastrophes that have been occurring for decades in West Virginia due to MTR and other lightly regulated industries: poisoned water supplies, flattened mountains, buried streams,  increased cancer rates and other negative health impacts on communities near mountain removal coal mines? Would the legislature take another look at the effects on our water supply and communities caused by “Fracking” in order to decide whether stricter regulations are needed? Would they begin to question the actual cost of burning carbon fuels when damage to roads, water, air, health, tourism, and communities is factored in?

Or was this the Legislature’s version of “giving the Devil his due” in which they would have to be seen doing something because so many rich and powerful people in the state were affected by Aquageddon, but could ignore the by and large rural communities affected by MTR and Fracking. Surprise, surprise, it turns out it’s the latter.

I am not a scientist, don’t like to attend meetings, and don’t want to spend my time walking the halls of the Legislature. But I want to make sure that the environmental heroes who are working to protect us continue to have the resources they need to organize meetings and rallies, to study the impacts that fracking and MTR are having, to take water, soil, and air samples.  Before WVEC was formed, activists from groups working on local issues from all around the state descended on legislators in uncoordinated and overlapping ways. WVEC was formed so the environmental community could speak with a unified voice, sharing information with legislators so they are hearing the facts about the impacts of a lack of sensible regulation on West Virginians. Without WVEC and other environmental organizations, legislators only hear what the industry lobbyists have to say about how laws and regulations might impact their bottom lines.

To help support this critical work, I started a project called AWARE: Artists Working in Alliance to Restore the Environment. AWARE’s mission is primarily to raise funds for environmental organizations in West Virginia, especially WVEC and its member groups, which include the GreenbrierRiver Watershed Association, Ohio Valley Environmental Council, Sierra Club ofWest Virginia,  WV Citizen Action Group, WV Highlands Conservancy, and the WV Rivers Coalition, I hope you will think about what you’re willing to do to help protect our environment, and if it doesn’t include activism, at least make a donation to one or more of these organizations or another like them, or to AWARE, which will distribute the money among them.

Losing Weight, but Experiencing Growth

May I be healed.

May I be free from suffering.

May my heart be filled.

May I find peace.

I don’t remember where I got this mantra. I believe it comes from Buddhist philosophy or the yoga tradition, though I probably got it from a self-help psychology book. I’ve been reciting it for years, not as a regular exercise, but in times of stress, or sometimes just to help me relax before going to sleep.

Reciting this gives me a sense of contentment and even joy. But it has no intrinsic power; it isn’t in itself anything more than a prayer or a wish, words. I learned it during a time in my life, after my divorce, when I was trying to understand myself and my emotions. Why did I stay in a relationship for so long that was dissatisfying and eventually painful? And then how could I, at age 40 (then), “fall in love” at the drop of a hat, then be so pained when it didn’t pan out?

Songwriting and performing was one of my responses to my pain, and I had a period of creative awakening, writing over a hundred songs in the early 90’s from which I chose some and made a solo CD of original acoustic music I titled, “Lessons Life’s Taught Me.”

I also started a seeing a therapist who helped me explore childhood pain, how those early experiences stay in our minds, coloring and magnifying our emotions and responses in the present. I learned not only how to recognize that so that I could keep the present in better perspective, but through a method described by John Bradshaw in his seminal self-help psychology books (The Homecoming, etc.) as “inner-child” work, I actually reduced or eliminated some of the early pain, making me much better equipped to operate as an “Adult in transactions with other people.” I refer there to elements of a kind of psychological model called TA, or Transactional Analysis, popularized in a book written some 40 years ago titled I’m OK, You’re OK, in which, to give the barest and simplest summary, people have three choices or possibilities in any interaction with another person: to be playing a Child role, a Parent role, or an Adult role. To play either Child (needy, immature, manipulative, emotional, also possibly full of wonder, curious, naïve, joyful) or Parent (authoritarian, directive, worried, angry…), often forces the other into the opposite role and causes “tapes” from childhood experiences to run in the background coloring the interaction. Even if only one person can consistently maintain the Adult role, generally logical, not emotional, there is a better chance of keeping the interaction on the Adult to Adult level.

Since the vast majority of people do not escape early childhood without some emotional pain, and relatively few ever go through therapy to help them deal with it, it follows that there are likely a lot of people walking around dealing with various levels of childhood pain coloring their responses to the world. In extreme forms, it might look like road rage, but for most it’s probably just difficulty communicating in relationships or pettiness, overreactions of hurt feelings, anger, sadness, in a given situation.

But before I go any farther, let me correct any impression that I think therapy is the only path to healthy emotions and relationships. Some people, I’m sure, successfully work through programs or exercises provided in self help materials. Others find the same kind of liberation from childhood pain in their religious or spiritual experiences. I actually believe that the goals, or at any rate the potential results of religious practice and that of psychology amount to much the same things.

Fast forward twenty-two years, and you’ll find me, retired in my early 60’s, remarried for the last eighteen years, and in the midst of another awakening of my creative soul, my muse, call it what you will, but not limited it to music. In the past couple months, I must at least partly attribute it to my change of diet, I’ve had a host of creative ideas, many of which I’ve acted on, and to my great satisfaction, they are yielding interesting results.

MCHMess (that’s my word for the chemical spill/water crisis around Charleston, WV that began on January 9, 2014 and continues to affect the conversation here), has had a big impact on me. Those of you who’ve been reading my blog know it hasn’t affected me like most people: I’m not afraid to drink our tap water, though of course I didn’t drink while the advisories were in effect and didn’t choose to drink during the period that odor from the chemical lingered in the water in my house.

No, my assessment was that the efforts to contain and clean up the spill were effective, the chemical, while nasty and not a substance that should ever have gotten in our water, is likely not dangerous at the low levels it has been found in some tap water since the “Do Not Use” order was lifted, and that the CDC got it right or very close to right when they set the “screening level”, the level at which it was not likely to affect public health. That reasoned position is not very popular in the affected region.

My response to the spill, however, was to spur me to action on environmental issues well beyond chemical storage, which is, of course also important. I decided it was time for me to do something more about Mountain Top Removal (MTR) coal mining and to learn more about fracking and its environmental impact. It’s time to get serious about doing something about Climate Change as well.

I attended some meetings and some rallies. I wrote new verses to Woody Guthrie’s This Land is Your Land and sang it at big MTR rally at the Capitol in Frankfort, KY, and again at the Capitol in Charleston. I walked the halls of the Capitol on E-Day, a day when WV environmental groups have a big lobby effort. And soon after that I decided that meetings and lobbying weren’t my best use of time. I decided the people already doing that needed more resources, more money, so I would do what I love to do and do pretty well, create and promote music events. I began talking with others about my ideas, including WV artist Mark Blumenstein, and a Charleston area software engineer and musician, Kevin Crump, and out of those conversations came AWARE: Artists Working in Alliance to Restore the Environment. And now, AWARE is about to “go live” as a project of West Virginia Citizen Action Group which I direct. The website is not quite ready for public viewing, and I’m not going to spend time in this space describing the project, but briefly, we will raise money through holding events: concerts, art shows, craft fairs, and encourage others to do so in our name and send us proceeds. We will distribute the money we raise to environmental action groups in West Virginia (possibly expanding in the future).

I’ve gone far afield in this long blog post, but if you’re still with me, I’ll wrap up shortly. Starting up this organization has been as creative an act as I’ve ever engaged in; it came, as great songs sometimes do, with inspiration and because I was open to my “muse”. Part of my openness to my muse at this time is, I believe, due to changes in my body from losing weight and eating differently.

My metabolism is different, and there are no doubt chemical/hormonal changes—I’m sleeping less (my brother is concerned I may be going through a thyroid induced energy burst which runs in my family and I’ve agreed to be tested), and I’ve been finding when I do my little Yoga routine that is basically a series of stretching exercises I haven’t ever done on a regular basis, I’m compelled to expand the stretches, hold them longer, and try new positions, sometimes experiencing “rushes” of energy as I “open up” into a position my body hasn’t been able to make since youth (and I didn’t do yoga then).

And I’ve found myself reciting the mantra I opened with more, but felt like I needed to revise it to reflect my current thinking. This is what I tell myself now:

May I be one whole being: body, mind, and spirit.

May I be free from fear, anxiety, and the slavery of painful emotion from the past

May my heart be filled with unconditional love.

May I be at peace

My 2-Day Diet Progress Week 22, April 6, 2014 

Beginning weight 11/3/13: 209 lbs.

Height 5'8" Age: 61

Goal weight: 165 lbs.

Total loss goal: 44 lbs.

Beginning waist size: 43 in.

Current waist size: 38 in.

Weight end of this week:  179 lbs.

Gain/Loss this week:  -2 lbs.

Total Gain/Loss:  -30 lbs.

Our Water is Safe Now

(2-Day Diet progress at end of post)

I believe our tap water is now safe. Personally, I’ve been using the water to bathe since the “do not use” order was lifted. I didn’t drink it when it had the odor of licorice, but have since late January. I’ve had no adverse reactions.

At a Congressional committee hearing in Charleston on February 10, none of our top health or environment officials would say the water is safe. They were following the lead of scientists at the Center for Disease Control, who say they expect no adverse health effects if the level of crude MCHM in water is below one part per million, but they do not use the word safe. Senators Shelly Moore Capito and Joe Manchin both pressed officials on whether they would call it safe. Senator Rockefeller said in a television interview that he wouldn’t drink the water if you paid him. Dr. Rahul Gupta, Director of the Kanawha Charleston Health Department, who has been a champion in calling for medical monitoring and more transparency, has suggested that because the Safe Drinking Water Act uses the word safe, the CDC should as well.

But politicians wrote the Safe Drinking Water Act, not scientists. If scientists had written it they might have called it the Reduced Risk Drinking Water Act. Why don’t scientists use the word safe? The first definition for safe in Merrium-Webster online is “free from harm or risk.” Are we ever 100% free from harm or risk? Studies have found bottled water no safer than tap water. A small elevated risk of bladder cancer may exist from drinking tap water over the course of a lifetime. Most of us put these small risks aside. After all, the big picture is that people are living longer and healthier lives.

I am not a scientist, but in 25 years teaching elementary school I learned to simplify complicated ideas into easily understandable chunks. This is how I would answer a curious elementary school student asking, “Mr. Epstein, is the water safe?” The risk of the water is so small that it is now safe for any use including drinking for almost everyone.

“How small is the risk?”  Because of how little is actually known about this chemical, scientists can’t say exactly. However, because the scientists at CDC have studied other chemicals like this, both more harmful and less harmful, their expert opinion based on available information is that it isn’t a risk to health if you drink a normal amount of water and if the level of the chemical in the water is beneath the level of 1 part per million in water.

“How did they come up with the safe level?” Through some standard tests on animals that had been made on the main chemical present in the spill, they determined a level below which no harmful health effects were found. They then set a screening level, which I’ll call the safe level, 1,000 times less than that to account for various things they didn’t have information about; such as that it hadn’t had human testing.

“How sure are the CDC scientists that it’s safe now?” Very confident. The levels at the water company have been at non-detectable since about a week after the spill. That meant that either there was none of the chemical in the water or it was less than 10 parts per billion (ppb), 100 times less than the safe level. In recent weeks, using a more exact test, they have found the levels in most of the nine county area to be below 2 ppb or 500 times below the safe level.

“Why did it smell after they said it was usable?” Some people can detect the smell even down to 1 ppb.

“I haven’t smelled it for awhile. Does that mean there is none of the chemical in the water anymore?” It is likely below 2 ppb or not present.

I understand why the Governor decided to allay fears by starting home testing, but mark my words, those conducting the testing will not likely declare the water safe, even if they find no significant elevated levels of harmful chemicals. It will be up to our leaders, Governor Tomblin, Senators Manchin and Rockefeller, Congresswoman Capito and public health officials to show some courage and leadership and declare the water safe and that they will do everything in their power to keep it safe. They need to unmercifully prosecute those who contaminated the water, pass and enforce more stringent laws and regulations, and make sure that water companies have alternate sources of water for emergencies. If there is a next time, we might not be so “lucky.” It might be a highly toxic substance entering the system and causing immediate and tragic health effects.

My 2-Day Diet Progress Week 17: 

Beginning weight 11/3/13: 209 lbs.

Height 5'8" Age: 61

Goal weight: 165 lbs.

Total loss goal: 44 lbs.

Beginning waist size: 43 in.

Current waist size: 39 in.

Weight end of week 17:  186 lbs.

Gain/Loss this week:  no change

Total Gain/Loss:  -23 lbs.

A Tale of Two Topics: Diet and Water Crisis

This has been a busy week for a retired guy. On Monday an op-ed of mine that I wrote three weeks or so ago about the water crisis was published in the Charleston Gazette, and I soon was engaged in a Facebook discussion with investigative environmental reporter, Ken Ward. He pointed out a mistake I'd made regarding the fact sheet (Material Safety Data Sheet, or MSDS) on 4-MCHM and a claim I'd made which was unsupported by data. The discussion was started by Ken in response to a post I'd made complaining that my piece had been edited in a way that changed the meaning and made it sound like I was contradicting myself. I'll explain below.

But first, let me welcome any new readers to my blog who came to read about my weight loss journey, which is as much or more a story about learning to eat in a more healthy way. An article in today's Gazette by features writer, Maria Young, in the "Life & Style" section titled, Successful Losers: How three WV residents lost weight and kept it off, summarizes my journey so far. I emphasize so far, because my story does not match the title since I'm only half way to my goal of 44 pounds and I haven't proven I can keep it off. For those of you who want to learn more about my diet, I started blogging about it the day I began, November 3, 2013 and continued every Sunday for many weeks. Recently I've been posting more about the chemical spill/water crisis. I particularly recommend the following entries which you can find on this blog: 11/10, 11/24, 12/8, 12/27, 1/5/14. I think that after today I will post about diet and health on Sundays and other topics during the week for awhile. I am also in the process of looking for a larger blog forum to post some of my writing.

Here are my stats for this week's healthy eating adventure (a game I play is to see how many ways I can avoid using the D word). You'll see a weight loss of 2 pounds this week, but that actually represents a loss of 1 pound over the last two weeks, since last week I had 1 pound weight gain:

Beginning weight 11/3/13: 209 lbs.

Height 5'8" Age: 61

Goal weight: 165 lbs.

Total loss goal: 44 lbs.

Beginning waist size: 43 in.

Current waist size: 39 in.

Weight end of week 16:  186 lbs.

Gain/Loss this week: -2 lb.

Total Gain/Loss:  -23 lbs.

Okay, back to Monday's article in the Gazette. Here's a link to the original, which is now only available on my 2/3/14 blog, and here's a link to the online Gazette version of 2/17. They removed several sentences from the online version because, I incorrectly summarized a now outdated Scientific American article and the pattern of hospital visits related to the chemical spill. They also fixed an editor's mistake in removing an attribution to Erin Brockovich in the print version. I'd written that "According to Brockovich" no new laws are needed regarding chemical safety and by removing those words it made it sound like that was my position. Elsewhere in the article I'd stated that new laws were needed in addition to increased enforcement by DEP. 

Ken Ward pointed out to me an error I'd made by characterizing 4-MCHM as "dissipating" over time according to the MSDS. In fact it used the term half-life, so the time periods during which the  presence of the chemical would remain in air, water, and sediment I reported were approximately half what I should have reported. He also complained that the chemical that spilled was a mixture of crude MCHM (which is mostly, but not all made of 4-MCHM), and a much smaller amount of PPH (about 7%), but the MSDS I referred to was only for 4-MCHM. One thing most people who continue to bring up the issue of the PPH don't acknowledge is that there was no PPH detected in any of the samples collected by WV American Water even in the first hours of the spill (at least not down to 10 parts/billion testing levels they were using).

Regarding hospital visits, I said they had declined since the early days of the spill. Ward pointed out that there had been no data reported for the last three weeks (in fact I had written the op-ed 3 weeks previously, but the Gazette doesn't print my work the same day I write it as they do for Ward). However, I think its reasonable to assume that if the average number of hospital visits attributed to the water crisis went down for the two reporting periods after the spill, that they probably have continued to decline. Ward takes the proper journalistic position that he doesn't make assumptions in the absence of data. I don't feel such restrictions, though I acknowledge I should have hedged in some way such as saying it's my assumption they've continued to decline. At any rate, I don't get unlimited space in the Gazette to explain every detail--800 words is pretty much the limit, and the editor who removed the words According to Brockovich said hum was trying to cut a few words to make it fit in the space available (hum is not a typo, it's a non-gender pronoun, short for human). 

So, I'm not angry with the Gazette--I love the Gazette, and as I wrote to the editor who I communicate with, I appreciate the education I get by reading and interacting with the Gazette, its readers, and its staff. On Wednesday, on this blog, I'll be posting my latest op-ed which I sent to the Gazette a few days ago, titled "Our Water is Safe." I expect it will be pretty controversial, but I've always been willing to speak my mind, even if I hold the minority position among friends.