I lived my earliest years just up the hill from Swan Creek, outside Summertown, Tennessee. The young, long-haired, back-to-the-land community I grew up in valued connected relationships with the forested hills we inhabited. I can remember as early as four-years-old, learning to swim in the swimming hole the community had dug out. When a cottonmouth snake was spotted on the water, everyone quickly evacuated until it moved safely downstream. Venomous cottonmouths liked our swimming hole too and the cliff jutting up from it. I was fascinated by their smooth snaky glide across the water’s surface and learned to revere wildlife.
A few years later, my family started backpacking together and I learned to be careful and highly conscious of keeping the rivers we camped along clean by peeing at least 200 feet away from them, digging proper poop holes at least six inches into the earth to sufficiently bury my body’s waste, and using just a drop or two of biodegradable peppermint soap to wash up, but away from the river or stream. I learned that bodies of water were no place for waste of any kind. Growing up in the 70’s and 80’s with this awareness, I felt confused in grammar school when I learned that many large rivers were used to dispose of industrial waste. I remember learning that the Willamette River is one of the more polluted rivers in our country, even though I was living in California. In an OPB article by Ashley Ahearn about Boeing’s B-17 Bomber planes built along the Duwamish River for WWII, Shawn Blocker of the Environmental Protection Agency explains that being environmentally friendly didn’t exist back then. And yet for hundreds of years prior to the industrial revolution, people that lived along the Duwamish, and other rivers, fished and lived sustainably with them. As the country shifted from people living connected to the land toward a model of constant economic growth, Blocker’s statement seems to point to willful ignorance on the part of Boeing and other industries and governing bodies that ignored the rapid poisoning of the rivers. The knowledge was already there. And even if not then, certainly today we have extensive research proving the detriment and persistence of toxic chemicals in waterways and their bioaccumulation in wildlife, as well as humans. And yet the EPA’s risk assessment for new pesticides accepts studies by the industries that create them and serve to benefit from their approval when their own research shows no harm or risk (Boone et al 2014). As we clean up our polluted present, I hope we will look back and learn to prioritize the health of wildlife and the waters over those rolling green bills. -Lola Ahearn, Ashley 2015. My Grandfather and the Plane that Changed Seattle. OPB. http://www.opb.org/news/article/my-grandfather-and-the-plane-that-changed-seattle/ Boone MD, Bishop CA, Boswell LA, Brodman RD, Burger J, et al 2014. Pesticide Regulation Amid the Influence of Industry. BioScience 64: 917-922.
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