Love That Dirty Water

Trump is rolling back protection for wetlands and streams effective, well, immediately, saying that farmers, ranchers and other landowners ought to be able to decide what's best for their land, not the federal government.  The news came and went last week with little fanfare before the media moved on to something else not related to the impeachment trial. 

The wetland and stream regulations that prohibited nasty runoff from getting into those watersheds had been put into place by President Obama (notice how I never put "President" and "Trump" together in the same sentence?) in 2015, and of course, court challenges rendered them moot, so it's not like we're losing protections that were already in place.  That, however, misses the point.  This is part of a plan to roll back water regulations going back about half a century, since Trump only cares about helping people do what he himself does best, make money.  (And there are financial experts who will tell you that he barely succeeds at even that.)  Runoff into these smaller streams and marshes will only flow downstream and pollute other watersheds, but as long as farmers and ranchers are making a pile, who cares?  Apparently, no one - Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are too busy arguing about gender politics while Joe Biden is spending valuable time trying to whip up enthusiasm with an electorate that wants an exciting candidate when what Democrats really need is a candidate who can win.  And not just because of the environment.

Oh yes, that.  When I was a kid, I used to see an ad for water filters on TV, the sort of filters not sold in stores, pointing out how much filth was in our drinking water and how the government planned to have a national drinking-water standard by 1983.  "But you can't wait that long for safe drinking water!" the commercial voice-over said urgently.  No, we couldn't.  And whatever happened in 1983 - not much, I can safely assume, since Reagan was President - obviously didn't go a long way toward making safe drinking water happen.  Which is why more and more Americans are turning to water filters today - and you can buy them in stores now.  

And if Trump gets re-elected, I'm buying stock in Brita.  

Hurricane Preparations

Now that I think of it, I do have something else to add before I close the door on Irene and the month of August. I have to say a word about how I prepared for the storm.

I started preparing the way everyone else does - I panicked! :-D Then, once that was done, I moved everything outside that could conceivably blow away in 90-mph winds - lawn chairs, garbage cans, et. al. - to the basement and the garage into Then I went into action and started making and storing as much ice as possible from our automatic ice maker to put in a huge cooler to store frozen foods should the power go out. Some people in my hometown of West Caldwell did indeed lose electricity. I filled as many plastic bottles as I could with water should the water system fail, as it did in nearby West Orange. And I also put batteries in my portable stereo but did not use it until the storm began to avoid running low on power. In short, I did everything I could to keep my mother and me comfortable in the event of a disaster that, for us, didn't happen.

I'm holding onto all that ice, I'm keeping the lawn chairs in the basement, and I just might buy more batteries. Katia may be coming next week! :-o