As far as people know, chaos and entropy exist in the diminutive worlds of subatomic particles to the outer reaches of space. And it seems that life and the processes of the physical environment exchange their special brands of chaotic systems and events.
At the bottom of a pond, the folds of the macro molecules of humic acid which drift in the murky water like dirty curtains, break from their surface water attachments, in a still water system by a simple change of pH or the increase of oxygen, and fall into brown heaps, or like small worms of delicate debris at the bottom. This same pattern is created on the pavement when the mason pulls the plywood board from the still wet cement. And this pattern is created when small colored particles in suspension resonate together at the same frequency.... in air and I have seen it in water. Little "c's" and "s's" connecting in an all over pattern but never touching.
Whether we look at a large watershed system or a small one, there is so much to understand.
Idaho (Targhee national Forest), Montana (Kalispell, Blackfoot Indian Reservation, Gold Creek) Wyoming (Medicine Bow, Yellowstone), Colorado (Hermosa Creek San Juan National Forest, Lone Cone Peak), Washington (upper Skomkomish River, Snoqualmie National Forest, the west side of Mount Reinier National Park, Gifford Pinchot National Forest and the private lands of Weyerhaeuser west of Mount Saint Helens) have had their forests raped for ... perhaps, the manufacture of the trash mail we get everyday..... Idaho (1), Washington, Colorado have had their soils and water basins poisoned by radioactive material because of nuclear war industries. Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Mexico could easily have their water made undrinkable by a surge from the Colorado River from an Atlas Mining Company's uranium tailings perched so near the River's bank.... (3)...
What fools we are to 'defecate' in our drinking water....
The Ice Harbor, dam built on the Snake River near the Hanford Site, was finished in 1962. So many felt the salmon fishery (including Presidents Truman and Eisenhower) was very important but eventually the Plutonium Crowd prevailed and Lyndon B. Johnson blessed the dam that would offer up electricity for the H Bomb plants.... (2) Funny, this same hydroelectric dam barely gives out 5% electricity to the region, today.... Fact is, many of the dams on the Snake River are nearing their 50th year old birthday (4).
Dams need drastic repairs at 50. Some need constant attention before the half century mark because of sedimentation and some, their spillways and openings and hatches, become pitted and pock marked from underwater microbubbles in a process called cavitation. The usefulness of dams are limited at best. (2)
What fools we are to waste resources on such monuments.
There is a strong connection between urban runoff, high phosphorus flows from lumber industries, meat farming fecal effluent, and the toxic diatom dinoflagelate blooms off shore (5). Californian sea lions with irreversible brain damage from eating poisoned fish of dimoic acid (a chemical defense mechanism that diatoms give off when there is a shortage of food, a shortage of iron, and/or they are exposed to high amounts of copper in the water) show up seasonally... and more and more Western Canadians cannot enjoy their live caught muscles, clams and oysters because of (6, 7, 8) neurotoxins.
Our modern cities release and load up the coasts with huge quantities of high nutrient effluents from our sewers and dam up the natural flows of rivers starving the oceans of the one mineral it lacks - iron...
Marshes, estuaries, seeps are between then dry and wetted land of rivers and oceans. They have unique plants and animals and with changes from upland, are indicative of environmental ill health of waterway, upland sources and even the air. Wetlands are called the kidneys of the land except they have been filled in for townhouses and filled up with effluent. They no longer keep anthropogenic toxics from the sea (9, 10).
I don't think that enough of us really understand the damage that we are doing to our home. Some of us must feel they can buy their way to a safe place. Some must feel that 'science' will save them. Some must feel that somehow it will all get better..... (11)
I think we should change our life styles, and take care of things .... we really do know what to do. It is just a choice we make.
Resources:
1)Hanford '100 Area'
http://nalu.geog.washington.edu/...
2)Ice Harbor Dam
http://www.onrc.org/...
3. Colorado Uranium tailings
http://www.ens-newswire.com/...
4. Dams in danger
http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/...
5) Death of the Mediterainian Sea
http://sea.uct.ac.za/...
(6)West Coast toxic algal blooms
http://links.jstor.org/...
7)Nutrients change the composition of the bacteria and protoza communities in the marine environment and can be the cause of toxic algal blooms and the death of marine mammals
http://aem.asm.org/...
8)Pig farming and dinoflagelate diatom blooms fish kills
http://asae.frymulti.com/...
http://www.springerlink.com/...
9)Human derived nitrogen loading of estuaries and wetlands decreasing their functionality
http://www.conservationcouncil.ca/...
10) Modern consumption of meat bad for humans, bad for the environment
http://scholar.google.com/...
11)We do have a talent for destruction
http://www.esajournals.org/...