Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 (Tek) 9/26/83; site shark.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!orca!shark!hutch From: hutch@shark.UUCP (Stephen Hutchison) Newsgroups: net.flame Subject: Re: Clean water . . . Anywhere? Message-ID: <539@shark.UUCP> Date: Wed, 22-Feb-84 16:34:19 EST Article-I.D.: shark.539 Posted: Wed Feb 22 16:34:19 1984 Date-Received: Fri, 24-Feb-84 00:12:54 EST References: <885@ihuxm.UUCP> Organization: Tektronix, Wilsonville OR Lines: 44 Actually still LIVING in "God's Heaven on Earth" I can make a few points about the water quality here. The water in parts of Eastern Orygun is unpotable. Ground water is contaminated by high amounts of arsenic in the soil, presumably deposited by some mysterious (to me) volcanic action when Eastern Orygun was settling out of the lava floes. The water in Southern Orygun is among the purest in the country, although in places the air is beginning to lose it. In Medford it is possible to use tapwater in place of distilled water for almost all uses, except for laboratory uses where any halogens are unacceptable. The water in this area (Portland) is almost as clean as the water in the mountain valleys in Montana. Not quite, though. As for rotting elk and other things, be reminded that elk are larger and less common than rats and other vermin (which rot in YOUR water), and that filtration occurs when water flows through sand and that dilution occurs when water combines from many sources. I know this is not always the case back in the desolate reaches east of the Mississippi (spelled right, by the way) but then we seldom completely pave over our waterways here, and the population density is lower, and the industries here tend not only to generate less pollution by volume (Air more than Water, what with the laws of this state) but they also generate less chemically active pollution and more in the way of smokey particulates, which tend to precipitate to the ground. They don't make it totally undrinkable. Nor does our rain tend to cause third degree acid burns nor dissolve pets and small children. As for insecticides, we have LOTS of people who don't like them, and it requires major permissions to use wide area insecticides, and further, the TYPES of insecticides are restricted. We have a lot less trouble in that respect than most other states. For your edification, the state of Orygun is the ONLY state in the USA to have defined in law the requirements that food crops must meet before they can be labelled as Organic. So there. Nyah, Nyah, Hutch