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KOBUK VALLEY, NP, ALASKA

July 17, 2013

I really wanted to see this Park, the most remote one of the 57 Parks in the 50 states. It is about 100 air miles east of Kotzebue and about 150 west of Bettles. Many people haven’t heard of either of these places.  Had I thought about it after the Noatak River trip in 2010, I would have been able to have gotten a trip from Bettles.  I had a Gates of the Arctic backpack in 2012 that I decided to add a Kobuk Valley trip on.  The good news was that we had an early pick up at Summit Lake, on the Continental Divide, because the pick up pilot knew we were there and that the weather was going to deteriorate.  We got out before the storm hit.

Unfortunately, the fact that the storm was coming from the west meant that the next day’s trip was not likely to be easy.  A group of 5 of us, a family of “park collectors”, like me, and me got into a float plane (Beaver) and got over Ambler, a town near Kobuk Valley, on the Kobuk River.  Twenty miles from the Dunes, we turned around because of low visibility.  We were over the Park, and I thought that might be sufficient, but it wasn’t.  It never is sufficient not to see something the way you want to see it.

Let me digress on that last statement.  I wanted to see Kobuk Dunes.  I didn’t want to camp there for a week, hike the whole park, or canoe the river through the Park.  Those are all worthwhile activities for some people.  For me, seeing the Park was seeing the Dunes.  Pure and simple.

In 2013, I decided I was going to see all the rest of the Alaska National Parks (there are 8, and I had been in 4).  I decided to set up a week trip do see the southern 3: Katmai, Lake Clark,and Wrangell-St. Elias.  I started thinking, and I realized I could fly to Kotzebue and try Kobuk from there.  Kotzebue is on the Chukchi Sea, and that in itself would be worth seeing.  I booked the trip.  I flew from Phoenix to Anchorage, stayed a day in Anchorage, flying that evening to Kotzebue.  With no obvious taxi, I schlepped everything to the Nullavig Hotel and stayed the night.  I was told by Jim Kincaid of Northwestern Aviation that we would be flying the next day, probably in the afternoon.  The following morning, he confirmed that for me.

I took a walk right after an early breakfast, and I headed over to Northwestern Aviation’s office.  I don’t know why I did, but in Alaska, one does things like this.  Right after they opened, I walked in, and Jim met me, saying, “I’m really glad you’re here.  Can you go in 30 minutes?  I have some people I can’t pick up this morning, but I need to go this afternoon.”

I said that if he could take me back to the hotel, I could get my luggage and be back in 30 minutes.

It took 13.  I had everything pretty much packed before I had left the hotel the first time, so when I went in, I stopped at the desk and asked them to get my bill ready, while I went up to my room.  When I came down, the bill was ready, I paid and left.

We had to push the airplane into position, we got in, and we were on our way out over Kobuk Lake, brackish, and then to the north side of the river, passing Kiana.  We then crossed the river and went through a couple of small squalls until we reached the Dunes.  I didn’t even see the runway on the sand until we were 100 yards away.  We landed, got out, and I had a half hour.  Only a half hour?  Not less than a half hour!!  I sprinted up the ridge to a large dune, where I could look out over trees and a stream.  It was quiet, the sand was damp and firm, the size of the dunes huge, with a copse of trees and a stream nearby.  I immediately thought of it as a place to camp.

Time passed quickly, I got my pictures, we got into the plane, and we headed back to Kotzebue.  It was a wonderful trip, and I got into my 45th park on the second try.

We brought in the sign and put it in the sand. Kobuk has no trails, roads, NPS office (except in Kotzebue).

The copse of trees was by a small stream. To camp there would be lovely.

Plants can grow almost anywhere.

The size of the dunes is remarkable.

I suddenly realized that my footprints were a nice addition to nature.

More of the same.

Just such a lovely spot.

On the return trip. The Kobuk River has six channels, and this was only one of them.

Runway two seven at Kotzebue. It is too short for full size 737s, which have a special dispensation to land here. I thought when we came in, there was a bit more thrust reversal than usual.

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Posted in ALASKA TRIPS, KOBUK VALLEY NP, MY WRITING, National Park Odyssey, UNPUBLISHED OUTDOOR WRITING | 5 Comments »

WILDLAND FIRE IS INHERENTLY DANGEROUS; NO MORE PURPLE RIBBONS

July 6, 2013

Ten Standard Fire Orders 

  1. Fight fire aggressively, but provide for safety first.
  2. Initiate all actions based on current and expected fire behavior.
  3. Recognize current weather conditions and obtain forecasts.
  4. Ensure instructions are given and understood.
  5. Obtain current information on fire status.
  6. Remain in communication with crew members, your supervisor, and adjoining forces.
  7. Determine safety zones and escape routes.
  8. Establish lookouts in potentially hazardous situations.
  9. Retain control at all times.
  10. Stay alert, keep calm, think clearly, act decisively. 

Eighteen watch-out situations 

  1. Fire not scouted and sized up.
  2. In country not seen in daylight.
  3. Safety zones and escape routes not identified.
  4. Unfamiliar with weather and local factors influencing fire behavior.
  5. Uninformed on strategy, tactics, and hazards.
  6. Instructions and assignments not clear.
  7. No communications link with crewmembers/supervisors.
  8. Constructing line without safe anchor point.
  9. Building fireline downhill with fire below.
  10. Attempting frontal assault on fire.
  11. Unburned fuel between you and the fire.
  12. Cannot see main fire, not in contact with anyone who can.
  13. On a hillside where rolling material can ignite fuel below.
  14. Weather is getting hotter and drier.
  15. Wind increases or is changing direction.
  16. Getting frequent spot fires across the line.
  17. Terrain and fuels make escape to safety zone difficult.
  18. Taking a nap near the fireline.

I’m going to be a Monday morning quarterback, but on the other hand, accidents and their investigation interest me, for we must learn from them. Commercial aviation has done so to a remarkable extent; medicine has not.

1949: Mann Gulch fire.  Thirteen died when the fire blew up due to strong winds.  From the time trouble was recognized until the men were dead was 11 minutes.  Those who died did so running uphill.  They died from asphyxiation or burns.  The fire was not affecting houses or civilian lives.  We had a culture from the 1910 fire, where 87 died, that all fires were to be put out before 10 a.m. the next day.  Ironically, this has created many problems we face today.

1994: South Canyon fire, near Glenwood Springs, Colorado.  In early July, a lightning strike started it.  Because some residents complained about smoke, a decision was made to fight the fire, which was not endangering any structures or lives, and was 5 acres when a decision was made to attack it, despite its being one of the lowest priority fires in Colorado at the time, where there were at least 35 fires burning, and resources were stretched.  When the fire was initially scouted, the difficulty and the risk were noted, and recommendations were made not to fight it in that particular area.  Catastrophes occur when there are major errors, but they also occur when there is a concatenation of smaller errors.  This fire was an example of the latter.  It was attacked because a person complained of the smoke–an inadequate reason.  Had the fire grown, it might well have been clearly inaccessible to attack in the place where the people who attacked it subsequently died.  It might have been fought differently.  I do wonder whether those who complained about the smoke ever wondered whether they were culpable.

Fourteen people died, including most of the Prineville, Oregon hotshot crew, when they descended a hill, in this worrisome area, in thick growth to build fire lines. Several members thought this maneuver was dangerous, because they had unburned fuel, extremely volatile fuel,  between them and a fire they couldn’t see (Watch out #9). Nobody spoke up, except some smokejumpers elsewhere on the fire, who did not think what they were asked to do was a good idea.  Eight of the ten major rules for fire fighters, 12 of 18 Watch Out guidelines were eventually compromised or violated.

A dry cold front came through that afternoon, predicted, but the information wasn’t relayed to the firefighters.  At 1520 hours, concerns were raised, and some left the area.  At 1600 hours, all left, but sawyers were still carrying their saws, and many were walking.  Twenty minutes later, they were dead, shelters not deployed.  Not only can fire move faster than we can run (this one moved 14 mph), superheated gases and radiant heat can kill people at a great distance, and winds can knock them over.  On Mann Gulch, winds lifted a survivor up and down three times.  The idea that fire suddenly erupts and people die with no warning is not true.  Fire does suddenly erupt, but usually there are hints.  There were such hints at South Canyon.  There were draws, and there was wind, an ideal situation for fire spread, and one that had been previously noted.  Many firefighters didn’t appreciate the severity of the situation until it was too late, for the safety zones were too far away and uphill.

The recommendations after South Canyon were hoped to make fire fighting safer.  They didn’t.

Thirty Mile Fire, Washington State, 2001.  Four fire fighters died after deploying their shelters in a rock field when a small fire earlier in the day suddenly exploded, overwhelming the crew. The problem was many small errors–virtually no sleep the night before (impairs judgment equivalent to being legally drunk), going suddenly to a fire that they hadn’t planned on, faulty equipment, slow start, and pulling in the lookout.  At the lunch spot, not a safety zone, two spot fires were noted up a dead end road (which had not been previously appreciated when the group arrived at the fire), and tankers were sent to the spots.  At this point, the hauntingly sad video given by survivors stops, and the listener is told to put himself in the position of the fireboss, rather than knowing what happened later.  The fireboss sent more help to the spot fires, had no lookout to look at what the main fire was doing, and ultimately, the whole group was cut off from escaping from the lunch site the other way.  Instead, they went up the dead end road (which also had civilians present) to what appeared to be a safe area, with a stream to the east, a rock slide with no growth (but fuel between the rocks), and the road.

Thirty minutes before the fire overwhelmed the crew, many were taking pictures of themselves, not looking for safe spots or beginning shelter deployment, not knowing this would be the last picture of them alive.

Shelter deployment means that people were in an area they should not have been in.  They were too far from the safety zone.  That happens.  Shelters are a last ditch effort to save oneself.  Had everybody deployed on the road, they would have all survived.  But some deployed on the rocks.  They died of asphyxiation.  Many at the time were not adequately trained to deal with shelters, which one must be able to get in either standing or lying.  Several wore fusees and backpacks into the shelter; fusees burn at 375 degrees and can ignite if in contact with the shelter itself.  Some lost gloves, which were in retrospect available and nearby, and others left backpacks too close to the shelter, where they burned, adding fire near the shelter.  I don’t know what I would do if I were in that situation.  I haven’t been trained; all of these people were.  Many deploying shelters do so when there is a great deal of wind from the fire, sometimes ripping the shelter from a person’s hand. When I saw this haunting video, I said to myself, “When the tanker on the downwind spot fire radioed that they needed additional help, that is when I would have pulled out.  Everything is going wrong on this day, and we need to regroup.”

We get back to the basic part of fire fighting.  It is dangerous, and everybody who fights fire knows that.  My experience is nearly nil, only having driven a water tanker on a controlled burn in 1995.  The culture had been not to question orders, and there is a degree of pride in being able to handle adversity.  Nobody likes to lose a fire, nobody wants to say that they couldn’t attack it.  Nobody wants to see houses destroyed.

What I don’t remember about 1994, although I could be wrong, was that we didn’t refer to the fallen firefighters as heroes.  They were professionals, and they were sadly victims. The fire should have been allowed to burn, nobody should have been deployed in any area that was unsafe, regardless of the risk to property and especially not because somebody complained about the smoke.  And that brings me to 19 years later, a lot closer to home.

2013:  Arizona.  Nineteen firefighters die fighting the Yarnell Hill fire.  We don’t know many details yet.  A lookout was posted, and he radioed that the winds had shifted and he was leaving.  We’ve heard he did all the right things, but I know nothing yet of whether his messages were received, or what else was said or not said.  Shelters were deployed, unlike Storm King, so there was more time for the firefighters to realize they were in trouble.  There wasn’t much time, but the early reports saying “nothing could have been done, the fire was on them in seconds” may not be accurate.  I don’t yet know.  More than one report is comparing the Yarnell Hill fire with the South Canyon fire.  Both were initially small, both were in difficult terrain with extreme drought, and both were handled by hotshots.  Both had a major, predictable wind event, both had unburned fuel between the firefighters and the main fire, and both led to disasters.

I suspect by the end of August, most of the investigation will be completed.  Lack of a meteorologist will be one issue, I suspect, or at least under appreciation of what the winds would be.  Working in dense fuels with fire nearby, not seen, will likely be another.  An adequate escape route will be another.  Beyond that, I would not speculate further except to unequivocally state, this was NOT an Act of God.  That statement to me is a copout, an excuse for not trying to understand circumstances that people should understand, and a way to sweep the matter under a rug.  Unfortunately, the mistakes made will be publicized, likely inflaming many communities as much as the fire did.  But mistakes were made.  Thunderstorm downdrafts, erratic winds, Venturi effects, plentiful dry fuel, and a burning fire are all understandable.  Whether we can predict what they will do is another matter, and evidence is beginning to mount that our modeling of fire behavior is inadequate due to increased size of fires because of suppression, climate change allowing bark beetles to survive winters, and more houses in the wildland-urban interface.  Ability to recognize danger and to speak up is part of firefighter training.  If we cannot adequately predict the worst case scenario, and plan for it, then we have no business sending people into harm’s way, except to save lives, not property.  Worst case scenario planning is why firefighters are required to have safety zones and exits to them, both hopefully plural.

Just as Challenger repeated 17 years later with Columbia, almost to the day, with many of the same cultural problems still persisting in NASA, so did South Canyon repeat 19 years later with Yarnell Hill, almost to the day.  I suspect, like NASA, there are still cultural problems in the firefighting community.  Hopefully, the investigation will uncover these issues, and the wildland firefighting community will address exactly how we will approach fires, what we will do, and what simply will not be tolerated.  Whether one wishes to call the men heroes dying doing what they loved is a matter of choice.  I call the men tragic victims who died, not one of whom expected to that day in Yavapai County.  I don’t call dying doing what I loved great.  If I love doing something, dying is not the outcome I want. But that is a my opinion.  We didn’t learn from Mann Gulch in 1949; 45 and 52  years later we had South Canyon and 30 Mile fires respectively.  We didn’t learn enough from them, and 12 years after 30 Mile we had Yarnell Hill.

To the Watch Out situations, I would add:

19. Size of fire does not matter.  Small fires can kill you.

20. Always be aware that you may have only 10 minutes to live, should things turn sour. Act accordingly.

My prediction:  another catastrophe will recur.  My hope:  It won’t.

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CONTEXT

June 29, 2013

“A fanatic won’t change his mind and won’t change the subject”  

Winston Churchill

Twenty-seven years ago, I went to trial for malpractice and was not convicted.  Many people say, “You can’t be convicted in a civil suit.”  My reply: “When you have been sued and have gone to trial, then come back and tell me what word you would choose.”

During the pre-trial deposition, quotations from a textbook of neurology came from the prosecutor, and I did not question them.  I learned something that day:  people quote out of context.  At the trial, the prosecutor grilled me on the stand: “Is it not true, doctor, that Adams’ Textbook of Neurology says, “a brain tumor is not likely to be missed.”?

I looked at the prosecutor and quietly said, “May I see the book, please?”  He handed me the book.  I read the paragraph before and after the quotation the prosecutor had used, which stated essentially that with classic symptoms and signs and good imaging techniques, yes, certain kinds of brain tumors were not likely  (italics mine) to be missed.  That is a lot different.

A little later, the prosecutor quoted the textbook again, and again I read the pertinent passages before and after the quotation, politely handing the book back to him.  A third time, this happened, and again I asked for the book.  The prosecutor literally threw the book at me from four feet away.  I never have forgotten that.  At least one juror gasped at the rudeness.  I stayed calm, again reading the passages before and after.  I wasn’t sure what the jury was going to do, but after I stepped off the stand, the bailiff came up to me and said, “You’re a hell of a witness, doc.”

Of course, not losing didn’t mean I won, and I was never the same again.  A few years later, I left medicine.  I still feel like I was a bad doctor, nearly three decades later.

Out of context quotations are dangerous, and one recently surfaced when an Austrian woman came and spoke in Boston about the lack of free speech given to those who speak out against Islam. She spoke at a synagogue, and a person I know in Germany sent me the article.  This individual and I have very different political beliefs, although we share a concern about young women–often girls–who are forced into marriages with older men, have limited rights in their society, and can be killed by family members for not agreeing to these marriages.  These are well documented facts.

The woman who sent me the article is to me quite typical of those who are politically far right of me.  They have several common approaches.  One is to write comments with questions, rather than making statements.  A second is to send me articles, the implication (to me) that if I only would read this article I would come around to their way of thinking.  Third, they have never–that is true, the number is zero– read anything I have sent, so I no longer send articles.  A fourth characteristic is they take things out of context and often use words I don’t.  That’s how I know they are talking out of context. At a medical meeting once, I quietly asked one of my detractors  and the rest of the group if I had used a word she just had.  The room remained quiet.  The point was made.

The first article I got from the woman in Germany, a non-scientist, was that climate change wasn’t occurring.  The article, written by a non-climate scientist, good looking woman, paid by ExxonMobil, quickly stated, “Don’t let them fool you.”  Those words are not scientific, and it violated the first rule I have in dealing with those who disagree with me on science–personalization of the issue.  To a high level of confidence, we are causing climate change.  The confidence is not 100% (meaning we could be wrong), because climate is complex; but to disagree, one must offer high confidence limits that include 0, no change.  I have not seen any such articles.  I won’t discuss my other rules here.

The article about the Boston speech mentioned several men who allegedly had their rights infringed upon for speaking out.  I researched  the first man and found disturbing parts of his past behavior.  I wondered why he was used as an example.  Then the woman mentioned what “Barack Hussein Obama” had said, and my hackles rose.  Obviously, she knew Hussein is a charged word in today’s society, and she used the President’s name in a way that I consider rude, especially from a foreigner in my country.  I realize others might not agree, but to me, she was playing “loose” with Mr. Obama’s name.  I doubt Mr. Obama would care, but I did.

The quotation was “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam,” and this was meant to imply that Mr. Obama supported those who were offended by complaints against Mohammed.

Personally, there is no love lost between me and fundamentalists of any breed, including Christianity.  Others feel differently. But I thought that Mr. Obama had said more than what was quoted, and I found the rest of the paragraph quite easily.  First, one had to recognize that the President spoke at the UN about the infamous video insulting Mohammed was circulating on YouTube, inciting violence.  That context was crucial, because it meant that Mr. Obama was criticizing the video maker, not everybody who criticized Mohammed. He continued:

“Yet to be credible, those who condemn that slander must also condemn the hate we see when the image of Jesus Christ is desecrated, churches are destroyed, or the Holocaust is denied. Let us condemn incitement against Sufi Muslims, and Shiite pilgrims. It is time to heed the words of Gandhi: “Intolerance is itself a form of violence and an obstacle to the growth of a true democratic spirit.” Together, we must work towards a world where we are strengthened by our differences, and not defined by them. That is what America embodies, and that is the vision we will support.”

This is a very different view from the first line, and the quoting out of context meant that the speaker was deliberately choosing what she wanted to choose.  This is done by many, including the man who prosecuted me for malpractice, but it is wrong, and violators need to be called out on it.  To me, the speaker had lost credibility, and I wanted to call my German contact out on it.

How I did that was difficult, but I know exactly how I must do it.   I am incapable of writing what I feel and sending it immediately.  I am an emotional person, and if I am not careful, my emotions will hijack me into using sarcasm and hurtful, non-factual comments.  In short, I become the person they often are.  I thought about the comments for three days, then I sat down and suddenly, opened the computer and wrote 1200 words–in English.  I then let the writing sit for a day, removed the anger, the sarcasm, the nastiness, stayed factual where there were facts, and translated it to German.

Eventually, she wrote me back, and I sent the article.  I was disappointed in the response, not because she disagreed, but because she did not even acknowledge my comments about context, which are as basic to arguing what people believe as statistics is to arguing whether a trend exists. My last paragraph discusses the words I use–probably, possibly, I think, I once thought, I am 95% confident, and “I could be wrong.”  These are words of science, of probability and uncertainty, of openness, of being human.

My letter to her in German is not good German, but I am self taught, and it was important to write her in her language.

Es ist nicht einfach, diesen Brief zu schreiben.  Ich bin absichtlich verschwunden, um Deinen Artikel zu denken und endlich darüber zu schreiben.  Ich war enttäuscht und ein bisschen wütend.  Wahrscheinlich würde es besser verschwinden, weil diese kürzlichen Tage sehr schwierig für mich gewesen sind.  Ich will schreiben, ohne Sarkasmus, ohne wütend, und mit allen Tatsachen.  Ich werde in meinem Brief nur zwei Fragen stellen, weil viele Radikalemenschen mir die Frage stellen mögen, wenn sie mir schreiben, und das gefällt mir nicht.  Ich schreibe, ich stelle oft keine Fragen, die ich die Antwort schon wissen.

Vor mehrere Tagen hast Du mir eine Frage gestellt (vide infra).  [Übringens habe ich gesagt: Seit 20 Jahren gab es keinen Krieg in den Balkan, nicht die Welt.  Achttausend Muslimen sind in Srebrinica gestorben.  Ich erinnere mich daran.  Dieser Krieg hat in Dayton, Ohio, mein Land beendet.  Unser Präsident war Clinton, ein Demokrat.  Es war das erste Mal, dass einen Krieg beendet wurde, mit nur den Luftverbomben.  Die Republikaner hatten gesagt, dass es unmöglich sein würde.]

 1. “Syrien?”  Es ist eine Tragödie des Menschens.  Mein Land können nicht mehr die Welt retten. Ich frage mich, ob diese Frau und Europa wollen, dass Amerika in Syrien mit unseren Soldaten, mit unserem Geld kämpfen sollen.  Wenn es viele Probleme stattfinden werden, und vertraut mir, es wird viele Probleme geben, wird man sagen, “Verdammten Amerikaner.”  Plötzlich wird niemand sagen: “Vielen Dank.”  Es hat immer stattgefunden.  Immer.  Ich bin alt, und ich habe es oft erlebt.

 2. Deine zwei Artikel haben mich beleidigt.  Ja, beleidigt. Das letzte Mal, dass ich so beleidigt war, eine muslimiche Frau, die Dagestan auskam, hat mir geschrieben, dass meine Regierung 9/11 verursacht hat.  Wieder bin ich sehr enttäuscht, und ein bisschen wütend. 

Die Wahrheit macht uns Frei.  Aber sie ist die ganze Wahrheit, nicht ein bisschen Wahrheit. Es ist sehr wichtig, der Unterschied zu erkennen. 

Sie hat “Barack Hussein Obama” gesagt.  Das ist unglaublich unanständig für eine Ausländeringaste in meinem Land zu sagen. Ja, wir haben unsere First Amendment.  Sie können sagen, was sie willst.  Wir bedürfen nicht, höflich zu sein.  Er ist President oder Mr. Obama.  Sie hat absichtlich “Hussein” gesagt, um ihre Zielgruppe zu beeinflussen.  Ich bin voll überzeugt.  Ich werde alle Opfer nicht hier diskutieren.  Ich habe ein paar schon erforscht, und ich war nicht beeindruckt, besonders der erste Mann. 

Sie hat seine Ansprache nicht im Zusammenhang zitiert.  Das war völlig falsch, und sie soll sich schämen.  Mit diesem großen Fehler kann ich ihre ganze Ansprache nicht glauben. 

Hier ist der volle Absatz.  Meine letzte Frage: hast Du dieser Absatz gelesen? Wenn ein Zitat merkwürdig erscheint, lese ich immer den Zuhammenhang.  “Ich liebe die Muslimen, die nicht zu Europa kommt” kann “Ich liebe die Muslimen” werden, und nicht mehr. Leider habe ich mehrmals gesehen.  Hier: 

“The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam (Es war sehr wichtig zu verstehen, was passiert ist, wenn Mr. Obama darüber gesprochen habe.  Es gab ein schlechtes Video auf YouTube, das von den USA auskam.  Es gab nichts mit Sabatina oder mit anderen muslimischen Kritiker(in) zu tun.  Es geht ein Video.  Du mußt  in diesem Rahmen erkennen, darüber Mr. Obama gesprochen hat). Yet to be credible, those who condemn that slander must also condemn the hate we see when the image of Jesus Christ is desecrated, churches are destroyed, or the Holocaust is denied. Let us condemn incitement against Sufi Muslims, and Shiite pilgrims. It is time to heed the words of Gandhi: “Intolerance is itself a form of violence and an obstacle to the growth of a true democratic spirit.” Together, we must work towards a world where we are strengthened by our differences, and not defined by them. That is what America embodies, and that is the vision we will support.” 

Das war der ganze Absatz.  Das ist die ganze Wahrheit.  Sie hat absichtlich das Zitat nicht im Rahmen, um die Menschen zu beeinflussen.  Ich kann ihre Ansprache nicht vertrauen.  Es gibt keinen Grund zu tun.  Meine Frau konnte es auch nicht glauben.  Man muss immer im Rahmen zitieren.  Es ist traurig, weil die Tatsachen sich sprechen können.  Sie hatte genug Tatsachen, ohne diesen Fehler zu machen. 

Ich kann verschwinden.  Wenn Du etwas diskutieren wollst, kann ich bleiben.  Du kannst entscheiden, ob ich ein wertvoller, aufgeschlossener Mann bin, mit wem Du schreiben willst.  Ich kann Dir sagen, dass ein Fundi hier gesagt hat:  Weil ein LGBT Umzug in New Orleans geplant war, ist warum Hurricane Katrina kam.  Der Gott hat New Orleans bestraft.  Ja, hat gesagt.  Oder eine Frau, die ist vergewaltigt, wird nicht Schwanger werden, weil ihr Körper eine Verwaltigung erkennen, und kann eine Schwangerschaft verhüten.  Jedoch muss die Frau das Baby haben. (32K Babys gebären nach den Vergewaltigen hier jedes Jahr).  Vielleicht wird Sabatina diese Tatsachen wissen wollen.  Oder nicht.  Ich weiß nicht, aber ich denke, dass es hier ein “Republikanerkrieg gegen Frauen” gibt, ein Missbrauch der Frauen.   

Wenn Du über Deinem Garten, über der Erde, über deine Familie, uber dem Leben, schreibst, würde es gut sein.  Alles Artikel gefällt mir nicht.  Ich habe Dir keinen Artikel geschickt.  Es ist für mich höflich nicht zu tun.  Du wirst ihn wahrschinlich weder wollen noch lesen.   Ich werde ein Artikel lesen, aber wenn ich etwas voll Unrecht finde, würde ich den ganzen Artikel wegwerfen.  Jetzt bist Du null für zwei.  Mein Brief über Syrien wird diese Woche  in The New Yorker Zeitschrift erscheinen.   TNY ist sehr wohlbekannt hier, und einen Brief ist sehr schwierig in diesem Zeitschrift zu haben.  Ich bin ein guter Wissenschaftler, Arzt und Stastiker.  Ich bin sehr neugierig.  Ich kann gut schreiben, und ich lese sehr vorsichtig.   

Endlich schlage ich die Leute vor,  diese Wörter zu lernen, dass ich oft benutzte:  “Vielleicht,”  “Wahrscheinlich,” “Ich denke,” “Ich dachte einmal, aber jetzt denke ich nicht”, Ich habe 95% Zuversicht” und am wichtigsten:  ICH KONNTE UNRECHT HABEN. Man würde gut tun, diese zu lernen. 

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THE NEW YORKER LETTER

June 23, 2013

One has to be a writer to appreciate fully how we want to get our work accepted by the top publications in the world.  The New Yorker has a circulation of over a million.  The articles are extremely well written; I have long been jealous at the medical writers, who put me to shame.  But I read every word they write.  A very good friend, writer, and neurologist helped me write A Wise Owl, which won me the Creative Expression Award for Human Values in Neurology 10 years ago.  His goal was to get a letter published in the magazine.  Sadly, he died before that could happen.

I don’t set out to write letters to get published.  I read something, and if it connects with me in some fashion, I write.  It is difficult for me to do so, because I am under a time pressure, which adversely affects my writing.  I am under a word pressure, too, but I have learned to cut words.  Some will say, “You should have said such and such.”  Maybe, but if the letter is too long, it will never appear, so all the wisdom is lost.

The current letter had to do with an article about Syria.  I thought Senator McCain, who represents me in the Senate, was allowed too much space and did not see the same picture I did.  I thought maybe I had something to impart on the debate, so I wrote.  I never expected anything to come of my letter, but last week, I was told it was a “finalist,” which gives one some idea of how difficult it is to get writing into the magazine.  I said to my wife that I got lucky, but both of us realized it wasn’t just luck.  I get a high percentage of my letters to the local newspaper published, because I pick my battles carefully and keep the letters short.

 

Filkins reports that Senator John McCain has pushed for military intervention in Syria. But I doubt Republicans in 2013 will tolerate “emergency authorizations,” even if they raised no objections to these off-budget costs a decade ago. Indeed, overruling a national security team might show more wisdom than McCain might think. President Obama overruled his Secretary of Defense in 2011, when he authorized the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. Obama is weighing morality, costs, and unintended consequences of another conflict after learning the hard lessons of exiting the military morass in Iraq and Afghanistan. Perhaps he is heeding the proverb, “The more we sweat during peace, the less we bleed in war.” 

Michael S. Smith

Tucson, AZ

 

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BELIEVING IS SEEING

June 14, 2013

My wife read a CT Scan of the heart recently, done to check coronary artery calcification, and told the referring physician the patient had breast cancer.

Whoa!  What does that have to do with heart disease?  The answer: nothing, and that is the point: we need radiologists to read films formally and not clinicians, and I say that as a former clinician who read CT head scans really well.  It’s fine for a medical group to have its own X-Ray facility and for clinicians to read the images.  But every image must have a formal reading by a radiologist, for that individual is both unbiased and trained to look at everything on the image, every corner, every part.  There is no law in nature that says a person will have one thing wrong.  It is entirely possible for a neurologist to look at an MRI of the spine and miss a large abdominal aortic aneurysm.  We see what we expect to see.  Seeing isn’t believing.  Believing is seeing.  We believe something, and we tend to look for it.

On a CT scan, there is a side view, which shows the skin.  This isn’t a mammogram, but it certainly is capable of showing a breast cancer.  In addition to the breast cancer, there was a “ground glass” area in the lung suggesting there might be an early lung cancer, too.  Wow. A CT scan of the heart is done for coronary disease, and two other systems have primary cancers.  Maybe the cardiologist would have found those, but I doubt it.  I doubt when I read CT scans of the head that I would have found a throat cancer, even though the throat was scanned and on the film.

In my defense, I was once sent a patient with leg pain, with a concern that this was due to pinched nerve in the back.  The lady had pain near the knee, but it was point tender, and I obtained a bone scan, looking for a fracture.  I found a hairline fracture of the proximal  tibia.  I got a lot of pleasure diagnosing something correctly out of my field.  Most specialists do.  There is a cardiologist in town, whom I met 31 years ago when he was new here.  I had seen a man in the emergency department who had driven 2500 km to Arizona and presented with sudden, brief unconsciousness.  I saw him and noted he seemed to be breathing a little faster than normal.  I obtained an arterial blood gas and found pronounced hypoxia.  Thinking that a cardiac arrhythmia would cause unconsciousness (strokes seldom do), and thinking of pulmonary emboli as a cause of both that and hypoxia, I did a lung scan, since that is what we did back then, and there were pulmonary emboli, because of leg clots that occurred during prolonged sitting on his drive to Arizona from Minnesota.  The cardiologist happened to be present, and I referred the patient to him.

Several years later, one of that cardiologist’s partners referred a patient to me on whom he had diagnosed an occipital lobe infarct.  For a neurologist, that is not difficult, but I was impressed the cardiologist had picked it up.  Most non-neurologists miss it.

So when the MRI of my neck was unchanged from 9 years ago, that was good news, I was a bit chagrined, however, when the radiologist told me that I had a significant thyroid nodule.  It never occurred to me look for thyroid disease on my MRI.  It is sort of like people’s being surprised when I tell them the Moon is visible in broad daylight.  “It is?” they say.

“It’s there, isn’t it?”  I reply.  The thyroid nodule was quite present.  Once I looked, there it was, plain as can be, like the first quarter Moon in the southeastern sky in the afternoon.  Try finding the Moon in daylight, sometime, if you haven’t seen it.  You will discover a whole new world–literally., and wonder why you never noticed it before.  That’s the problem.  We notice only what we are willing to notice.  Once we are willing to notice many things, a brand new world opens up to us.  Like the Moon, or even Venus, which you can often see in broad daylight, if you know where to look.

Look around you.  See, smell, touch, hear, and taste the world.  Notice things.  Life becomes very interesting when you do.

Even when you have an “interesting” thyroid nodule.  By the way, it was benign.

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“THIS CAN’T BE HAPPENING TO ME”

June 8, 2013

Last week, an elderly couple, experienced canoeists, capsized in Upper Basswood Falls, which straddle the Canadian border, and the 78 year-old man drowned.  His 75 year-old wife made it to the Canadian side.  She heard him say, “I can’t move,” but was unable to help.  I can imagine that.  Ice out was 3 weeks ago, and she probably was hypothermic.

I don’t like Upper Basswood Falls.  Never have.  A couple once left their young daughter at the end of a portage, while they returned to get the remainder of their gear.  She fell in the river, and that was the last time they saw her alive.  I was there on September 12, 2001, and that’s where I first heard the news that the world had changed forever.  In 1991, I did one of the most stupid things I have ever done in the woods.  Solo, I was coming upstream, on the Canadian side, and moved forward in the canoe to deal with the current.  I later learned that there are three things that a solo canoeist cannot manage:  wind, muck, and current.  I was  thrown out of the canoe, without its capsizing.  I found myself suddenly underwater thinking “This can’t be happening,”  usually the first thought people have in these circumstances.  It isn’t a good one. Quetico maps often don’t show portages, and when I went ashore, there was a short carry.  Fortunately, the water was warm, and all that was hurt was my pride.  I could have drowned, because back then I didn’t wear a PFD (Personal Flotation Device), either.  I know that, because I was underwater, which wouldn’t happen with a PFD.  I made two bad decisions and got away with them.  In 40 years of canoeing, it is the only time I dumped.  I’ve worn a zipped up PFD since, for it cannot come off.  The victim was found without one.

Upper Basswood Falls is not a waterfall but a series of falls, and there is a long portage around them.  The Horse Portage, as it is called, is 340 rods (1700 m).   It is longer, should one choose to set in downstream a little further, which I have also done.  The trail is not good, and the put in spot isn’t, either.  But in high water, it is safer.

The couple had reportedly discovered they could paddle Upper Basswood Falls and avoid the Horse Portage. The thought of bypassing the Horse Portage has never crossed my mind, and I’ve paddled 5 miles (8 km) of Class III rapids in the Far North on the Nahanni, a week’s travel from civilization and no way out other than on the river. This information shocked me.  A solid rule in the Boundary Waters-Quetico is never to paddle rapids if a portage exists.  In known high water, with 3 feet of snow on the lakes a month earlier, probable water temperatures of 45-55 F., Upper Basswood is a killer.  The widow isn’t sure whether he scouted the rapids; that means that both of them did not decide together whether to continue.  In any case, he took a different channel from usual, and that was that.

A few people die annually in the Boundary Waters-Quetico from falls or drowning; lightning is another cause.  Rapids must be avoided; further downstream I once tried to dissuade a pair not to run Wheelbarrow Falls.  They asked me to take pictures.  I have some good ones, which first show the pair with no helmets and bare feet.  Not wise.  Then the pictures show the canoe tipping, going broadside, and two guys in the water being taken downstream.  They survived, unscathed.  The canoe was perpendicular to the rapids, full of water.  They said they could handle it, although a canoe full of water weighs about 600 kg.  I later learned they did get the canoe out, before the keel bent and the Grumman became scrap metal.

I told my wife last night I would never stay on shore if I heard her say in the middle of the river, “I can’t move.”

“I’d get you out, or we’d both go together.”  I really meant that.  She reminded me that we have animals.  I reminded her that we have each other.  I wouldn’t live with myself if I did anything less.  But, I said, “I wouldn’t put us in that situation.”  I won’t, and I haven’t.  I hope to be 78 and still canoeing, although I would be exceptionally careful in rivers, high winds, rain, and thunderstorms.   I insist she speak up any time something doesn’t seem right.  That took a while to get her to do, and for me to listen, but we’re better off for it. The man’s widow didn’t know if he had a life jacket on.  If I forgot to put mine on, my wife would tell me.  These are little things, perhaps, but in the woods, as in so many other places, it is the concatenation of little things that produces the disaster.  Was the reason the victim couldn’t move was that he was pinned down?  Would a PFD had prevented it?  We will never know.

Bad things happen.  Some are simply not preventable.  Lightning strikes kill, although if one pitches a tent where there are no tree roots and uses a pad, there is a good chance of avoiding ground currents.  Trees fall;  high winds are frightening, because healthy trees can be suddenly splintered like matchsticks.  I’ve seen it.   I will sleep during a thunderstorm; during high winds, I stay awake listening for the first loud “CRACK,” for once I hear it, we are out of the tent, until the wind dies down.  The BW had a derecho in 1999, wiping out 30 million trees.  Incredibly, nobody was killed.

Fire is another concern, and even small “distant” fires can blow up into monsters, which almost killed a pair in 2011, when the Pagami Creek fire ran 12 miles in a day, and the couple had to turn their canoe over in a river, stay underneath it, breathing the air that was there.  Getting caught in a fire that day was nothing anybody could have foreseen.  The couple survived a freak occurrence by doing the right thing.

I am not afraid to solo.  I did that in April in snow into Angleworm Lake.  Or almost.  The snow got too deep, the trail difficult to find, and the map showed more distance left than I had hoped for.  I didn’t spend time analyzing; I automatically turned around to return to a known dry spot on the trail that I had noted on the way in.  I was fine.  What I told my wife after the trip was simple:  “I think this was the smartest I’ve ever behaved in the woods.”  But being smart just makes the stupid things less likely to occur; freak occurrences and unexpected illnesses are wild cards.

I’m sure some might say that dying in the woods is not the worst way to go.  Maybe.  The problem with dying “doing what you loved,” is that people who love you are left behind, and others often have to put their lives at risk to recover your body.  It is clear if I am ever in the position where death is a real possibility, there is a good chance I did something wrong.  I’d like to think if I got on a river that was unusually high, a lake with huge waves, or a thunderstorm that looked really bad, I would tell my wife we were going to stop to think about our options.  Nature isn’t out to kill us.  Nature just is.  We decide whether we run rapids, deal with waves, lightning, bears, and falling trees.

It’s a real shame what happened.  I never dreamed an elderly couple would shoot the beginning of Upper Basswood in spring.  I’m just filled with sadness, hoping some learning will come from this.

If there is one, only one rule I would tell people in the woods, it is this:  if you aren’t certain what to do, stop immediately and think of your options, remembering the best one likely is to turn back or change what you are doing.  It may be inconvenient and annoying, but you will survive to have those emotions.

If you allowed me a second rule, it would be this:  “Nobody ever drowned on a portage.”

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DRESSING UP A PIG

June 1, 2013

In 1967, when we began heavily bombing North Vietnam, we called it a “protective reaction.”  Doonesbury asked “what are the casualties?”  The answer, in the same cartoon, was, “On language, very great.”  The following year, we heard, “We had to destroy the village in order to save it.”  We use derogatory terms I won’t write here to de-humanize an enemy, since it is easier to kill somebody one doesn’t think is human.

In many instances those somebodies are women and children.  Let’s start with circumcising women, which I will call by a proper name: “Genital mutilation.” This has no medical reason, unlike male circumcision, which completely prevents penile cancer and makes HIV less prone to be transmitted.  I don’t remember mine, and I don’t believe it caused lasting harm, but I am open to evidence on the latter, just not the former.

I read recently that Reuters refuses to use the term “Terrorists,” and the Associated Press now refuses to use “Islamic terrorists” or “illegal aliens.”  This is equally bad as dehumanizing an enemy.

I’m a liberal, but I am a strong believer in using the proper word to describe a situation or condition.  An improper word or phrase, used frequently, can become harmful if it becomes ingrained in the vocabulary.

Examples of the latter include “The Death Tax,” which is the estate tax.  There is a threshold over which the estate is be taxed at about 40%.  The threshold varies and is now $5.25 million. The proper term is “Estate Tax.”

“Death Panels” were used when during the debate on the Affordable Health Care Act (called Obama Care, another misuse of the language, since the Congress passed the law, and the Supreme Court upheld it).  One part of the bill was to have Medicare pay for counseling on End of Life planning.  As a neurologist who dealt with end of life issues, often when no other physician was willing to do so, I found that lack of advance directives was a significant impediment to decision making families had to make, when a member had irreversible brain injury.  I saw families torn apart over the issue.  Paying to have these discussions with competent people in advance seemed to me to be a good use of money, since the amount was 1-5% of the cost of one day in intensive care, and many of these people languished, and that is the proper word, in intensive care for days, weeks, or in some instances months. I saw this often.  Many elderly want their estate going to their offspring, not for futile, unwanted care. ICU beds are in short supply, so having them used to house patients who were going to die soon, when seriously ill people could benefit from those same beds, made no sense.  I made sure neither of my parents lingered.  They made me promise not to let it happen to them.

I practiced in a Catholic Hospital, and the Church had no problem with discontinuation of futile care.  Nor should anybody else.  I used terms like “die,” and “death”, hard words, but final in meaning.  “Expire” is too soft, and “pass on” implies something I don’t believe in.

Some of the terms we use would be funny if they weren’t so pernicious in their ability to dress up a pig in such a fashion that people forget it is still a pig.  “Pre-owned” means “Used”, half the letters and twice as easy to understand.  “Fastest growing” is another term for “smaller,” since large firms need proportionately more money to grow a given per cent. If my firm grosses $1 million a year, and next year it grosses $1.1 million, it has grown 10%.  If my competitor grosses $100 million a year and next year grosses $105 million, his has grown 5%, but his share of the market has increased nearly 4%, from 100/101  to 105/106.1.  The amount of new business in the market has increased $5.1 million, and nearly 98% of that increase went to my competitor.

We can say “undocumented immigrants,” and the term is correct.  But people who cross borders without going through customs and immigration are violating the law.  That is why we have the word “illegal.”  There may be all sorts of reasons for the person to do so, and there may be appropriate words for those reasons–fleeing a repressive regime, starvation, an epidemic of disease.  But the person is still performing an illegal act.  Whether the act is immoral is another matter altogether.  We saw during the last financial crisis that people did immoral acts that were not necessary illegal.  We should not confuse immoral and illegal.

Beheading a British soldier in broad daylight and saying that his country is responsible for killing millions of Muslims daily is a gross act of religious terror and exaggeration.  [Mathematical note:  “millions of people daily” would require about 5 years to have no Muslims on the planet, using a minimum number of “2” for the plural and 2 billion for the number of Muslims.  This error was not brought out in any article.]  Terror scares people, and that act scared the hell out of me.  Since this was a brutal act carried out in the name of religion, both the act and the modifier belong. I fail to see why Reuters won’t use the term.  Indeed, a mullah interviewed on British television refused to call the beheading an “abhorrence,” using only the word “shocking,” which is far milder and has many different meanings.  Abhor is very clear, and the man refused to use the word.

My liberalism has limits.  When I saw Corregidor, the American Cemetery in Manila, the prison where men drowned during high tide, I felt strongly that we had a place in the world that we had earned through the blood of men who fought and died in places not many people know of today, like Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Leyte and Lingayen Gulfs, Bataan, Kwajalein, Enewetak, and Saipan.

The issue we face as a country is how we deal with a very nasty world without compromising our values.  For if we become what our enemy is, then we have lost.  But if we allow the enemy to proceed without resistance, then we have lost as well.  The world is not black and white but a large shade of gray.  Any time the gray hides something evil, we need to shine a spotlight on that evil and address it.

With a carefully chosen word or phrase, because it is proper, regardless of who may be offended.

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THE TERM IS NEITHER “PASS ON” NOR “EXPIRE”. THE VERB IS “TO DIE” AND THE NOUN IS “DEATH”

May 11, 2013

A 90 year-old man presents in an emergency department with abdominal pain and is found to have an abdominal mass.  It is likely he has colonic cancer with impending perforation.  He refuses colonoscopy, and he refuses surgery. “I am ready to die,” the man says, who is competent.  The surgeons think they can help him.  The man refuses again.  The surgeons say that without surgery, this will be a painful way to die.

This scenario is being played out as I write in a nearby city.  I was asked, as a former member of a hospital ethics committee, what I would do.

It’s difficult to say, without really talking to the patient and whatever family members are available.  I don’t know whether the man has a living will or a health care power of attorney.  If you don’t have either, I would do so at the earliest possible opportunity.  Don’t think because you are in your 20s, this isn’t an issue.  Accidents can leave people in permanent coma; Terri Schiavo, Nancy Cruzan, and Karen Ann Quinlan were all young, when a catastrophic event left each of them vegetative.

If the man is truly competent, he has the right to his decision.  Patients have the right to refuse things that we physicians think they ought to have.  This doesn’t hold for children, and more than one physician has given blood to a Jehovah’s Witness.  But one is on shaky ground to treat a competent patient who has refused such treatment.

That doesn’t mean we have to take care of that patient for that particular illness.  I had people refuse to take anti-convulsants for epilepsy.  I said that I would provide a list of physicians to whom they could go, and they had 30 days to do so.  I could not, in good conscience, have a patient whom I thought was a danger to himself and others be under my care, yet refuse my recommendations.  But, I also would not, as some did, fire the patient and dump the case on the hospital medical director, which more than one time happened to me.

The “painful death” part disturbed me.  Yes, peritonitis is painful.  So is colonic surgery, with a colostomy likely, and the possibility of further surgery, poor healing, infection, or pulmonary complications, for major surgery on a 90 year-old will be complicated by definition.

We can control pain.  We have palliative medicine physicians, and we have hospice.  There is no reason for somebody to die in horrible pain.  There are those who worry about addiction to morphine, which would be laughable in a dying patient, if the problem weren’t laughable and people really didn’t say that.  But they do.  We have a conflicting dichotomy in this country:  hospitalized patients are asked constantly about how much pain they are having.  Once you are an outpatient, then narcotics are bad things.  Oh, it isn’t quite that simple; however, the truth is not all that distant, either.  This dichotomy is grist for another mill.

There are others who worry that we will kill somebody by giving them so much morphine that they will stop breathing.  Morphine depresses respiration, but if a patient dies by receiving too much morphine, isn’t that in fact what was going to happen anyway?  What in the world are we so afraid of?

Death.

Not passing away, not going on to a “better place,” not “expiring”.  Death.  Dying.  Ceasing to exist as a human being.  I always used the term “death” in talking to families.  I wasn’t always popular, but I was far more often respected by people I cared about than I was despised by those whom I did not respect.

Yes, I do worry about contracting certain conditions.  I know medicine, and I know what can befall the human body.  But I am also worried about being kept alive when I would not want to be.  If I am vegetative, I wouldn’t be aware of it by definition, but it would be hell on my wife, and I would not want her to go through that.

I worry a great deal that I might end up in an ICU with a bunch of “keep him alive at all costs” folks working on me, long after it is obvious that the result will be poor and counter to my living will.  I worry that somebody will point out a “miraculous cure after 20 years in coma,” when in fact the person was vegetative and happened to smile, which vegetative people do.  I do not want my name associated with a court case, like the three women I mentioned above.  Nor do I want to hear “you never really know what will happen,” when we do know with extremely high probability what will happen. The best thing I did in medicine was not curing people, for I did little of that.  The best thing I did was allow people to die when it was time.  I knew when it was time, not to “give up,” but to accept reality.

The next day, both hospice and palliative care people talked to the man and his family.  He died soon afterwards.  For me, he no longer exists.  For others, he has gone to a better place, and they have memories of a long, happy life.  For all of us, he is no longer suffering.

 

 

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MAMMOTH CAVE, 2013, MIDWEST ROAD TRIP TO GET MY HEAD BACK ON STRAIGHT

May 7, 2013

It was time; indeed, it was past time, to get back into the woods again, even for a day or two.  A good hike in the mountains around Tucson would help, but I really wanted to get deeper into the woods.  The Vermilion Community College Scholarship Banquet is held the last Thursday of April, and twice I have canoe tripped into the Boundary Waters before the banquet.  I decided I would do the same this year.

I also decided I could probably see Mammoth Cave National Park on the way, if I went to Minneapolis by way of St. Louis, and drove from St. Louis to Mammoth Cave.  The distance is about 330 miles, but it is good road the whole way, and on a Friday I did just that.  Illinois, in exceptional drought the year before, was now in flood.  I could have canoed in the forests along the road, or in the open fields that would not be ready for planting for some time to come.  I was just behind the latest storm, and as I reached Mammoth Cave in late twilight, the temperature was in the low 50s, down 30 degrees from the day before.

The next morning, I awoke to fog over the Green River Valley, which cuts through the center of the park.

Morning Fog, over Green River Valley

One of many springs

Mammoth Cave is truly mammoth.  It is the largest cave in the world, nearly three times the length, in passages, of the next largest.  With more than 400 miles (650 km) of passages, the Cave offers several tours.  With my time limited, I took two tours, one in the original entrance, the other in the new entrance, that was blown up to make way for an entry point, back before the cave became a national park and entrepreneurs took people down into the cave, people wearing top hats, long skirts and high heeled shoes.

Saltpeter for gunpowder used in the War of 1812 was made here;

Saltpeter for gunpowder used in the War of 1812 was made here;

Bat on wall

In between the tours, I walked the 12 miles (20 km) of trails near the visitor’s center, then took a wildlife flower hike to relearn what I once knew about wildflowers, such as jack-in-the-pulpit and trillium.  The trees were just beginning to leaf out, and the temperature was mild.

Phlox

Jack-in-the-Pulpit

IMG_3046 IMG_3047

The Second Tour took us in a different entrance, one that was blown open when some cold air was exiting the cave and a small hole discovered.  This one descended about 270 steps and went through a wider variety of terrain.  There are longer tours that will show more of the passages, and there are caving tours, for those who want to see what exploring is like.

Gate to keep people from touching stalactites and stalagmites, since one touch will destroy any future growth. Past generations of visitors did this.

IMG_3064 IMG_3083 IMG_3084 150 meters below ground.

On Sunday, I drove back to St. Louis, first looking at the Green River Ferry:

Green River Ferry

….and doing one more trip around an area over one sinkhole and looking down on an underground river, above ground further south in the park, and here emptying in to the Green River.  This part of Kentucky is full of sinkholes.

Underground river emptying into the Green River.

Underground river emptying into the Green River.

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UNCOUNTABLE COSTS: HOW MUCH IS THE BOUNDARY WATERS WORTH?

April 30, 2013

There is serious possibility of opening a sulfide mine in the Boundary Waters watershed, with politicians on both sides supporting it, because it will create jobs.  I haven’t heard much about the costs of such an mine.  Costs are different from money.  For example, we have spent more than a trillion dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  That’s money.  The cost, in dead, maimed, displaced, and ruined families is uncountable, but I would submit it is enormous. Because we can’t place a value on a human life, we don’t, so the money we were told we would spend–a laughable $1.7 billion–was at least four if not five orders of magnitude too low.  Before going to war, costs should be understood, but few in Congress understand costs.

Without doubt, the mine near Ely would provide jobs, although mining is more than pick and shovel work these days.  Mining requires engineering skills, knowledge of geology, and more important, knowledge how to do it safely, which means disposing of the waste in such a way that the environment is not polluted.

There are a few of us who think this mine is a bad idea.  A really bad idea.  One company that may be involved is not American; while that doesn’t make it necessarily bad, they don’t have the deep connection to the Boundary Waters that some of us have.  Worse, these types of mines have in every instance been shown to have left toxic metals on the surface that leach into the water and pollute it.

The name of the most beautiful wilderness in the Lower 49 is the Boundary Waters.   Connect the dots.  This region has some of the cleanest water on the continent.  I have drunk from the lakes on every one of my 62 trips up there. How many places can we still drink water out of a lake?

Fish live in water, too.  The second Saturday in May is a special day in Minnesota, for it is fishing opener.  I wonder how people will feel about the possibility of far fewer fish, should the mine pollute the watershed.

But the mine won’t be a problem, I have been told.  I will hear the good-looking young men and women, who sound so sincere, say that there is nothing to worry about.  The executives, who have so much money to gain from the mine, will say technology will make this mine safe, and there won’t be a problem.  The jobs that will be created will be so important to the Iron Range communities, where many are short on money and long on clean water and forests.  Everything will be just fine.  Listen to the reassuring voices.  Look at the handsome young people.  Watch the pictures of cute deer drinking out of a lake near the mine site.  Everything will be fine.

Until it isn’t.  Let me repeat that in a different way.  Everything is safe until it isn’t.  That goes for Challenger, Columbia, Tenerife, the Comet, Electra, and DC-10, shipping oil out Prince William Sound, pipelines through Arkansas, Deep Water Horizon, Chernobyl, Fukushima, and I suspect Keystone XL.

When the you know what hits the fan, suddenly people will be sorry.  “It’s an Act of God,” “we couldn’t have possibly foreseen this,” “we will do everything we can to make you whole.”  And the company will file for bankruptcy.  I wasn’t born yesterday. I could name dozens of other catastrophes.

But then it will be too late.  It will NOT be an Act of God, any more than rheumatic fever or tuberculosis was, death from infected hangnails, or acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Complex systems will fail.  It is a matter of statistics and probability, and there are not many who understand these concepts.

The questions I ask are quite simple:

1.  How much is the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness worth?

2.  What is the probability that the mine will pollute, and how are you computing that probability?

The first  question has no answer, and the second is difficult to compute.  We could do an Expected Value analysis on  the Boundary Waters.  We could add up the tourism dollars, the cost of the timber, the fresh water, the campsites, and multiply it by 1, since it already exists with probability 1.  We could have the money the mine puts into the hands of the people of northern Minnesota (not how much ore is there, but how much money goes to the locals, which is a much smaller number) and multiply it by the probability it will cause no problem, which from past experience, is fairly close to zero, and get another expected value.  We then compare the two.  But the first expected value is too low, because no price can be placed on the Boundary Waters. We can’t place a cost on certain things, like people’s lives, unless we want to use human trafficking as a means.  Is this what we’ve come to?

Because these mines have ALWAYS had problems, it is incumbent upon those supporters to show why THIS mine will be different.  But let’s get back to what we can’t measure–the  value of wilderness that is nowhere else this accessible, this pristine, and this transformative of people.  No, we can’t say what that is worth, but it sure is worth something.  It falls into the category of “It ain’t for sale at any price,” and that is what some of us are saying.

There are a few other things that ought to be pointed out as well.

First, Ely, one of the towns that would be impacted by this mine, was once populated by miners, whose kids went to work in the mines.  There is a community college in Ely–Vermilion Community College–where the last Thursday in April is a scholarship banquet, where $42,000 is donated to students.  I am responsible for 3 of those scholarships. 

In 2007, I gave a scholarship to a young woman, whose parents came to the banquet.  Her father worked in the mines on the Iron Range west of Ely, where the mine tailings are, for lack of a better word–ugly.  He was so proud of his daughter, whose education would have her not go into the mines, the way he did.

Now we are offering jobs back in the mines.  We seem to be going backward.

Second, many call the Boundary Waters “God’s country,” a term used for unspoiled wilderness, Up North, in Boreal Country.  I wonder how many believers up there think that mining in a sensitive watershed is in keeping with Creation.  Just a thought.  BOUNDARY WATERS_2007114

The third issue I have is one that we don’t discuss in this country, because the major religions don’t believe in it, and many people don’t either.  We need to have fewer children.  If we had fewer children, we wouldn’t need to find so many jobs for them.  The notion that somebody can finish high school, go into the mines for good money (so long as the mine keeps working), buy a truck, a snowmobile, a boat, have 5 or 6 kids, lots of debt, and expects the kids will be able to do the same thing–and their kids, too–just doesn’t apply any more in this country.

I’ve got skin in this game, although I have no kids.  I think we leave some areas off limits to mining, just as we limited the dams in the Boundary Waters, even though it was a matter of cheap power.  Really?  Cheap?  What would the cost have been had we destroyed Curtain Falls and flooded Crooked Lake and Lower Basswood Falls?  It almost happened.

Crooked Lake at top; Iron Lake at bottom.

Curtain Falls today:  Crooked Lake at top; Iron Lake at bottom.

DSCF0026

The Friends of the Boundary Waters, of which I am a member, is going to fight this mine tooth and nail.  So is Steve Piragis in Ely, for whom preservation of the water resource is his livelihood.  I will support them.  The Friends wants to expand its scholarships too, so that more young men and women are trained to do jobs that wilderness management requires.  That is where the money ought to go.

It’s a harder slog to fight this mine as it was recently for me to get into Angleworm Lake in 3 feet of snow. IMG_3096 I’m not young, handsome, or have a reassuring voice.  I am in the minority who dares say we have too many people and that polluted wilderness will not return.  I’m looking at 10-100 years, not next week’s pay check.  I’m thinking of those like me, who need wild country to find themselves and to think thoughts that can only be answered in God’s country. I may not win.

But I am going to the mat on this one.

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