... and about That Photo...

I'm a good Mom, I swear. A damned good Mom, actually. And like all good parents, sometimes I suck, but this isn't one of those times:

We were driving over the 32nd Street bridge when one of the girls commented on the orange Animas River, and how it looked mildly clearer (for why it's orange, please see post below). I turned onto E 4th, parked, and we walked down the path to the water.

Cayenne and Acacia are teenagers now so I didn't have to worry about them jumping into or swallowing any of the river. I grabbed a stick and showed them how the surface of the water was clearing up, but it still appeared yellow because of the heavier metals lying on the sand. There was a clear disconnect between the upper flowing water and the unmoving sediment, so with the stick we made waves to see how strong a current it was going to take to move this sludge downstream, through New Mexico and into Lake Powell where it will sink to the bottom. Hate to say it, but there's some truth in "the solution to pollution is dilution."

We spoke about what percentage of the city's water comes from the Animas, why we switched off our sprinkler system, were taking shorter showers, and the collective impact it will have. We talked about what was in the water, how it got there, how the best intentions can go horribly wrong, and how we have the choice to stand around blaming people, or to help. The girls asked questions about mining, minerals, the Superfund, etc.

That was when Jerry McBride of the Durango Herald snapped this photo:

Nicolas saw it on the BBC (wha??)... and then Googled it, finding out it had been published on every continent. Huh? On the front page of loads of US papers. It's not even an interesting photo, but on the Herald site, among many other threads below the photo discussing the actual situation and not my parenting, there was this line of character skewering (bearing in mind that the water was not radioactive, looking at it or breathing it was not going to harm, and neither the path to the river nor the sand bank was closed):




Chris Sickich ·  

Durango, Colorado

I was a little concerned about the kids in the picture that were playing with the contaminated water. Is that a good idea?

Like · Reply · 4 · Aug 8, 2015 10:21pm

Philip Powell

Absolutely not a good idea, why would u risk yourself, or your own children around such a highly toxic pollutant to human health. Wtf? Stupid!

Like · Reply · 5 · Aug 9, 2015 8:06am

Denita McCoy

If the parents are dumb enough to allow them to play in that mess.... Maybe it is ok in the long run for the community. The gene pool of stupid people will be taken care of.!! Sorry, guess I was having a Trump moment!

Like · Reply · 1 · Aug 9, 2015 10:52am

Kim Cofman · 

Durango, Colorado

We were not playing in the water; we were next to the water, using a stick to see how strong a current it will take to lift the sediment and move it. Will it take until the next snow melt? Not a drop of water touched my children, but they did learn first-hand the magnitude of the situation, the apparent weight of the metals, and through our discussion, the possible long-term implications on our community. You know, parenting time.

Like · Reply · 8 · Aug 9, 2015 11:56am

Philip Powell

wow! If playing with toxic wast with your children is parenting? Then I totally missed something about being a father.

Like · Reply · 2 · Aug 9, 2015 12:34pm

Philip Powell

I know the banter is not progressive, but I can't help my self.

Like · Reply · 1 · Aug 9, 2015 12:36pm

Gwen George · 

St. Patrick's High School

Teaching your children to go on the river(that is closed)i s real parenting there Mom. Playing in that water and not getting a drop on you???? Teach them to go around closed signs??? Only in Durango!!!!!

Like · Reply · Aug 9, 2015 12:46pm

Kim Cofman · 

Durango, Colorado

We weren't on it or in it. Our bodies did not touch it. Seeing it like we did for 5 minutes made my children understand why we were restricting water at home, how the collective actions of individuals make a difference, and how sometimes good intentions go horribly wrong and we can either spend our energy blaming people, or doing what we can to help solve the problem. We were down there trying to understand how hard it's going to be to solve. In the meantime, we're doing what we can as citizens to lower our water use. Having seen it in person, my girls - who are teenagers now, not toddlers who may have touched or stepped into the water - who are daily Herald readers, now have an even better understanding of what we're facing.

Like · Reply · 2 · Aug 9, 2015 1:54pm

Ted Johnson · 

Sylacauga, Alabama

Gwen George is the world's best mom everybody. Congrats Gwen.

Like · Reply · Aug 9, 2015 2:05pm

Jill Southworth · 

Taxidermist at Self-Employed

These comments make me so sad in an already sad situation. Being hateful to a mother who was showing her children the effects of this horrible crisis and giving them an explanation as to how it is affecting their family right now, in my opinion, was a smart choice. As Ms. Cofman stated, her kids neither touched the water nor stepped in the water. 

Pointing fingers, I suppose, can be a very easy thing to do in any horrible situation but it is a helpful one? Making hurtful comments to a mother who used this opportunity to teach her teenage children about consumerism and its possible outcomes, helps no one.

Additionally holding the EPA as the only accountable party is egregiously political and misses the point entirely. There are thousands of abandoned extraction sites in Colorado, and when you have that many land mines lying around, someone is going to step on one. 

On a personal note.... in my position as school liaison between the parents and the school ( P.I.E.), at one of our local Elementary Schools, the Cofman family were one of the most progressive in helping our beloved community both in a volunteering capacity as well as being generous donaters. Ms. Cofman is a wonderful mother and a highly respected business woman in our community.

Please be kind in this time of grief.
We all need to remember that we all want the same thing, which is to have our beautiful river healthy again.

Namaste

Like · Reply · 

----------------------------------------------------------------------

(Thank you Jill. I love you!)


So I showed the girls, and at first they laughed, because they saw how ridiculous it was. But then Cayenne said, "Wow. That's pretty mean-spirited. Did their parents teach them to be so rude?"

"I wonder if that's what they are teaching their kids. Great parenting!" Acacia added, busting out laughing again.

"I guess their parents didn't teach them never to write something about someone they wouldn't say to her face."

"Maybe their parents forgot to explain to them that that's an actual person they're talking about."

"It's just mean."


And that's when I knew I'm doing just fine.

(And so is the river.)

When Gold is Bad.

They say water is gold, especially here in the Southwest, but I don't think this is what they mean...

I took this photo on August 6th, from a bridge near Ilona and Michel's place, and learned from a Durango Herald photographer that the EPA, which has been investigating and mitigating leaking old mines north of here, had accidentally breached a barrier holding back millions of gallons of contaminated water from the Gold King Mine, just past Silverton, about 60 miles upstream.

(Photo credit: Malcolm McDougall of Silverton)

And here it is, fouling our Animas via Cement Creek in Silverton. It would be beautiful if it weren't so odious.

The Environmental Protection Agency would be very easy to blame, but like everything in life, it's more complicated than pointing to the last person to touch something. The Rockies are full of minerals, which is why Colorado's history of mining is so long and rich. It was also virtually unregulated, and it's thanks to today's rules and regs that currently operating mines will be, in theory, better stewards for future generations. Hence the intense irony that it was the EPA to cause this mess. They did not, however, create it. It was already there.


The water that was gathering behind the collapsed entrance to the Gold King Mine was not chemical-laced waste water from the mining operations - that has had decades to leak out and is, for all intents and purposes, diluted and gone. It's the infinitely replenishing ground water, which would have been pumped out during mine operations to keep the tunnels from flooding, that fills the mine and sits there after it's abandoned. The mixture of water and air oxidizes the metal sulfides in the rock, lowering the overall pH of the water, resulting in acid rock drainage. This is actually a naturally occurring process, and not only confined to long-forgotten mines, but the latter is definitely a bigger culprit, and acidic rivers are not hospitable to a healthy ecosystem.

They are also unhealthy for tourism, especially when a) it all comes pouring out in one baby-diarrhea mustard tsunami and, b) the media was still flashing horrifying, sometimes glowingly Photoshopped photos of our river like this:

(Photo from NBCNightlyNews)

... days after it already looked like this:

I took this shot from the same bridge on August 10th, four days after the scourge arrived in Durango.

So while people were blaming the EPA and the original mine owners and the folks of Silverton who are still resisting Superfund status which would provide the money needed to clean up the many mines in their backyard, Mother Nature quietly got to work.

And these were taken five days ago on the 18th:

We shall overcome!

And then she turned 14

Vallecito Lake, June 23-24.

Some of my favourite childhood memories involve camping, so it was way fun to celebrate Cayenne's birthday on a lake, around a campfire, and in a tent.

Ahhh....

Good night 13 year old...

Good morning 14 year old!

Presents! Woot!

And a silly string fight...

... shaving cream fight...

... and a little mermaid time, because we all want to be mermaids, right?!

That evening we went to Ilona and Michel's place for our traditional birthday dinner

where Cayenne got mousse au chocolate for dessert. 

Yum.

And then in true Colorado style, a sudden crazy storm came through, so we had a contest to see who could get the best lightening photo. I took this one but Acacia says hers was better, but I can't find it anymore, so I think we'll just have to say I won.

It's good to be 14.

I love you, beautiful girl.

xoxoxo

   

All 55 in her first 13

It's 11pm and I'm making crepes with the leftover batter for tomorrow's breakfast. That pretty much sums up my summer so far - busy! 

But we're having loads of fun as well...

starting with Cayenne's final Colorado 14er on June 20th. That's 55 mountains higher than 14,000ft, before she turned 14.

You go, girl!

Shane and his son Keegan joined us for the big day.

That's Nicolas on the middle hump, and if you look reeeeally closely, you'll see Cayenne & Acacia climbing up the final push. They're about halfway up the part you can see.

Cayenne opened her first bottle of champagne on top of Handies Pk (14,058ft/4285m)...

... or actually it opened itself. As soon as the metal was off, poof! (see the cork?)

Whoopsy.

Yay Cay!

And thank you Nicolas for being her guide, supporter, encourager and companion. 

♥

Bikes & Snow & Fun & Friends

For the fourth year in a row, I was given an Iron Horse Bicycle Classic bib number right before the race. (Bike race from Durango to Silverton.) One of these years I'm going to have to plan or train or something, whether I've registered or not. That said, I think even if I had trained I wouldn't have been able to keep up with the unicycle I saw ahead of me at one point and never passed.

That was Memorial Day weekend (May 23rd), the proverbial kick-off to summer, but somehow it was more a welcoming back of winter. This is what it looked like going over Molas pass:

Look who was there to watch us head back to Durango:

The next day Nicolas, Cayenne, Acacia and I drove from Durango to Silverton (the more normal way to do it) to meet Shane and his kids Keegan and Anikah at our friends Mike and Kim's hundred year old house they let us borrow. The plan was to climb Handies, Cayenne's last 14er, but the crazy storms dumped loads of snow on the mountains, so instead we just hung out in this wonderful mining town and threw snow balls at each other.

 The kids thought this was a way better use of time.

Can you see Acacia?

Let's see... climb a mountain in the snow, or buy matching hot pink sweatshirts...?

His small school break over, this was Nick's last day in Durango before heading back to Phoenix. He was sad to leave, but excited to start his third year because now he gets to work on patients. 

Look out, Arizona!