Environment Environmental Concerns/SW

Uupdated 11/22/2014TED PDATED 2/1/2014AIUpdated 2R AIR AS LIFE Simply put, good clean air is an important thing to have around. Air quality impacts everything - what we take into our bodies through our breath and what goes into nature. What is in the air eventually gets into everything - water, soil, and food. When you think air, think water because that stuff up there lands down here - it gets into streams, rivers, lakes, oceans and rain water. We cannot always see the bad materials in the air - just because it seems clear does not mean it is clean. Some highly toxic pollutants are invisible. On the other hand, brown or hazy air is often a sign of bad air and can be depressing, besides. JOBS AND QUALITY OF LIFE Safety is not just about how a plant conducts its mechanical operations. Health and safety go beyond that. The public might have to struggle to discover for sure that the posted signs found around power plants indicating a safety-driven approach are in fact representative of what goes on within the facility itself, but we can ascertain from the region’s quality of water and air what goes on outside its boundaries. A company’s management and personnel may be doing the right things for technical safety while working in an atmosphere of low health and well-being. Are the workers happy? Do their managers speak to them with respect? Are fellow employees encouraged to work with and speak to other employees with patience, consideration and respect? Is the work environment rough and tough? Technical safety might not take into consideration the health, emotional and mental well-being and overall safety of people in a more encompassing sense. Airborne Herbicides and Pesticides City, County and State governmental herbicides sprayed regularly along roadsides and elsewhere might have an impact on air quality for the entire area especially if the products are not sprayed close to the ground, as from the back of trucks. This is something that probably needs to be looked into more carefully. Vehicular Emissions and Global Warming http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_vehicles/why-clean-cars/global-warming/ http://www.wri.org/publication/content/8468 http://environment.about.com/od/globalwarming/a/autoemissions.htm http://www.epa.gov/otaq/climate/documents/420f11041.pdf Water, Water, Water (see RESOURCES - WATER) Four Corners Many of us in the area are still acting as if we have full capacity water to spare, and we do not. One way to cut down on water consumption is to keep the native vegetation as much as possible when building new construction rather than clearing it to put up naturally more northern climate trees and other nursery grown plants which require regular water. This is a high desert, not a Colorado forest. It is not the Northwest Coast. It is not the Midwest nor the East Coast. This is the high desert of the Four Corners, part of an area which can be found throughout Arizona, Colorado and Utah; it is a special place with lovely vegetation and raw, rugged, and worthy landscapes in its own right. The Four Corners area straddles a more pronounced desert to the south and an increasingly mountainous region to the north in Colorado. Both Durango (in the southwestern corner of Colorado) and Farmington (in the northwestern corner of New Mexico) have high desert terrain, but Durango, located at the base of the Rocky Mountains, shifts toward taller pine, more diverse oak and longer spans of aspen country. Both La Plata and San Juan counties are feeling the water crunch. Xeriscapic plants supplementing already present native vegetation can add variation and color for people wanting more diversity in the plant life look. There are many different things which pull on our water supply, not just gardens. Commercial and industrial pursuits may individually take more water while increasing numbers of residential properties may in bulk increasingly do so. There may be people in the area taking more water than is necessary.