City reports CDC results from fecal samples--What does it mean?

Today, the city website reported:
Information received from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

Monday, September 09, 2013

Today the City of Baker City received the following information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

• 81 goats tested; 1 positive for C. ubiquitum (making it unlikely source)
• 64 elk tested; 1 positive with species still unknown, but negative by C. parvum and C. hominis–specific PCR
• 10 human specimens tested; 9 positive; 7 are C. parvum IIaA15G2R1; most recent 2 resequencing
• 4 cattle tested (5 listed on packing sheet, but only 4 in box); all negative
• 4 water samples tested; all negative
• 1 positive EPA method 1623 slide (4 oocysts present) tested; could not detect Crypto DNA

This is complicated so you might want to read it more than once.

Day Late and a few Cow Pies Short

I said in an earlier blog that they might not get positive results because of the haphazard late sampling (after we found the cow pies on the trip of the 19th) and not asking Dennis Dorrah and I to go along to show them where all the cow pies were. I had already notified Dr. De bess of our findings.

The cattle tests were taken on samples that were from some cow pies that had been there for an unknown length of time, and it is not known if they are from calves that have been in the watershed. It is the calves that usually test positive for C. parvum. Calves also shed more crypto when they are younger, like July in this case. 

They apparently only tested four or fewer cow pies and there is no way to know whether the cow pies they tested were from the calves. They tested 64 elk scat samples. 

They probably did not test all the fecal material that Dennis and I found. They should have tested the calves that are in the herd and were in the area (Dennis Dorrah, Clair Button, and I, saw them at least twice and they were nearby when they tested) for C. parvum, but I am quite sure they didn't, and I doubt if they will. It is in the state's and the city's interest not to find a culprit in this case due to liability issues. That is what happened in the Milwaukee outbreak--no definitive cause found. 

Also, Dr. De Bess told me that the staining of the crypto oocysts found in the 913 oocyst water sample might make it impossible to genotype the oocysts, i.e., determine whether they were C. parvum. That was a huge mistake. I think that means they didn't split the sample so that they could test (genotype) any unstained material from the sample to find out whether it is C. parvum, and the staining, as Dr. DeBess suggested to me that it might, destroyed the possibility of matching the 913 water sample oocysts to the C. parvum oocysts found in diseased patients. Not finding C. Parvum in the cow pies is also problematic, in terms of  establishing the responsibility of cattle, but they didn't and probably won't test the calves. All the research, plus the results showing it isn't in the elk, suggests that it may have come from cows.

Here are seven important points to consider (there are no doubt others):

- Four cow fecal material samples (compared to 64 elk samples) does not prove that cows weren't responsible.

-  The results do not remove the responsibility of Public Works to report to the Council about crypto or cows in the watershed.

-  Why did they take 64 elk fecal samples, 81 mountain goat samples, but only 4 cow fecal samples?

- Why did Dr. De Bess ignore my phone call and not ask Dennis and I to go along even though I alerted him to our findings prior to his prominent trip with the Herald reporter(s) to Elk Creek?

-  Why didn't they try to get cow pie samples from the calves that were in the area during our trip on the 19th, during their sampling mission, or during the following weeks when Councilor Dennis Dorrah went up to try and and repair the fence to keep the cows out and yet still found them in the watershed?

-  Why did the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), or the state, destroy the ability to genotype the original 913 oocysts in the original water sample to see if it was Cryptosporidium parvum? By apparently staining the whole sample and not keeping anything aside for genotyping, that information will likely never be known.  

- Why was the effort by Dr. De Bess and his CDC companions so weak with regards to testing fecal material from the cows in the vicinity when he made his investigation? 4 cattle samples and 64 elk samples? There was ample fecal material outside the watershed fence when the Councilors and I made our trip to the watershed that could have been genotyped to determine whether the cows carried Cryptosporidium parvum that matched the Cryptosporidium parvum found in the Baker City citizens suffering from cryptosporidiosis.

End Note:
At least one Baker City cancer patient contracted symptoms resembling those of cryptosporidiosis in July, and he died not long thereafter, before experimental treatments, an individualized immunotherapy vaccine, could be implemented in an effort to save him.
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Crypto Crisis morphs into Council soap opera starring Clair Button as Blind Man

In this Edition:

-Crypto Crisis morphs into Council soap opera starring Clair Button as Blind Man [Edit 9/8]
-Golf Course operator Billy Cunningham said to have thrown in the towel.
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Crypto Crisis morphs into Council soap opera starring Clair Button as Blind Man

In yesterday's Herald article on the developing Council soap opera, Councilor Clair Button is reported to have said:

In a Thursday interview, Button said he doesn’t believe any city employee is or has been negligent.“I haven’t seen anything to make me believe that somebody really screwed up something that they should have known better about,” Button said.“I don’t believe in making scapegoats. The Council was warned in the past that there is a risk. You can’t expect people to see the future. The Council wasn’t prescient, and we can’t expect the staff to be either.”

Prescient means:

having or showing knowledge of events before they take place. "a prescient warning"
synonyms: prophetic, predictive, visionary

 Negligence means:

(Lat. negligentia, from neglegere, to neglect, literally "not to pick up something") is a failure to exercise the care that a reasonably prudent person would exercise in like circumstances.[1] The area of tort law known as negligence involves harm caused by carelessness, not intentional harm.

Councilor Button seems to be trying to bury the responsibility and accountability issues under a blanket of bromidic sermons, but are they true?

Well, while it is true that people can't be expected to always predict the future, there are some situations or events that have easily predictable outcomes. For example, if you park your vehicle on a hill, leave it out of gear, don't put on the parking break, and don't turn the wheels toward the curb, you can predict with some certainty that it will roll down the hill, quite possibly resulting in some minor disaster.  You could say the driver wasn't "prescient" or you could say the driver was "negligent."  Which would you choose?

With this in mind, lets review some of the facts surrounding Baker City's crypto crisis.

1) There was a lapse of over one year between the time Public Works received positive crypto test results until the time city staff informed Council about it. The tests were conducted in order to let Council know how to proceed with regard to water treatment.

Could Council have been expected to predict that staff would not inform them of the test results? If Council weren't told of the results could they be reasonably expected to proceed with the water treatment discussion and solutions in a timely and responsible manner and be deemed negligent if they didn't?  Answer to all is obviously no.

On the other hand, if a public works employee or employees are waiting for test results they know are coming and don't read them or report them for over a year, that's not about prescience, it is simple negligence. 

2) The Watershed Management Plan with the state requires cows be kept out of the watershed, and the Watershed Report from 2011 references a fence that was supposed to be built in the spring of 2012 to keep them out, but it never was. Council did not know about the planned fence or that materials had been purchased for it. Council did not know that cows were regularly getting into the watershed until August 19th of this year because staff hadn't told them or the Forest Service. 

The Watershed Management Plan requires that cows be kept out of the watershed and calls for city and Forest Service employees to monitor the situation to keep them out. The reason they are to be kept out of the watershed is that they carry disease producing organisms like Giardia and Cryptosporidium. We all know that, but city drinking water personnel are supposed to be acutely aware of that fact and to protect us from such possibilities. If staff knew that cows were getting into the watershed since at least 2011 but did not "exercise the care that a reasonably prudent person would exercise in like circumstances" by informing the Council and building the fence that was planned to keep cows out, that is not a failure to predict the unknowable, it is, once again, negligence, because they knew it needed to be built to keep the cows out and help prevent a waterborne disease outbreak.

3) Public works director Owen told Council on March 27, 2012, that the backup drinking water well at the golf course had been inoperable for a year and could be worked out through the water fund. It still is not operable.

Public works director Owen and the water department personnel should have known that the Watershed Management Plan designates the golf course well as our second drinking water well in case of an emergency, like for example a crypto outbreak or a fire in the watershed. It's not a matter of prescience because the reason the plan calls for it is that an eventual emergency has already been predicted. Not using water funds to repair the well and allowing the well to remain inoperable was a "failure to exercise the care that a reasonably prudent person would exercise in like circumstances." Negligence by definition.

4) The Public Works Director did not meet the qualifications and experience requirements in the Watershed Management Plan which are a degree with specialization in engineering or equivalent background when she was hired.

Responsibility for this one rests with both former and current City Councils and the City Manager. The Watershed Management Plan states:

Minimum education of key personnel in Watershed Management: 

 (a) Director of Public Works minimum qualifications: Graduation from a four year college or university with specialization in civil engineering and three years of progressive responsible professional experience in public works administration including supervisory capacity; or any combination of experience and education that demonstrates provision of the knowledge, skills, and abilities listed above.   

This provision is included in the Water Management Plan to insure that Baker City Residents have appropriately educated and adequately qualified personnel overseeing the safety and over-all quality of our drinking water. It is there so that you don't end up in a situation where you've got a grocery store clerk or a secretary in charge of your drinking water program. As George H.W. Bush would say--"Wouldn't be prudent." More negligence

There are more facts that I could bring forth, but for now, I rest my case.

Please don't get sidetracked by the rhetorical nonsense or outright distortions and apparent lies of one or more Councilors trying to get us focused on the tone of Council emails, and the idea that we've got "nice" Councilors and angelic competent staff fighting off the "mean-spirited"unwarranted attacks of a minority of "bad" Councilors. We don't.  It's not about some sort of politically correct soap opera, it's about qualifications, diligent management, prudence and accountability. Can you say "negligence?"
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Golf Course operator Billy Cunningham said to have thrown in the towel.

Billy Cunningham is reported by three different knowledgable sources to have resigned as operator of Baker City's Quail Ridge Golf Course. The golf course has struggled to make ends meet, but particularly since the completion of the "back nine" holes over a decade ago.

One current plan under discussion is to is to turn it into a public, non-profit organization/corporation along the lines of the Anthony Lakes ski area, which is owned by the County, but run by a public non-profit organization.   More on this later I hope.
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Updated Crypto Update: Comments and Questions 8/4/13 7:17 PM

This update includes engineering reports and cost estimates from 2009 and 2012 for UV treatment and an article on the new, on cue, national security "threats."

                           Goodrich Reservoir, Baker City Watershed
The City of Baker City released another drinking water warning yesterday which confirms that Cryptosporidium is in the water supply. They state that "Water samples taken on July 31 were positive for Cryptosporidium in water from the watershed supply and treated water (distribution system)." 

How much Crypto is in the water supply? Are the concentrations they found significantly high, or rather low? What were the sources and what are the locations where positive samples were taken?  Why are they not releasing the information about the locations and concentrations? Where is the transparency that people so cherish but see so little of?

When governments don't release available information to the public, when there is no good reason not to release it, it makes people think they are trying to hide something.  Why would they want to cover-up that information?  People are still wondering why the city didn't tell us the details of how positive Crypto results were kept from the public and the Council for over a year in 2010 and 2011. No one has been held accountable publicly other than Mike Kee taking it upon himself, which only hides the actual details and the identity of those actually responsible.

I sent an email to City Manager Mike Kee and Public Works Director Michelle Owen this Morning asking for the locations and concentrations for the positive samples. I have not yet received a response.

[Update 1:52PM:  Since I posted this I see that Mike Kee has selectively released the information I asked for earlier (10 AM) today to their favored commercial media information massage outlet, the Herald, but neither Kee nor Michelle Owen has given this citizen blogger the courtesy of a response. They prefer to give it first to a corporation. (The Herald is owned by a corporation, Western Communications, Inc.) The city did not even post the information on our own city website before releasing it to the Herald (and still hasn't). Par for the course. The Herald seems to be updating as I write now.  Bottom line: it was found in Goodrich but they didn't test other possible watershed sources, which they say they are now doing]

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In a comment on the Herald website, someone who calls himself "Jeff" references a YouTube video that I put up about two years ago.  SEE:

Dorrah & Calder Still Think Drinking Water Safe102511.mp4 

It is worth noting that in the video, Mike Kee reminds the Council, some of whom have been urging a go slow approach, that: 

"...we want to do everything we can to keep this water safe, that we are providing for our public, so anything we can do to move forward with this process, I think we should. Can we go slow and avoid spending money? Yes we can, but we need to keep moving forward."

I take that as a bit of push-back from the City Manager on the go-slow approach [even though they didn't follow through with additional testing]. It is also worth noting that in 2009, the price for the UV treatment was estimated to be only $2.5 million, and that compliance was required by October 2013 (Since delayed until 2016). Membrane filtration, in 2009, was estimated to cost about $17.7 M and cost over 25 times as much as UV to operate. By 2012, the estimated cost for UV treatment was $1.84M to $3.14M. While a go-fast approach (i.e., install some approved effective treatment ASAP--before the deadline) is almost unheard of for public safety compliance, it could have saved us from the illnesses, economic hit, and repuational loss, that we are now experiencing.

See Table 2 (about p. 5 or 6 depending on whose counting):
Click link below to read on Scribd.

2009 Disinfection Options to Comply with LT2ESWTR

  2009disinfectionoptionstocomplywithlt2eswtr-november09draft

See also page 6, Project Budget Schedule, UV Kick‐Off Meeting & Technology Workshop, Baker City, OR, January 12, 2012 (on Scribd):

  UV Kick‐Off Meeting & Technology Workshop, Baker City, OR, January 12, 2012

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Also on the Herald, one "Loran Joseph" states that:

The exposure was estimated to have occurred as late as July 26th. With a minimum 2 days before symptoms occur, plus lab test return time, the city couldn't have been informed of this more than a day before this article was released. The city is being very diligent. 

I agree that the city has been diligent since the time they were told of the infected citizens by the County Health Department. The testing issue is different though.

The city has said that they started using water from Goodrich Reservoir on the 15th. If that is a source of the Crypto [turns out it was confirmed as a source on 8/4/13], then exposure for citizens drinking water out of the tap could, and likely did, begin within one or two days, i.e., by the 17th, and certainly no later than the 18th. The city has not told us whether Goodrich Reservoir is a source of the Crypto, although I was told by Mike Kee on the 31st that they were going to collect goat droppings for testing. If Goodrich was confirmed as a source [it has been confirmed 8/4/13], then they could have confirmed the presence of Crypto, before using the water, by testing it a week prior to opening. (That is one reason the city needs to tell us where the source or sources of contamination were.)

Given the earlier detection of Crypto, instead of relying on the wishful thinking of Councilors about our "safe" water supply, and despite the lack of a requirement, the city should have been testing the water on a regular basis after the first round of testing ended. I believe the episode points to regulatory failure by the state and federal governments, and a lack of prudence by city officials and the Council.

Competence, foresight and prudence is what the Council gets elected for and what city staff gets paid for. If we continue to elect Councils whose primary concern is Main Street area businesses and the needs of the well off, and if the city is hiring employees according to the "Baker Buddy System" instead of on appropriate education and merit, and if they are going to continue to insist on remaining unaccountable, then we citizens will suffer continuing crises, elite theft, and inefficient government.

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If you are really interested in the early history of the Crypto issue please read this previous blog:

Monday, November 14, 2011

Accountability for Baker City's Cryptosporidium Fiasco--is the elephant still in the room?

In This Edition:
- Review and Summary of Events
- Council responses to my question , i.e.: When were you first informed that Crypto was in the water?
- Crypto Time line, from Council reports and etc.
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The new, on cue, national security "threats."

Crying Wolf, Wolf, Wolf

By Moon Of Alabama

August 03, 2013 "Information Clearing House -  After weeks  under heavy pressure for limitless spying on people everywhere the U.S. intelligence services conveniently detect a "threat" of some undefined future attacks. The "detection", we are of course told, was only possible because of limitless spying on people everywhere:

The United States intercepted electronic communications this week among senior operatives of Al Qaeda, in which the terrorists discussed attacks against American interests in the Middle East and North Africa, American officials said Friday.

The intercepts and a subsequent analysis of them by American intelligence agencies prompted the United States to issue an unusual global travel alert to American citizens on Friday, warning of the potential for terrorist attacks by operatives of Al Qaeda and their associates beginning Sunday through the end of August.

Just a month ago we were told that the "terrorists" are changing their communication because of the NSA snooping leaks:

The Al-Qaeda and other terrorist are reportedly changing their communication methods in light of the revelations by whistleblower Edward Snowden about US led NSA 'surveillance programme'.
...
US officials said that virtually every terrorist organization including Al-Qaeda is changing the way they communicate to hide from the US surveillance after the revelations about the leaks were reported in the media.
...
Private analysis firm IntelCenter's Ben Venzke said that the leaks by Snowden serve as a wake-up call to extremists and other hostile actors to analyse how they are working and improve their security.

Is it not a bit weird that just a month after that "wake-up call" and the "changed communications" talks between "senior operatives of Al Qaeda" are now easily detectable by the same intelligence services that warned of those changes?

And what is it about these "terrorists" that the "threat" from them ends after August 31?

Even some "analysts and Congressional officials" the NYT mentions in one short paragraph find this somewhat suspicious:

Some analysts and Congressional officials suggested Friday that emphasizing a terrorist threat now was a good way to divert attention from the uproar over the N.S.A.’s data-collection programs, ...

Ahh - you don't say ...

But the sentence continues:

... and that if it showed the intercepts had uncovered a possible plot, even better.

So it would be even better if now, as a warning has been given, something would happen to some U.S. embassy in the Middle East. That then would justify the warning and of course also justify the intelligence services NSA's limitless spying on people everywhere that made the warning possible.

Hmm - how much does it cost, let's say in Yemen, to have some guys on a motorcycle fire a few shots at an embassy guard?

This article was originally posted at Moon Of Alabama

Crypto Update: Comments and Questions

                           Goodrich Reservoir, Baker City Watershed
The City of Baker City released another drinking water warning yesterday which confirms that Cryptosporidium is in the water supply. They state that "Water samples taken on July 31 were positive for Cryptosporidium in water from the watershed supply and treated water (distribution system)." 

How much Crypto is in the water supply? Are the concentrations they found significantly high, or rather low? What were the sources and what are the locations where positive samples were taken?  Why are they not releasing the information about the locations and concentrations? Where is the transparency that people so cherish but see so little of?

When governments don't release available information to the public, when there is no good reason not to release it, it makes people think they are trying to hide something.  Why would they want to cover-up that information?  People are still wondering why the city didn't tell us the details of how positive Crypto results were kept from the public and the Council for over a year in 2010 and 2011. No one has been held accountable publicly other than Mike Kee taking it upon himself, which only hides the actual details and the identity of those actually responsible.

I sent an email to City Manager Mike Kee and Public Works Director Michelle Owen this Morning asking for the locations and concentrations for the positive samples. I have not yet received a response.

[Update 1:52PM:  Since I posted this I see that Mike Kee has selectively released the information I asked for earlier (10 AM) today to their favored commercial media information massage outlet, the Herald, but neither Kee nor Michelle Owen has given this citizen blogger the courtesy of a response. They prefer to give it first to a corporation. (The Herald is owned by a corporation, Western Communications, Inc.) The city did not even post the information on our own city website before releasing it to the Herald (and still hasn't). Par for the course. The Herald seems to be updating as I write now.  Bottom line: it was found in Goodrich but they didn't test other possible watershed sources, which they say they are now doing]
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In a comment on the Herald website, someone who calls himself "Jeff" references a YouTube video that I put up about two years ago.  SEE:
Dorrah & Calder Still Think Drinking Water Safe102511.mp4 


It is worth noting that in the video, Mike Kee reminds the Council, some of whom have been urging a go slow approach, that: 

"...we want to do everything we can to keep this water safe, that we are providing for our public, so anything we can do to move forward with this process, I think we should. Can we go slow and avoid spending money? Yes we can, but we need to keep moving forward."

I take that as a bit of push-back from the City Manager on the go-slow approach. It is also worth noting that in 2009, the price for the UV treatment was estimated to be only $2.5 million, and that compliance was required by October 2013 (Since pushed back to 2016). Membrane filtration, in 2009, was estimated to cost about $17.7 M and cost over 25 times as much to operate. By 2012, the estimated cost for UV treatment was $1.84M to $3.14M. While a go-fast approach (i.e., install some approved effective treatment ASAP--before the deadline) is almost unheard of for public safety compliance, it could have saved us from the illnesses, economic hit, and repuational loss, that we are now experiencing.
See Table 2:
2009 Disinfection Options to Comply with LT2ESWTR

  2009disinfectionoptionstocomplywithlt2eswtr-november09draft

See also page 6, Project Budget Schedule, UV Kick‐Off Meeting & Technology Workshop, Baker City, OR, January 12, 2012:

  UV Kick‐Off Meeting & Technology Workshop, Baker City, OR, January 12, 2012

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Also on the Herald, one "Loran Joseph" states that:

The exposure was estimated to have occurred as late as July 26th. With a minimum 2 days before symptoms occur, plus lab test return time, the city couldn't have been informed of this more than a day before this article was released. The city is being very diligent. 

I agree that the city has been diligent since the time they were told of the infected citizens by the County Health Department. The testing issue is different though.

The city has said that they started using water from Goodrich Reservoir on the 15th. If that is a source of the Crypto [turns out it was confirmed 8/4/13], then exposure for citizens drinking water out of the tap could, and likely did, begin within one or two days, i.e., by the 17th, and certainly no later than the 18th. The city has not told us whether Goodrich Reservoir is a source of the Crypto, although I was told by Mike Kee on the 31st that they were going to collect goat droppings for testing. If Goodrich was confirmed as a source [it has been confirmed 8/4/13], then they could have confirmed the presence of Crypto, before using the water, by testing it a week prior to opening. (That is one reason the city needs to tell us where the source or sources of contamination were.)

Given the earlier detection of Crypto, instead of relying on the wishful thinking of Councilors about our "safe" water supply, and despite the lack of a requirement, the city should have been testing the water on a regular basis after the first round of testing ended. I believe the episode points to regulatory failure by the state and federal governments, and a lack of prudence by city officials and the Council.

Competence, foresight and prudence is what the Council gets elected for and what city staff gets paid for. If we continue to elect Councils whose primary concern is Main Street area businesses and the needs of the well off, and if the city is hiring employees according to the "Baker Buddy System" instead of on appropriate education and merit, and if they are going to continue to insist on remaining unaccountable, then we citizens will suffer continuing crises, elite theft, and inefficient government.
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If you are really interested in the early history of the Crypto issue please read this previous blog:

Monday, November 14, 2011

Accountability for Baker City's Cryptosporidium Fiasco--is the elephant still in the room?

In This Edition:
- Review and Summary of Events
- Council responses to my question , i.e.: When were you first informed that Crypto was in the water?
- Crypto Time line, from Council reports and etc.

 

Random Thoughts on the Baker City Crypto Outbreak

[Edited 8/3/13]

                           Goodrich Reservoir, Baker City Watershed

They say that hindsight would have been perfect foresight, or something like that, and my first chemistry teacher would always reprimand his students when they made a mistake by saying "In the future" la de da de da, hoping we would learn from our mistakes. I guess it doesn't always turn out that way in the real world.

As of today there were less than 10 confirmed cases of disease caused by Cryptosporidium (crypto) in Baker City, according to published reports. Most people I speak with know of at least a few people who have symptoms consistent with cryptosporidiosis who have not gone to the doctor for various reasons.  The main reasons, in my view, that they haven't sought treatment, is because the symptoms did not overwhelm them, and that going to the doctor can be expensive, especially for those with little or no health insurance. These anecdotal reports seem to indicate that the number of cases in Baker City is far higher than the number of reported cases, quite possibly in the hundreds. Hopefully, the state epidemiologists will at least conduct minimal studies with large enough sample sizes to extrapolate/estimate the number of people actually infected.

Yesterday I asked the State Health Authority to tell me whether the city was required to do additional testing after the initial 2-year round of testing, which showed positive for crypto, ended in 2012.  My reading of the requirements, as well as theirs, indicated that no more testing was required by the LT2 Rule until 6 years had passed.  Today, the city has confirmed that they have not been testing the water for crypto since the first round of testing ended and that they were not required to do so. (That was the question I asked them yesterday.)

Most folks I have spoken with indicate to me that continued testing would have been the sensible thing to do, given that we had positive tests for crypto in the watershed. That was my view too, but it didn't happen. The current events in Baker City seem to indicate a weakness in the EPA's monitoring requirements for crypto, and a lack of prudence by city officials in charge of protecting our water supply. Another suggested that given the previous positive tests, that in addition to monitoring in the absence of any effective treatment, no water from Goodrich should have been used in the municipal water supply before testing for pathogens, including crypto.  In hindsight, I certainly agree, even if Goodrich or Mountain Goats don't turn out to be the sources of the problem.

Another individual wondered why the city was spending the money to have an employee drive the test samples to Seattle and then pay for a motel while waiting for the results which they would then take back to Baker City. Why can't the city send them overnight via US Mail, UPS or Fed Ex? To the best of my knowledge, they haven't had to drive them up before.

I have previously complained to city officials and others about our city priorities which seem to continuously discount our needs for basic infrastructure in favor of so-called "economic development." The sentiment I'm hearing from those I speak with is that the city leaders thinks it is more important to win city beauty contests and spend money on putting Resort St. utilities underground, throwing money at the golf course and airport, and etc. (not to mention increased expenditures for aggressive policing and employee salaries and benefits), than it is to spend our tax dollars on water testing, and basic infrastructure, like water treatment, sewage treatment, water delivery systems, sewers, streets, and etc.  (If you look down Resort Street today, after the utilities have been put underground, it still looks like a bit of a wide alley.  If you first look at the price tag for putting the utilities underground, well, then it looks like a million bucks!)

Lonely Golfer on Our Golf  Course

Take the golf course for one example. With regard to all the subsidies that have historically gone to the golf course after the addition of the back nine holes, some Councilors reflect the conventional elite wisdom with statements like this:

Dennis Dorrah:

For my part the golf course is much like the swimming pool. It improves the quality of life of many of our citizens and I see it as a tool for drawing business to our community.

Clair Button, whose house backs up to the golf course:

Each house built because of the golf course contributes between 2000 - 6000 dollars in property taxes annually. Multiply that times the number of houses that have been built because of the growth the golf course has generated. The housing creation is ongoing. We want that growth to increase the tax base.  They pay to pave their own streets and provide sidewalks. Those people have the money to invest in business. They create jobs. They pay a large share of our water and sewer system upgrades. They spend money at local businesses, all of which keep our local economy moving.  The economic recycling of money is a well documented phenomenon. The entire community does benefit.

Miracle workers according to Clair. The two Councilors are not alone among city leaders, they just let their opinions be known. The truth is that the claims are not backed up by valid statistics or cost-benefit studies, and the city just spent over $150,000 to replace the sub-standard water tanks in the Scenic Vista development, overlooking the golf course, that were accepted by then City Manager Tim Collins on July 31, 2003.  Mr. Collins, an avid golfer, purchased property in the subdivision a few years later. The golf course has also made evident two classes of citizens--those who can drive their unlicensed vehicles (golf carts) all over town without harassment (golfers), and those who have to license their vehicles to drive them on our streets because they will be cited if they don't (the rest of us). They also take many hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of potential drinking water for free to irrigate a little used facility that won't pay for itself.

Additionally, the state and federal government have given us millions to spend on rebuilding selected streets in recent years, when what we needed was money to move swiftly on water and sewage treatment.

But the important point is this:  Who is going to want to come to live in Baker City so as to enjoy the subsidized golf course and a few tidy new streets when our drinking water is contaminated with crypto because we spent our extra dollars on elite activities like the golf course, airport, and underground utilities for business people on Resort Street, instead of on necessities like water testing and treatment?

There are also questions about how rapidly information is getting out to neighboring towns and cities who have citizens who visit Baker City. An interesting situation was related to me by a friend this afternoon.  She had two elderly women visit last Monday from La Grande.  One was around 75 and the other was 105 years old (a very remarkable woman who was raised in the Baker City area). They drank lots of water. The younger of the two ended up in Grande Ronde Hospital a few days later with gastrointestinal pain, stomach upset, and diarrhea. She's on intravenous antibiotics. When my friend told the mother and the nurse about the crypto outbreak in Baker City, neither had even heard about it.

Now just in case you think I never have positive things to say to the city, the letter below is just one example of a positive response to their efforts. It is easy to stand back and be the critic when you are not involved in a situation, especially when it comes sort of natural and they don't want to hear what you have to say anyway. While I do think the EPA, the state, and the city need to reevaluate the LT2 rule with regard to the monitoring that should be required when crypto has already been discovered in a watershed prior to initiation of effective treatment, and that no one can be proud of previous crypto monitoring issues or the PR problems on Wednesday morning, I do think that Mike Kee and his staff have done a good job of thinking the current situation through, while marshaling state and other resources, in their response to the current problem. ('Course some may think their lax oversight may have had a hand in causing it.)

July 31, 2013 

Mike,

Just looked at the Herald and found the "City asks residents to reduce water use" article. Earlier today I mentioned to Jeanie that I thought the Goats might be contributors. The only reason I mentioned it was because I hiked from Marble Pass to Elkhorn (Goodrich) Peak a week ago. Goats are spread out along the rim from Marble Pass to Goodrich Res. and beyond. I only saw a polygamous "family" of five near the pass, but the sign, from tracks, to shedding hair, to scat pellets was everywhere, especially along the rim above Goodrich. I recalled the photos of the goats at the reservoir from earlier this year in a newsletter (???) and in any event, during this dry year, one suspects that the bowl around Goodrich and perhaps the waterline itself, is seeing a lot of goat scat deposits due to water seeking behavior.  Might be worth checking a few scat samples near the reservoir.

I am really, well, almost proud, and certainly grateful, that you and your staff have approached this outbreak in a logical manner, even if it doesn't turn out to be the goats. Everything that I read you are doing is delightfully sensible. The fact that you are looking at relevant factors and following the evidence is very encouraging.

Good luck in tracking it all down and trying to keep the water safe.

Chris
http://www.flickr.com/photos/christopherchristie/sets/
http://calphotos.berkeley.edu/cgi/img_query?query_src=photos_photographers&where-photographer=Christopher+Christie&orderby=taxon
http://bakercountyblog.blogspot.com/

Snowden Interview, part 2, Egypt links

The Guardian - New Interview with Edward Snowden in Hong Kong--Part 2

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Glenn Greenwald: "Rogue" Actions of U.S. in Snowden Row

Yield Latin American Offers of Asylum

GLENN GREENWALD: I think this is really the critical point that has to be understood. The reason that Edward Snowden came forward, the reason that we’re reporting on this so aggressively, is because—and this is not hyperbole in any way; it’s a purely accurate description—the NSA is in the process, in total secrecy, with no accountability, of constructing a global, ubiquitous surveillance system that has as its goal the elimination of privacy worldwide, so that there can be no electronic communications—by telephone, Internet, email, chat—that is beyond the reach of the United States government. They are attempting to collect and store and monitor all of it, and that they can invade it at any time they want, no matter who you are or where you are on the planet. This has very profound implications for the kind of world in which we live, for the kind of relationship the United States has to the rest of the world, the way in which individuals feel free to communicate with one another, use the Internet. And that, I think, is why the story is resonating as much as it is.

AMY GOODMAN: Times reporting, "In more than a dozen classified rulings, the nation’s surveillance court has created a secret body of law giving the National Security Agency the power to amass vast collections of data on Americans while pursuing not only terrorism suspects, but also people possibly involved in nuclear proliferation, espionage and cyberattacks, officials say." Your response to that revelation this weekend in The New York Times?
GLENN GREENWALD: Well, it shows what a complete joke the argument has been from NSA defenders in the Democratic Party that there is robust oversight on this surveillance. What you actually have is a completely warped and undemocratic institution, this court that meets in complete secrecy, where only the government is allowed to attend. And unlike previously, when it really was confined to just issuing individual warrants about particular targets of terrorism, it is now issuing sweeping, broad opinions defining the contours of our constitutional liberties, of the Fourth Amendment, of the government’s power to spy on us—and it’s all being done in secret. What kind of a country has a court that defines the Constitution in total secrecy and forces us to live under truly secret law in which the government can do all sorts of things to us that we’re not even aware of, that it’s claiming the right to do and being given the power to do it? So I think the New York Times article highlighted what has long been known about the joke called the FISA court, but it’s good to seeThe New York Times doing some reporting on these stories and hopefully bringing some more attention to this. 

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Glenn Greenwald: Edward Snowden "Satisfied" by Global Outrage over U.S. Surveillance Operations

AMY GOODMAN: Did he talk about his preference for where he wants to go?
GLENN GREENWALD: He didn’t. I didn’t really speak very much with him about his quest for asylum. I think that he has always been fairly consistent about the fact—and there’s a fantastic article, an op-ed by Daniel Ellsberg in The Washington Post today making the same point—that the crucial objective that Snowden has, just like Ellsberg had, was to make sure that he’s able to participate in the ongoing debate that he triggered. And that means staying out of the custody of the United States government, which will not only put him in prison, but render him incommunicado. And so I think wherever he ends up, as long as it’s somewhere that he can be heard and his voice can be heard, I think he’ll be happy and fine.
AMY GOODMAN: What, Glenn, is Edward Snowden most encouraged by as he follows the debates and the continued revelations online?
GLENN GREENWALD: The very first conversation I ever had with him, Amy, online, he said that his only fear—he only had one fear, and that was that he would sacrifice his life and take these enormous personal risks in order to make these disclosures possible, and then have the world react with indifference and apathy, a kind of fear that they would just simply say, "OK, well, I assumed this was happening, and I don’t really mind." None of that has happened. There’s been an incredibly intense debate inside the United States over these disclosures, all kinds of movements of reform, movements against the United States government, and in many, many other countries around the world, as we previously discussed. So he feels like what he set out to do is exactly what has happened. He said he didn’t set out to destroy these systems—that’s not his place; he set out to make people around the world realize what the United States’s government is doing to them, to enable them to decide whether that’s the kind of thing they are willing to tolerate. And he sees those debates happening, and he’s extremely enthused and satisfied that his objective has been fulfilled. . . . .

AMY GOODMAN: And finally, Glenn, it’s not only the revelations that you have put out in The Guardian and that have come out other places, but they’re sparking even others, I think, to go down this track. The latest NSA spying issue, another headline today, U.S. Postal Service now under scrutiny for a surveillance program of its own, The New York Times revealing the postal service has been carrying out a Mail Isolation Control and Tracking program [link update 7/9/13), which photographs every piece of mail in its system—around 160 billion envelopes, packages, postcards documented last year. The contents never read without a warrant, but they allow investigators to learn key information including names, addresses, return addresses, postmark locations. The information reportedly used to nab the suspect recently accused of mailing ricin-laced letters to Obama and New York Mayor Bloomberg. Leslie James Pickering, the former activist with the Earth Liberation Front who now owns a small bookstore in Buffalo, recently learned his mail was being monitored after a surveillance order was accidentally delivered to his door. Can you respond to this?
GLENN GREENWALD: There’s a fantastic article by the journalism professor at NYU, Jay Rosen, who has written a article entitled "The Snowden Effect." And what he argues is that the revelations about the surveillance state go far beyond the specific revelations enabled by the documents that he disclosed to us, that we’re now disclosing to the world in our reporting, that instead he completely refocused—Snowden did—worldwide global attention on the abuses of the surveillance state. And so, not just that article about the postal service monitoring, but the one you mentioned earlier about theFISA court—there’s articles in Le Monde last week about how the French are mass surveilling their own citizens’ electronic communications. All sorts of revelations coming forward, one in The Washington Post today about how the Pentagon is engaged in domestic propaganda, monitoring websites for what they consider to be extremist political activity—this tidal wave of revelations that clearly have come from the sea change that has resulted in how we think about surveillance as a result of Mr. Snowden’s whistleblowing and the reporting of ours that it enabled then. And I think that that’s really ultimately going to be the most profound effect. People are thinking differently about how their government spies on them, the nature of government secrecy, whether they want to trust their government, why journalism has failed to uncover these sorts of things, why we needed someone like Mr. Snowden to risk his life and throw away his liberty in order to come forward and bring it to our attention. I think this is all going to have very profound repercussions for a long time to come. 

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Statement from Edward Snowden in Moscow

Monday July 1, 21:40 UTC

     

One week ago I left Hong Kong after it became clear that my freedom and safety were under threat for revealing the truth. My continued liberty has been owed to the efforts of friends new and old, family, and others who I have never met and probably never will. I trusted them with my life and they returned that trust with a faith in me for which I will always be thankful.

On Thursday, President Obama declared before the world that he would not permit any diplomatic "wheeling and dealing" over my case. Yet now it is being reported that after promising not to do so, the President ordered his Vice President to pressure the leaders of nations from which I have requested protection to deny my asylum petitions.

This kind of deception from a world leader is not justice, and neither is the extralegal penalty of exile. These are the old, bad tools of political aggression. Their purpose is to frighten, not me, but those who would come after me. [i.e., other whistle blowers]

For decades the United States of America has been one of the strongest defenders of the human right to seek asylum. Sadly, this right, laid out and voted for by the U.S. in Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is now being rejected by the current government of my country. The Obama administration has now adopted the strategy of using citizenship as a weapon. Although I am convicted of nothing, it has unilaterally revoked my passport, leaving me a stateless person. Without any judicial order, the administration now seeks to stop me exercising a basic right. A right that belongs to everybody. The right to seek asylum.

In the end the Obama administration is not afraid of whistleblowers like me, Bradley Manning or Thomas Drake. We are stateless, imprisoned, or powerless. No, the Obama administration is afraid of you. It is afraid of an informed, angry public demanding the constitutional government it was promised — and it should be.

I am unbowed in my convictions and impressed at the efforts taken by so many.
Edward Joseph Snowden
Monday 1st July 2013

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The Original Fascist Defines Fascism

"Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism as it is a merger of state and corporate power": Benito Mussolini

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Links on Developing Egyptian Civil War

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Mursi role at Syria rally seen as tipping point for Egypt army

Tue, Jul 2 2013

By Yasmine Saleh and Tom Perry

CAIRO (Reuters) - Army concern about the way President Mohamed Mursi was governing Egypt reached tipping point when the head of state attended a rally packed with hardline fellow Islamists calling for holy war in Syria, military sources said.At the June 15 rally, Sunni Muslim clerics used the word "infidels" to denounce both the Shi'ites fighting to protect Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the non-Islamists that oppose Mursi at home.Mursi himself called for foreign intervention in Syria against Assad, leading to a veiled rebuke from the army, which issued an apparently bland but sharp-edged statement the next day stressing that its only role was guarding Egypt's borders."The armed forces were very alarmed by the Syrian conference at a time the state was going through a major political crisis," said one officer, whose comments reflected remarks made privately by other army staff. He was speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not permitted to talk to the media.The controversy surrounding the Syria conference pointed to a crippling flaw in the Mursi presidency: though the constitution names Mursi as supreme commander of the armed forces, the military remains master of its own destiny and a rival source of authority to the country's first freely elected head of state.The army's dramatic ultimatum demanding Mursi and other politicians settle their differences by Wednesday afternoon caught the presidency completely off guard. Triggered by mass protests against Mursi's rule, it amounted to a soft coup by a military that has been a major recipient of U.S. aid since the 1970s, when Egypt made peace with neighboring Israel.

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Egypt braced for more violence after 'massacre' of Morsi supporters

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Massacre in Cairo

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When is a Military Coup Not a Military Coup? When it Happens in Egypt, Apparently

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Ron Paul--New Egyptian War: Americans Lose, Again
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