The Pacific Ocean's Dead Zone

Straight from the mouth of a commercial fisherman. He spent the weekend fishing off the coast of Oregon, covering the surface and the bottom depths. He went 47 miles out and came home with nothing. Nothing, that is, other than dead fish, crab, shrimp. Visibly upset, he said he had never seen anything like it. In all his years of fishing, he had never returned empty-handed. "How am I going to support my family?" he asked. "I have no idea what to do."

The dead zone is said to expand 100 miles, north and south. Going 47 miles out, that's a span of 4700 square miles. The thought of that is deeply frightening and painful and was so distressing to me, it brought tears to my eyes. Who are we without our oceans? Our oceans reflect the health of the rest of our natural environment. Do the System Creators and Supporters somehow think we can survive without our Oceans?

I'm going to contact Gesler and DeFazio and ask what is being done at the state and federal level to reverse this situation. To deal with it. Clean it up. Not investigate or create some damn panel to look into the matter. The proof is already there. We've been polluting the hell out of our waterways for decades and thanks to Bush and Co., they're dirtier than ever.

I'm sure most of you have heard about the problem of medications showing up in our drinking water. People dumping their leftover medications down the toilet or sink. Bad idea. Use them up or throw them out in the garbage. Or better yet, look into more natural remedies of dealing with your health issues. It greatly disturbs me to know that I may have been drinking someone elses risidual anti-anxiety, anti-depressant, statin or "sexual enhancement" drug.

Life in the 21st Century. We pollute without thought. We pop a pill to cure our ails. Our Oceans, our waterways...our natural environment is screaming out at us to change our ways. And if we look deep within our own selves, really look deep within, we will hear our own intuition speaking the same language.