Sick in the Mountains

An estimated 1.3 billion gallons of coal slurry was pumped into abandoned mines and made its way into the water supply of the people here.  This happened over a period of twenty years.  For perspective an estimated 220 million gallons of oil were leaked into the ocean during the BP oil spill.  Somehow environmental damage and its affects on people in the mountains barely make it into the mainstream media.

Injecting coal slurry into the ground in small amounts is legal and likely it shouldn't be.  Injecting 1.3 billion gallons is not only criminal it is responsible for a horrendous amount of damage to human lives.  My mind is becoming so familiar with this knowledge that I rarely try to imagine the damage this slurry must be doing to the non-human natural environment.

Because of the work of community organizers and the law firm I work with, the people here are now getting city water pumped to them.  However, testing of the city water is still poorly regulated so when you get sick in these mountains you still can't help but wonder if it is the water. 

It doesn't matter if you drink bottled water,  and refill from the local reverse-osmosis machine, you still wonder if the machine works. Once you convince yourself the machine is legit, you wonder if your bath water is poisoning you. Or perhaps you think about that time that your roommates washed the vegetables in the sink water or you wonder.... well I think you get the point.

After days of doing health interviews for clients, my stomach virus, only leads me to think of all the people I've spoken with--the ones who can't control their bowels; the ones who are constantly losing weight.  Four days of barely eating, and going back and forth to the bathroom, in between calling clients from my sick bed, makes it impossible to not draw parallels between our lives.

Now that I don't have health insurance, illness becomes a different kind of adventure. Like many of the law firm's clients I can't afford the tests a doctor might want to run.  I know now it's best if I can document my illness with a professional in the event that the causes are not natural and in fact due to poison in the water.  

However, doctors are expensive, so I treat it the best I can myself and hope for the best.  I imagine that's easier to do because I haven't seen many of my neighbors get deathly ill.  I wish I were exaggerating when I say the words "many" and "deathly ill" but I'm not.

My co-workers assure me that I just have a passing illness, and that the city water is not as toxic as the slurry water even if the city has failed to submit their water tests for 5 years in a row.  They remind me I don't drink it anyway and say wait for the illness to pass. Luckily they were right and I'm healthy again even if I do weigh a little less.  

The health of our tap water still worries my mind from time to time and I am preparing to save up money to get our water tested. I still can't help but wonder if the water is healthy enough to bathe in and a simple hundred-dollar test could clear it up. If only the other water problems were that easy to solve.