I could have photographed in the Cultural Gardens flood for hours but had to get to a meeting. Still, I did catch a few cool shots from the Greek garden above - in the middle of this pan id a police officer running along the banks looking for stranded motorists (see in full size above)... these frequent 100 year floods are really interesting.

I just moved all my photos from the past few years (1,000s - 50+Gigs worth) to a network hard drive so I have them archived. Now I need to finish uploading the pans (and other useful images) and making them available for download - it is worth seeing them in a larger format. To make the pans I reduce the original 2.2 Mb high resolution images to a smaller format, to reduce file size, and I usually save these pans in a format that produces images that are around 3 feet long and a few hundred Kb. I then reduce those to the header size... sometimes I play with the color, etc., as well... and add the logo.

For an upcoming photo exhibit I plan to produce and print some of these pans in full size, high resolution, which will be around 16 feet long and 3-4 feet tall... that will be interesting.

Here are the two Greek Flood pans in medium format... I'll try to be better about posting these pans and their background info in the future... eventually, they will all be organized.

• Greek Flood Top
• Greek Flood Bottom

Disrupt IT

This photo is compelling.  Man and Nature.  I am not religious, but I respect Nature as my church.  Try as we might, we don't call the shots.  The Plain Dealer had a good article this past week by Susan Vinella

Doan Brook flood prevention work never done

Truth is--we can't prevent floods.  The City of Cleveland built a huge dam on Doan Brook.  So much for prevention.  Now, respect Nature.

I could have kept going with the photo of the flooding in my neck of the woods as well..  (near my office) but had to get in to work.   I have 2 photos (landslide) and 2 snazzy youtube videos I shot (manhole cover about to blow off, and a whirlpool) available online at the North Coast Pollutocrat.

From the enviro angle, the real proof in the pudding would be a shot a day -3 after of the mouth of the cuyahoga, grand, or chagrin rivers.   Especially the cuyahoga.  I have seen the plumes of sediment going out 1000's of feet beyond the west light.  

http://www.neorsd.org/internet/do/viewDetails.do?page_id=51

Not a very environmentally safe system, they let some gross stuff get in the water on 08/07/2007. 

I think it interesting that people have aversions to consolidation of industry in certain areas.  Industry really should have a separate waste system, it is bad enough we get raw sewage but what is washed down the drain in factories can in fact cause more harm than an infection  

During normal times, the wastewater facility can find traces of caustic substances, they can trace those back sometimes to certain industries that use them, but during heavy rain, they could be dumping barrels of stuff.   

All this money 900M and not to separate the problems, it all looks bandagesish to me. 

What goes down the toilet separated from what comes down in rainfall, separate industrial areas that have separate facilities? 

I have been told that my notions of separating industry from residential were elitist.  I said no it is not it is it all about practicality, they all require different infrastructure from sewer to electricity to roads, connect them with trains and you have real good model. 

We are putting people before infrastructure; the vision of the planners is not what they are supposed to be doing.  It all touchy feely stuff, if you straighten things out people will get all touchy feely on there own.

The master plan for the city should include infrastructure, utility, water, and sewer. They say it does, and I say yeah maintenance of the status quo, rainwater should go into the lake and the streams not combined with sewage and industrial waste.     We do not need two power grids and utility poles every 5 feet.

This is what really gets me, if we section up the city then one section at a time is done, but that is not fair they say.  It is self-destructive selfishness, actually it narcissism. 

If the storm water is treated like a gutter than each entrance gets a screen, it is cleaned periodically; hey, that is a job!  I think start at the point the water enters the natural system. Then build back into the man made areas. Ever time a roads repaired, in fact just schedule roads repair with infrastructure changes.   To big, jobs too complex then break it into section-managed units that what business does, then measure them against each other.    The trick is all units have to be under the same system and tracked all by the same method.  A regional government with accountable and comparable sections within it, it true everyone wants to o to heaven and nobody wants to die.  We have these elitist egocentric bureaucrats and theocrats. 

Try this each zip code elects a representative, there task is to select three candidates for unit managers, that who would actually oversee the spending in that area, the citizens get to vote or select which of the three they like, based on credentials and experience.  The position is would be measured on statistics.  They would have task lists, and be judged on achieving tasks with a budget set for them.   Housing, roads, education, commerce, we have dumb system. 

The region has functional levels but who are they accountable to?  The educational system, the roads, the bridges, the sewers, a manger of region would work with functional systems as a customer.  We need these things how much will they cost?   The revenue of the area also tracked, a manger does not offer public housing or request it if his area is primarily poor, it need jobs and or influx of higher income earners   Access of grants based on need, if an area has higher income it get limited grants unless it offers some affordable housing.  I mean figure it out; there is no restriction on how local government can be set up.  Any outside entity, such as the federal government or state cannot do anything in an area without knowledge of an area manager.  Influx of any capital has to be accounted for.  If it comes into the regional then it get section up to each area as part of it budget, the source changes but the accounting method would be constant.   The elected official is a liaison with the population and confers with a greater collection a council; they should all have access to a legal advisor and economist to consult, perhaps a civil engineer and architect.    

That is all I have, I need an editor I think. 

I think council people should just get all the emotional discharge and not be overly patronizing to people the changes really need to be big, and seriously there is need.  We have bizarre system of government that most or socialized to work within, except or ignore, it is fragmented and disconnected in many ways dysfunctional.        

 I had this biology professor in junior college I cannot recall his name.  He stuck in my mind because many of the topics he discussed with us were rather radical.  He one day announced that the male race would through evolution  disappear.  I responded with “wouldn’t the entire human race disappear”?  He said no because it was already possible to fertilize an egg with the existing content of an egg.  That is a clone for the most part, but he also alluded to a more complex matter, which most of us discounted after the first comment.  He talked about environmental elementals, things in the environment that caused a loss of masculinity. 

I realize now this man was a sort of genius, locked away in junior college.  He asked us once to consider that some of us may go on to become scientist and that we need abide by high level of morality and accountability. 

He explained that acetaminophen was not processed in the human liver; he could not understand how it could be marketed with out disclosure to those consuming it.  Other substances such as aspartame have similar molecular structures and tax the liver.

Certain plastic bottles leach out xenoestrogens, here is an article on it ENVIRONMENTAL ESTROGENS  

 I look at the beach and see femine hygiene applicators, then say ok nothing stopped that from getting into the water that came along with some hormones, sound strange?  It is nearly impossible to determine blood is 90% water but also contain proteins and hormones.  There is also a sort of ecosystem in the sewers, insect rats etc, it is in their food chain and occasionally is dumped into the water supply.  Nearly half of the population is female and most are menstruating 25% of the time and that is a lot of discharge 

Fish changing gender

Washington DC, CSS

 
The EPA estimates that there are 58 communities with CSOs in West Virginia;
 

UP stream West Virginia   

Is it societal or environmental….or both.  Roles?

We have to clean up the water, and eliminate the use of hormones in feeds,

CSS and out flows are they a source of estrogen contamination?

There can be no question that the sewage has estrogen in it, and the test are on the effects of that food chain and the CSO actually introduces all of it into the ecosystem. 

It’s odd the more I look the scarier it gets, in 100 years will pink be everyone’s favorites color.   Could the future of evolution be hermaphrodites, how would nature adapt to the introduction of environmental hormones?  

Each person is what’s referred to as specific; we all have a similar reaction to certain stimuli, but also genetic variations make some more susceptible than others, some that have a predisposition for liver failure should not consume liver taxing substances. 

Humans are unordinary in our propensity to manipulate; nature has a law of homeostasis it balances.   Far beyond the scope of out meager minds, we are attempting to prolong our existence…. actually marginally postponing our demise.  

So moody--almost like a film still.  Beautiful.