Are there not quite a few people who swim in that pool every day, day in and
day out, even all through the winter -- and have done so for many, many
years? I'll bet there are some who have been swimming there for several
decades, from childhood.

Seems to me that the City could advertise for these people, try to get them
to volunteer and/or pay them, and then do some blood tests (or whatever is
appropriate) to see if their bodies have higher levels of these toxic
chemicals.

That would not produce a final answer, of course, and the results would not
necessarily apply to other animals who also use the water, but it sure would
go a long way to convince people one way or the other that the water was or
was not dangerous to them.

Of course, there would be a faction that would not want this kind of
evidence to become known, unless they knew beforehand that the results would
fall their way.

gary
austin



B.Server wrote in message
...
On 20 Jan 2003 12:19:42 -0800, (Steve Coyle)
wrote:

Odd about this whole thing, is how quickly the city acted to shut down
for ninety days on the basis of the Austin American Statesman news
paper report. Why not two weeks or six months, with what little they
know I don't know how they can pick a specific time frame. More
realistic it would seem, would be closing the springs until tests came
back to see if closing the springs were actually necessary.
Obviously the big fear on the City's part would be litigation. It
always kills me listening to talk radio discussing payments the city
makes to settle suits, instead of simply saying how much are you and I
going to fork over in each case.
I am curious, and I have no evidence on this, I'm just
speculating but I'm curious, if this closing due to 'toxic' waste, is
a fortuitous chance to save the city money considering the budget
shortfall that are a recent and big problem.

I would also certainly like to know what the city parks department
has been using to fertilize the grass on the hill and the area above.
There has been a lot of discussion about the toxicity of Ironite,
being the tailings from an abamdoned silver mine in Humbolt Arizona
but it is not the only commercially available fertilizer that uses
industrial toxic waste 'recycled' as fertilizer. ( Anyone interested
in this can read 'Fateful Harvest' by journalist Duff Wilson. )

take care'
Steve Coyle
www.austingardencenter.com

My reading of the AAS article was that the city, having been shown the
data obtained by the AAS, immediately ordered their own tests (on or
about 10 Jan, as I recall) and then acted when their tests strongly
confirmed the AAS specimens. So from my reading, they did not act
only on the information provided by the AAS. On the other hand, they
apparently ignored about a decades worth of their own data that
strongly suggested something was amiss.