Not alone...

UTAH  (1983), Polaroid 

Earlier this month, the area weekly ran a run called "The Conspiracy Issue".  Replete with what you and everyone else on the list might imagine, it included a short piece concerned with the water quality of the Russian River.  Though the writer has been a Sonoma County resident for fifteen years, she has yet to swim in the Russian.   And for all the reasons you might imagine.

On a positive note (and thankfully the point of her article), there is an organization called Russian Riverkeepers dedicated to cleaning it up.  From stormwater to non-native species to pollution to over use, RRK is on the job. 

There's just one little thing. 

In an attempt to persuade the author to go for a dip Program Director Don McEnhill assures the author "..if there were dangerous bacteria in the Russian River, Riverkeepers would know about it and would be doing something to solve the problem...", adding that "his 87-year old aunt swims in the river every day".

Now while I certainly give props to anyone with the discipline to swim anywhere every day, let alone the SewageLite™ fluids of the Russian, I have to ponder that the conspiracy here may be in keeping fetid reality away from an aging relative.  While McEnhill may be justifiably proud of the work he is doing in cleaning up the river, to claim ignorance of the infestations of e.coli and algae blooms in the river is, well, I don't want to tell him.  You tell him.  

Thankfully, the author was not convinced and remains one of "us".

Upstream a piece, Friends of the Eel River are doing what they can to preserve the quality of one of California's major river systems.