Trails closing?

[mstone]

@DismalScientist 66933 wrote:

I don’t mind them padlocking the portapotties, but taking off the pump handles is ridiculous. The CDC recommends testing well water quality only once per year. http://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/drinking/private/wells/testing.html

That would be useful information, if these were wells. But they aren’t wells, they’re holding tanks. They’re pretty close to not-so clean water sources, they’re subject to flooding, and there is a heck of a lot of human and animal activity pretty close to them. The iodine treatment is intended to keep things from growing in the tank or the pump lines. I, for one, encourage the suppression of bacteriological experiments in my water supply.

Also, I think your tin foil hat may be a bit tight.

Edit to add: My understanding was that the pumps were actually attached to tanks, but I can’t find a citation for that. They may actually be wells (though for the life of me I can’t figure out how they’d iodine-treat an aquifer) but the rest of what I said about contaminant sources holds, and they do need to test regularly to make sure that the treatment levels are sufficient and effective.

[baiskeli]

Correction – the quote came from the president of the C&O Canal Trust, not NPS. The Trust is a group “whose mission is to work in partnership with the National Park Service to protect, restore, and promote the C&O Canal…”

Here’s the whole item:

In my Wednesday column, a Germantown reader was amused and saddened by a porta-potty and a public well shut down at the C&O Canal. Turns out it was a safety issue, said Mike Nardolilli, president of the C&O Canal Trust.

Wrote Mike: “Without anyone to clean the bathrooms or pump out the portable toilets, these facilities were closed to protect public health. Similarly, Maryland requires that the 40 public wells in the park be monitored every two weeks for contamination. With no one to test the water, these wells would now have been out of compliance with state water quality standards had the pump handles not been removed. In short, these actions were taken in order to protect the public health.”

[ShawnoftheDread]

@mstone 66941 wrote:

Also, I think your tin foil hat may be a bit tight.

Translation: Reading and believing numerous reports about questionable behavior by federal officials is akin to thinking space aliens are trying to control your mind.

[baiskeli]

If this were all a big conspiracy by the NPS, don’t you think it could do a better job of it?

Like shutting down the GW Parkway? Now that would have been awesome.

[sjclaeys]

@ShawnoftheDread 66954 wrote:

Translation: Reading and believing numerous reports about questionable behavior by federal officials is akin to thinking space aliens are trying to control your mind.

The truth is out there

[ShawnoftheDread]

@baiskeli 66957 wrote:

If this were all a big conspiracy by the NPS, don’t you think it could do a better job of it?

Like shutting down the GW Parkway? Now that would have been awesome.

I think you’re seriously stretching the definition of conspiracy if you think it applies to a bureaucracy’s decision makers telling their underlings how to conduct operations. Dismal didn’t say anything at all about a conspiracy.

[mstone]

@ShawnoftheDread 66954 wrote:

Translation: Reading and believing numerous reports about questionable behavior by federal officials is akin to thinking space aliens are trying to control your mind.

Conspiracy theories do tend to cluster.

@ShawnoftheDread 66966 wrote:

I think you’re seriously stretching the definition of conspiracy if you think it applies to a bureaucracy’s decision makers telling their underlings how to conduct operations. Dismal didn’t say anything at all about a conspiracy.

No, he just keeps presenting perfectly reasonable (and normal) processes as though there are no reasonable explanations for the actions, making references to washington monuments, and suggesting that well-intentioned government workers who are doing their best to implement instructions to secure government properties for an extended absence are in fact abusing their public trust. Since they’re all going along with this instead of reporting the malfeasance to their IG and refusing to comply, I guess it must be some kind of conspiracy, no?

And OMG, the conspiracy sites that are running with this stuff. You’d think that a bunch of NPS employees went out and started dynamiting well heads or something. There seems to be a complete lack of awareness that removing the pump handles is a completely normal measure that NPS does fairly often whenever there are questions about the water supply. There also seems to be a complete lack of understanding that some of these pumps are basically in the DC suburbs, right next to fetid puddles, and we’re not exactly talking about a fresh mountain spring that’s just waiting for someone to come along and drink from it.

[ShawnoftheDread]

“Keeps”? He has one post in this thread on this subject. And you, of course, are being your usual charming and reasonable self.

[Terpfan]

Well, it really wasn’t just restricted to this area. I was in San Francisco for work the past week and was able to take half a day off to ride up to Muir Woods. It’s about a 20 mile ride out there and I think they claimed 2,700 feet of elevation gain. Not too shabby, but a beautiful ride all-in-all. Of course the rental bike I had was fine until I actually got 15 miles outside of the city halfway up a gigantic hill and then it’s skipping gears every four rotations.

When I finally made it to Muir Woods, I knew it would be closed, but I saw a bunch of people walking out and an NPS Ranger screaming at these Asian tourists to move their car. Clearly there was a translation issue, but he was being a total ahole. Meanwhile, I’m stopped behind these people with a closed gate behind me wanting to head further down the hill myself, but thinking better of just jutting behind 3 cars trying to pull out. And would you be surprised if I said our friendly Park Ranger started yelling at me to “move to the other side of the cones” before I got a ticket? Nevermind the fact that I’m outside of his gate or that his cones were obviously moved. I looked at him sternly and said, “are you serious, right this second while these cars are backing up?” He repeated himself and said he was writing me a ticket. I repeated myself saying “I will move when it’s safe. I don’t give a flying __ about your ticket if I’m going to get hurt because of it.” He angrily replied, “fine.”

I realize he’s got a job to do, but screaming at people didn’t help anything. And his whole cone scenario was ridiculous because it he already had a closed gate. Let alone the suggestion of me riding literally right behind a vehicle from it’s blind spot. I mean, really, the folks here looked like angels by comparison.

On the bright side, CA state parks were open and they were very friendly. Even told me a way to sneak into Muir Woods if I wanted to–I didn’t.

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