A Natural Environmental Health Facts Ezine

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"A NATURAL ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH FACTS Ezine" Here to Inform and Help You Become Healthier and Happier while Achieving Quality Longevity!

http://www.antibiotic-alternatives.com
Email Lena
928-636-9425
Sunday June 26, 2005
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=> IN THIS ISSUE!
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==> Editors' Ranting & or Warnings
==> Something To Think About
==> Health Thought for the day!
==> Showcase Health Spotlight
==> Monthly Spotlight Ads
==> Today's Health Tip
==> Food of The Week
==> Health Today
==> Environmental Report
==> Life Changing Information

Enjoying your weekend I hope! Our Monsoon rain season is trying it's best to appear which means a lot of lightening and thunder with occasional showers, causing havoc in the fire world. Arizona has a multitude of fires burning around the state attributable to the lightening... This is the first year in many that it has appeared in June, as it did in years past, and would be much more appreciated if it didn't create so many fires...

Reminder! if you are going to need Master Formulas product between June 30 and July 9 get your order placed before I leave Wednesday, so it can be processed in a more timely manner as traveling slows down that process...

If you have a question or comment (good or bad) send it to me... Click Here
Remember ANEH Facts archives now exist Click Here
Ask Lena Health Q & A Archives Click Here
Take charge of you and your family's health before it takes charge of you!
Lena

==> Find An Alternative Health Professional
==>Latest Product Recalls - I'm appalled at the number of things, particularly medications, recalled weekly/daily neither your doctor nor your news stations are telling you about, so how are you going to know? Look here for DAILY Product Recall Site
===> Help The World Without Spending!
http://www.unicefusa.org/emergencies/
===>Help Feed The Hungry Doesn't Cost You A Penny
http://www.thehungersite.com Share your LOVE here!

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Something To Think About
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Local docs campaign for removal of mercury in vaccines
By: DONNA WICK, Villager staff
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=14711129&BRD=1574&PAG=461&dept_id=532533&rfi=6

Clayton Young, OB/GYN and wife Virginia are both health professionals in The Woodlands and are aware of the diseases they earnestly try to prevent, which is why they are proponents for change regarding state-mandated vaccinations.

"We fully vaccinated our first three children with all the vaccinations," recounts Clay Young. "Our twins were vaccinated simultaneously and reacted simultaneously, though their illnesses were deemed a coincidence. The twins had fevers of 105 degrees, high-pitched screams, and a complete personality change the next day. This was not a coincidence."

The Youngs were told they needed to continue with the vaccinations as scheduled and dutifully, they followed doctor's orders, leaving their twins with all the signs of autism at 2 years of age following booster shots.

"We hardly had time to concern ourselves with autism," Virginia Young said. "We were dealing with rashes, gastrointestinal upset, severe joint pain, breathing difficulties, migraine headaches, ear infections, symptoms of chronic viral infections, night terrors, hearing tests, CT scans, EEG's, allergy testing and much more. The physicians were baffled."

Despite the family history, their fourth child was given DTaP and IPV vaccines at 6 months of age. Their son had never been vaccinated prior to that day and was the picture of health according to the Youngs.

"Over the course of two months, he suffered seizures, hives, vomiting, diarrhea, excessive urination, extreme fussiness and apnea," Virginia Young said. "He no longer babbled, smiled or interacted with others."

Once more the family was faced with ER bills, CT scans, EEGs and blood tests in an attempt to find the root of the problem, which turned out to be the element of mercury in the vaccines.

As recent as June 7, according to The New York Daily News, parents with autistic children are launching a stinging lobbying campaign, "Giving Mercury to Babies is Stupid" against President Bush, accusing him of
reneging on a campaign-trail promise to ban mercury from vaccines.

The group, "Unlocking Autism" is urging Bush and lawmakers to prohibit the use of Thimerosal, a vaccine preservative that contains mercury. Whether the mercury actually causes autism is still disputed among scientists, but advocates note autism has been rising dramatically in the past 20 years.

According to pharmaceutical company, Eli Lilly, Thimerosal contains mercury. Mercury poisoning may occur from the Thimerosal, and topical hypersensitivity reactions may be seen. Early signs of mercury poisoning in adults are nervous system effects, including the narrowing of the visual field and numbness in the extremities. Exposure to mercury in utero and in children may cause mild to severe mental retardation and mild to severe motor coordination impairment.

"At 1 year of age I had received seven vaccinations, my twins on the other hand received 19 within the same amount of time," Virginia Young said. "Vaccines contain Thimerosal (mercury), formaldehyde, 2-phenoxyethanol (ethylene glycol), glutaraldehyde (cold Sterilization fluid), various animal proteins, dissected organs from aborted fetuses, aluminum phosphate and more."

Virginia Young went onto say that there are no long-term studies, to her knowledge, that analyze the cumulative effects of vaccines and their relationship to autism, ADD, ADHD, speech delays and more. "The truth is long overdue," she said. "Vaccine injury is the epidemic we need to be concerned about in America."

To further prove out the theory between autism and vaccines, Dan Olmsted investigated Amish communities in search of autistic children. By his own calculations, in accordance with data, he figured he should find approximately 100 autistic Amish children in one particular Amish community.
"The prevalence is now considered to be one in every 166 children born in the United States will suffer autism," Olmsted said. "If autism occurs at the same prevalence among the Amish in the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch country, then there should have been dozens of autistic children. Instead, I found only three."

One of the first autistic children Olmsted identified was later identified as an adopted child and had received vaccinations before coming to the Amish community. Typically, Amish have a religious exemption from vaccinations. Stacey-jean Inion, of the Amish community, said that a minority of Amish families do vaccinate their children, partly at the urging of public health officials.

"There's one family we know, their daughter had a vaccine reaction and is now autistic," Inion stated. "She was walking and functioning and a happy, bright child. Within 24 hours after her vaccine, her legs went limp and she had a typical high-pitched scream. She completely quit speaking or making eye contact with people. She went into her own world."

A similar scenario was described in last week's Villager (June 9/Taking Shape, 1A) wherein Melanie Owen described a similar reaction with her daughter who, at 15 months, received a vaccine and is now autistic. "She wasn't born autistic," Owen said. "But she soon developed symptoms of the disability after a vaccination."

Some protesters push for the complete eradication of vaccines or the regulatory controls that force parents to vaccinate their children. Still others only want to make vaccines safer. Both parties seem to agree, though, that parents should have the right to vaccinate or not.

"Why are vaccine makers still using Thimerosal and unnecessarily exposing infants, pregnant women and unsuspecting Americans to mercury?" asked Michel Bender, director of the Mercury Policy Project. "Vaccinations are supposed to help prevent health problems and not create them. Continued use of mercury in medical products for any human use, where avoidable, is simply irresponsible and not worthy the risk."

The amount of Thimerosal in any given vaccine shot was too small to be of any significance 30 years ago when a child received only a few vaccines. Today, the federally mandated vaccine program will have a child injected with anywhere between 25 and 30 shots.

And as autism rates skyrocket, parents are raising concerns of possible links between autism and vaccinations. U.S. Rep. Dan Burton, R-Indiana, has an autistic grandson named Christian.

"I am personally convinced that there is a link," Burton said during an interview on C-SPAN in 2003. "Christian received nine shots in one day. Seven of them contained mercury. And two days later he became autistic; he started running around and banging his head against the wall along with severe constipation and diarrhea. He also lost his ability to speak well."
Scientists are confounded.

"It appears to be a dramatic increase in autism," said Harvard pediatric neurologist Dr. Martha Herbert. "Studies indicate a spike of anywhere between 283 and 400 percent in the past 10 to 15 years." For the Young family, the plight goes on.

"There is absolutely nothing more important to me than my children," Virginia Young said. "Unfortunately, thousands of children in America are dying or are left severely injured, and the cause may be one of the most significant advances in modern medicine. Maybe it is time to step back and take an objective look at this issue."

Donna Wick may be reached at dwick@mail.hcnonline.net .

Submitted by Dawn Richardson
PROVE (Parents Requesting Open Vaccine Education)
prove@vaccineinfo.net (email)
http://vaccineinfo.net/ (web site)

Two studies have already shown that women who regularly eat fermented milk products (unflavored, unsweetened yogurt and kefir) have a lower lifetime risk of breast cancer. In an Italian study, researchers added fermented milk to breast cancer cells and found that it inhibited the cancer's growth by up to 85 percent. They concluded that a substance produced by the interaction of probiotic bacteria and milk-not the bacteria or the milk alone-had this effect.

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ARTHRITIS RELIEF NATURALLY!

"Strengthen the bones, tendons and musculature of the body. These formulas have proven to repair and correct arthritic damages. I know I rid my hands of arthritic nodules with these two formulas." Lena

Heart researchers at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation have found that the popular arthritis drugs Vioxx may increase the risk of heart attacks and other cardiac side effects. As a result these researchers are warning doctors to think twice about prescribing Vioxx to patients who have a history of heart disease. The study was reported in the Aug. 22, 2002 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association.

Now this is one confusing bit of advice.

If it increases the risk of heart disease wouldn't you recommend not giving it to anybody?

Pharmaceutical industry can't afford to do that, it would cost them billions of $$!

Take charge of your life and get something that is more sure and safer!

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Is There Hidden Mercury in Your Nasal Spray?

For those who thought the plague of thimerosal (the 50 percent ethylmercury by weight preservative found in infant vaccines) was strictly limited to vaccines -- think again.

It turns out this deadly toxin was used by mega-drug maker Wyeth in their formulation of its nasal decongestant spray, Dristan. Worse yet, the spray was distributed in most of the United States until 1999.

Let's Back it Up ...

California Proposition 65 forced Wyeth to make a choice between getting rid of thimerosal from Dristan or repackaging it with a warning label. According to a senior scientist for Wyeth, in an effort to bypass placing a mercury warning label on Dristan, the company launched a project in 1990 to develop a substitute for thimerosal.

Thimerosal-free Dristan was introduced nationwide in 1994; however, consumer complaints about irritation from the new version motivated Wyeth to resume its use of thimerosal in Dristan sold outside California until 1999.

What's more, the company continued using the chemical in two of its pediatrics vaccines until 2000, stopping only after pressures from federal health authorities. (Because prescription drugs approved by the FDA are excused from Proposition 65, vaccine makers weren't forced to choose between using warning labels in California and reformulating their products.)

Protesting Parents

Despite the fact thimerosal has been reduced or eliminated from many products, it remains the focus of a heated debate over possible health effects from mercury exposures during the 1990s -- when federal health authorities significantly expanded the number of required childhood immunizations.

After federal officials concluded a study on the issue in 1999, parents were finally aware of the excessive amounts of mercury exposure their children had been exposed to via vaccines. Now, more than 4,200 claims have been filed by parents in a special federal tribunal -- the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program -- claiming their children suffered (at least partially due to tainted vaccines):

Autism
Other neurodevelopmental disorders
It wasn't until the appeal by the U.S. Public Health Service in 1999 to eliminate thimerosal from pediatric vaccines that Wyeth again began supplying thimerosal-free Dristan nationwide.

Los Angeles Times

Yellow Sticks (Daucus carota,) Make The Eyes, Skin & More Healthier!

Easy to pack and perfect with that favorite dip, the crunchy texture and sweet taste of carrots is popular among both adults and children. Shipped around the country from California throughout the year.

The carrot has a thick, fleshy, deeply colored root, which grows underground, and feathery green leaves that emerge above ground. It is known scientifically as Daucus carota, a name that can be traced back to ancient Roman writings of the 3rd century. Carrots belong to the Umbelliferae family along with parsnips, fennel caraway, cumin and dill which all have the umbrella-like flower clusters that characterize this family of plants.

The carrot is an herbaceous plant containing about 87% water. The power and goodness of carrots have many important vitamins and minerals. They are rich in antioxidants Beta Carotene, Alpha Carotene, Phytochemicals and Glutathione, Calcium and Potassium, and vitamins A, B1, B2, C, and E, which are also considered antioxidants, protecting as well as nourishing the skin. They contain a form of calcium easily absorbed by the body. Finally they also contain Copper, Iron, Magnesium, Manganese, Phosphorous and Sulphur, a real wonder drug!!

Also contain, in small amounts, essential oils, carbohydrates and nitrogenous composites. They are well-known for their sweetening, antianemic, healing, diuretic, remineralizing and sedative properties. In order to assimilate the greatest quantity of the nutrients present in carrots, it is important to chew them well.

Carrots are nutritional heroes; they store a goldmine of nutrients. No other vegetable or fruit contains as much carotene as carrots, which the body converts to vitamin A. This is a truly versatile vegetable and contains an extraordinary pectin fiber that has been found to have cholesterol-lowering properties.

Clearly a raw carrot has more goodness in it when it is raw and therefore you would assume it is the healthiest way to eat it. But unless the carrot is juiced or chewed extremely well when then consumed, the body does not easily break down the goodness because of the cellular nature of the carrot.

So in reality, unlike most other vegetables (not all), carrots are more nutritious when eaten cooked than eaten raw (except when juiced raw). Because raw carrots have tough cellular walls, the body is able to convert less than 25 per cent of their beta carotene into vitamin A. Cooking, however, partially dissolves cellulose-thickened cell walls, freeing up nutrients by breaking down the cell membranes. So long as the cooked carrots are served as part of a meal that provides some fat the body can absorb more than half of the carotene. Carrots are usually cut into pieces and eaten after boiling or steaming, but done in this way, half the proteins and soluble carbohydrates will be lost, so it is more advisable to cook them whole and then cut up.

Experiments show that eating lightly-cooked carrots is much more beneficial than eating raw carrots, which confirms the ancient wisdom in traditional Chinese medicine. Traditional Chinese medicine practitioners have always recommended that their patients eat lightly-cooked carrots in order to get the best nutritional absorption. Recent research by Dr. Xiangdong Wang at Tufts University shows that beta carotene can change in the human body into a substance called retinoic acid, which is widely used to treat cancers.

Often overlooked, but found in carrots, is alpha carotene. According to an article in NCI Cancer Weekly (Nov. 13, 1989), Michiaki Murakoshi, who leads a team of biochemists at Japan's Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine, contends that alpha carotene may be more powerful than beta carotene in inhibiting processes that may lead to tumor growth. Murakoshi indicates that neuroblastoma (cancer) cells coated with carotenoids experience a drop in N-myc activity compared to untreated cells. N-myc is a gene that codes for cell growth-stimulating proteins and can contribute to cancer formation and growth. Alpha carotene was found to be about ten times more inhibitory toward N-myc activity than beta carotene. Murakoshi concludes that all types of carotenoids should be studied for possible health benefits.

Carrots benefit our bodies by:
*Boosting immunity (especially among older people).
*Reducing photosensitivity (beta-carotene protects the skin from sun damage).
*Improving symptoms of HIV.
*Easing alcohol withdrawal symptoms.
*Helping to heal minor wounds and injuries.
*Reducing the risk of heart disease.
*Reducing the risk of high blood pressure.
*Cleansing the liver, and when consumed regularly, can help the liver excrete fats and bile.
*Fighting bronchitis.
*Fighting infection (vitamin A keeps cell membranes healthy, making them stronger against disease-causing microorganisms)
*Improving muscle, flesh, and skin health.
*Helping fight anemia.
*Reducing acne.
*Improving eye health.

Have you ever seen a purple, white, yellow, or red carrot? Most people haven't, even though such carrots have existed for hundreds of years. You may see them in the future. Recent research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison suggests that pigments in these colorful carrots, which taste just like regular carrots, may help prevent heart disease and cancer, and reduce cholesterol. Studies examining the health benefits of fruits and vegetables are revealing the disease-preventive powers of the pigments that give plants their distinctive colors.

Orange carrots get their color from beta carotene, a pigment the body converts to vitamin A. Vitamin A deficiency, although rare in the United States, poses a major public health problem in developing countries second only to protein malnutrition.

According to the World Health Organization, vitamin A deficiency partially or totally blinds nearly 350,000 children from more than 75 countries every year. Roughly 60 percent of these children die within months of going blind. However, vitamin A deficiency is preventable.

Healthful juice of our family's choice

12 large carrots
2 large apples (I usually use Fuju Apples but any sweet will do)
½" piece of ginger root.

Wash carrots, ginger root and apples well before juicing!
Juice carrots and ginger root together then the apples.
Tasty refreshing and healthy!

Eat Carrots as often as possible!
Lena

Death Risk Higher Month After Heart Attack
Jun 23, 2005
By ALICIA CHANG

People are most at risk of dropping dead in the first month after a heart attack, a new study finds, but the most effective treatment to prevent this isn't done that early on because it, too, is considered riskiest then.

The new research should prompt doctors to rethink how patients are treated in those crucial early days. The rate of sudden death was 10 times higher in the first month after a heart attack compared to two years later, researchers report in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

"We need to consider therapies and strategies ... that could protect patients during this early vulnerable period following a heart attack," said Dr. Scott Solomon, a cardiologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, who led the study.

Most heart attacks are caused by blockages that deprive the pumping muscle of blood and oxygen. Treatments can clear these and restore blood flow, but damage from the heart attack can lead to abnormal rhythms that can stop the heart without warning.

The problem is becoming more common as heart attack treatment improves. Sudden death now accounts for 2 out of 3 heart deaths in the United States, about 450,000 cases each year.

Studies have shown that implanted defibrillators - like the one Vice President Dick Cheney has - can help prevent sudden death by shocking the heart back into a normal rhythm. But those studies were done in patients several years after a heart attack.

Last year, a study in the same journal reported that putting the pager-size devices in people just weeks after a heart attack does not improve survival, and guidelines by the American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association recommend that doctors wait one to three months before implanting the device.

The new study shows the dilemma that creates.

"This study shows that patients right after a heart attack perhaps have the highest risk of sudden cardiac death and those patients are deprived of getting a defibrillator. It's an area that we need to study more closely," said heart association spokesman Dr. Kenneth Ellenbogen, a professor at Medical College of Virginia who was not connected with the study.

Researchers studied 14,609 post-heart attack patients enrolled in a drug trial who suffered a muscle-damaging heart attack or heart failure between 1998 and 2001. Seven percent either died suddenly or were revived after cardiac arrest.

Researchers found 19 percent of all sudden deaths or cardiac arrests happened within a month of a heart attack. The rate of sudden death or cardiac arrest was highest in the first month after a heart attack - 1.4 percent compared to 0.14 after two years.

The study was funded by Novartis Pharmaceuticals, which makes several cholesterol and blood pressure-lowering drugs.

"The solution may be identifying the highest risk patients and employing short-term therapies that are not invasive," said Dr. Alfred Buxton, a cardiologist at Brown Medical School, who had no role in the study.

Recent heart attack victims at high risk of sudden death might consider alternatives such as a vest defibrillator or automated external defibrillator similar to those found in airports and other public venues to restart a stopped heart, Buxton wrote in an accompanying editorial.

The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute is currently funding a study that looks at the effectiveness of automated external defibrillators on recent heart attack patients.

New England Journal of Medicine

Brigham and Women's Hospital

LENA'S COMMENT: Confusion reineth! One month no it won't and the next month yes it will... It does or it doesn't and who knows for sure? Take note who funded this study... the maker of the defibrillator... Could this be a push for them to sell more defibrillator's? I think so! Watch for more info in the future that the government will authorize this as normal or routine... Just think of the billions of dollars Novatis... Take charge of your health and avoid this kind of confusion!

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Houseboat Heaven: Flush It
The "Jewel of the Colorado" Is Gone for Good
By Wade Graham

Exploring Utah's Lake Powell several weeks ago, I expected to find a wide, placid reservoir. Instead, a friend and I whipped along in a brisk current flowing between 20-foot-high sand banks. Suddenly, the channel narrowed and the smooth water erupted into 6-foot-high standing waves. Our boat flipped. Flushed downstream in the cold, muddy water, we understood what recent hydrology studies have been indicating: The Colorado River is taking back its canyon.

Lake Powell will soon be no more - at least the Lake Powell that Americans have known for nearly 40 years: the green lake shimmering incongruously in the baking red desert of southern Utah and northern Arizona, a play land for houseboaters created when the federal Bureau of Reclamation shut the gates of the new Glen Canyon Dam in 1963.

Sure, the water could rise 30 feet to 50 feet by the end of next month. But it will drop again by the end of August, and keep falling. No matter what the climate, the drought at Lake Powell will never end. "The Jewel of the Colorado" will never be full again. Much of the time, it will sit nearly empty.

You aren't likely to hear the responsible government agencies acknowledging this or announcing any contingency plans. But they should. They should concede the inevitable end of Lake Powell, celebrate the return of Glen Canyon and take steps to preserve it for future generations by changing the management of the reservoir and dam.

The facts are clear - and startling. Drought didn't drain the reservoir, as commonly believed. Rising demand for water did. Simply put, we are taking more water out of the river than nature puts in.

The river has supplied an average of 14.6 million acre-feet of water a year over the 110 years records have been kept. (One acre-foot is enough for two typical southwest U.S. families for one year.) For the first two decades after the dam was completed, states with rights to Colorado River water took just 10.6 million acre-feet a year, which left enough water to fill Lake Powell. Still, that took 18 years, a period that included back-to-back 100-year runoff levels. But over the last two decades, population growth has driven demand to virtually equal supply, with users taking 14.4 million acre-feet a year.

Lake Powell has done exactly what it was supposed to do: It served as a savings account against a dry spell. During the drought, downstream users continued to take their business-as-usual allotment, draining the piggy bank. Now, having been tapped, the piggy can never be replenished because there is no longer a water surplus. Lake Powell was a one-trick pony.

That is true today and will be even truer tomorrow because the Colorado River is over-allocated. There are legal rights to take more water from the river than the river has ever supplied. The holders of those paper rights intend to "develop" them in coming years. Every state has plans for new reservoirs, tunnels and diversions.

The Bureau of Reclamation expects that the four Upper Basin states of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico will increase their take from 4.2 million acre-feet today to 5.4 million in a few decades, and legally they could take as much as 6 million. That adds up to 15 million acre-feet of annual demand on a river that has supplied just 14.6 million over the last 110 years.

How, then, could Lake Powell ever be refilled? Certainly, there will be flood years on the turbulent Colorado, but even if a couple of back-to-back 100-year storm seasons filled the reservoir to capacity, it would be drawn down almost as fast as it filled. What is far more likely is that the West's climate will grow warmer, leading to less runoff. A recent study in the Journal of Climatic Change predicts 14% to 18% less stream flow in the Colorado basin with just modest warming of a few degrees ? robbing the Upper Basin of 2 million acre-feet a year and leaving Powell empty.

To date, the U.S. Department of the Interior and the seven states with rights (including California, Arizona and Nevada in the Lower Basin) have no plan to address the stark new reality. Instead, they apparently intend to act as though one slightly-above-average snow year has saved them from a permanent drought of their own making.

The nation's largest reservoir, Lake Mead, is downstream from Lake Powell, at the outlet of the Grand Canyon. Under the policy of "equalization" designed to keep the cold peace between the bitter antagonists of the Upper and Lower basins, Lake Mead and Lake Powell will be kept equally full (or empty).

Even the most conservative hydrological assumptions show that the result will be a rump reservoir in Glen Canyon, partly filling, then draining, every year. Even assuming none of the expected increases in demand and temperatures, Lake Powell will be less than half-full more than half the time. If Upper Basin demand increases as expected, it will be less than one-quarter full more than half the time. If the climate also warms, it will empty for practical purposes almost all the time.

Common sense says water managers should fill Lake Mead first. There is enough storage there for all but the biggest flood years, and existing and planned storage elsewhere in the system is more than enough to catch the remainder. If demand rises or the climate warms, even Mead will not be kept full.

From a strictly practical point of view, Lake Mead is a far better place to store water than Powell, where the cracked sandstone of Glen Canyon sucks up water like a sponge and the high desert sun burns it off like a blowtorch. On average, Lake Powell loses 600,000 acre-feet every year - almost as much as the 660,000 acre-feet Los Angeles uses in one year and twice as much as Las Vegas does. Keeping the two reservoirs equalized creates two lake surfaces, not one, and that means losing 70% more to evaporation than would be lost by filling just Mead. In a future of shortages, this waste will be intolerable.

From an aesthetic and ethical point of view, Glen Canyon is among the worst places in America to bury beneath a reservoir.

Its geological spectacle of sinuous red rock canyons is unique in the world. Its quiet rivers, including 200 miles of the Colorado, and 40 miles each of the San Juan and Escalante, form the biological heart of the Colorado Plateau, nursery of the region's eight unique species, half of them extinct and the other half endangered. Its cultural resources are unparalleled. Thousands of ancient Indian ruins and artworks went underwater after 1963, and many are resurfacing.

After our mishap, my companion and I looked at the remains of Fort Moqui, a stone Anasazi fort perhaps 1,000 years old, now being battered and drowned again by the rising reservoir. Under a ledge we saw ancient petroglyphs, and nearby, chanced on this inscription: "J W Powell 1872," carved into the rock by the first American to run the Colorado River, Maj. John Wesley Powell.

Though buried by water and mud for 40 years, Glen Canyon and the Colorado River are alive and well. Everywhere, restoration is happening before our eyes. This spring's runoff is helping clean out the sediment deposits left by the reservoir in the rivers and the 125 smaller side canyons. Willows, cottonwoods and flowers grow. Beavers, otters, birds and native fish are back. The white "bathtub ring," left on the red sandstone by the reservoir water, which some feared would last 1,000 years, is flaking off like cracked mud, giving the rocks back their colors.

It is Glen Canyon, not Lake Powell, which is returning. The Glen's 1.25 million acres are already managed by the National Park Service as a National Recreation Area ? a status designed to manage power-boating that is no longer sufficient as the flat water disappears. The national treasure of Glen Canyon ought to be preserved for future generations as a national park.

LENA'S COMMENT: As water becomes scarce pollution becomes greater so make sure you have water filtration in your home...