The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is being Mean

I was reading an article in the Austin American Statesman by Thomas O. McGarity the other day that talked about how Texas is going to downgrade the state’s water quality standards for most of the surface water in the state. All I have to say is why the heck would you do that? This is going to affect the quality of places to swim, fish and wade in streams in Texas. I think this is absolutely ridiculous because, it is pretty much common sense that there is already crap in the water and if we decide to follow through with this, then go ahead a say goodbye to a good portion of Texas’s recreational activities. And not to mention it is also freaking disgusting that Texas would consider such a thing. If this had to do with money, believe me there are more appealing things to downgrade.

The author wrote this commentary for the general public; anyone who is curious about what is going on in our state of Texas; of any age group that can read and comprehend what they are reading. By reading this one can see that the author has taken the time to provide fact and information to support his commentary. He talks about how our “current contract recreation designation allows only 126 colonies of E. coli bacteria.” And the new one would “allow 206 colonies in some "swimmable" waters and up to 630 colonies in waters used primarily for fishing and boating.” He claims that this is by all means not a smart decision for the state to make and I definitely agree with him. He also used logic such as the natural E. coli that we have in our bodies is nothing like the crap that we could potentially be exposed to if these changes happen. Duh.

I feel that after reading this I would hands down have to agree with him. I enjoy sending my time out at lakes and stream during the summer time, but I do not want to get anywhere near water if our state has come to this. I think that author did I wonderfully effortless job convincing a topic like this to me and I hope people feel that same way. When I was 7, I accidentally swallowed some water from a little public swimming hole thing by my house and that ending with me in the hospital, facing kidney failure and having a catheter in me from god knows what was in the water. And it took me a very long time to even get into any kind of body of water after that experience. The sad thing is that the water hole that I went to was being treated daily. I cannot imagine what waterborne hell with infest in it after it is downgraded.