Deer Park Monastery

Many of you in reading this little blog know that I don’t tend to pull punches with organizations that I feel aren’t living up to their promises. I have been critical of the Friends of the Madrona Marsh I have been critical of Paul Wheaton, and with large permaculture websites whose goal it seems to me is to sell things (in some cases snake oil) and not actively promote many of the basic permaculture ideas about not killing everything on the face of the planet. I have been critical of big chemical companies, Monsanto, genetically modified organisms, cigarette companies, and even the readers of my own blog.

I have worked for Deer Park in Escondido, and a couple of months ago had a situation where the pond water became very toxic. It killed all the small aquatic organisms I had been working to establish.

This was the third time in so many years that something toxic was added to the pond. In the first two cases it was obviously an algaecide as the algae immediately took on a sickly green color and certain sensitive Daphne species were wiped out. In those situations I recommended that they do water changes and keep the water off their landscaping because algaecides are known carcinogens. I also cautioned them that the kids playing in the water would allow the pond water to air dry on their skin which would concentrate the carcinogens in the water on their skin.

This time it did not look like an algaecide. I took water samples and ran biological assays with a variety of different organisms and it killed all of them. Even killing insect nymphs. The toxin may have been an insecticide used on landscaping in the general area of the pond or come in with landscaping mulch. But it’s a big pond ( thousands of gallons) which means an awful lot of toxin got in there.

One of the difficulties with identifying any sort of toxin is that you can’t test for something you don’t know what it is. It could have been neem oil it could have been a variety of things and it would be pointless to spend tens of thousands of dollars to try to test for 100 different compounds. Regardless, I pointed out that the water had become toxic enough to kill insects and literally a week later they put up a sign “Bee Friendly Garden”. WTF.

I was upset not only because I had been exposed, but because bees regularly drink (see WTF above) and dragonfly larvae, and hundreds of different aquatic organisms making up an entire ecology had been killed.

But, I have dealt with situations like this before. People put crazy things in their ponds. And it might not have been avoidable. Yet this time when I tried to talk to them, the response I got was less than concerned. Which bothers me even more then the fact that there was a problem.

That an organization that has children regularly dabbling around in their pond (see pictures below) would respond to “something toxic has gotten into the water” with we will think about it is not the best response. IMO.

Not what can we do. Or, what is your suggestion. My friend Diane Kennedy talked me out of terminating the client.

So I gave them a recommendation to set the filtration system external to the pond so that if something like that happens again that at least the system can be shut down to save the biological systems. And of course being a big organization they can’t decide. Not good.

What do they care for more?: A nice landscaped area that they can put up signs that don’t tell the truth or the children?

So the head guy comes to me yesterday and says that “the Friends of Deer Park have lost their confidence in me.” And my response probably surprised him a bit because I said “Oh good”.

My friends, I have terminated more clients than have terminated me. I believe in putting your money where your mouth is and I believe that there are a variety of people out there that do not deserve my abilities or in this case want them. And there are too many who do and will.

And now they will hire someone who won’t monitor water toxicity, won’t be _able_ to monitor water toxicity, won’t care about monitoring the biological activity of the water. And the groups of kids will come back and be exposed and be in 10-20 years no one will ever be able to prove what gave them a neurological issue or skin cancer or….

And Friends of Deer Park, I cannot understand how you think that it’s good Buddhist behavior to expose people to toxins so that you can have a nice looking area, and make money on people coming to your property. And put up signs like “Bee Friendly Garden” when it’s anything but. But I am also very sure that you’re very comfortable in the fact that you are good Buddhists and good stewards of the earth.

And how an organization that claims to be Buddhist can rationalize exposing children to carcinogens is beyond me.