Sunday, March 28, 2010

Salting the Earth

I was really disturbed by all the extra salt that I saw piled on the streets this past winter. One spring years ago, my father noticed that his garden plants wouldn't grow next to the driveway. He conjectured that the family cars picked up salt from the roads, along with the ice and snow, and that when chunks of snow dropped off the cars they left a salty residue in the driveway that killed the plants on its perimeter. I don't know if my father's theory was correct, but I never forgot it.

During my lunchtime walks I literally saw hills of salt lying uselessly where street maintenance crews had thrown it out and left it to flow into the rivers and gardens. Can't we find a less toxic way of dealing with ice and snow?

Sometimes I think that humans view themselves as conquerors and that we are in a constant state of salting the earth.

"And Abimelech fought against the city all that day; and he took the city, and slew the people that was therein, and beat down the city, and sowed it with salt." Judges 9:45 (King James Version)

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