He's in town from beautiful Moab, Utah - the former redneck mining town that's become mountain bike mecca. The entrance to Arches National Park is minutes from his door, as are the Manti-Lasal Mountains and other incredible landscapes; the Canyonlands Needles District, Dead Horse Point and Goblin Valley are a short drive away. The high elevation keeps the temperature down in the Summer, while the latitude tempers the winter cold. The town's become a peculiar amalgamation of new liberal folks who bought for aesthetic reasons, and old conservative farmers, ranchers and mining holdovers.

Because we were drinking coffee, he mentioned the untimely demise of his beloved "indestructable" coffee mug - a seemingly irreplacable polyacrylate mug that fit his various criteria for perfect mug perfection (unbreakable, microwaveable, dishwasher-safe, fits the holders of both his car and his mountain bike), which prompted a discussion about the fall of polyacrylate, phthalateas and other endocrine disruptors, and the perils of living in a world full of invisible hazards. On that note, he mentioned he's looking around a little for another job; he'd like to move.

It's approaching the first anniversary of a difficult time in his life. His toddler started to limp a year-ago Spring, and developed a lump on his leg. In early July, it was diagnosed as a rare bone tumor. At the same time, his neighbor had been losing weight due to what he assumed was Giardea (a peril of outdoors activities). He was diagnosed with metastatic stomach cancer. My friend's son is fine now, following a successful surgery to remove the tumor. His friend had his stomach surgically removed, and died four months later.

They've started mining again, you see. Moab (and the surrounding area) was the uranium capital of the world during the cold war, but falling demand eventually closed all the mines (though the remnants lived on). But fossil fuels are at record highs, and world demand for uranium is way up. My friend says the locals, at least those who noticed, were happy to see mining start up again. Good-paying jobs for an unstable economy, they said.

Not for him. He's a local resource - a local mental health provider in an underserved area, friendly with judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and the thin network of rural health providers of all sorts.

But he's also a family man, and no fool.

There are costs for every decision, but some are less visible than others. The fabric of that community will weaken considerably with his loss - in many ways, he's irreplaceable (especially at his level of compensation: trade-off for the local amenities).

A man's life, a child's illness, and the loss of a local health resource. These things never seem to make it into the calculus.

Oh, the humanity!

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But I have to disagree with Fritz.

This is not a perfect Fray post.

The kid isn't your son, and the old dude isn't your dad.

Apple.

Orange.

Another orange?

Money and jobs. Nothing is more important. Nothing else is important at all. Fuck the Indians. Fuck the people living in the Cancer Belt. Fuck the miners. Fuck the oceans and the coral reefs and the polar bears and the spotted owls. Fuck everything....except...

Jobs and money. Money and jobs.

I trust you enjoyed your trip to verdant Costa Rica. My parents view their birdwatching trip there as one of the highlights of their lives.

I understand the biodiversity there is absolutely stunning. Of course, it was also my Costa Rican friend who first told me about the vanishing (now vanished) Golden Toad.

It's a changing world. I'm sure we managed to hold onto a few more jobs, and a little more money, in the exchange for those economically valueless little amphibians.

Money and jobs: I think you've pretty well summed it up.

There is no way I can express how much I loved Costa Rica. The animals, the attitudes of the people, the way that the entire country has gotten behind using their biodiversity to separate gringos from their dollars. Don't think for a moment that the Ticos and Ticas don't understand the economic value of their frogs and snakes and turtles and birds. You should have seen the sadness in the eyes of our guide when he talked about golden toads.

Costa Rican beer: not so much.

Well, if it's my money and my job, yeah, that DOES about sum it up. I think it's a side effect of living in a society where it's pretty much every man for themselves. I can do something else that doesn't pay as well, or go back to school for a new career, but I'm the one who has to eat the costs of that. I think I could be forgiven for not being enthusiastic.

(For the record, I'm pretty sure that my job doesn't cause cancer in anyone. But since even breathing seems to be hazardous to your health these days, I'm not going to claim to be sure about that.)

Having come of age in a hard scrabble mining town and witnessing the boom bust cycles first hand, the local populaces desire to have a chance to become more self sufficient is a fully understandable paradigm to embrace. Your friend is well educated and apparently has the resources to seriously contemplate a move to another location. Many people are not that fortunate.

Once people have an opportunity to provide for their family and possibly have a good enough job to help send their children off to school, many of the mental health issues your friend had to deal with in his customers/patients are going to disappear. If he made good friends there he will be missed if not people will remember him as the shrink who moved away.

Uranium can be mined and processed relatively safely. So long as the proper safe guards are taken it is no more of a problem than the radon gas that is present in 90% of American homes.

theNairobiTrio:

Oh, the humanity!

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But I have to disagree with Fritz.

This is not a perfect Fray post.

The kid isn't your son, and the old dude isn't your dad.

...and there's nothing about Mama, or trains, or trucks, or prison, or gettin' drunk...

Still, it's a very useful Fray post.

NightSwimmer -

You are my hero(ine).

As I was writing the post to which you just replied, Steve Goodman's lyrics and David Allan Coe's rendition were echoing in my mind.

Probably because of all the times I've joined a chorus of drunks singing along to the jukebox on that one.

Do you know this one of Vern Gosdin's:

I should've mentioned in my post - that "old" dude (the deceased one) was in his late thirties.

I guess the tone of my post fits your soundtrack, but it doesn't really fit the people I'm writing about. My friend is, among other things, a fairly accomplished jazz musician (trumpet) and continues to perform from time to time. If you were to pick a soundtrack to match his life, it'd have to be a Blue Note recording.

I'm afraid both industry and government regulators have a poor track record for uranium mine safety (well, mine safety in general, really, as the investigation of our latest local coal mine collapse makes very clear - but that's another post). Uranium miners in Utah weren't awarded compensation for their injuries until 1989, and even that is for lung cancer only (leukemia is particularly common as well, though there are many other cancers associated with uranium mines). I'd like to believe that things have improved considerably, but I'm afraid I really don't. Utah has a long history of mine-site cleanups, toxic tailings, safety violations and periodic mining catastrophes. After the latest coal mine collapse, a congressional committee (chaired by T. Kennedy) recommended criminal charges be filed against officials working in collusion with the mine owner.

And we've got a unique history with government denial of health problems due to radioactive fallout (Utah is a big "downwinder" state).

I'm also not agreeing with your point about mental health services, nor the salutary impact of mining jobs on the local economy. People in Southern Utah were livid when President Clinton came in and created the Grand Staircase National Monument (which came with very little warning and very little to no local input) in large part because of the limitations it entailed on local industries (mostly ranching, some timber, and some mining). But frankly, the designation has resulted in a more sustainable economic boom due to tourism than anything that was previously going on in the area.

Tourism in Moab is the major economic driver in the area. Anything that threatens that, even if accompanied by economic growth in other areas, is sure to be detrimental (nor is a weak US economy likely to be much of a factor - a substantial portion of the tourism dollars coming into Southern Utah are coming from overseas).

So far as mental health services go, my friend's position forces him to be quite a generalist - just like any other rural mental health provider. But much of what he does involves chemical dependence treatment. That's unlikely to change should Moab transform into a mining town. [I know, we've already had this conversation, but the rates of substance abuse in Utah's mining communities are much higher than elsewhere. Perhaps it's different where you hail from.]

My friend has become quite embedded in both the local culture, and particularly in the network of legal and health providers in the area. He'll be sorely missed.

I'm thinking the coffee and guarana beverages might help ease the beer-related pains, however.

Mom wants to know if you managed to see a Resplendent Quetzal.