During our second day in Iowa City we met Dr. Dave Cwiertny, he is the director at Center for Health Effects of Environmental Contamination at University of Iowa. We talked a lot about water with Dr. Cwiertny and what he thinks about some of the known contaminants of water that cause human health effects. Dave mentioned that there is a funded program that supplies Iowans with different types of water quality tests for free. He says that most people do not take advantage of the program and he is not sure why. Mary Skopec also talked about providing individuals with water quality tests. It seems like resources are available to people who want them. I think that people not utilizing the water testing resources has a lot to do with the stubbornness that we have seen through our trip. It has caused some people to do things that allow them to deny that there is a problem. Dave also mentioned that the population of rural Iowa is old, and people of an old age are less concerned about their water quality because there are no infants.

We met another scientist, Dr. Chris Jones at City Park in Iowa City. The information he gave us pretty much aligned with other except for his closing statement. He basically said his hope is gone, and he is not an optimist about our future. He also thinks all the people his age and up need to die before we can make any progress. He’s not wrong, but dang. He also thinks that fake meat will make a huge difference.

On a lighter note, we got back to Radcliffe just in time for dinner at Morris’s. He made Adare and I a vegetable pizza that was DELICIOUS. After dinner some people went to the Neubauer Family Farm to play croquet. I came in last place both games. I’ll blame it in Shadow (the dog) for distracting me.