They say a cat has nine lives. A decision before our Legislature about whether to update water protections has me reflecting on how many lives are already in my count.

For 27 years, I worked for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. When Mt. St. Helens erupted in 1980, I was ordered to go there and study the effects of the dust exposure to the loggers working on the ash-covered slopes of the volcano. The volcano could and did continue to erupt violently. Once, it erupted only two hours after I had left the danger zone. My wife thought I was dead. Instead, I was dead asleep on a red-eye flight home.

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Michael McCawley is an engineer

with a doctorate in environmental health and an associate professor at

the WVU School of Public Health.

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