The EPA on the Loose

There is quiet discussion of a rare wall of rock art hidden in the canyons of Utah. It is 3,000 years old, or maybe 8,000. It shows painted figures like dreams and ghosts, like nothing found anywhere else. It will take days to reach by foot – there is no other way – in canyons too numerous to count. The men exchange maps and commitments and return to their desks, midway up a Denver skyscraper which houses the Region 8 headquarters of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Ties are straightened, papers shuffled and, while the machine rolls forward, a few isolated minds concentrate on the distant artwork of a vanished Archaic cultrue.