Santa Monica takes back the tap

SHOPPERS at Santa Monica Farmers Market today received free refills of filtered tap water as the City of Santa Monica joins the “Take back the Tap” campaign mounted by the non-profit Food & Water Watch. Today being the launch of a project that will offer free water to an estimated 20,000 market-goers every week, the City handed out free cups, said Farmers Market manager Laura Avery. However, in future, she said, “you need to bring a bottle. If you could figure out a nice way to say that, that would be great.” The city will also be selling durable, reusable containers for $10.

The Mayor’s sprinkler malfunction

FROM NBCLA.com, this nugget: Reporters Joel Grover and Matt Goldberg have found Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to be a serial scofflaw of the June 1 drought ordinance that he himself supported.

On the subject of dust, birds and water in Owens Valley

FROM THE Inyo Register via Aquafornia: The Los Angeles Department of Water & Power is working on a “moat and row” plan to control the dust storms caused by its diversion of the snowmelt that once fed Owens Lake (see pre-LA Aqueduct photo, left). Court-ordered air pollution mitigation now forces LADWP to leave vast amounts of water on the dry lake bed instead of pumping it to Los Angeles. Ponds formed by dust control watering have recently become a sanctuary for birds. The new “moat and row” system would mean more water for LA but less water for the birds. To read the Inyo Register story,  click hereFor what we know about the reputedly $100m LADWP case against its dust contractor CH2M Hill, click here. For a 1913 Los Angeles Times story recounting the opening of the aqueduct that drained Owens Lake, click here. Finally,

Cadiz environmental review back online

Click on the cover to be taken to the report

WITH THE revival of the Cadiz groundwater project in the San Bernardino desert, the Pacific Institute has put back online an exhaustive environmental impact report finished in 2001. To access it, click on the cover, or hereFor the Pacific Institute overview page of its work on the Cadiz project, click here.  The institute’s president, Peter Gleick, who offered to host the material, says the “serious thanks” are due to Courtney Smith for uploading it. Courtney, thank you! Seriously.

The Dry Garden: Look to the Sonoran

Baja fairy duster. Photo: Christine Cotter / Los Angeles Times

THE CLASSIC trees of California are big. Redwoods. Monterey pines. Valley oaks. So for those of us who live in cities but want a California native garden, where’s the giant sequoia supposed to fit? My vote would be to tear down the house, but San Juan Capistrano nurseryman Mike Evans has a different idea. The man who for two decades has been a pillar of the native gardening community thinks that many Southern Californian homes with small gardens can be better off with exotic trees. Evans, co-founder of the Tree of Life Nursery, is increasingly pointing his customers toward the leguminous trees of Mexico, Arizona and Texas … To continue reading the latest from the Los Angeles Times Dry Garden column, click here.

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