Vegas pipeline hearing timeline sketched
FOLLOWING a series of damning court decisions that vacated almost 80,000 acre feet a year of groundwater awards to Las Vegas from four valleys in rural Nevada, the State Engineer has published a tentative schedule to re-notice and re-hear the cases. If the brisk timeline is kept, the decisions over whether or not to tap the Great Basin Aquifer to slake Las Vegas could come as early as mid-February 2012.
Under the new schedule, notices of the applications by Las Vegas for permission to tap rural groundwater over thousands of square miles will be published in regional Nevadan newspapers in November. The period in which affected parties may lodge legal protests entitling them to participate in the hearings will close in late December.
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Ban the bag
California could become the first state in the country to ban plastic shopping bags. A bill to do just that is being amended to gain support from legislators, writes Ed Joyce of San Diego’s KPBS. The legislation would require reusable cloth bags and prohibit grocery, liquor and convenience stores from handing out plastic bags. Click here to keep reading.
Chance of Rain adds: For the history of Assembly Bill 1998 , which has been returned to a state senate committee for tweaking, click here. For the Heal the Bay Action Alert and how to encourage your senator to support the bill, click here. For arguments on behalf of the bill from sponsor Assemblywoman Julia Brownley and three beautiful actresses, click here. For information from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, here and for the UC Davis Marine Debris Project, here…
New rules, alas not by Bill Maher
'Urban slobber' from street-side sprinkler run-off, 9.30am, Tuesday August 17, 2010 in front of the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden. Photo: Emily Green
The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday approved a new lawn-watering ordinance, superseding the standing two-day-a-week sprinkler rule with a revision that allows lawn-watering on three days.
Designed to allay pressure on aging city pipes, the new rule will require Department of Water & Power customers whose street addresses end with an odd number to use lawn sprinklers on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, while Los Angeles residents with even-numbered addresses should water on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays.
To keep reading the update in the Los Angeles Times, click here. For what Chance of Rain thinks about this, click here, and here. Then please rip out your lawn.…
Scary funny
For climate change deniers everywhere, the perfect gift. Steve Greenberg is offering a revised 2010 edition of his book of environmental cartoons "Fine-tooning the planet." Click on the image to be taken to greenberg-art.com
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The week that was, 8/8-14/2010
It is one of the most graphic temperature increases on the planet. — Lake Superior surface waters are warmest on record, Duluth News Tribune, August 13, 2010
Since 1980, Lake Superior’s surface water temperature in summer has increased about two-degrees F per decade. For more, click on the cover of the Large Lakes Observatory report.
X“If the Kalabagh dam had been built, this flood could have been tamed in the reservoir.” — Shams-ul Mulk, former chief of Pakistan’s Water and Power Development Authority, Pakistan floods renew debate over unbuilt dam, Wall Street Journal, August 11, 2010
“Their crops have gone, their livestock has gone, the infrastructure, the roads are gone. Right now our land link with the rest of the country is gone.” Punjab regional assemblyman Mohsin Leghari, Pakistan floods cause ‘huge losses’ to crops, BBC News, August 12, 2010
Swimming in the rivers that feed …
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