"... one jumped right in front of me and I realized what it was." -- Chuck Fountain on a leaping sturgeon caught on film by his wife Trina on the Ogeechee River. Click on the image to be taken to the story in the Savannah Morning News.

“This is what you get when you move to the desert to ski.” — Tribal spokeswoman Jamescita Peshlakai of Cameron, Arizona at a community meeting debating a proposal to use potable water to make artificial snow, Snowbowl vote postponed, Arizona Daily Sun, August 31, 2010

To me, the whole debacle demonstrates just how dysfunctional the state legislature has become … Laws that protect the special interests at the expense of the public pass routinely. — Heal the Bay president Mark Gold on the failure of the California legislature to pass a bill banning single-use plastic bags, “State senate: Industry bagmen,” Spouting Off, September 1, 2010

The…

Bullets rain on the Swat Valley in a drawing done by one of Feriha Peracha's students school for "Taliban" survivors. August flooding has brought fresh anguish to the already chaotic and deadly region that Peracha remembers as paradisal during her childhood visits. Source: American Public Media's 'The Story.' Click on the drawing to be taken to Dick Gordon's interview with Peracha.

As we remember the tragic delays after Hurricane Katrina hit the Louisiana coast five years ago today, arguably the single most meaningful way that we can mark the anniversary is to help the millions in Pakistan whose livelihoods are being washed away now, who are desperate now.

For a glimpse of the horror being visited on that country by unprecedented monsoonal flooding, and the bewilderment and desperation of the people in the path of the water, there is no better sampling than Dick Gordon’s August 25, 2010 interview with Pakistani psychologist Feriha Peracha…

"Ebb and Flow: Kern's Vanishing Water," an exhibit in which artists in California's Central Valley examine water, will be on show at framers JP Jennings, 1700 Chester Avenue, Bakersfield, CA through October 3. Click on "Gradient Reversal" (above) by Christine McKee to be taken to a Lois Henry article about the exhibit in the Bakersfield Californian.

In the early morning the cow had collapsed, and I could see it would soon be dead. Its eyes were beginning to dull, as the owner squatted next to it, sprinkling water into its mouth, as if it were possible to revive it. Its legs were swollen from standing in water, and its chest and torso were covered with deep cuts and scrapes, sheets of raw flesh where branches rushing past must have hit it. The rest of the family sat nearby on a string bed, resigned, waiting for the end. This was their wealth,…

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

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 the Chesapeake Bay after a hard rain could…

“It is unprecedented …” — Major General Athar Abbas, Half a million evacuated from Pakistan floods, Daily Telegraph, August 6, 2010

“I appeal to the world to help us.” — Pakistani prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on floods now estimated to impact more than two million people, Rains worsen Pakistan flood misery, Al Jazeera, August 8, 2010*

“If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?” That’s an excellent question, but it turns out [Chief Seattle] never asked it. The entire “web of life” speech was concocted in 1972 by a Hollywood screenwriter. — H2Ownership: Ancient, Equitable Traditions of Efficient Water Resource Trading in Desert Cultures, Global Water Magazine, July…