California AB 1881 in bullet points

UPDATE: 2/19/2010: The new book, Landscape Plants for California Gardens by Cal Poly Pomona professor Bob Perry, gives thorough descriptions for 2,100 landscape plants, their ET budgets, run downs on irrigation system efficiency needed to satisfy those budgets, and then links them all back by plant palette and climate zone groupings — for every climate zone in the state. For information on the major new book for professional landscape designers and architects as well as advanced home gardeners, click here.

UPDATE: 9/22/2009 — California’s Updated Model Water Efficient Landscape Ordinance AB1881 was approved by the Office of Administrative Law on September 10, 2009. For a link to the announcement from the California Department of Water Resources, click here.

For a bullet point guide to it, done with help from Julie Ann Saare-Edmonds of the Landscape Program, Office of Water Use Efficiency, California Department of Water Resources, read 

Drought? What drought? So Cal by watering ordinance

The drought affects all of us, but the reactions to it by cities throughout Southern California could not be more different. A linked guide of how different cities and water districts from San Diego to Ventura are tackling it might exist somewhere else, but now it exists here. So far, kudos to Long Beach for having its head furthest out of the sand. For additions, please blog or e-mail me at emily.green [at] mac.com.…

Blow hard, blow now, just don’t mow and blow: Second Comment Period opens on Modified AB 1881

California landscapers and other interested parties have until 5pm on May 26 to submit comments on an updated and modified version of the Model Water Efficient Landscape Ordinance AB 1881.  


High Good, Low Bad: Lake Mead Elevations

Source: US Bureau of Reclamation

HOPEFULLY there is more water than silt in the main Colorado River reservoir holding water supplies for California, Arizona, Nevada and Mexico. The maximum elevation for Lake Mead is 1,229 feet. Below, gleaned from US Bureau of Reclamation records, is the first of what will be monthly elevation reports for Lake Mead on this blog, with year on year contrasts going back to 2004. Above, for those who prefer pictures to numbers, also borrowed from Reclamation, is a nifty graphic published on Friday, May 8, 2009 showing April and May 2009 elevations, including predictions (in yellow) throughout the month.

April 30, 2009                                                       1,101.26 ft

April 30, 2008                                                       1,110.61 ft

April 30, 2007                                                       1,120.69 ft

April 30, 2006                                                       1,135.94 ft

April 30, 2005                                                       1,144.45 ft

April 30, 2004                                                       1,134.98 ft


Turn off the sprinklers and put down the hose, unless you are fighting a fire

Highlights from March 31, 2009 testimony before the US Congress Natural Resources Committee by US Bureau of Reclamation Acting Commissioner J. William McDonald on Interior’s preparedness plan for dealing with California drought.

FIRE: “The Interior bureaus and our land management partners are preparing to deal with the potential for widespread and intense fires in California this year as a result of multiple successive years of drought.”

NATIONAL PARKS AND CAMPING: “Conservation measures will be put in place in parks where campground water supplies are expected to be limited, including several sites in Yosemite National Park.”

CENTRAL VALLEY: “As of March 30, Central Valley Project agricultural water service contractors north of the Delta will be allocated 5 percent, or 19 thousand acre-feet, of contract water supplies under their CVP contracts. CVP agricultural water service contractors south of the Delta will likely receive no allocation.”

Full Testimony

 

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