“Carving Up the Commons” explains the dark art of Western land deals

 

To download this book for free, or to order a copy for $10 from the Western Lands Project, click on the cover art

IF YOU have ever driven the stunning reaches of the Mojave, Sonoran and Great Basin deserts and wondered who owns them, the answer is: You do. It is almost all public land.

But for how long and under what terms is by no means certain. Janine Blaeloch’s new book Carving Up the Commons: Congress & Our Public Lands explains the history of that land, the challenges we face in preserving it and the dark art of Congressional land deals that are steadily wheeling millions of acres and the region’s best resources into private hands.

Carving up the Commons is of especial interest to Westerners. While the fate of public land is decided in Washington DC, most of the land itself is in the West. The pressure to …

California, Nevada, Eastern Washington, Eastern Oregon and Texas Red on Drought Outlook

 

Click on image for link to National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center

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Weekly Drought Map

Click on map for link to the National Drought Mitigation Center

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Santa Fe Springs wins Guttersnipe Award

 

Dry season run-off trickles to a storm drain outside of the Santa Fe Springs offices of the Greater Los Angeles Vector Control District. Photo: Emily Green

CONGRATULATIONS to the City of Santa Fe Springs and its water supplier, the Central Basin Municipal Water District. You are recipients of the first Chance of Rain Guttersnipe Award.

In fact, you inspired it.

This distinction goes exclusively to those who passively or aggressively promote dry-season run-off through the storm-drain system, pollution of the Pacific with said run-off, and the spread West Nile Virus by creating most excellent mosquito habitat in the sewer system.

While dry season run-off from sprinklers is so pervasive that most Southern Californian residences, city governments and water authorities are contenders, Santa Fe Springs and Central Basin win for sheer irony. The pictures right and below of a stream flowing through a  Santa Fe Springs gutter were taken outside of …

White House releases climate change impacts report, prognosis grim for Western water

Graphic: NOAA

 

A MULTI-AGENCY report released by the White House today includes predictions of worsening Western drought, falling water quality and insect infestations. Lest anyone imagine that this warming and its cascade of knock-on effects is somehow part of a natural cycle, the report repeatedly names the trigger for the changes as “human-caused.” 

Government certification of this mother of a problem was not released without some semblance of a solution. Would that this didn’t boil down to a cue to plan on disaster. As part of that, for Western water managers, the message is: All bets are off. We must rethink our system.

Bullet points from the water resources chapter of the report include:   
  • Regional differences in climate will become more prounounced. Rain will increase in the Northeast and Midwest and decline in much of the West, in particular the Southwest. 
  • Substantial changes in the water cycle are expected. A
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    Emily Green by e-mail at emily.green [at] mac.com

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