Metropolitan Water District’s rebate budget $24m in the red as member agency LADWP announces cash for grass program
From Aquafornia via the Riverside Press Enterprise: “Metropolitan Water District’s board (yesterday) ordered an audit after questioning the management of a regional rebate program for water-saving appliances that is $24 million in the red.
The board of directors, meeting in Los Angeles on Tuesday, rejected a committee recommendation to pull money out of reserves to pay for a flurry of outstanding rebate claims incurred in the past few months, when the program had run out of money.
“This program has not been managed or monitored properly,” said board member James Blake, who represents the city of Fullerton. “We said when the money was gone, it was gone. We have not only used up the money, we are proposing to double or triple the money.”
Directors voted to have MWD’s auditor validate all pending claims to come up with an exact dollar figure, and to evaluate the best use of conservation …
Babbitt aide choice for Bureau of Land Management
THE Salt Lake Tribune reports, “Bob Abbey, who helped former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt complete a Utah wilderness inventory 10 years ago, is President Barack Obama’s nominee to head up the US Bureau of Land Management. Full story here and June 10 follow up here. Background on Federal West here.
Via Great Basin Water Network.
From the Las Vegas Sun, June 10, “Abbey was the choice of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who personally recommended him to Interior Secretary Ken Salzar for the job.”
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Dry gardening column begins in LA Times
No, it wasn’t Saturday’s chorus of boos over the interview with the landscapers of the new Los Angeles Police Department Headquarters. It is the beginning of a weekly column, The Dry Garden, dedicated to ways to conserve water in the garden, whether that garden has lawn or a saintly collection of Mediterranean and native plants.…
Solar power plants may drain Western deserts
“CONGRESS’S rush to embrace solar power is having some unintended consequences. It will turn over a large chunk of federal land to private energy companies, and it may involve withdrawing billions of gallons of water from sensitive desert habitat,” writes Robert Glennon, author of “Unquenchable” and “Water Follies” in the Washington Post. Via the Great Basin Water Network
The rich are different
“HIGH net worth individuals, non-profit organizations and corporations often have different needs when it comes to their philanthropy,” begins the “What We Do” section of the Andy Spahn & Associates website.
Indeed. The rich are different. Few appreciate how different so acutely as the Universal City-based lobbyist Spahn. On Thursday June 25th, the former Dreamworks executive will be hosting a fundraiser for Darrell Steinberg, President pro Tempore of the California State Senate. It’s a bring your own wallet affair. A gift of $1,000 qualifies a guest as a “supporter,” of $3,900 a “friend,” and $7,800 a “co-chair.”
This being in California, nearly half of the “co-chairs” listed on the invitation are key figures in water.
There are Stewart and Lynda Resnick, the Beverly Hills billionaires and Central Valley land owners who the Contra Costa Times reports have gleaned approximately 20 cents of every dollar of a roughly $200m environmental water …
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