The Dry Garden: Harvesting rain
IT STANDS to reason that some of the most progressive environmentalists in Los Angeles work for the Department of Public Works’ Bureau of Sanitation. They are the front line between what we discard and the environment.
Last week we looked at their fight to triage our system for recycling food scraps. This week the subject is their battle to capture rainfall before it enters L.A.’s massive storm drain system.
The bureau, along with a leading Southland water agency, the state Legislature and environmental nonprofit groups such as TreePeople and the Green LA Coalition are all moving to make harvesting rainwater as routine as recycling. To keep reading The Dry Garden column in the Los Angeles Times, click here.
For the agenda of a November 13, 2009 public meeting on the draft Low Impact Development ordinance due to go before the City Council soon, click here.
From …
Western datebook: Darwin in San Diego
IF YOU are looking for intelligent design, you could do worse than the newly opened show celebrating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th of the publication of his “On the Origin of Species.” For more information, click here. The show runs through February 28, 2010 at the San Diego Natural History Museum.
For an online biography of Darwin from the Natural History Museum in London, click here or for links to the celebrated traveling show on Darwin from the American Museum of Natural History in New York, the Field Museum in Chicago, The Royal Ontario Museum and the Museum of Natural History, London, click here.
For the National Public Radio series Darwin: The ‘Reluctant Revolutionary,’ click here.…
Some relief
Source: NOAA. Click on the map to be taken to the National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center.
Western datebook: Weed maps
The Invasive Spartina Project uses aerial photography and GPS to monitor cordgrass in the San Francisco Bay. Source: California Invasive Plant Council. Click on the map to be taken to the project's home page.
CORRECTION: IN EARLY versions of this post, the dates for the event below were incorrectly given for November. The event is in December.
Wednesday December 9 and Thursday December 10, the California Invasive Plant Council will be giving courses at the Audubon Center at Debs Park in Los Angeles on invasive plant control and mapping methods.
For information, click here.
For information about PlantRight, a campaign to convince nurseries to remove invasive plants from their shelves, click here.…
The week that was, 11/1-7/2009
Passing an entire package of water bills takes a herculean effort, and, in this case, the load was carried to a remarkable extent by just a few legislators who led this effort. Assemblyman Mike Feuer and Senators Fran Pavley and Joe Simitian were authors of bills that evolved dramatically after endless committee hearings and were swept into this final package. They’ve been working on these bills for two years or more. But the heaviest lifting in the legislature was done by Senate President pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg and Assemblyman Jared Huffman. — Barry Nelson, “On leadership and the water package,” NRDC Switchboard, November 6, 2009…
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