Cadiz: Wrong in any Wordle
Faced with a crowd of 500 people* last week, many protestors, the Rancho Santa Margarita Water District postponed certifying the final environmental impact report for its groundwater-mining bid in the Mojave Desert. Rather, the final vote for what is styled as the Cadiz Valley Water Conservation, Recovery, and Storage Project is scheduled for tomorrow night, July 31st, 2012 at 6pm in Mission Viejo (click here for details), with a video hook up for Joshua Tree protestors who organizers clearly hope won’t have the steam to make another 300-mile return trip. For those of you who missed last week’s meeting, this YouTube video of what appears to be Cadiz lawyers feeding scripts to “public” commenters planted in the audience is a priceless piece of citizen journalism. For more on the project, click here for a Pacific Institute analysis of its shortcomings. The text is even more withering when it hasn’t been …
The “M Opinion” should avoid California incest
Defending his department after the release of “Chinatown,” a Los Angeles Department of Water & Power executive is said to have protested, “There was never any incest!” That was 1974. As yesterday the final environmental impact report for the Cadiz, Inc groundwater mining project proposed for the Mojave Desert was issued, this much is known: Incest is a given.
Except this time there’s no part for Faye Dunaway. The incest is political. Much has been written about Cadiz generosity to politicians. Public servants who have been on the Cadiz payroll and/or recipients of notable donations include Los Angeles Mayor Antoino Villaraigosa, former California Governor Gray Davis, Susan Kennedy — chief of staff of former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, former California state assemblyman Richard Katz and San Bernardino County Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt. For background on Cadiz and its political largesse, this compendium is a start. Latterly, much cash has …
BLM’s new “alternative” on Vegas pipe
Ever heard of the Council on Environmental Quality? Chaired by former LA Deputy Mayor Nancy Sutley, it’s a White House office that according to its website “coordinates Federal environmental efforts.” To judge by a recent update from the Bureau of Land Management, Sutley’s office may just hold the key for a compromise in a long-running battle over rural groundwater between Utah and Nevada. Using powers supposedly afforded by the Council, the Bureau is adding a new alternative to an environmental impact statement that may allow Vegas to pump and Utah to keep its water too. The only clear loser is the environment.…
It’s official: Typical L.A. garden goes unused
A new study out of UCLA shows that “even in a region with clement year-round weather, the families hardly used their yards, and this was the case even among those who had invested in outdoor improvements and furnishings.”I vote for him
University of California hydrologist Jay Famiglietti is calling, loudly, for a national science policy to map, model and understand fresh water reserves to enable coherent planning for the future. keep looking »North American Native Plant Societies
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