The week that was, April 17-23, 2016

Posted on | April 24, 2016 | No Comments

Mexican Navy sails into Cartagena, sailors poised throughout the rigging. Source: Bernard, Ships of Sail, Mexicanosenespana.blogspot.com

This gorgeous file photo by Bernard, Ships of Sail on Pinterest, captures the style of ARM Cuauhtémoc as the Mexican Navy crew proudly straddle the tall ship’s soaring rigging. The ship arrived in Baltimore yesterday as part of a festival marking the 40th anniversary of the 1976 Bicentennial. Click on the image for a full schedule from Sail Baltimore of tall ship arrivals in the Chesapeake.

Let it be said: The Mexican Navy knows how to make an entrance. — The Mexican Navy’s Cuauhtémoc arrives in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, Baltimore Sun, 4/24/16*

“We found a reef where the textbooks said there shouldn’t be one.” — Fabiano Thompson, co-author of a report in Science Advances of a newly discovered reef the size of Delaware, Surprising, vibrant reef discovered in the muddy Amazon, National Geographic, 4/22/16

“The other possibility is that they just do it for fun.” — Cal State University shark lab director Chris Lowe on why sharks leap, Surfer captures video of great white shark jumping out of ocean at OC beach, 4/20/16 

Click on this photo of the Morton Ranch subdivision in Katy, TX to see a Houston Chronicle slide show of the week's flooding.

Click on this image of the Morton Ranch subdivision in Katy, TX to see a Houston Chronicle slide show of the week’s flooding. Photo: Kandice Holden.

… we have placed development in harm’s way — in low-lying areas, including floodplains. Incredibly, we continue to do so. Disaster by design: Houston can’t keep developing this way, Houston Chronicle, 4/20/16

“An explosion was needed that would halt the building of the dam and possibly save the doomed valley.”  — Welsh terrorist Owain Williams, Dambuster tells all in explosive new book, Daily Post, 4/23/16*

This week Luis Jorge Rivera Herrera was honored by the Goldman Environmental Foundation for a long fight to establish the Northeast Ecological Corridor as a wildlife sanctuary in Puerto Rico. Photo: Wikipedia.

Click on the image to learn how last week Puerto Rico’s Luis Jorge Rivera Herrera was honored by the Goldman Environmental Foundation. Herrera mounted a sustained fight against powerful government and hotel interests to establish the Northeast Ecological Corridor (pictured above) as a wildlife sanctuary. Photo: Wikipedia

“This isn’t your city doing this to you.” — Brentwood Mayor Bob Taylor, Brentwood agrees to raise water rates by 6 percent, East Bay Times, 19 Apr 2016.

Citizens all over the Kingdom have welcomed the recent statement made by Deputy Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman, second deputy premier and minister of defense, in which he said the new water tariff will be reviewed. — Citizens hail Muhammad’s decision on water tariff, Saudi Gazette, 4/21/16

Coca-Cola – which has annual revenues of more than $60 billion – takes water from a pure spring near Putaruru in the Waikato for its Pump brand. They pay next to nothing while I pay close to $5 for a small bottle of it every time I go to a sports event. — Columnist Duncan Garner, We’re a bunch of drips for giving away our water, Dominion Post, 4/23/16

“It is not a matter of if GE will undertake a cleanup, but a matter of how it will be done.” — General Electric statement on how it will comply with an EPA plan to remove  polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, dumped by the company in the Housatonic River, A man, a canoe, a mission, Boston Globe, 4/20/16

Toxic chemicals were found in high concentrations in a 4.2-mile underground plume that stretches from Whittier through Santa Fe Springs to Norwalk. Polluted Whittier water site to be cleaned as Feds score $78 million settlementWhittier Daily News, 4/20/16 

It’s time for opponents of this rule to ask themselves these questions: Why do they oppose protecting a resource that people – and the economy – can’t survive without? — Op-ed, Clean Water Rule will help sustain fishermen’s livelihoodsPortland Press Herald, 4/22/16

“These charges are only the beginning and there will be more to come. That I can guarantee you.” — Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette announcing prosecutions in the Flint lead poisoning crisis, Detroit Free Press, 4/20/16

(purple) Rain Room at LACMA

Purple Rain in LACMA’s “rain room.” Source: Curbed LA.

Today, the Senate failed to pass amendment #3811, aimed at blocking the Clean Water Rule. — ‘Dirty Water’ Rider fails in Senate, National Wildlife Federation, 4/21/16

The Department of Environmental Conservation said the [gas pipeline] project’s construction would affect 251 streams and 500 acres of valuable forest as well as extensive wetlands. — New York regulators reject water quality permit, New York Daily News, 4/22/16

“We will have to start mapping the springs all over again.” — Binod Sharma, Nepal Water Conservation Foundation, Trudge for water gets longer as springs dry up in Nepal’s mid-hillsBusiness Standard News, 4/21/16

Summit Plummet – and the nearby Slush Gusher – have been closed for weeks … — Broken pipe to blame for extended closure of Disney World water slides, Orlando Sentinel, 4/21/16

jeff-koons-one-ball-total-equilibrium-tank-spalding-dr-j-silver-series-737A lone basketball floats implausibly in the middle of a tank filled with water. At once mystical and planetary, the basketball is also ordinary, evocative of childhood memories of playing in the backyard. — Bound to Fail, Christie’s auction catalog description of Jeff Koons’  “One Ball Total Equilibrium Tank,” 4/22/16

“The real world won’t always adapt to them.” — Toronto psychotherapist Sherry Holt about a restaurant customer with post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and germaphobia who sued over the presence of lemon in his water glass, Steakhouse loses $12,000 human rights tribunal ruling, National Post, 4/21/16

I’ll start with the usual caveat that we’re still on the wrong side of the “Spring Predictability Barrier.” — Meteorologist Daniel Swain, California drought update; April showers in NorCal; and La Niña Looms, The California Weather Blog, 4/21/16

The Department of Water Resources’ initial State Water Project (SWP) allocation, announced in December, was 10 per cent of requests. As storms developed, the allocation was increased to 15 per cent on January 26, then to 30 per cent on February 24 and 45 per cent on March 17. Today’s boost to a 60 per cent allocation is mostly due to March storms that soaked Northern California after a mostly dry February. — State Water Project allocation increased, California Department of Water Resources, 4/21/16

It’s estimated the [Colorado] river has a “structural deficit” of up to 1.2 million acre-feet a year. — Big Central Arizona Project cuts coming as Three-state water agreement nears, Arizona Star, 4/23/16

Source: Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies.

Source: Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies.

Coral bleaching occurs when corals are stressed by unusually high water temperatures, or from other causes. When this happens, symbiotic algae, called zooxanthellae, leave the corals’ bodies. This changes their color to white and can also in effect starve them of nutrients. If bleaching continues for too long, corals die. — ‘And then we wept’: Scientists say 93 percent of the Great Barrier Reef now bleached, 4/20/16

… the reef covers an area larger than Delaware—some 3,600-square miles, stretching from the French Guiana border to Brazil’s Maranhão State—and likely supports many species previously unknown to science. The reef is so odd, in fact, that its discoverers believe it may constitute an entirely new type of ecological community. — Shining light on Brazil’s secret coral reef, Smithsonian, 4/22/16

“We have found a way to grow very fast the slow-growing corals.” — David Vaughan, Coral Restoration program,  Mote Tropical Research Laboratory, What is the future of coral reefs in warming ocean waters? Science Friday, 4/22/16

A map of the Amazon shelf showing the newly discovered reef structures in yellow.

A map of the Amazon shelf showing the newly discovered reef structures in yellow. Click on the map to be taken to the Science research article that revealed the reef.

 

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