I think I’m in love
It could be that the Department of Interior’s new website would appear merely well done if Monday afternoon hadn’t been spent at a Congressional field hearing listening to Central Valley Rep Tom McClintock lie, lie and lie some more about how the federal government is failing his region for the “enjoyment and amusement” of a fish. There might be a more shameless man in politics, whatever the party, but it doesn’t bear thinking about. Instead, quaint as it might sound, to find out what is actually happening, click here for Interior’s Interim Federal Action Plan for the California Bay-Delta. If you missed it the first time, it’s because it was published two days before Christmas.
For a report from hydrogeologist Michael Campana on the proceedings this week inside the National Academy of Sciences committee gathered at the behest of Senator Dianne Feinstein, click here. The committee was convened …
Keep it civil
I’ll try. The easiest way to accomplish that when describing yesterday’s Los Angeles field hearing of the US House Sub-Committee on Water and Power is to thank the chair, Congresswoman Grace Napolitano, who proved a model of efficiency and civility.
From there, it gets difficult.
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The week that was, 1/17-23/2010
Huila, Angola. A boy jumps into a pool below a waterfall. Photo: Finbarr O'Reilly / Reuters. Click on the image to be taken to the original from The Guardian's "24-Hours in Pictures."
… “this slick and fluted glitter, / slightly / arcing, rebraiding itself as it falls, // as for tangible / seconds it’s a thin/ taut string of surface tension // that my hand feels, on the handle, / as a pulse, a pull, / a thing // in space, that lives in this world” — excerpt from “Pour,” a poem from The Water Table by Philip Gross, winner of the TS Eliot Prize for Poetry, reviewed by the Guardian, January 23, 2010
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The Dry Garden: Native mallows
Few plants better connote the sheer luxuriance of the California dream as hibiscus. It comes from a clan of plants known as mallows native to the tropics, where, University of Texas botanist Paul A. Fryxell says, this family finds its “greatest richness.”
Fryxell is an authority on mallows, a family that he says has more than 100 genera with cousins around the world, capable of tolerating situations as diverse as the high climes of the Andes, hot and dry Palm Desert and the mediterranean climate of coastal California.
Talk to Fryxell and it soon becomes clear why hibiscuses in Southern California needn’t be a guilty pleasure, even though they’re tropical. Thanks to their robust root systems, many can go with only occasional deep watering during dry season. Once established, they are happiest when treated like trees.
For Californians, he also points to our native mallows. Those who haven’t expanded from …
Questions, anyone?
The House Natural Resources Committee, Subcommittee on Water and Power, led by Rep Grace Napolitano, will hold a public meeting Monday, January 25, 2010, at 1:00 pm at the offices of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, 700 N. Alameda Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012.
The theme is “Perspectives on California’s Water Supply: Challenges and Opportunities” and, to the Rep’s credit, there will be a whole lot of perspective in the house. Among the panelists will be the Commissioner of the federal Bureau of Reclamation Michael Connor, California Assembly Member Anna Caballero, director of the California Department of Water Resources Lester Snow, MWD General Manager Jeffrey Kightlinger, Imperial Irrigation District General Manager Brian Brady, San Diego County Water Authority General Manager Maureen Stapleton, Coachella Valley Water District Assistant General Manager Dan Parks, Pacific Institute president Peter Gleick, UC Irvine earth …
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