Santa Barbara on fire – against board of trustees of botanic garden
- The Santa Barbara Botanic Garden was developed to showcase native plants and the natural beauty of California. Source: SBBG
THE MAY fire that damaged an estimated two thirds of the 65-acre Santa Barbara Botanic Garden masks deeper damage being done by the garden’s Board of Trustrees, claimed an article in Saturday’s Santa Barbara Independent and responded to today by the garden’s Chairman of the Board, former Arizona Governor Fife Symington.
Every public garden has its politics, but the castigation came from one of the best known names in California horticulture, Owen Dell, Santa Barbara landscape architect* and author of Sustainable Landscaping for Dummies.
In the article, Dell claimed that the current board of trustees has squandered resources on costly land acquisition, constructed a controversial folly that divided the community, operated with a board missing seven of the legally required 15 trustees and concentrated spending on high salaries for …
Santa Fe Springs wins Guttersnipe Award
Dry season run-off trickles to a storm drain outside of the Santa Fe Springs offices of the Greater Los Angeles Vector Control District. Photo: Emily Green
CONGRATULATIONS to the City of Santa Fe Springs and its water supplier, the Central Basin Municipal Water District. You are recipients of the first Chance of Rain Guttersnipe Award.
In fact, you inspired it.
This distinction goes exclusively to those who passively or aggressively promote dry-season run-off through the storm-drain system, pollution of the Pacific with said run-off, and the spread West Nile Virus by creating most excellent mosquito habitat in the sewer system.
While dry season run-off from sprinklers is so pervasive that most Southern Californian residences, city governments and water authorities are contenders, Santa Fe Springs and Central Basin win for sheer irony. The pictures right and below of a stream flowing through a Santa Fe Springs gutter were taken outside of …
The grass is always browner on the other side
WHEN George Knapp rumbles, people who care about water listen, even people routinely savaged by him. In April, Knapp and photojournalist Matt Adams won the prestigious George Foster Peabody Award for their KLAS-TV special “Crossfire: Water, Power and Politics,” which gave voice to the outrage and incredulity among conservationists, farmers and scientists over a bid by Las Vegas to drive a 300-mile-long pipeline into the heart of the Great Basin to pump its ground water south.
If you haven’t seen it, watch it. Few evening news programs attempt, never mind master, complicated essays on the cost of urban water in the West. This one does.
As disclosure, I should say that I too addressed the Las Vegas / Great Basin story in a year-long special assignment for the Las Vegas Sun. And by way of bragging, I will add that I too won a prize.
So …
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 …
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.…
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