The week that was, 9/19-25/2010
Dust-covered snow in the San Juan Mountains of the Upper Colorado River basin, May 2009. Source: NASA/JPL-Snow Optics Laboratory. Click on the image to be taken to the report summary.
In the semi-arid regions of the Colorado Plateau and Great Basin, winds blow desert dust east, triggering dust-on-snow events. When dark dust particles fall on snow, they reduce its ability to reflect sunlight. The snow also absorbs more of the sun’s energy. This darker snow cover melts earlier, with some water evaporating into the atmosphere. — NASA study shows desert dust cuts Colorado River flow, NASA press release, September 20, 2010
… the “first-in first-served” system of allocating water rights has not worked in areas of high demand and must be overhauled. — Reference to a New Zealand study by the Land and Water Forum of proposed water management overhauls, Tougher controls on water likely, Dominion Post, September …
The week that was, 9/5-11/2010
At the news conference announcing Susan Kennedy’s appointment as Chief of Staff, Gov Schwarzenegger said, "We have had incredible accomplishments throughout my administration and I look forward to working with Susan to build upon that foundation and make California once again the golden dream by the sea." Click on the image to be taken to the governor's website and the original announcement in November 2005. Kennedy has been the strategist behind Schwarzenegger's failed water policy.
Schwarzenegger, like all of his predecessors except risk-averse Gray Davis, has tried to mediate the water war and will, like them, leave with the big decisions still to be made. — Dan Walters, Governor will pass the buck on water, Fresno Bee, September 5, 2010
Despite more than three years of meetings and studies, the committee working on the plan has come to little or no agreement on any of the big-ticket questions. —…
The week that was, 8/29-9/4/2010
"... one jumped right in front of me and I realized what it was." -- Chuck Fountain on a leaping sturgeon caught on film by his wife Trina on the Ogeechee River. Click on the image to be taken to the story in the Savannah Morning News.
“This is what you get when you move to the desert to ski.” — Tribal spokeswoman Jamescita Peshlakai of Cameron, Arizona at a community meeting debating a proposal to use potable water to make artificial snow, Snowbowl vote postponed, Arizona Daily Sun, August 31, 2010
To me, the whole debacle demonstrates just how dysfunctional the state legislature has become … Laws that protect the special interests at the expense of the public pass routinely. — Heal the Bay president Mark Gold on the failure of the California legislature to pass a bill banning single-use plastic bags, “State senate: Industry bagmen,” …
The week that was, 8/22-28/2010
Bullets rain on the Swat Valley in a drawing done by one of Feriha Peracha's students school for "Taliban" survivors. August flooding has brought fresh anguish to the already chaotic and deadly region that Peracha remembers as paradisal during her childhood visits. Source: American Public Media's 'The Story.' Click on the drawing to be taken to Dick Gordon's interview with Peracha.
As we remember the tragic delays after Hurricane Katrina hit the Louisiana coast five years ago today, arguably the single most meaningful way that we can mark the anniversary is to help the millions in Pakistan whose livelihoods are being washed away now, who are desperate now.
For a glimpse of the horror being visited on that country by unprecedented monsoonal flooding, and the bewilderment and desperation of the people in the path of the water, there is no better sampling than Dick Gordon’s August 25, 2010 interview with …
The week that was, 8/15-21/2010
"Ebb and Flow: Kern's Vanishing Water," an exhibit in which artists in California's Central Valley examine water, will be on show at framers JP Jennings, 1700 Chester Avenue, Bakersfield, CA through October 3. Click on "Gradient Reversal" (above) by Christine McKee to be taken to a Lois Henry article about the exhibit in the Bakersfield Californian.
In the early morning the cow had collapsed, and I could see it would soon be dead. Its eyes were beginning to dull, as the owner squatted next to it, sprinkling water into its mouth, as if it were possible to revive it. Its legs were swollen from standing in water, and its chest and torso were covered with deep cuts and scrapes, sheets of raw flesh where branches rushing past must have hit it. The rest of the family sat nearby on a string bed, resigned, waiting for the end. This was …
« go back — keep looking »North American Native Plant Societies
After the lawn
Garden blogs
