Blow hard, blow now, just don’t mow and blow: Second Comment Period opens on Modified AB 1881
Posted on | May 11, 2009 | 1 Comment
California landscapers and other interested parties have until 5pm on May 26 to submit comments on an updated and modified version of the Model Water Efficient Landscape Ordinance AB 1881.
Tags: AB 1881 > California > chance of rain > Emily Green > landscape > ordinances
High Good, Low Bad: Lake Mead Elevations
Posted on | May 10, 2009 | 4 Comments
Source: US Bureau of Reclamation
HOPEFULLY there is more water than silt in the main Colorado River reservoir holding water supplies for California, Arizona, Nevada and Mexico. The maximum elevation for Lake Mead is 1,229 feet. Below, gleaned from US Bureau of Reclamation records, is the first of what will be monthly elevation reports for Lake Mead on this blog, with year on year contrasts going back to 2004. Above, for those who prefer pictures to numbers, also borrowed from Reclamation, is a nifty graphic published on Friday, May 8, 2009 showing April and May 2009 elevations, including predictions (in yellow) throughout the month.
April 30, 2009 1,101.26 ft
April 30, 2008 1,110.61 ft
April 30, 2007 1,120.69 ft
April 30, 2006 1,135.94 ft
April 30, 2005 1,144.45 ft
April 30, 2004 1,134.98 ft
Tags: chance of rain > Emily Green > Lake Mead > US Bureau of Reclamation > Water
Turn off the sprinklers and put down the hose, unless you are fighting a fire
Posted on | May 10, 2009 | No Comments
Highlights from March 31, 2009 testimony before the US Congress Natural Resources Committee by US Bureau of Reclamation Acting Commissioner J. William McDonald on Interior’s preparedness plan for dealing with California drought.
FIRE: “The Interior bureaus and our land management partners are preparing to deal with the potential for widespread and intense fires in California this year as a result of multiple successive years of drought.”
NATIONAL PARKS AND CAMPING: “Conservation measures will be put in place in parks where campground water supplies are expected to be limited, including several sites in Yosemite National Park.”
CENTRAL VALLEY: “As of March 30, Central Valley Project agricultural water service contractors north of the Delta will be allocated 5 percent, or 19 thousand acre-feet, of contract water supplies under their CVP contracts. CVP agricultural water service contractors south of the Delta will likely receive no allocation.”
Tags: California > chance of rain > drought > Emily Green > US Bureau of Reclamation
Why the West Hates Southern California
Posted on | May 10, 2009 | No Comments
THE FIRST thing one learns when leaving Los Angeles and California to travel Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico, Nevada and Arizona is that the rest of the West hates Californians.
The reason can be summed up in one word: Water.
Legal division of Western water more or less started with the Gold Rush and the first come, first serve law pertaining to gold came to apply to water, no matter how crazy the allocations became as the West was settled.
California was greedy early and has proved positively Roman in its ability to build aqueducts and storage reservoirs. Well endowed with water, it has proved unsurpassed at wasting it, even as the rest of the West shriveled in drought, and even as in the past decade the crisis has reached all three of Southern California’s water sources in the Sacramento Delta, Owens Valley and the Colorado River.
To sum up the magnitude of the waste, every year, Southern California squanders more than three times the annual water supply of Southern Nevada, sending most of this into its storm drains in the form of lawn sprinkler, hose and car-washing run-off.
It wasn’t until places such as Las Vegas and Denver showed stunning savings with garden conservation programs that the nation’s largest water wholesaler outside of Reclamation, the Metropolitan Water District of California, began to invest in outdoor conservation programs.
And then MWD threw in chump change.
Nowhere dragged its feet quite so scandalously as the largest MWD member agency, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.
But having led the West to the brink of disaster, finally beginning June 1, 2009, Los Angeles is issuing outdoor water use ordinances aimed at curbing California’s water waste.
It is rather like declaring the recession official after the collapse of Bear Stearns, but it’s a start. As such, the June 1, 2009 Los Angeles Water Ordinance cannot be liked too early or too often.
Links will be added to regional ordinances as time allows hopefully building a useful directory. Suggestions welcome to: emily. green [at] mac.com
Tags: Add new tag > chance of rain > drought > Emily Green > landscape > ordinance > restrictions > Water
Cool, Dry April in West, NOAA reports
Posted on | May 8, 2009 | No Comments
May 8, 2009, Asheville, NC — April 2009 rainfall and temperature statistics published by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.
Tags: April 2009 rainfall > chance of rain > Climate > Emily Green > NOA > Water
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