High good, low bad: Mead in November 2010
Posted on | December 1, 2010 | 1 Comment
National Suicide Statistics at a Glance. Smoothed, Age-Adjusted Suicide Rates* per 100,000 Population All Races, All Ethnicities, Both Sexes, Ages 10 Years or Older, United States, 2000–2006. Source: CDC
The Nevada water community chatter yesterday was about a new report ranking the Las Vegas economy as one of the worst in the world. It’s the first and hopefully the last time that I will see Las Vegas compared to Barcelona. However, the story that interested me was this one, in Monday’s Las Vegas Sun, about the suicide danger of the new Hoover Dam Bypass Bridge. It’s notable for two reasons. First is the stunning image by Sun staff photographer Sam Morris, who may be the most talented snapper working in the Western press. Second, I was struck by what wasn’t there. Why wasn’t there more concern about who will jump?
Anyone who has visited Las Vegas will know that the hotel room windows don’t open because after fleecing visitors of their life savings, the hospitality industry prefers not to to mop up tourist remains from beside the pool. But what poor schmuck tourist would then have the energy to haul ass out to Boulder? Could the worry be for Reclamation staff? What other response is there to being charged to manage a water supply that is steadily shrinking while the states tapping it (take a bow, California, as chief glutton) refuse to conserve accordingly?
Consider the scene: As the ambulance pulls off, a bunch of dam operators stand around the bloody chalk outline. One says, “He wasn’t going to have 100 feet on his bio.”
As of yesterday, the closing November elevation of Lake Mead has dropped 95.28 feet since 2001.
Click here for closing November elevations
The week that was, 11/21-27/2010
Posted on | November 28, 2010 | 4 Comments
A lead player in a massive Delta habitat-restoration project is quitting that effort, casting doubt on one of the most important attempts in decades to revive the West’s largest estuary. — Westlands quits delta habitat effort, Sacramento Bee, November 24, 2010
“We’re not going to spend another dime on this.” — Jean Sagouspe, President, Westlands Water District, Westlands district pulls out of Delta conservation plan, Fresno Bee, November 24, 2010
“Why would we spend all of this money if we were going to get less water than the status quo?” — Laura King Moon, assistant general manager for the State Water Contractors, on Westlands Water District dropping out of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, Big player in state water plan pulls out, Contra Costa Times, November 23, 2010
“Westlands wants its supply guarantees before anyone else – that’s not how this process works. This is about saving the estuary from death. We could all march into this process and have temper tantrums, but that’s not going to get us very far.” — Cynthia Koehler, water legislative director, Environmental Defense Fund, Largest water district pulls out of delta plan, San Francisco Chronicle, November 24, 2010
To be sure, the sprawling farm district on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley still wants a canal to take Delta water. — Water District pulls out of Delta coalition, The Record, Stockton, November 24, 2010
Critics privately called Westlands’ withdrawal political grand-standing aimed at winning concessions on environmental rules from Gov.-elect Jerry Brown and possibly even federal regulators. — Largest water district pulls out of delta plan, San Francisco Chronicle, November 24, 2010
Westlands is throwing a temper tantrum? How fun. They’re stomping out of BDCP because an Interior official told them that they cannot be sure they will continue to get their record high water deliveries from the early 2000′s? Good. After that bullshit they pulled with Feinstein last year, I thought they should have been kicked out of BDCP. — A whole cartload of schadenfreude for me, On the public record, November 23, 2010
Thanks to David Zetland, who provided this link to Westlands’ letter to Interior announcing its decision to opt out of the BDCP. Lloyd Carter has Interior’s response to Westlands quitting the planning process for managing the San Joaquin-Sacramento Bay-Delta.
Warmest wishes this Thanksgiving to all readers of Chance of Rain with particular thanks to Westlands Water District, whose calculated hissy fit provided just enough material for a holiday stub posting. After many weeks of postponement and delay due to a house move and construction work, a full ‘Week that Was’ will return next week. For a full round-up of California water news, go to the steadfastly complete Aquafornia, the newsfeed of the Water Education Foundation, or to UC Berkeley’s On Water. For San Diego water news, try Groksurf’s San Diego. Or, for all things fresh water, do check in with WaterWired.
This post was updated 11/29/2010. The Westlands-Interior letter links were added.
The Dry Garden: Multiplication by division
Posted on | November 26, 2010 | 1 Comment
Hummingbird sage.* Photo: Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times
Pulling up a plant and ripping it in half at the roots is a violent way of showing affection, but for a school of groundcovers, including many grasses, bulbs and woodsy flowers, doing just that amounts to true love. So, if you have established giant rye, coral bells, irises or hummingbird sage, and you want more of the same, now is the moment to divide and separate the plants.
Short days and early showers are abetting this endeavor. If you can’t jump when the meteorologists say “rain,” do it when you have time, then give the transplants a steady, gentle watering.
How roughly or tenderly you handle division should depend on the plant. Click here to keep reading about how to divide native plants in The Dry Garden in the Los Angeles Times.
*An earlier version of this post mistakenly labeled the photo as a coral bell. The photo was swapped but the caption was not changed. Apologies and thanks to Ben Oswald for pointing out the error.
“At Home” by Bill Bryson
Posted on | November 20, 2010 | No Comments
“At Home: A Short History of Private Life” begins on the roof of the Victorian rectory that Bill Bryson and his family occupy in flattest Eastern England. Surveying the surrounding countryside, the American-born author invokes a local archaeologist who once explained to him that the region’s stone churches aren’t sinking. No, they are slightly below ground because the sheer numbers of bodies buried around them over the centuries have caused the earth to rise.
Having imparted this grisly delicacy, Bryson retreats from his roof but not his house. The author best known in the U.S. for his travel writing uses home to anchor his new book; every room in it is a departure point to discuss how those generations of bodies once lived, how their homes functioned and, surprisingly only recently, began to provide a certain level of comfort.
Click here to keep reading the review of “At Home” in the Los Angeles Times.
‘The week that was’ will return next week.
The week that was, 11/7-13/2010
Posted on | November 14, 2010 | No Comments
"Always attracted to water..." -- The Financial Times reviews the Monet and Gérôme exhibitions in Paris. Click on "Bathers at La Grenouillere" by Claude Monet for the story.
I was overly optimistic when promising the return of “The week that was” this Sunday. More succinctly, I lied. My apologies. I am neck-high in packing boxes and movers wait for no blogger. In the stead of the Sunday news round-up, this letter. Sent last week by environmental organizations including the Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Friends of the River to the California Natural Resources Agency, it’s an expression of highly formalized disgust at an emerging agenda for the Bay-Delta Conservation Plan, which environmentalists see as benefiting water exporters more than the buckling estuary tapped by California’s State Water Project.
For California water news, go to Aquafornia. For San Diego stories, try Groksurf’s San Diego. Or, for all things fresh water, try WaterWired. A personal favorite site is On the public record, which I would bookmark whether I followed water or not because it’s so damn smart.
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