We should save Arcadia woodland
Click on John James Audubon’s illustration of the Great-horned owl to be taken to a petition to save the Arcadia woodland by, among others, the Pasadena Audubon Society.
UPDATED Today marks a blogger solidarity day to save the Arcadia woodland. Chance of Rain is on board. This site has never linked to a petition for any cause before, no matter how worthy that cause may be. The case of this petition from the Sierra Club et al concerning the Arcadia woodland marks an exception not because it’s a good cause, but because it’s good sense. There is no adequate way to mitigate for the loss of such established riparian habitat from our slender Southern Californian reserve of mature native woodland. It is too rare and takes centuries to become established. Meanwhile, when it comes to choice of disposal sites for dam sediment, for which we are to believe that a …
Does this look like a dump?
The Pasadena Star-News has the latest on Los Angeles County’s plans to clear cut 11 acres of native woodland for use as a dump site for sediment from the Santa Anita Dam. The Sierra Club, California Oaks, Pasadena Garden Club, Pasadena Audubon Society, Sierra Madre Mountain Conservancy and San Gabriel Mountains Chapter of the California Native Plant Society are circulating a petition to save the Arcadia grove of oaks and sycamores. Short comments are admitted by the petition. Mine, along with this briefest of background, boiled down to this: To keep our trash from reeking as it hits landfills, waste managers use lawn clippings as “Alternate Daily Cover.” These clippings could be composted and storm debris used instead. In other words, why waste perfect landfill material on pristine woodland? Objections that trucking sludge causes pollution are certainly valid but given that we already cart around our trash and yard clippings …
The week that was, 12/26/2010-1/1/2011
Tropical Storm Tasha caused flooding that affected an estimated 200,000 people in Queensland, Australia. Image: NASA. Click on the image to be taken to the Earth Observatory.
“This is without a doubt a tragedy on an unprecedented scale.” — Queensland Premier Anna Bligh on Australian floods covering an area larger than France and Germany combined, Floods in northeast Australia strand 200,000, AP / Los Angeles Times, December 31, 2010
… parts of the South had their first white Christmas since records have been kept. — East Coast blizzard strands travelers, frustrates drivers, Los Angeles Times, December 27, 2010
Around 32,000 properties are still without water in Belfast and surrounding towns after pipes burst during the freezing weather and subsequent thaw before Christmas, Water torture: Tankers on standby with supplies for Ulster as families tell of misery, Daily Mail, December 31, 2010…
High good, low bad: Mead in December 2010
The good news in the last hour of 2010 was that Lake Mead was 4.36 feet higher than the closing elevation for November. The bad news is that a winter bump is not unusual and, at ten feet lower than the closing December elevation for 2009 and at 40% capacity, the main storage reservoir on the Colorado River is 11.3 feet above a level that will trigger cuts for Arizona and Nevada.
Nerves are bad enough in the Grand Canyon State that the Arizona Republic reported this week that water managers are considering leaving part of their 2011 Colorado River allocation in Mead to forestall mandatory cuts. Larry Dozier, deputy general manager of the Central Arizona Project, told the Republic: “If we leave a little water this year, we won’t take the bigger hit the next year. Then we can take another spin on …
The Dry Garden: New Year/Water Year
Saturday may mark the start of the 2011 calendar year, but the 2011 water year, the 12-month cycle used by hydrologists and water managers, began on Oct. 1.
Few Southern California water years have begun on such a dry note. Three months ago, a strengthening La Niña pattern in the Pacific suggested to climatologists that we were staring at a water year so potentially dry that it could make your voice rasp.
Then in December a weather system known as the Pineapple Express carried near-record rains through California. The upshot in Los Angeles County is that most places have already received half or more of the rain expected for the entire season. It’s reasonable to expect that when the 2011 water year ends Sept. 30, we will have reached or surpassed the regional average of about 16 inches, with numbers that are higher in the foothills and lower in …
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