Butterflies in Claremont
A new butterfly pavilion opens to the public at the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden on June 12. Click here for details. For region-wide listings of classes on butterfly gardens, water-wise irrigation, replacing lawn with natives, looks inside the Arboretum library, hikes and preservation efforts, click here for June and here for July. …
The week that was, 5/30-6/5/2010
June 5, 2010 marked the 34th anniversary of the failure of Teton Dam. Click on the image for background from J. Davis Roger of the Missouri University of Science & Technology
Thirty-four years ago Saturday, eastern Idaho changed forever. The eight-month-old Teton Dam on the Teton River near Rexburg collapsed on June 5, 1976, drowning 11 people and 18,000 head of livestock and causing $2 billion in damage. — “Time to be blunt. The Teton dam won’t be rebuilt, nor should it be,” editorial in the Idaho Times-News, June 3, 2010
“The only matter that could take Egypt to war again is water.” — Anwar Sadat quoted in “War clouds gather as nations demand a piece of the Nile,” Times of London, June 4, 2010
Ethiopia this month opened the 460MW Tana Beles dam, which would have been considered an act of war in Sadat’s time. …
By popular demand
Marianne Simon of the Santa Monica firm Poetic Plantings was noted for her design's permeable paving, screening, recycled materials and use of Mediterranean, California native and edible plants.
After more than 4,000 votes were cast by the public, the City of Santa Monica has announced the winning designs for its three sustainable demonstration gardens to be installed this fall off Airport Boulevard. Click here to read about the winners in the Los Angeles Times.…
Water and power(point)
The Los Angeles Department of Water & Power yesterday released a sketch operating budget for 2010/11, which the Los Angeles Times reports may spell rate hikes from 4% to 8% for consumers. For those interested in the source of their water and power, the budget offers some nice graphics (lifted left; click to enlarge). As a couple of asides, the cost of converting from coal to renewable sources of energy inspired the recent rebellion in the Los Angeles City Council; and consistent clean hydropower from Hoover Dam is dependent on adequate elevations in Lake Mead, a source threatened by inadequate conservation programs by the department and its umbrella agency, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.
Click here to be taken to the proposed LADWP budget, or here for yesterday’s report card for the department, which in the face of incompetent leadership by the Mayor of Los Angeles and turbulent …
High good, low bad: Mead in May 2010
Two graphics from the 2007/2008 Annual Report of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (the most recent available) illustrate how water exports from the San Joaquin and Sacramento River Bay Delta (right) rose sharply as surpluses dried up on the Colorado River (left) after 2002. Click on the image to enlarge the graphics.
Eleven years into a dramatic drought* on the Colorado River, in 2009, the City of Los Angeles finally saw fit to issue a lawn watering ordinance that reduced sprinkler irrigation to a twice weekly schedule. It was an overdue and obvious step given that roughly half of Southern California’s water supply is used out of doors, and half of that is estimated to be wasted through sprinkler run-off and pavement hosing.
That ordinance, which took effect a year ago today, reduced the city’s water consumption to 1991 levels even though the law was widely flouted, …
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