Thunk tank
Next Monday, the US House of Representatives Subcommittee on Water and Power will be holding a local hearing at the Los Angeles offices of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. The subject?
“California drought solutions.”
If that seems an odd thing to be contemplating during a deluge, it’s not. Most of our water does not come from local rainfall, but from other places, which, if not in a drought, are definitely in a jam. Last week, that jam became orders of magnitude worse as Sacramento judge Roland Candee struck down something called the Quantification Settlement Agreement.
This 2003 wad of contracts profoundly affects how California may legally divide and manage its share of the Colorado River, which is along with Owens Valley in the Eastern Sierra and the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta in Northern California one of the three main sources of fresh water for Southern California.
Candee’s …
Rain, explained
A TREAT arrived with the rain on Sunday, a treat worth breaking from this site’s normal policy of not quoting, referencing or linking to pseudonymous sources.* The Southern Californian meteorologist who blogs on science and home life as “Bad Mom Good Mom” passed on this explanation of our storm.
FIFTH graders in California study the weather. Not surprisingly, my fifth grade daughter and I have been talking about the weather on our walk to school in the mornings. Last week, we discussed the difference between latent and sensible heat and how the increase of surface level moisture can mask the temperature signal of global warming.
I am not sure she got it. I will have to figure out another way to explain that.
In the mean time, I want to better explain why meteorologists are so certain that Los Angeles will be hit by a series of heavy …
The week that was, 1/10-16/2010
Survivors of the Haitian earthquake reach for water packets. Source: Wall Street Journal. Click on the image for the accompanying story and photo gallery
“Water is water. You can’t last long without it.” — Stephanie Bunker, United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, “Frantic race against time to get clean water to Haiti quake survivors,” The Guardian, January 16, 2010
This is one of the things Americans do really well. We step up in whatever ways we can. — “Water for Haiti: Now,” Peter Gleick, San Francisco Chronicle, January 13, 2010
…
Sow and ye shall reap
It smelled of sage and spring in the seed room of the Theodore Payne Foundation in Sun Valley this week as supervisor Kathy Parenteau showed how the fruit of their native plant collection is sorted and stored for propagation and sale. Pictured above are the English apothecary spoons that Payne himself used to sort seeds, with the tiny Chalk Dudleya specimens contrasted to the aptly named fruit of the Bigberry Manazanita.
With heavy and persistent rain in the forecast for next week and spring around the corner, now is the time to sow seeds or plant saplings. For information on the seeds from the Theodore Payne Foundation, which are carefully selected for Southern California, click here. Or, for beginners just contemplating converting to native gardening or advanced gardeners always eager to learn more, Chance …
Salton Sea et al
For those who have asked about the impact of of this week’s ruling by Sacramento Superior Court Judge Roland Candee as it affects the Salton Sea restoration deal incorporated in the 2003 Quantification Settlement Agreement and Joint Powers Authority funding agreement (QSA JPA), here are some relevant excerpts from the decision. Copious numbered references have been struck for coherence and eyeball-busting acronyms have been decoded. The full text of the decision is available here.
These edited excerpts come from Sections 6 through 9, pages 33 through 43 of the decision.
“Dealing with the Salton Sea appears to the Court to have been the single most significant environmental issue faced in the QSA process. The Salton Sea is California’s largest lake, located north of the Mexican border at the northern end of the Imperial Irrigation District service area and the southern end of Coachella Valley Water District’s service area.
“It …
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