The week that was, 8/29-9/4/2010
"... one jumped right in front of me and I realized what it was." -- Chuck Fountain on a leaping sturgeon caught on film by his wife Trina on the Ogeechee River. Click on the image to be taken to the story in the Savannah Morning News.
“This is what you get when you move to the desert to ski.” — Tribal spokeswoman Jamescita Peshlakai of Cameron, Arizona at a community meeting debating a proposal to use potable water to make artificial snow, Snowbowl vote postponed, Arizona Daily Sun, August 31, 2010
To me, the whole debacle demonstrates just how dysfunctional the state legislature has become … Laws that protect the special interests at the expense of the public pass routinely. — Heal the Bay president Mark Gold on the failure of the California legislature to pass a bill banning single-use plastic bags, “State senate: Industry bagmen,” …
The week that was, 8/22-28/2010
Bullets rain on the Swat Valley in a drawing done by one of Feriha Peracha's students school for "Taliban" survivors. August flooding has brought fresh anguish to the already chaotic and deadly region that Peracha remembers as paradisal during her childhood visits. Source: American Public Media's 'The Story.' Click on the drawing to be taken to Dick Gordon's interview with Peracha.
As we remember the tragic delays after Hurricane Katrina hit the Louisiana coast five years ago today, arguably the single most meaningful way that we can mark the anniversary is to help the millions in Pakistan whose livelihoods are being washed away now, who are desperate now.
For a glimpse of the horror being visited on that country by unprecedented monsoonal flooding, and the bewilderment and desperation of the people in the path of the water, there is no better sampling than Dick Gordon’s August 25, 2010 interview with …
The week that was, 8/15-21/2010
"Ebb and Flow: Kern's Vanishing Water," an exhibit in which artists in California's Central Valley examine water, will be on show at framers JP Jennings, 1700 Chester Avenue, Bakersfield, CA through October 3. Click on "Gradient Reversal" (above) by Christine McKee to be taken to a Lois Henry article about the exhibit in the Bakersfield Californian.
In the early morning the cow had collapsed, and I could see it would soon be dead. Its eyes were beginning to dull, as the owner squatted next to it, sprinkling water into its mouth, as if it were possible to revive it. Its legs were swollen from standing in water, and its chest and torso were covered with deep cuts and scrapes, sheets of raw flesh where branches rushing past must have hit it. The rest of the family sat nearby on a string bed, resigned, waiting for the end. This was …
The week that was, 6/13-19/2010
'Tanker Traffic' by Kathryn Altus, 2010. Water based oil on canvas, 36" x 24" and part of the "Some seas" exhibit at the Lisa Harris Gallery in Seattle. Click on the image to be taken to the gallery.
'Tanker Traffic 2' by Kathryn Altus, 2005. Oil on canvas, 24 x 20" oil on canvas. Click on the image to be taken to the artist's website.
Approximately 40 percent of the coastal wetlands of the lower 48 states is located in Louisiana. — “Watermarks,” LaCoast / USGS*
Oil has been observed on approximately 503 total miles of U.S. coastline. –– Florida update, Gov Monitor, June 19, 2010
“… simply protecting the shore and the nesting habitat is not protecting the birds that forage out over the water.” — Melanie Driscoll, director of bird conservation for the National Audubon Society’s Louisiana Coastal Initiative, Yale Environment 360…
The week that was, 4/18-24/2010
Alcove, Zion National Park. Photo: Ed Firmage, Jr, the park's photographer in residence. Click on the image for Firmage's website and online presentation "Western Water: The Coming Crisis."
“It was boring! Boring, how could it be anything else? You can’t see out from the bottom of a canyon.” — Federal Bureau of Reclamation Floyd Dominy recounting his raft trip down the Colorado with Sierra Club president David Brower, “Floyd Dominy, the colossus of dams, dies at 100,” High Country News, April 23, 2010
It is simply a matter of time before Lake Powell becomes the world’s largest mud catchment, rendering the 710-foot-tall dam useless. — “Colorado River water policy faces an age of limits,” Salt Lake Tribune, April 20, 2010
Drought, in other words, takes on something of the character of the society it keeps. If that society lives on the edge, then drought shows up …
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