The week that was, 5/16-22/2010
On May 18, 2010, Judge Oliver Wanger of the Easter District Court in Fresno, CA, intimated that water reserved under the Endangered Species Act in the San Fancisco Bay Delta system to aid fish migrating through its tributaries may be diverted to Central Valley farms and Southern California cities because of the impact of fish protections on water users. A subsequent ruling is expected this week.
It is in the public interest that relief be granted to Plaintiffs, who represent a substantial population of water users in California, to enhance the water supply to reduce the adverse harms of destruction of permanent crops; fallowed lands; increased groundwater consumption; land subsidence; reduction of air quality; destruction of family and entity farming business; and social disruption and dislocation, such as increased property crimes and intra-family crimes of violence; adverse effects on schools and increased unemployment leading to hunger and homelessness. This must …
“Waterblogged”
The People issue of LA Weekly, online tonight, on stands tomorrow, includes Chance of Rain’s Emily Green, photo left. The surrounding garden, including the photo detail with native sages and a Mediterranean olive, are part of an 8,700 square foot lot with a small house in central Los Angeles where water consumption has been reduced largely through landscape changes from 150 gallons per day to 50. Lushness is achieved through use of mediterranean climate plants and aggressive rainwater harvesting. All but the vegetable garden and fruit trees will go dormant — and unwatered — in the summer. Emily Green’s column on water conservation in the landscape, The Dry Garden, appears every Friday online in the Los Angeles Times.…
The week that was, 5/9-15/2010
Image source: NASA. Click on the Maryland blue crab for an Earth Observatory article about habitat loss, water quality problems and the state of the fisheries of the Chesapeake Bay. Or click on the President's executive order, or hyper link to the plan summary (right), to read about last week's unveiling of a 15-year-long restoration program for America's largest estuary
“The Chesapeake Bay is a national treasure.” — Barack Obama, Chesapeake Bay Protection and Restoration, Executive Order, May 12, 2010
The plan is both ambitious and vague … –– “Obama administration announces Chesapeake Bay strategy,” Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, May 13, 2010
This time … the EPA is legally obligated to achieve the goals established in the settlement. —“Chesapeake Bay settlement has EPA agreeing to enforce pollution reduction goals,” Washington Post, May 12, 2010
…The week that was, 5/2-8/2010
Click on the image for NOAA updates and links to the British Petroleum / Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
Due to heightened interest in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, media aircraft have been conducting low flights and landings on Breton National Wildlife Refuge’s Chandeleur Islands. These flights and landings threaten the very birds that the media are covering and that the public is concerned about. — Deepwater Horizon Response on Facebook, May 8, 2010
“It’s the ocean, baby.” — Jim O’Brien, Florida State University oceanographer and meteorologist, “Grand Ole Opry flood and other crazy weather: El Niño’s fault?” Christian Science Monitor, May 4, 2010
Why do people wait and watch the water rise? Why do they keep their luggage in the boat and themselves in water the color of milky coffee that is no doubt full of snakes? — “Our deluge, drop by drop,” an op-ed …
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 …
« go back — keep looking »North American Native Plant Societies
After the lawn
Garden blogs
