Multi-Species Act needed for Bay-Delta
SOMETIMES the comments to a posting are as important, if not more important, than the posting itself. When this happens, they need highlighting. This response to the May 21 news that protections for the green sturgeon may cause yet more pumping stoppages in the Bay-Delta falls in that class. It comes from Adan Ortega, Jr., a former vice president at the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and now a consultant on Western water for the Los Angeles firm Rose & Kindel:
The possibility that protections for green sturgeon will follow those for the Delta smelt points “to the precise reason why California needs a multi-species plan for the Delta,” writes Ortega. “The idea that the Bay-Delta can be restored to a natural state is over 100 years too late. A species by species approach only helps a special niche of lawyers and lobbyists who represent cities, farmers and environmentalists …
High Good, Low Bad: Lake Mead Elevations
Source: US Bureau of Reclamation
HOPEFULLY there is more water than silt in the main Colorado River reservoir holding water supplies for California, Arizona, Nevada and Mexico. The maximum elevation for Lake Mead is 1,229 feet. Below, gleaned from US Bureau of Reclamation records, is the first of what will be monthly elevation reports for Lake Mead on this blog, with year on year contrasts going back to 2004. Above, for those who prefer pictures to numbers, also borrowed from Reclamation, is a nifty graphic published on Friday, May 8, 2009 showing April and May 2009 elevations, including predictions (in yellow) throughout the month.
April 30, 2009 1,101.26 ft
April 30, 2008 1,110.61 ft
April 30, 2007 1,120.69 ft
April 30, 2006 1,135.94 ft
April 30, 2005 1,144.45 ft
April 30, 2004 1,134.98 ft
…
Why the West Hates Southern California
THE FIRST thing one learns when leaving Los Angeles and California to travel Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico, Nevada and Arizona is that the rest of the West hates Californians.
The reason can be summed up in one word: Water.
Legal division of Western water more or less started with the Gold Rush and the first come, first serve law pertaining to gold came to apply to water, no matter how crazy the allocations became as the West was settled.
California was greedy early and has proved positively Roman in its ability to build aqueducts and storage reservoirs. Well endowed with water, it has proved unsurpassed at wasting it, even as the rest of the West shriveled in drought, and even as in the past decade the crisis has reached all three of Southern California’s water sources in the Sacramento Delta, Owens Valley and the Colorado River.
To sum up
Cool, Dry April in West, NOAA reports
May 8, 2009, Asheville, NC — April 2009 rainfall and temperature statistics published by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.
Another Reporter Looks at the Bathtub Ring in Lake Mead
For those who think water comes from the faucet, a look, this time in a “Good” blog, at where it comes from before it reaches the spigot.…
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