About

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on April 18, 2007 at 11:02 pm

Hi and welcome!

Aquafornia is affiliated with the Water Education Foundation. Aquafornia covers California water news from both traditional and non-traditional news sources, presenting all sides and views of the issues, with the goal of fostering understanding of various positions and discussion towards resolution of these often controversial issues. The views expressed in these various sources represent those of the writer or source, and not necessarily the views of the Water Education Foundation and Aquafornia. Your comments, questions and suggestions are always welcome.

What we cover:
All water news pertaining to California, including climate change, Colorado River basin issues, some Nevada water news, desalination, stormwater issues, press releases, commentaries, information from elected officials and some publicity on events.

What we don’t post:
Information about local water board candidate races, calls to action (i.e., protest announcements), posts or commentaries that we deem are disrespectful, and product endorsements.

The order we post articles:
We use our journalistic skill to decide the order of stories. Posts are generally completed by 8 a.m. Breaking news is posted ASAP.

Why we post blogs and commentaries:
Perhaps a few years ago, one could have rejected blogs out of hand as irrelevant, but no longer. Now so many have blogs: environmental organizations, legislators, journalists, farmers, lawyers, etc.

A particular blog post is chosen for inclusion if it is within our general guidelines and contains informational content, analysis or points of view not published in the mainstream press. We use our judgment in selecting which blogs and commentaries to post, and we take into consideration our audience’s interests and requests we have received.

Guest commentaries:
We welcome them!

RSS Feeds:
To easier track the articles posted on Aquafornia, use of an RSS Reader is recommended. Google Reader provides a free and easy to use RSS reader (click here for a demo) but is by no means the only one available. To set up an RSS feed using Google Reader, click here.

Twitter: You can get daily news updates & breaking news alerts by following the Aquafornia twitter.

Citing this website:

All articles on the Information Desk are authored by Chris Austin, with the notable exception of the Central Valley salinity article, which is authored by the Water Education Foundation’s Gary Pitzer.

Who I am and am not:

This blog is put together daily by myself, Chris Austin. Because I am an obsessive mildly attention-deficit insomniac, this blog runs seven days a week, just about every day of the year. I rarely miss a day because then I’d just have more to post the next.

I love following a good story, and there certainly are plenty of those in the world of California water. I honestly don’t have a vested interest in any particular side. To me, it is like watching a really good sports game: I don’t care much who wins the game just as long as the action is good.

I started this blog in April of 2007, and in November of 2008, I was lucky enough to become affiliated with the Water Education Foundation. They, like me, aren’t trying to push any one side and they are a great source of unbiased information on California water. Plus they’re a really nice group of people. You can check out all the Foundation does by clicking here.

I hope you enjoy this blog. After all, a blogger blogs to be read, and it is your readership that makes all the effort worthwhile!

-Chris Austin
This is not me. This is not me either. And neither is this. Nor this. This isn’t me, either. No way, this is NOT me! This isn’t me, but wouldn’t it be cool. Uh uh, this isn’t me, either. Nor is this. I didn’t say any of these, and this isn’t me either (although the Aqua kids wish it were), but he sure sings a good song: