Odds and Ends: the bureaucratic maze & the salmon, Utah rancher on Las Vegas’s pumping plan, bring back the waterwheel, a booklet on water management from the Dutch, and make your own ethanol at home!
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on May 10, 2008 at 7:37 amInternet problems finally solved! How nice it was to get up this morning and actually have Internet, after two days without… you don’t know how much you’ll miss it until it is actually gone. Moving along, here are some interesting tidbits for this week:
City on a Hill Press covers the salmon collapse: An extensive article on the collapse of the salmon, the management of which is complicated by a patchwork of bureaucratic agencies: “The Pacific Fisheries Management Council manages the ocean fisheries, the state manages the river fisheries, and the water is managed by someone else,” Thomson said. “It is very fragmented. The salmon have this large and extensive habitat under a lot of different jurisdictions, so it is very difficult to manage them.” Farr has authored the “first major revision of ocean policy in 40 years,” according to Tom Mentzer, Farr’s press secretary. Ocean’s-21 passed the House Committee on Natural Resources on April 23. This bill will connect the disjunctions of management and rely on local expertise to create ecosystem-based management of the ocean. No longer will bureaucratic lines in the sand separate the salmon’s habitat. “If our oceans were a checking account, they’d be severely overdrawn,” stated Sam Farr in an e-mail correspondence from Washington, D.C. “We have to bring a sense of balance back to our decision-making, and we need to do that at the federal level. Low salmon levels are just the latest in a series of warning signs, and if we fail to take action we’ll all be complicit in the damage.” Read more from the City on a Hill Press by clicking here.
Utah rancher Cecil Garland from Snake Valley gives his side of the Southern Nevada Water Authority’s pipeline plan in the Canyon Country Zephyr blog: “Recently, the Southern Nevada Water Authority, SNWA, came to Baker, Nevada, in the south end of Snake Valley. They came to inform the residents of Snake Valley that they planned to take the water that we waste, the surplus water, and water resources we don’t even know we have. They want to claim water lost to evapotransporation and vast reserves of water resources known as the deep carbonate aquifer. Just how we are wasteful of our water is never fully explained.” Mr. Garland also says that the water table has already fallen 4 to 5 feet because ranchers are overdrafting the aquifer themselves for irrigating crops to feed their animals: “Without any help from anyone, we are, coupled with the drought, withdrawing water from the underground faster than it is being recharged. SNWA would have us believe that they can pump more water from the underground altogether than is presently being pumped by all the users here in Snake Valley put together with no effect upon the quality of life here.” Read the full text of Mr. Garland’s story by clicking here.
Bring back the waterwheel? New company aims to do just that: “Revitalization of the old waterwheel industry, an instrumental player in powering the American Industrial Revolution, will usher in a new era of these water and wind driven energy conversion machines. Utilization of the world’s most advanced designs, integration of new technology and advanced materials, and new innovative use of operating environments will propel this industry into a revolutionary new era.” Check out Marine Power and Water’s website by clicking here.
“While God created the Earth, the Dutch created the Netherlands” and in doing so, the Dutch have become a leader in water management practices and innovative flood protection. The Royal Netherlands Embassy has produced a booklet, “Pioneering Water”, which highlights the achievements & challenges facing both the Netherlands and California, New Orleans, and Florida: “With this booklet, we hope to stimulate the reader to imagine how the Netherlands and the U.S. - two of the world’s oldest friends, key allies and important trading partners - can further deepen their relationship and jointly solve key engineering, scientific and public policy questions.” You can download a copy of the booklet by clicking here.
Do it Yourself Ethanol? California company unveils it’s new portable home ethanol maker, which looks like a miniature gas pump: “You just open it like a washing machine and dump in your sugar, close the door and push one button,” company founder Tom Quinn told us. “A few days later, you’ve got ethanol.” Read more about it from Wired News by clicking here.
Non-water related quote for today: “It is wise to remember that we were created with two ears and only one mouth, so we should listen twice as much as we speak.” - Yakov Smirnoff
Enjoy your weekend!
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