Increasingly scarce water is the new California gold
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 30, 2008 at 8:14 amFrom Redding’s Record Searchlight “Speak Your Piece”, this commentary:
The future of California depends on the utilization of water. Water is the new California gold. Without proper control, the state will slowly deteriorate.
Californians have taken water for granted for far too long. With the burgeoning population, that can no longer be the case. We have to balance it against our needs in the future. Where do we put our priorities? They are: first, in life-giving drinking water; second, in food and foliage production, and third, in sanitation.
With the amount of expenditures being evaluated by state and federal agencies, there have to be viable options. Wasting water for generations is no longer acceptable. Curbing inequitable proposed measures could support production of water storage, totally independent of existing waterways and spawning grounds. Water education, like power and fuel efficiency, should parallel all efforts.
Programs are being studied to store fresh water. Catch basins/dams and replenishing aquifers are considered. Current clean hydroelectric reservoirs should be retained. We need more off-line storage when wet years provide a surplus of water.
One near-term effort needs to be to educate the population. Wasting of this precious resource should be curtailed. Water is the life blood of all California and bleeding it dry should be stopped, even to the extent of fines for flagrant waste.
Without adequate water, the agricultural economy of the state is in trouble. The world needs the food California produces, as much as California needs the product income. It has been said the desert would bloom if it had water, and lots of arid parts of California have been converted. This has increased the need for water as well as the agricultural productivity.
Read more from the Record-Searchlight by clicking here.
High court water law case misses its master
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 28, 2008 at 8:33 amFrom Law.com:
In December 1985, Kansas filed a complaint against Colorado before the Supreme Court over what it viewed as unfair diversion of water from the Arkansas River. Colorado denied the charges and made some allegations of its own against Kansas, continuing a feud between the two states over the river that dates back to 1902.
Today — 23 years after the latest case was filed — the attorneys general of both states will argue before the Supreme Court in what is likely the final chapter of the dispute. It is the first time in recent memory that two state attorneys general will argue against each other before the Supreme Court.
But missing in the courtroom will be Arthur Littleworth, who has been the Court’s special master in the case since 1987. A leading water law expert in the California firm Best Best & Krieger Littleworth had a stroke earlier this year and can’t attend. “My recovery is slow but steady,” the 85-year-old Littleworth tells Legal Times in an e-mail.
“We’ll miss him,” says John Draper of Montgomery & Andrews in Santa Fe, N.M., who has represented Kansas in the litigation. “Even when we didn’t agree with his results, all the parties have been very impressed with him.”
Read more from Law.com by clicking here.
Association of California Water Agencies adopts principles on sustainability
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 27, 2008 at 7:50 amFrom ACWA, this press release:
The Association of California Water Agencies(ACWA) has formally adopted policy principles embracing environmental and economic sustainability as co-equal priorities for water management in California.
The principles, adopted last week by ACWA’s Board of Directors, express strong support for policies that promote significant improvements in both water supply reliability and ecosystem health. The principles are intended to expand on ACWA’s 2005 water policy document, “No Time to Waste: A Blueprint for California Water,” and guide the association as California grapples with numerous water supply challenges and the decline of aquatic species and habitats.
“California is on an unsustainable path today,” ACWA Executive Director Timothy Quinn said. “The state of the aquatic environment is degrading,while water supply reliability and water quality are both in serious decline. It is imperative that we change course for both the environment and the economy of California.”
The principles note that sustainability can be achieved only through comprehensive solutions that include conveyance improvements in the Delta and elsewhere, additional surface and groundwater storage, substantial investments in water use efficiency and local resources, and investments inhabitat and actions that address all significant environmental stressors.
In other action, the Board agreed to move ahead with development ofcohesive policies on water use efficiency to guide the water community as well as a water conservation roadmap for achieving a 20% reduction in per capita water use by 2020. The road map effort will be a key focus for the association in 2009.
“ACWA supports the statewide goal of reducing per capita water use, but wecan’t impose a one-size-fits-all approach,” Quinn said. “Local water agencies needmanagement flexibility to adapt to widely varying local conditions. ACWA’sapproach is to allow for that flexibility, while accomplishing the statewide goal set out by Governor Schwarzenegger.”
ACWA is a statewide association of public agencies whose 450 members are responsible for about 90% of the water delivered in California. For moreinformation, visit www.acwa.com.
You can read the ACWA’s environmental & economic sustainability principles by clicking here.
Rains bring mudslide fears to California burn areas
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 26, 2008 at 8:11 amFrom the Associated Press:
Rains swept across Southern California on Wednesday, bringing flash flood warnings to areas already burned by wildfire and worries from thousands of residents whose homes were spared by flames that they could now face destructive mudslides instead.
A torrent of early morning showers spurred an evacuation order in Orange County, where at least 1,500 people in Yorba Linda were told to leave their homes. “Nothing has gone down yet, but the rain met the threshold where we needed to get people out,” Orange County Fire Captain Greg McKeown said. Voluntary evacuations had already been called for in the city of 65,000 southeast of Los Angeles, which was torched by a huge fire earlier this month.
In another wildfire-ravaged area in Santa Barbara County, an evacuation order affecting up to 2,200 homes remained in effect Wednesday morning after light rain had fallen in the area for several hours. Many had to evacuate for the second time in a month. “The fire wiped out all vegetation and the soil is very unstable,” said county spokesman William Boyer. “We’re talking about some very steep slopes up there.”
Read more from the Associated Press by clicking here.
Barry Nelson commentary: A new vision for the Bureau of Reclamation
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 26, 2008 at 5:51 amFrom Barry Nelson, director of the NRDC’s Western Water Project:
The Bureau of Reclamation was conceived at the start of the 20th century (originally as the Reclamation Service) to meet the needs of a world that no longer exists. Now, at the start of the 21st Century, the Bureau needs a new mission to help the West meet its needs in the future. The Green Group recommendations for the Bureau represent just such a new vision.
The West the Bureau served in 1902 looked vastly different from the world we face today. In 1902, most western states saw agriculture as the dominant force in their economies. Most of these states were seeking policies designed to increase their populations as rapidly as possible. The dramatic rise of public concern regarding the health of the environment was decades in the future. And the Bureau had relatively few tools at its disposal to help meet water needs. In 1902, even effective groundwater pumps wouldn’t be developed for decades. It’s not a surprise that, for the next century, the Bureau focused primarily on building dams and canals to serve agriculture – becoming a world leader through the construction of Hoover Dam and dozens of other projects.
Today, however, the Bureau faces dramatically different challenges. New industries have emerged, driving the economies of most western states. Burgeoning cities are concerned about the adequacy and reliability of their water supplies. Salmon runs and aquatic resources are declining across the West — leading to a public outcry for a more balanced approach. And finally, climate change presents a clear case for a new direction. Three examples of these new challenges suggest that a new direction is needed and possible.
Read the full text of Barry Nelson’s article by clicking here.
California attorney chosen to lead international water panel
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 24, 2008 at 6:23 am
Thank you to Jennifer for sending this press release along to me:
RIVERSIDE, Calif. _ Attorney Eric Garner, who co-wrote the definitive book on California water, was elected as chair of the International Bar Association committee that examines the pressing issues of the Earth’s declining freshwater supply. Garner, 46, will become the first American and the youngest to chair the association’s water law committee when he begins his two-year term on Jan. 1.
His tenure comes at a time when population growth, climate change and other factors are stressing water supplies globally, and as California faces the possibility of another dry year and rationing in the face of plummeting reservoir levels. “The long-term trends are going to dictate some changes in California that will force us to use water more efficiently,” Garner said.
More cities, he said, will likely follow the lead of Long Beach, Los Angeles and San Diego, which have banned wasteful water practices such as the hosing down of sidewalks and over-watering of yards.
Garner, managing partner of Best Best & Krieger, was nominated and confirmed as the next chair of the 250-member committee during the association’s annual conference, held Oct. 12-17 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.“Eric is one of the leading water lawyers in the U.S. and brings his knowledge of the intricacies of dealing with the complex local, regional and international water issues to the service of the IBA water committee,” said John D. Crothers, a Paris-based attorney and the committee’s current chair.
Under Garner’s direction, the committee will work on solutions to water woes in the United States and around the globe as the world grapples with the growing scarcity of freshwater supplies. The panel will discuss suggestions to update the principles that guide the use of international rivers, 263 in all, as climate change alters the amount of snowmelt that swells them with drinkable water. The committee will also help create the legal structure necessary to increase the private sector’s role in bringing much-needed water to homes and businesses in developing countries where water rights are not well-defined.
Garner, who already has helped craft water laws in South Africa, Trinidad and Pakistan, said his experience on the international panel will give him more opportunities to learn unique ways of understanding water problems in California. “We don’t need to always re-invent the wheel,” Garner said. “Other countries are struggling with some of the same issues that we are and sometimes they have come up with solutions that we haven’t thought of.”
For instance, Garner said, issues in the Baltic Sea are similar to those in California’s largest water source, the Sacramento Bay-San Joaquin Delta. Both are ecologically vulnerable bodies that are plagued by invasive species, aging infrastructure and water quality issues.
Garner and Arthur Littleworth, the senior partner at Best Best and Krieger, are the authors of California Water II, published in 2007. It is a comprehensive guide to the state’s complex water law and policy.
Glacier research on a budget: Climate-change scientists track flow of water with low-tech tools: rubber duckies
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 24, 2008 at 6:06 amFrom the Louisville, Kentucky Courier-Journal:
Worried about climate change, many researchers are eager to learn how rising temperatures may be undermining Greenland’s ice cap, where, according to recent satellite measurements, glaciers are melting much faster than expected. Should Greenland’s 2.17 million square miles of ice ever melt completely, the water could raise sea level worldwide by 24 feet, swamping coastal cities that are home to millions of people.
As Behar, of California’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, soon discovered, though, there isn’t much money for global warming experiments in Greenland.
Unfazed, he thought of one device that might survive such extremes at a cost his field expedition could afford — a $2 rubber duck.
Consequently, in August Behar and colleagues at the University of Colorado released 90 yellow rubber ducks into the melt water flowing down a chasm in the largest of Greenland’s 200 glaciers — the Jakobshavn Isbrae — which has been thinning rapidly since 1997. Each duck was imprinted with an e-mail address and, in three languages, the offer of a reward. If all goes well, Behar hopes that one day they will emerge 30 miles or so away at the glacier’s edge in the open water of Disko Bay near Ilulissat, bobbing brightly amid the icebergs north of the Arctic Circle, each one a significant clue to just how warming temperatures may speed the glacier’s slide to the sea.
In an era of billion-dollar telescopes and city-size particle accelerators, some scientists have to make do with tub toys. From Greenland’s glaciers to the Pacific main, researchers are tracking thousands of rubber ducks, beer bottles and wooden tops set adrift around the world to solve critical questions of oceanography, glaciology and global warming.
Read more on this story from the Louisville Courier-Journal by clicking here.
Dry hydrants doomed up to 5 Yorba Linda homes, officials say
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 22, 2008 at 5:45 amFrom the Los Angeles Times:
As many as five homes were lost to wildfire in an upscale Yorba Linda neighborhood last weekend because firefighters had no water, leaving them no choice but to let the homes burn, fire officials said Friday.
Firefighters were forced to abandon the upper portion of Hidden Hills Estates because when they hooked their hoses to hydrants, no water came out, said Orange County Fire Authority Battalion Chief Kris Concepcion.
Officials of the Yorba Linda Water District, which maintains the water system for the area, acknowledged this week that the area of upper Hidden Hills Estates had suffered weak water pressure for at least several months before the fire, but insisted that the problems Nov. 15 were due to the overwhelming water demands of the blaze.
More than 180 homes were destroyed or damaged when fire tore through Yorba Linda that day, 19 of them in the Hidden Hills neighborhood where firefighters encountered the dry hydrants. The ridge-top homes are adjacent to Chino Hills State Park, a 14,100-acre expanse of oaks and dry grasslands.
“They decided to fight the fire where they had water,” Concepcion said, explaining why strike teams headed for lower ground. Although crews were able to use water tenders to shuttle some water up the hill, Concepcion blamed the loss of three to five homes on the lack of water from hydrants.
Read more from the Los Angeles Times by clicking here.
Ode to the commode: On World Toilet Day, we should all be plumb grateful to be bestowed with a loo — many in the world aren’t as lucky
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 19, 2008 at 3:40 pmFrom the Los Angeles Times:
Today is World Toilet Day. You might chuckle or blush, but it’s worth taking a moment to acknowledge what the humble loo has done for us.
Though the word “toilet” is often considered declasse and even rude to utter aloud, much of modern life would not be possible without the commode. Ask yourself this: If you had to live without toilets or electricity, which would you choose?
If you opted for electricity, you might consider the plight of Londoners during the summer of 1858, when the city experienced what historians know as the Big Stink.
As a thriving metropolis at the peak of an empire, London teemed with vitality. But all those productive citizens had to poop, and all that excrement had to go somewhere.
Where it went, generally, was into chamber pots and thence into the streets or one of the city’s 200,000 backyard cesspits, which overflowed into basements, neighbors’ yards and nearby streets. Most of it ended up in the River Thames as undiluted, putrid muck. The problem was perennial, but the summer of 1858 was unusually hot, causing bacteria in the pits and river to multiply. The stench was so appalling the House of Commons was overpowered. Parliamentarians soaked the curtains in chloride of lime to combat the smell and considered moving their business upriver to Hampton Court. Anyone who could leave town did.
The experience galvanized the Metropolitan Board of Works, which set about reforming the city’s sanitation infrastructure. The next year, the major elements of the London sewerage system were under construction, which in turn necessitated the evolution of the flush toilet. Though the first modern toilet is said to have been built for Elizabeth I, true flushable loos are an invention of the late 19th century.
Read the rest of this article from the Los Angeles Times by clicking here.
Prospect of sewers strikes horror in rustic Malibu
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 19, 2008 at 3:23 pmFrom the Associated Press:
“Sewer” has always been a dirty word in this celebrity-studded coastal community, which grew up believing that building an underground maze of plumbing would invite the sprawl that covers much of the rest of Southern California. But the city, which has long relied on septic tanks over sewer pipes, may soon be forced to acquiesce. After a prolonged battle over bacterial pollution in nearby waters, the Regional Water Quality Control Board plans to vote Thursday on a proposed ban on septic tanks in the heart of Malibu — a move some fear could forever alter the rustic character by encouraging rampant development.
“If you come to Malibu you can look up and see the hills still, unlike cities where it’s covered in development,” Mayor Pamela Conley Ulich said. “For people who live here and visit, it’s a sanctuary. We’re famous for our beautiful beaches.”
But those beaches can harbor unhealthy bacteria as human waste leaks from septic leach fields into groundwater, then trickles into creeks and makes its way to the sea. Even visiting surfers in Malibu know to keep their mouths closed when riding the breaks at famous Surfrider Beach — one of the state’s most popular, scenic and polluted stretches of coast.
“People are always getting sick — sinus infections, stomach, gastrointestinal viruses, and you just chalk it up to this is where I surf,” said Joe Melchione of the Malibu Surfing Association.
Read more from the Associated Press by clicking here.
Southern California wildfires: Did low water pressure hinder the fight?
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 19, 2008 at 6:26 amFrom the Los Angeles Times:
Residents of Yorba Linda, where fire destroyed 118 homes, had complained for years of poor water pressure, a problem that may have made it more difficult for firefighters to beat back the weekend blaze that tore through the upscale community.
In Sylmar, where about 500 mobile homes burned to the ground, fire officials said they were investigating reports of lack of water pressure there. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power supplies water to the Oakridge Mobile Home Park property line, but inside, the water system belongs to the park.
In both areas, residents and some officials were openly discussing whether the lack of water pressure complicated the already monumental task that firefighters faced.
Fire officials in Sylmar are checking to see if their department had inspected the mobile home park hydrants as required in the last year, said Craig Fry, assistant fire marshal for the Los Angeles Fire Department.
County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said he was at the mobile home park after the fire burned through on Saturday, and firefighters told him that hydrants had stopped working and they were forced to use their water tenders instead. “We would have had a fair shot if the pressure hadn’t gone down,” said Battalion Chief Fred Mathis, as he sat in his firetruck in the mobile home park Saturday.
Read more from the Los Angeles Times by clicking here.
Many say no thanks to no-flush urinals
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 19, 2008 at 5:55 amFrom the Seattle Times:
Men since Adam have survived without urinals that flush. By the early 1990s, concerns over water shortages and environmental impact spawned a garage industry for urinals that don’t use water. Since then, the devices, which rely on special oil-filled drain traps, have become the rage in eco-conscious communities nationwide, especially in water-worried California and the arid Southwest. They’re now the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. urinal market, accounting for 250,000 of its 12 million units, thanks largely to powerful advocates.
The influential U.S. Green Building Council promotes no-flush urinals as a way to win its prized Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design endorsements. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers specifies them for the service’s future construction. Nobel laureate and former Vice President Al Gore is a board member of Falcon Waterfree Technologies of Grand Rapids, Mich., the leading no-flush urinal maker.
Still, an inconvenient truth hovers over the no-flush urinal industry: Many one-time fans say that the urinals are icky, tricky and costly to maintain. Among those worried about their performance is Mary Ann Dickinson, executive director of the Chicago-based Alliance for Water Efficiency, a nonprofit that promotes water conservation. She fears no-flush urinals will fizzle and deter other water-saving innovations just as underperforming low-flow toilets did in the early 1990s. “We need to make sure no-flush urinals deliver effective savings before we incentivize their placement,” she cautioned.
Read more from the Seattle Times by clicking here.
Is climate change to blame for string of Southland fires?
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 18, 2008 at 7:30 am
From the Los Angeles Times:
Is climate change to blame for the string of destructive fires that have hit Southern California in recent years? Research has shown an increase in large wildfires in some western forest regions in recent decades, particularly in the northern Rocky Mountains and, to some extent, California’s Sierra Nevada.
Warming is reducing the snowpack there and causing it to melt earlier, resulting in a longer, drier fire season. But scientists say no definitive link has been demonstrated between rising temperatures and wildfires in Southern California’s chaparral country.
Read more from the Los Angeles Times by clicking here.
OK, rule out climate change. So we’re back to groundwater abuse, curses from God, Al-Queda, or the vast government weather tampering conspiracy …..
Picture is the Sayre fire as viewed from the blessedly upwind location of Aquafornia’s home base Santa Clarita.
Pat Mulroy for U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 18, 2008 at 6:12 amFrom Michael Campana and the AWRA Blog:
Now that I have gotten Peter Gleick on the radar screen for White House Water Advisor, it’s time to move on to something or someone else. The big question: Could I top that suggestion?
How about Pat Mulroy for Commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation? You mean the putative “800-pound gorilla of Western water?” Yes, that’s the one.
You’re no doubt thinking that I have taken leave of my senses, but I have not. I can’t even claim it’s my idea. I am at the excellent AWRA meeting in New Orleans, and her name came up in a discussion with colleagues. We were actually talking about Gleick as water advisor when someone mentioned that Mulroy, who heads the Southern Nevada Water Authority, was being mentioned as a candidate for the Commissioner of Reclamation.
That ought to make the rest of the country (like these people) real comfortable! Read more from the AWRA blog by clicking here.
Brian Bowcock: Thinking outside the box to make water available to everyone
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 16, 2008 at 5:53 amFrom the Claremont Courier Online:
Brian Bowcock says he’s at his best bringing people together to find common ground. That’s how he describes his work representing Claremont and La Verne on the Board of Directors of Three Valleys Municipal Water District. “I can get things done faster, cheaper and more efficiently,” he said, quoting a plaque his employees gave him when he retired as Director of Public Works for the city of La Verne.
Mr. Bowcock’s chief concern is making water available for his constituents. This includes making water available for people in developing countries who may not have access to adequate water supplies. Towards this end, he has been involved in an organization called “Water for People,” a non-profit that partners with communities to promote and build “safe drinking water resources and improved sanitation facilities in developing countries,” according to the organization’s Annual Report.
This past June, Mr. Bowcock was awarded the Kenneth J. Miller Founders’ Award for his service to Water for People’s international humanitarian effort. Mr. Bowcock received the award for his work to “promote the cause of Water For People, educate others on its important work, and increase fundraising activities within the section.”
Read more from the Claremont Courier Online by clicking here.
A seafood snob ponders the future of fish (eating fish, that is ….)
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 16, 2008 at 5:50 amFrom the New York Times, this column on fish:
I suppose you might call me a wild-fish snob. I don’t want to go into a fish market on Cape Cod and find farm-raised salmon from Chile and mussels from Prince Edward Island instead of cod, monkfish or haddock. I don’t want to go to a restaurant in Miami and see farm-raised catfish from Vietnam on the menu but no grouper.
Those have been my recent experiences, and according to many scientists, it may be the way of the future: most of the fish we’ll be eating will be farmed, and by midcentury, it might be easier to catch our favorite wild fish ourselves rather than buy it in the market.
It’s all changed in just a few decades. I’m old enough to remember fishermen unloading boxes of flounder at the funky Fulton Fish Market in New York, charging wholesalers a nickel a pound. I remember when local mussels and oysters were practically free, when fresh tuna was an oxymoron, and when monkfish, squid and now-trendy skate were considered “trash.”
But we overfished these species to the point that it now takes more work, more energy, more equipment, more money to catch the same amount of fish — roughly 85 million tons a year, a yield that has remained mostly stagnant for the last decade after rapid growth and despite increasing demand.
Read more from the New York Times by clicking here.
In bad economy, boat owners abandon their vessels
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 16, 2008 at 5:43 am
From the Seattle P-I (hat-tip to the Trout Underground):
From Southern California to Maine, the foundering economy, high fuel prices and poor fishing have driven boat owners to abandon perhaps thousands of vessels on the waterfront, where they are beginning to break up and sink, leaking oil and other pollutants.
Boats have long been a barometer of consumer confidence, disposable income and the overall state of the economy. Now, marina and harbor officials are reporting a sudden increase in the past year in the number of deserted pleasure boats and working vessels.
In Antioch, a town about 45 miles east of San Francisco, harbormaster John Cruger-Hansen showed up at his marina one day last spring to find the horizon changed overnight. On the San Joaquin River, he saw an old crane, a rusted barge, a tugboat and an assortment of other junked boats, all of which had been hauled in and left illegally.
“Boating is a pure luxury and one of the first things to go when the economy turns south,” said Cruger-Hansen, who expects to see more abandoned boats by year’s end. “If it comes to the point of putting food on the table or paying the boat slip fee, it’s the boat that goes.”
Read more from the Seattle P-I by clicking here.
Bill Stall dies at 71; Pulitzer-Prize winning editorial writer for The Times
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 14, 2008 at 1:55 pmThank you to Mike Gardner for sending me this link along to me, referring to Bill as “a helluva reporter well-known among water buffalos and a great guy”. From the Los Angeles Times:
William R. Stall, a longtime staff member of the Los Angeles Times who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing in 2004, died Sunday at his home in Sacramento. He was 71.
Stall had been in failing health much of the year and died of complications from pulmonary disease, according to Times columnist George Skelton, a friend and colleague.
In his nearly 50-year journalism career, Stall focused on reporting government and politics, natural resources and the environment. He followed nearly every California governor since Ronald Reagan was sent to Sacramento in 1967 through the recall of Gray Davis and the election of Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Pulitzer board said that his editorials on California’s troubled state government “prescribed remedies and served as a model for addressing complex state issues.” The editorials, written in October, November and December 2003, may be found on The Times’ website at latimes.com/billstall.
“Bill’s legacy is his work,” Jim Newton, the editorial page editor of The Times, said Sunday. “He was an incisive analyst of California government and politics whose writing on those subjects is as current today as it was when he wrote it — testament to his prescience as well as to the enormity of the subjects he tackled. We’d be a better state if more people had listened to him at the time.”
Rest in peace, Bill. More from the Los Angeles Times by clicking here.
Aquarium of the Pacific unveils new watershed exhibit in certified green-design building
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 14, 2008 at 6:03 amFrom the Long Beach Press Telegram:
Officials from the Aquarium of the Pacific unveiled a new facility Wednesday that has been certified with the highest possible rating for a green-design building and a new display that advocates water conservation. The 1,246-square-foot classroom, which is part of the Aquarium’s new permanent display “Our Watersheds: Pathway to the Pacific,” received a platinum rating from the U.S. Green Building Council, a leading authority on sustainable building practices.
The new green classroom is the largest expansion to the Aquarium since the shark exhibit in 2002, and houses the new watershed exhibit:
A watershed is an area of land where all the surface water drains to the same lower destination. This water can come from high in the mountains or from rain that falls on the streets. The 7,180-square-foot “Our Watersheds” display is nestled behind the Shark Lagoon and Lorikeet Forest and also features an outdoor, interactive environmental exhibition targeted for kids.
This three-dimensional model shows children how rain flows from the surrounding mountains and streets before it empties into Long Beach.
The water-flow exhibit and eco-classroom are surrounded by native landscaping found throughout the Los Angeles and San Gabriel watersheds. These 30 plants, which consist of scrubs, ground covers, grasses and perennials, are adapted to the region’s climate and do not require much irrigation. They also provide abundant food for birds, bees, butterflies and beneficial insects.
Read more from the Long Beach Telegram by clicking here.
Mokelumne partnerships flowing
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 12, 2008 at 5:41 amFrom the Amador Ledger:
The Mokelumne River is the main artery of the counties of Amador and Calaveras. Over centuries of known human habitation, it has been many things to many people.
The future of the Mokelumne River, its tributaries, its beneficiaries and all that comes along with its management and use, was the topic of a meeting last month night at the Amador County Supervisors chambers.
Hosting the meeting were Rob Alcott, of the Upper Mokelumne River Watershed Authority, along with Leslie Dumas of RMC Water and Environment and Karen Johnson of Water Resources Planning, consultants to the authority, and UMRWA members of the steering committee formed by the authority for the project. Committee members were Amador Water Agency General Manager Jim Abercrombie, AWA engineering and planning manager Gene Mancebo, along with Calaveras County Water District General Manager Dave Andres and water resources manager Ed Pattison. Also present was Tom Francis of East Bay Municipal Utilities District, the District’s UMRWA representative for this plan update.
“We want to be in position when grant dollars become available,” Alcott began. “The San Joaquin River Hydrologic Region allocation, out of the $1 billion total that will be available to implement Integrated Regional Water Management Plans, is $57 million.”
Alcott went on to explain that a regional water management group must be the lead agency. “Three entities are required,” he said, “and two must be water agencies.”
Read more from the Amador Ledger by clicking here.
Aquafornia's Information Desk
Aquafornia Photos on Flickr
Upcoming Events
Check out the upcoming events from the Water Education Foundation.
Recent Posts
- C-WIN, CSPA file suit to end wasteful Delta diversions, protect public trust resources
- Angelenos heed water warnings
- Indian tribes awaiting Klamath Dam removal
- Whitaker-Bermite facility: The perchlorate cleanup plan is a reality, says commentary
- Suppliers seek approval for the “Delta Habitat Conservation and Conveyance Program”
- Salmon-tracking network challenges conventional wisdom
- State panel floats ‘litter tax’ to curb debris along coast
- Delta smelt closer to extinction
- Water settlement knots finally untangling
- Normal rainfall predicted for north state this winter
- Should we recycle urine on Earth, too?
- Who will be Delta’s keeper?
- Increasingly scarce water is the new California gold
- Californians need to worry about food security, says commentary
- Court rejects POWER appeal of All-American Canal case
Aquafornia's Mission
Aquafornia's mission is to educate readers about the complex and often controversial issues surrounding water in California.
Aquafornia is affiliated with the Water Education Foundation, an impartial non-profit organization, whose mission is to create a better understanding of water issues and help resolve water resource problems through educational programs.
Find It
Save / E-mail / Share Aquafornia
E-mail Newsletter
To receive email announcements from the Water Education Foundation, sign up here.
News Article Archives
- Agriculture
- Aquafornia Exclusives
- Biofuels
- Bottled water
- Climate change & water supply
- Commentary
- Conservation
- Delta Issues
- Desalination
- Development & Water
- Drinking Water
- Drought Tolerant Landscaping
- Drought, Weather & Snowpack
- Endangered Species & Wildlife
- Environment & Water
- Events
- General Water Issues
- Grandiose water plans
- Great Green Ideas
- Groundwater
- Indian Water Rights
- Infrastructure
- International Water Issues
- Invasive Species
- Levees
- Monterey Agreements
- National water news
- Oceans and Beaches (all)
- Odds and Ends
- Recycled Water
- Regional Water Issues
- All-American Canal
- Antelope Valley
- Bakersfield
- Bay Area
- Coachella Valley
- Colorado River Basin
- Imperial Irrigation District & Imperial Valley
- Lake Tahoe & the Sierra's
- Las Vegas
- Los Angeles River
- Northern California
- Orange County
- Owens Valley & Mono Lake
- Riverside - San Bernardino
- Sacramento
- Salton Sea
- San Diego
- San Joaquin Valley
- Southern California
- Southwest Water Issues
- Westlands Water District
- Stromwater & Urban Runoff
- Uncategorized
- Water & Energy
- Water & Investing
- Water Agency News (all)
- Water Banking
- Water History
- Water Legislation
- Water Quality
- Water Rights
- Water Storage
- Water Supply
- Water Technologies
- Water Transfers
- Weird & Wacky Water News
