Just when you thought the clown car that is California water politics was empty, out pops a San Francisco ballot initiative to drain Hetch Hetchy: The measure, which would be submitted to the San Francisco city attorney next week, would require the city to embark on a process to put itself “on a path toward …
Continue reading ‘“our San Franciscan water the cleanest water in the whole world!”’ »
The Arizona Republic had a very smart editorial today about the Colorado River. The premise: what happens in California matters a great deal to Arizona. The back story is a struggle in California about how to meet the terms of a deal in the early ’00s to cut back to its 4.4 million acre foot …
In his richly detailed The Fall and Rise of the Wetlands of California’s Great Central Valley, Philip Garone explains a bit about the origin of wildlife refuges that I never knew: During the early decades of the twentieth century, much of the Sacramento Valley was converted to profitable rice production. However, because the valley’s natural …
Continue reading ‘The economic origins of wildlife refuges’ »
Just when you think the great comedy act that is California water politics has exhausted itself, another white-faced, red-bulb-nosed, big footed character climbs out of the Golden State’s Great Clown Car. Comes now the Honorable Devin Nunes, he of the muscular, fiercely independent southern San Joaquin Valley, suggesting that the Department of Interior up the …
Continue reading ‘The rent on Hetch Hetchy is not high enough’ »
This blog post has two introductions: 1) When I grew up in the far suburbs of Los Angeles, I was surrounded by aerospace culture. It drove our economy and employed many of my friends’ parents. Or, 2) When I was searching for an “expert” to help me in my epic 1980s journalistic debunking of Rose …