Now in its fourth year, this water-focused edition of the Southern Sierran launches the rollout of our most ambitious prolect to date: our scorecard for water conservation measures throughout Los Angeles and Orange counties. Two years in the making, our scorecard ranks cities based on their mandatory or voluntary Water conservation measures To learn about the water where you live and work. see How Green is Your Water of this issue.
As water reaources become increasingly scarce in California, attention has turned to ways to make the best use of the water that we have. One such method of stretching our water supply is direct potabte reuse. Direct potable reuse as the introduction of highly treated recycled water either directly into the potable water distribution downstream of a water treatment plant (i.e., pipe-to-pipe), or into a raw water supply immediately upstream of a water treatment plant.
Most Californians. know of our state's budget deficit but did you. know that we have been running a 'water deficit' in the Delta?
Right now, the amount of water exported to Southern California from the San'Francisco Bay Delta Estuary is unsustainabe. With the health of this rich estuary in danger of collapsing, California has been trying to address the problem through a habitat conservation planning process called the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP).
The ocean is our friend. It supplies us with food and recreation, helps regulate our climate and is the livelihood for millions of people. But our seas are not the infinite bounty they appear to be. For many years worldwide fishing practices have been damaging the oceans by depleting fish populations, destroying habitats and polluting the water. According to Marine Conservation Biologist Callum Roberts, the author of 'The Unnatural History of the Sea', intensive fishing since medieval times has caused a gradual decline over the centuries, so that a fish-deprived sea now seems normal to us.
One of my reasons for joining the Angeles Chapters Water Committee has to do with a strong interest in water Since Southern California is at best a semi-arid region, I hold water conservation to be highly important. I have lived my life only in the South Bay, Santa Barbara and Las Vegas. Therefore, all I know is a near (or outright) desert environment, and places that have a habit of importing and wasting water. In the Water Committee, the lesson preached is conservation is the best way to go, since our imported water is not guaranteed. An.
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| A Sierra Club volunteer trail crew places rocks at a Gabrielino Trail crossing of the West Fork near Red Box. It was amoung the trail sections reopened on May 16. photo by Sharon Moore |
What made 292 members of the House of Representatives pass the infamous bill HR872?
Let's see. The bill, or rather this legislative outrage, would keep the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from adopting guidelines to keep pesticide discharges out of our waterways. And to make matters worse, they called it 'The Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act'.
A massive three-year cleanout of sediment in Pasadana's Hahamongna Watershed Park that had been planned to get underway this summer and fall has been put off for at least a year. In the meantime, a short-term project by LA. County Public Works will remove a comparatively small amouut of sediment close to the face of Devil's Gate Dam at the south end of the park near the 210 Freeway to keep the dam's openings from being blocked by debris during storms over the next winter or two while the bigger cleanout takes shape.
My husband and I decreased our water consumption by digging out the grass, and any other plants that need irrigatIon. There are a million beautiful native and Mediterranean things that will grow here in our climate with litt1e water. Low-water yards can be a lot more imaginative that a few cactuses and a decorative cow skull and just as pretty as the east coast yards that use water-gulping vareties of flowers.
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