Sentences I wish I’d written: creosote
If you have any doubt about it, know that the desert begins with the creosote. – Mary Austin, Land of Little Rain
Archive of posts filed under the California category.
Desert D’Or
Palm Springs really does have palms, and springs. Tucked in canyons on the east flank of Mt. San Jacinto, they’re lovely oases in the truest sense. Lissa and I sat for a while this afternoon next to a trickle of a stream, watching squads of western bluebirds work over the tiny dates hanging from the palms. …
Deserts
I’ve always been attracted to the desert’s relative simplicity.
Another Nunes hypothesis
As the scratching of heads continues (“What exactly is Devin Nunes up to really?“) we have this explanation of his motiviation, from Michael Cannon: To create discord and strain relations. He is safe in his district, so he can do what he wants. He wants to fracture relations
The Times’ 99-year Hetch Hetchy critique
I love the New York Times for many reasons. This line from their editorial about Hetch Hetchy, the Yosemite reservoir serving Sacramento, is one of them: Ninety-nine years ago, this newspaper argued against the construction of the dam. We lost, but the much bigger loss was nature’s. That’s owning your heritage.
What’s Devin Nunes up to?
There are three interlocking fundamental federal water policy/politics principles that are important to understanding current discussions over California congressman Devin Nunes’ legislation aimed at reshaping the distribution of water flowing through his state’s Central Valley. First, federal subsidy has long been necessary for the big water projects that make the West as we know it …
“our San Franciscan water the cleanest water in the whole world!”
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 …
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“focused, not fighting”
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 …
The economic origins of wildlife refuges
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 …
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The rent on Hetch Hetchy is not high enough
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 …
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