Here’s an entertaining video describing how bottled water is bad for the environment and promoting switching back to tap water. There’s an interesting comment on how our clean water infrastructure is under-funded as well:
Link to video
Annie Leonard used to spout jargon. She reveled in the sort of geek-speak that glazes your eyeballs.
Externalized costs, paradigm shifts, the precautionary principle, extended producer responsibility.
That was before she discovered cartoons.
Past President's Event - 2
The tranquil breezes of the Long Beach Marina welcomed LABS members and friends who gathered for the annual Past Presidents’ event on Saturday.
The historic sailing schooner the Dirigio II played host to LABS’ historic past-presidents and guests. Hosted by Patrick Griffith, LABS President in 2008, and with tremendous support from Frances and Bill Garrett, the evening was packed with twilight tours of the luminescent marina, wine tasting (results below!), music and a bountiful buffet dinner. The wine tasting was also a successful fundraising event supporting CWEA’s Kirk Brooks Scholarship fund.
In honor of those LABS Past Presidents in attendance, each had their own “unique” wine label placed on a randomly-selected bottle in the wine tasting. Be sure to leave a comment below in your favorite “brand” of Past-President label!
In today’s LA Times editorial the paper forcefully argues the LA River and its tributaries should remain protected under the Clean Water Act. The process by which the Army Corps of Engineers decides which part is protected and which part goes unprotected is “absurd”, “no way to manage”, “woefully inefficient” according to the Times.
Money quote:
All interested parties must collaborate to ensure that, as the corps promises, the restoration of the Los Angeles River will proceed and Western watersheds will remain healthy. Anything less, the Rapanos decision notwithstanding, would be a miscarriage of justice.
The Times offers a positive review of Anna Sklar’s new book “Brown Acres” about the history of the City’s collection system and treatment plants. The reviewer, local author Chris Daley, calls the book “timely” and “engaging.” Money quote:
As any engaging cultural history should, “Brown Acres” illuminates the city’s politics, landscape and ecology, especially through the labors of its municipal engineers.
Availble here from Angel City Press.
On March 12, 1928 close to midnight, residents in Santa Clarita and Santa Clara Valleys awoke to the rumbling of water and a horrible nightmare – the City of LA’s St. Francis dam had collapsed and 12-billion gallons of water were rushing to the sea. Nearly 600 people were killed, the City paid out $5.5-million in compensation ($65m in today’s dollars) and the tragedy stained the reputation of William Mulholland. “If there was an error of human judgment, I was that human,” he said.
The assessment of an LA grand jury:
Los Angeles had grown too big, too fast and, in its frenzy to supply both water and power for its burgeoning population, it had blundered.
WikiPedia entry. USC history article.
After the jump, view a video about the disaster from the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society.
