SF New Mexican:
Acequia systems might be damaged by released water. Abiquiu Reservoir sits above the town, a few hundred feet above. Since it’s been so dry, apparently folks have forgotten what it’s like to have an abundance of water ... so irrigation and building in the area has echoed the dry conditions. Now the Army Corps of Engineers needs to release water from the Reservoir, damage may occur. The municipality should have kept a closer watch on water use and construction, methinks.
SF New Mexican:
The downside of trash. You will likely enjoy the comments at the bottom.
SF New Mexican:
Court rejects LANL appeal of water standard. Good.
ENN:
Eco-friendly furniture that’s beautiful and functional. Links to manufacturers at the bottom of the article. Resourcerevival is particularly clever.
Science Daily:
NASA Arctic Sea Ice Study May Stir Up Climate Models. The ‘shimmy’ may slow down the effects of climage change on Arctic ice ... meaning that this is another facet that needs to be put into the overall calculations in order to predict future trends.
NY Times:
Federal Oceans Commission finds decline along coasts. Partisanship aside, they’ve found serious troubles along our shorelines. “This is a Bush-appointed, Republican-leaning commission ... [snip] ... that’s come out with fairly strong recommendations — for new funding, for focusing federal efforts. And an encyclopedia of strong new ideas.”
SF New Mexican:
The Santa Fe Plaza is green again. Until the scorching sun of summer, and the heavy foot traffic of August (Indian Market) kill it once again. There are better solutions, but everyone’s hogtied by tradition and inertia.
SF New Mexican:
DOE criticizes maintenance of the nation’s nuclear stockpile. “While some minor milestones have been missed, NNSA spokesman Bryan Wilkes acknowledged, all milestones judged “critical” by the agency have been met.” With the 9/11 Commission exposing laxity in other branches, we can wonder about this ...
SF New Mexican:
No, there aren’t any clauses in the Patriot Act for them, but beware Toxic Non-Native Weeds!
New Scientist:
World’s marine life is getting sicker. Many, many challenges, mostly human-caused.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer/AP:
Number of women managing farms increasing.
SF New Mexican:
The Santa Fe River returns from the dead. “Recent rains and melting snowpack in the Santa Fe Canyon watershed have sent more than 9 million gallons a day into the city’s two reservoirs.” It will be wonderful to see the river flowing for a long duration again ... something I haven’t seen in six years.
ENN:
SeedQuest:
GM Crops: The crushing cost of regulation. There shouldn’t be *less* regulation, but it should not be needlessly duplicated or horrifically complex. The experiments should be able to prove their own worth, or not. Regulation is not the best method to use to suppress something you don’t admire.
SF New Mexican:
There’s no escaping cell phones, even in the wilderness. It’s a false sense of security. One needs to have the skills to get out of whatever one gets into.
SF New Mexican:
Weather astonishes apple growers, skiers. “Even though a lack of snowfall in November pushed back the ski resort’s opening date several weeks, the season, from Dec. 12 to April 4, turned out to be exceptionally wet. Ski Santa Fe tracks the cumulative snowfall on the Sangre de Cristo slopes each season. ‘We’re estimating that our total total [sic] is above our seven-year average, which is 273 inches,’ said Donovan in an interview Monday.”
NY Times:
What the world needs now is DDT. I’ve posted on this subject for a long time, diving into international health links ... and I’ve always been against. Over that time I’ve come to see, time and again, that topical spraying of DDT in homes goes a long way towards malaria prevention, saving many lives, with very minimal exposure to the occupants and the environment. My opinion has shifted, and I can accept this, when strictly controlled and alternative methods researched (when moral and practical). Longterm studies have not yet been extensively done, but I’m willing to give the benefit of the doubt, in order to save lives.
I offer rationalizations: Coumadin, ‘rat poison’, has health benefits when used for certain conditions. Controlled use. We use hydrochloric acid in our homes as a powerful acid cleaner, but we don’t spread it over fields because of its propensity to destroy and/or kill. Ethical use.
Surely we can find an ethical, controlled middle ground for DDT? I’m not totally sold, but I’m open.
ENN:
Does the Great White North deserve its green reputation? “From Fort Nelson in northern British Columbia to Rocky Mountain House in central Alberta to the vast Tintina Trench region in the southern Yukon and over east to Yellowknife on Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories, the landscape is under siege. The extraction industries are running the show, tearing, blasting, sucking, and cutting every diamond, gold nugget, drop of oil, chunk of coal, and stick of timber they can access.”
Guardian.UK:
GM potato paper. In Sweden. What does potato starch do for paper, I wonder? Oh.
Reuters:
If you don’t want ticks, don’t sit on logs. Makes me itch just thinking about it.
WWF:
Eco-friendly living, made easy. “The homes are fitted with energy-efficient refrigerators, ovens, and other electrical appliances. Solar panels and an onsite combined heat and power plant — which runs on tree surgery waste — provide hot water and electricity.” Cool. I wonder why more developers in the US aren’t trying this? There’s certainly a market ...
SF New Mexican:
Critics: Uranium plant hurts nonproliferation. We don’t want it here, even if it means jobs. And furthermore, we don’t think it’s ethical, if we’re truly committed to nonproliferation.
SF New Mexican/AP:
Heavy rains fill northern lakes and add to runoff. “Navajo Reservoir, Heron Lake and El Vado Lake rose by as much as a foot a day last week, according to state parks officials, who said those parks will open sooner than expected.” Our poor northern lake/reservoirs have been suffering, the past couple of years. This is excellent news.
ENN:
Alaska offshore drilling plan opposed by Arctic natives. “Any spilled oil could become trapped under pack ice, impossible to clean up and unlikely to degrade in the frigid temperatures, they say. They also cite scientific studies showing that industrial noise, light, and traffic are extremely disruptive to whales and other wildlife.”
Telegraph.UK:
The Brits explain how to grow California Lilacs. I found this amusing ... if they can grow them in Britain, there’s a good chance I can here in NM.
