Monthly Archives: April 2008

Wind warning

By Alex Breitler | Published: April 29, 2008 | Comments closed
Air quality cops issued a health warning this afternoon in the San Joaquin Valley, blaming gusty winds for kicking up dust into the air. The dust is made up of tiny particulate matter that can pierce your lungs and exacerbate existing health problems. The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District recommends that: • Older adults and children [...]
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How green is golf?

By Alex Breitler | Published: April 28, 2008 | Comments closed
That’s the question posed by Golf Digest, just the latest in a series of non-enviro publications to feature a major story about the Earth’s natural resources. “Golf in America will face a crisis over water,” one subhed in the story proclaims. New courses in arid areas will be rare, the piece predicts. A lot of golf courses [...]
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Disappearing….

By Alex Breitler | Published: April 24, 2008 | Comments closed
  I’ll be gone for a couple of days, enjoying the redwoods in Russian River country. See you on Monday!
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Another record approaching

By Alex Breitler | Published: April 24, 2008 | Comments closed
East Bay MUD’s announcement this afternoon that mandatory water rationing may be required for its customers this summer prompted me to take another look at spring precip totals for Stockton. We had the driest March since 1956, with five-hundredths of an inch of rain. It appears last night’s little “storm” gave us but a trace amount of [...]
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Fishing for answers

By Alex Breitler | Published: April 23, 2008 | Comments closed
The feds insist that the salmon decline is due to lousy ocean conditions. However, U.S. Fish and Wildlife announced an interesting experiment that suggests otherwise. That agency is charged with bolstering Sacramento River salmon at Coleman National Fish Hatchery, on bubbling Battle Creek east of Anderson. This year they’ll be releasing 12.6 million salmon smolt, a small [...]
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Homage to Earth Day

By Alex Breitler | Published: April 22, 2008 | Comments closed
Happy Earth Day, everyone. As the enviro guy at the paper I feel almost obligated to blog something earthy today, so here goes. I get a million and one “green” pitches every day, many of them from profiteers looking to make a buck off rising environmental awareness. Case in point: Four minutes ago I got an email [...]
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Nothing but ambition

By Alex Breitler | Published: April 21, 2008 | Comments closed
  You may remember Kevin Chao, a young man whom I wrote about last October after encountering him on the trail up Half Dome. Kevin is blind, and carefully worked his way up the stone steps — not to mention the perilous cables up the back of the dome — with the help of a [...]
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REI arrives!

By Alex Breitler | Published: April 18, 2008 | Comments closed
When I was a kid, yearly backpacking trips into the Sierra Nevada were preceded by an equally-cherished ritual: the drive from my hometown of Benicia to Berkeley, home of Recreational Equipment, Inc. I’d stare in awe at what seemed like acres upon acres of tents, backpacks and sleeping bags. I’d gulp in fear as my dad [...]
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Odds and ends

By Alex Breitler | Published: April 15, 2008 | Comments closed
Some tidbits that didn’t make the cut in today’s story about Monday’s FEMA flood meeting: –First off, if you didn’t get enough last night, another gathering is planned for 6 p.m. Thursday at the Haggin Museum. You’ll come out of it knowing more than you ever wanted to know about the world of levees and flood [...]
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California bested

By Alex Breitler | Published: April 14, 2008 | Comments closed
(Photo: Bristlecone pine in California’s White Mountains) I’ve always boasted of California’s penchant for dominating the environmental record books. We’re home to the tallest living things (coastal redwoods). Arguably the largest living things (giant sequoias). And the oldest living things (bristlecone pines). Or so we thought. Now comes news out of Sweden that researchers have found spruce trees believed to date [...]
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