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Alex Breitler
A native of Benicia, he lives in Stockton with his wife, Ann (a Record copyeditor who fixes all of his mistakes). He has been writing mostly about natural resources since 2003, first in Redding and now in Stockton. He is on the lookout for a giant ... Read FullCategories
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Monthly Archives: August 2008
A telling quote
Opponents of a peripheral canal rest much of their argument upon past promises by the government — promises that the Delta’s needs would come before those of the water exporters.
Consider these words, spoken by Secretary of the Interior Julius Krug on Oct. 12, 1948:
“Let me state, clearly and finally, the Interior Department is fully and [...]
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Speaking of bats…
The New Scientist reports that wind turbines make bats’ lungs explode.
The moving blades cause a drop in pressure that makes the “delicate lungs of bats suddenly expand, bursting the tissue’s blood vessels,” the article says. It’s kind of like what can happen to scuba divers.
A U.S. National Research Council study in May 2007 reported that [...]
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In defense of bats
I was mildly reprimanded by a couple of callers for Saturday’s story about the artificial bat cave up at Pardee Lake. The readers, both of whom are bat advocates, felt I went to great lengths to describe the stench of the cave and the creepy-crawly nature of the whole thing, without properly extoling the virtues of [...]
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He lives where?
The Department of Water Resources has named Bob Yeadon as its “Delta Regional Coordinator.” This is a new position which Yeadon says will involve being a point of contact for Delta stakeholders (i.e., farmers, fishermen, boaters, landowners, water users) and helping them follow the confusing Delta Vision process.
“There’s so much going on in the Delta [...]
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Digging up dirt
Welcome to the old Stockton Wrecking Yard, on Marsh Street way out on the eastern fringe of town.
The yard’s been closed for 10 years and is now one of more than two dozen active toxic cleanup sites under the oversight of the state Department of Toxic Substances Control.
Turns out Stockton has more of these [...]
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Meet the pika
Environmentalists sued the government over this little guy today.
The California Fish and Game Commission earlier this year denied the enviros’ request to list the pika under the state’s endangered species list. And the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service hasn’t acted yet on a petition to list the pika nationally.
Let’s get on with it, the enviros say.
The pika’s [...]
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Magnificent Monday
The Painted Lady towers over Rae Lakes, near the eastern boundary of Kings Canyon NP.
This is the same water that eventually flows through the Stockton Deep Water Channel. That is, if the San Joaquin River were actually one continuous river.
Here’s hoping for an inspiring Monday.
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Breaking news
ATLANTA (AP) — Two men claim they’ve bagged Bigfoot, and they say they have the hairy corpse of the legendary creature stored away in a freezer.
Matt Whitton and Rick Dyer say they stumbled across the corpse in the woods of northern Georgia, across the country from the remote regions of the Northwest where people [...]
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No… no…. well, OK
Putting on my higher education cap, here’s one amusing anecdote from last night’s Delta College Board of Trustees meeting that didn’t make it into print.
Background: The board has until mid-September to respond to a grand jury report that says it wasted millions of dollars of voter-approved bond money. A tentative written response has been drafted by administrators, [...]
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One more wilderness excursion