Monthly Archives: September 2009

Obama admin: Delta a top priority

By Alex Breitler | Published: September 30, 2009 | Comments closed
Another Obama administration official has ranked restoring the Delta among the most important environmental tasks at hand in the US. This time, it’s Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa Jackson. The CoCo Times has this report: In her first remarks in California, the Obama administration’s top environmental regulator put San Francisco Bay and the Delta on a short [...]
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments closed

Tracking trash

By Alex Breitler | Published: September 30, 2009 | Comments closed
These MIT guys are using custom-made sensors to follow trash items as they are shipped through the municipal waste stream of major American cities. Gnarly.
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments closed

Lost and found

By Alex Breitler | Published: September 28, 2009 | Comments closed
Sorry, this is too good not to blog. Would anyone care to claim the adult blow-up doll found in the Calaveras River on Coastal Cleanup Day? STOCKTON — An oozing oil filter, drug-infested tires and an adult blow-up doll were among some of the strange finds during this year’s Coastal Cleanup Day, organizers reported Monday. More than 1,300 [...]
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments closed

Debunking Hannity

By Alex Breitler | Published: September 23, 2009 | Comments closed
I had aspirations of writing a piece exposing all of the errors and omissions in Sean Hannity’s “The Valley that Hope Forgot” last week. Colleague Mike Fitzgerald beat me to it, and did a darn fine job. Check out his piece if you haven’t seen it. And read his blog for supporting information. Hannity’s nonsense has been picked up by the blogosphere [...]
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments closed

Trash or treasure? Mostly trash

By Alex Breitler | Published: September 23, 2009 | Comments closed
Local Coastal Cleanup Day organizers are reporting record turnout last Saturday — 1,324 volunteers, to be exact, up from roughly 900 last year. Y’all picked up 30 tons of trash! As just one example, here’s what they found in Lodi, in the words of organizer Kathy Grant: We collected about 1,500 lbs, or about 40 large bags [...]
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments closed

Peripheral canal survey

By Alex Breitler | Published: September 21, 2009 | Comments closed
This was released while I was on vacation, but I share it with you now in advance of Tuesday night’s BDCP meeting in Stockton. Details for that meeting can be found here. Delta advocates are planning a protest beforehand.
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments closed

Fish kill reported

By Alex Breitler | Published: September 17, 2009 | Comments closed
(updated with photos, courtesy Jeremy Terhune)   A fish kill was reported Wednesday morning on the Calaveras River at the Pershing Avenue bridge, according to emails received by the advocacy group Friends of the Lower Calaveras River. A Delta College instructor riding his bike to work saw a number of fish species belly-up in a log jam [...]
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments closed

Maybe next year

By Alex Breitler | Published: September 15, 2009 | Comments closed
While in-Delta interests were thankful a heaping plate of Delta bills didn’t make it through the Legislature late Friday, a broad coalition of environmental groups and water agencies — who, for once, found common ground — were not so enthusiastic. Here’s a take lifted from the NRDC rep Barry Nelson’s blog. NRDC was heavily involved in [...]
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments closed

NO WATER DEAL

By Alex Breitler | Published: September 12, 2009 | Comments closed
Not tonight. Senate Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg just released the following statement: “We will not be moving the water bills this evening.  Everyone agrees that we are close and that we have made a decade’s worth of progress in just a few weeks but there is still some more work to do.  We will continue to negotiate [...]
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments closed

No water deal…

By Alex Breitler | Published: September 12, 2009 | Comments closed
… at least, not yet, with five hours left before everyone turns into pumpkins. Here’s the LA Times’ take as of 6:46 p.m.: With the close of the legislative session hours away, the fate of an ambitious set of water proposals remains up in the air. Negotiations continued on a big bond and policy package put together by [...]
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments closed