Badlands Journal
Social, Economic, and Environmental Justice
Reporting from Mundo Antiguo Network, pencil to paper from Yosemite, where you order your coffee and pastry at an electronic kiosk. Everyone else has a hand held device to record in stills and video the iconic nature of Yosemite Park.
I always feel archaic here around people because I am an English speaker. We are a minority this morning at the coffee shop. Japanese and French are preferred within my earshot.
1-2-19
Fresno Bee
It’s not just trash — money lost during shutdown could have long-term effects at Yosemite
By Rory Appleton
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/politics-government/politics-columns-blog...
As reports of trash and human waste flooding some of the country’s most beautiful land have trickled out since the U.S. government shut down, deeper problems – and a few volunteer-powered solutions – have also begun to surface.
In olden days (before the younger generation was even conceived), parents used to require their children to put a nickel in the Swear Jar every time they said a naughty word. Childlike men's service organizations used to require a dollar or more per cussword.
Badlands Journal Editorial Board has i\begun a Trump Fib Bucket, diameter to stretch from sea to polluted sea and over all the genetically modified golden grains, and to be as tall as Pike's Peak.
California water is still rushing madly uphill to money. Gov. Jerry Brown "brokered a historic agreement" but no environmentalists were at the table, the state water board was unmoved by the agreement, Merced Irrigation District has sued the water board on its proposal to take more water out of the Merced River, and Westlands Water District's former top lobbyist, David Bernhardt, is about to become the new Secretary of the Department of Interior.
The environment is that which surrounds us.
It is on our skin, warm, cold, wet, dry, still, windy...
We touch it: smooth, rough, spiderwebs, sand, rock, our beloveds, horses, water, tools, trees and sticks ... we touch it all the days of our lives, from our mother's breast with tiny hands till soiled bed sheets with scrawny old backs...
"Newsom will have only one board opening to fill soon after he takes office. Marcus’ term expires in January.
Marcus has said she is open to voluntary agreements, but also led the panel’s 4-1 adoption of the first round of flow requirements in the face of threatened lawsuits and loud protests by river users.
"In coming weeks, the water world will be watching to see if Newsom steers a new course. His spokesman declined to discuss Newsom’s positions, saying Brown was still the governor.
Under cover of darkness, nobody but the special interests that benefit, the resource agencies themselves and a few members of the public in damaged regions, will know what environmental harm the Department of Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency will approve, overlook, ignore or complely fail to notice. The Trump administration, which looks so bumbling at times, never seems to miss a beat when it comes to rewarding environmental spoilers. It's all part of Crazy Developer Kung Fu. -- blj
I add this piece to the archive just to remind ourselves that Silicon Valley and environs, served by the Santa Clara Water District, also draws from the San Luis Reservoir but relies for 15 percent of its water on the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, which gets its water from the Tuolumne River, which (to enter the Thurberian whichmire of California water politics) is one of the tributaries to the San Joaquin River which the state Water Quality Control Board has ruled must deliver more water to the Delta for salmon and other fish and wildlife, a decision which is being challenged
Western states are alarmed by the two-decade drought on the Colorado Plateau that is steadily diminishing the flow of the Colorado River.