July 31, 2014
Arizona Desert
A fire burned five acres near U.S. Highway 95 late
Wednesday afternoon. Several houses were threatened but homeowners were
ready if it came any closer.
When Mary Ann Klute saw smoke
on the horizon Wednesday, it felt like deja vu. Their house almost fell
victim to the Fire Storm of 1991, which left one dead and over 100 homes
burned to the ground. Klute's husband has been wary of wildfires since
then.
"The fire burned all of our 15 acres and up to the
edge of our house and killed one of our dogs so he's been spending the
last 25 years clearing the property, cutting down old trees, thinning
new trees, trying to make this space defensible," says Klute.
bobshannon.org
Because human cognition is a precondition to making choices, altering
our consciousness is wrong from the moral theological standpoint, said
Dr. E. Christian Brugger, a professor of moral theology at St. John
Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver and a member of the panel.
“Choices are the foundation by which we cooperate with God and with
grace, or deny God and grace,” Brugger said. “Morally conscientious
people know that even when they’re at the top of their game, acting well
is difficult: acting with modesty and treating members of the opposite
sex with dignity and respect, speaking with due moderation, maintaining
the reputation of others, not drinking to excess or eating to excess,
being faithful to daily prayer, keeping faith in the face of difficult
circumstances.
bobshannon.org
With California facing one of the most severe droughts on record, Governor Brown declared a drought State of Emergency
in January and directed state officials to take all necessary actions to prepare for water shortages. The state has
continued to lead the way to make sure California is able to cope with an unprecedented drought.
July 29, 2014 - On July 29, 2014, an emergency regulation to increase
conservation practices for all Californians went into effect.
The new conservation regulation targets outdoor urban water use. In
some areas of the State, 50 percent or more of daily water use
is for lawns and outdoor landscaping. With this regulation, all
Californians are expected to stop: washing down driveways and sidewalks;
watering of outdoor landscapes that cause excess runoff; using a hose
to wash a motor vehicle, unless the hose is fitted with a shut-off
nozzle, and using potable water in a fountain or decorative water
feature, unless the water is recirculated.
Read More
Read More
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SEATTLE, Wash. — Nearly forgotten research from decades ago complicates the task of quantifying earthquake hazards in the Pacific Northwest, according to a new report from scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey, the University of Washington, and other universities.
The report focuses on the Cascadia subduction zone—a giant active fault that slants eastward beneath the Pacific coast of southern British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and northern California. Geologic studies in the past three decades have provided increasingly specific estimates of Cascadia earthquake sizes and repeat times. The estimates affect public safety through seismic provisions in building design and tsunami limits on evacuation maps.
The new report does not question whether the Cascadia subduction zone repeatedly produces enormous earthquakes. What the report asks instead is how much geologists can say, with confidence, about the history of those earthquake going back thousands of years. How big was each of the earthquakes? Did they occur twice as often along one part of the subduction zone as another? The report concludes that extracting such details from deep-sea sediments is more complicated than was previously thought.
The report reappraises sediment cores that were collected near the foot of the continental slope offshore Washington. A subset of cores from this area underpins influential estimates of Cascadia earthquake size and recurrence that were published in 2012. The new report points to confounding evidence from a much larger suite of cores that were collected and first analyzed by University of Washington and Oregon State University scientists in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Those Nixon-era cores were the work of researchers unconcerned with earthquakes. Plate tectonics was then such a new idea that scientists were just beginning to recognize the Cascadia subduction zone as a tectonic plate boundary. The sediment cores were collected to learn about turbidites—beds of sand and mud laid down by bottom-hugging, sediment-driven currents that infrequently emerged from submarine canyons onto the deep ocean floor. Not until a 1990 report would turbidites be reinterpreted as clues to Cascadia earthquake history.
“Rethinking turbidite paleoseismology along the Cascadia subduction zone” is freely available online in Geology, a leading Earth-science journal. The authors are Brian Atwater (U.S. Geological Survey), Bobb Carson (Lehigh University), Gary Griggs (University of California Santa Cruz), and Paul Johnson and Marie Salmi (University of Washington).
The report focuses on the Cascadia subduction zone—a giant active fault that slants eastward beneath the Pacific coast of southern British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and northern California. Geologic studies in the past three decades have provided increasingly specific estimates of Cascadia earthquake sizes and repeat times. The estimates affect public safety through seismic provisions in building design and tsunami limits on evacuation maps.
The new report does not question whether the Cascadia subduction zone repeatedly produces enormous earthquakes. What the report asks instead is how much geologists can say, with confidence, about the history of those earthquake going back thousands of years. How big was each of the earthquakes? Did they occur twice as often along one part of the subduction zone as another? The report concludes that extracting such details from deep-sea sediments is more complicated than was previously thought.
The report reappraises sediment cores that were collected near the foot of the continental slope offshore Washington. A subset of cores from this area underpins influential estimates of Cascadia earthquake size and recurrence that were published in 2012. The new report points to confounding evidence from a much larger suite of cores that were collected and first analyzed by University of Washington and Oregon State University scientists in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Those Nixon-era cores were the work of researchers unconcerned with earthquakes. Plate tectonics was then such a new idea that scientists were just beginning to recognize the Cascadia subduction zone as a tectonic plate boundary. The sediment cores were collected to learn about turbidites—beds of sand and mud laid down by bottom-hugging, sediment-driven currents that infrequently emerged from submarine canyons onto the deep ocean floor. Not until a 1990 report would turbidites be reinterpreted as clues to Cascadia earthquake history.
“Rethinking turbidite paleoseismology along the Cascadia subduction zone” is freely available online in Geology, a leading Earth-science journal. The authors are Brian Atwater (U.S. Geological Survey), Bobb Carson (Lehigh University), Gary Griggs (University of California Santa Cruz), and Paul Johnson and Marie Salmi (University of Washington).
Most of California's major reservoirs are now less than half-full -- or at what officials call a "seriously low" level -- but that's still nowhere near the historic lows set in 1977, the state's driest year on record.
The latest report released Wednesday by the California Department of Water Resources shows 10 of the state's 12 major reservoirs below 50% of their total capacity, with some nearing just 20%.
"They are not historical levels, but they are seriously low," department spokesman Ted Thomas said.
But when all 12 of the major reservoirs are combined, the average is at 60%, Thomas said. That's puts the state in a far better position than it was 37 years ago, when a crippling drought brought the statewide reservoir average down to 41%.
As of Wednesday, the largest federal reservoir in California at Lake Shasta was only at 36% capacity, which is 4.5 million acre-feet of water, he added.
The Sierra snowpack -- which provides most of California's drinking water -- was at 32% of its average annual depth this winter. And some climatologists say there's a chance that the strong El Nino weather pattern that had been hoped for may not materialize.
Reservoir levels may continue to drop if the three-year drought persists, Thomas said.
"The more we use, the less there is," he said.
The lack of rain has already pushed nearly 80% of California into "extreme" and "exceptional" drought conditions, the highest categories of dryness, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor map.
Officials are trying to retain current reservoir levels by cutting back on water shipments to local agencies, Thomas said. That, in turn, has prompted agencies and property owners to tap underground aquifers, which have also taken a hit.
Meanwhile, agencies across the state have been pushing conservation measures, which have become increasingly mandatory. Last week, state officials approved a $500 fine for water wasters.
Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday signed a bill that prohibits homeowners associations from imposing fines on residents who stop watering their lawns in an effort to conserve water.
The law, however, does not apply to fines imposed by local governments, some of which have been issuing citations.
The latest report released Wednesday by the California Department of Water Resources shows 10 of the state's 12 major reservoirs below 50% of their total capacity, with some nearing just 20%.
"They are not historical levels, but they are seriously low," department spokesman Ted Thomas said.
But when all 12 of the major reservoirs are combined, the average is at 60%, Thomas said. That's puts the state in a far better position than it was 37 years ago, when a crippling drought brought the statewide reservoir average down to 41%.
As of Wednesday, the largest federal reservoir in California at Lake Shasta was only at 36% capacity, which is 4.5 million acre-feet of water, he added.
The Sierra snowpack -- which provides most of California's drinking water -- was at 32% of its average annual depth this winter. And some climatologists say there's a chance that the strong El Nino weather pattern that had been hoped for may not materialize.
Reservoir levels may continue to drop if the three-year drought persists, Thomas said.
"The more we use, the less there is," he said.
The lack of rain has already pushed nearly 80% of California into "extreme" and "exceptional" drought conditions, the highest categories of dryness, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor map.
Officials are trying to retain current reservoir levels by cutting back on water shipments to local agencies, Thomas said. That, in turn, has prompted agencies and property owners to tap underground aquifers, which have also taken a hit.
Meanwhile, agencies across the state have been pushing conservation measures, which have become increasingly mandatory. Last week, state officials approved a $500 fine for water wasters.
Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday signed a bill that prohibits homeowners associations from imposing fines on residents who stop watering their lawns in an effort to conserve water.
The law, however, does not apply to fines imposed by local governments, some of which have been issuing citations.
bobshannon.org
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