This is a lengthy, but very informative piece in Forbes about the Columbia River’s power/enviro management by BPA (and others) of 31 dams. A lot of good information in here. I queried this given the heavy dump of wet snow here last night, up the Gorge and wondering about runoff/flooding the next few days. I learned a lot more on the behind the scenes management of water running downhill to the ocean.
Grand Coulee Dam, the Columbia River's largest dam.
BP Financed Tour the Gulf Coast Now Ad Airing on TV this week!
Was the BP Oil spill the monumental, cataclysmic, enviro event it was portrayed as? Noticed this ad on TV last night and noticed BP paid for it to help promote tourism on the Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana Gulf Coast. Has nature rehabbed already?
Neighborhood under storm water planter box construction. Columbia Slough and Columbia R. benefit.
A typical urban enviro project for Portland. Supposed habitat enhancement, storm water runoff screening/filtering and reduced parking in front of homes. Trade offs/potentially significant for the watersheds. Where I have seen these types, jutting into the street, there are several gouge marks on the front end of the planter boxes from cars failing to see the reflectors and hazard yellow paint and becoming a temporary planter box ornament. A reasonable expectation, I mean people drive into power poles too.
Here the entire corner will be occupied by a storm water catch basin with foot paths cut through for pedestrian passage.
All this construction is on the downhill side of roads that run perpendicular to the Columbia Slough. In addition to the runoff, several springs run down off the hillside and enter the slough. I have such a spring running behind my property. I have left my property unaltered along the spring’s edges…neighbors along the way have not and I have seen the silt build up over the years, despite inspections, surveys and reviews. Anyway, below is how the storm drain basins are suppose to look upon completion…
We shall see how they function with run off; or, when under a foot of drifting snow and folks inadvertently drive into them. A reasonable attempt to I spose to control runoff of the waters moving South to North into the Columbia River Slough and Columbia River.
The Columbia River Watershed, where the I-205/I-84 meet and East, the terrain slopes toward the slough and the Columbia River.
Selfish fly fishers are trying to monopolize a stream in order to create a special fly fishing place? They want to reestablish the Paiute cutthroat trout into Silver King Creek and remove the non-native trout with poisons.
Selfish bug advocates believe the efforts to restore the native Paiute trout to the Silver King Creek will result in the death of caddis and stoneflies, because rotenone has to be used to remove existing non-native trout species (Sate intro’d & predatory to the Paiute cutthroat trout).
Yes, bug nuts vs. trout nuts and the story is fascinating. Anti-toxin, pro-invertebrates have spent considerable sums pushing their points to the State and Federal Courts and have won repeated stays for the caddis, stoneflies and other shall I dare say lesser invertebrates? The State trying to carry out the plan to reintroduce the Paiute trout have failed to consider the invertebrates as they prepare to kill off existing trout (that is odd enough, non-native or not) in order to restore the Paiute cutthroat trout. Read the details in a WSJ piece Strid Art carried piece too.
“Why, after a century of stocking marine fishes into the wild, is there still so little understanding of the effects and effectiveness of marine stock enhancement? Historically, little emphasis has been placed on understanding the impacts of stocking on fisheries landings. The approach to marine stock-enhancement during most of the 20th century can be characterized as the Production Phase, the period when all of the emphasis and accountability in stocking programs was focused on aquaculture production and release magnitude. This emphasis on production is pervasive, even today, and has overshadowed critical questions about stocking effects on fisheries landings and fish populations.”
MOTE MARINE LABORATORY is not only involved in research re aqua culture but also the production of wetland plants. They are growing fish and plants. Interesting to see how this habitat/stability concept works for the Atlantic/Gulf Coasts.
“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.” Winston Churchill
I personally follow the Bjorn Lomborg concepts re climate change. Climate Change, or whatever they want to call it to suit their agenda, does exist. And, per Lomborg, how we address the issues is important as well. Watch Cool It ….no, actually watch it.
What I also follow is the adjustments to data and deceit amongst scientists to force outcomes that sustain their agenda. I imagine this goes both ways. But, given the intentions of some agendas, I believe we must demand answers from supposed scientific organizations that control how our nations and our resources are to be utilized. Oh, I know, not a popular thing to bring up right now. Football, Winter steelheading, Bristol Bay feel good donations, OWS feel good associations. But, I believe it is what it is….some are cooking the books. The stakes are too high to tolerate this. Floggings are in order….. Useful idiots stand aside please. Watch for the counter propaganda on slaught to take place…obscure, distract.
Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff…Move Along Folks…Nothing to See
Article in the Daily Mail…come on now you can do it…go on…take a peek
I noticed the ever eco focused Patagonia’s Common Threads campaign is pushing less consumption with an eye on fixing, reusing, recycling…the austerity model for hard times and because our poor planet is just awash in stuff. I can see nothing wrong with this approach given I have been spending a major part of my life cleaning up two hoarding homes for women that had to have it all and then some.
But, let me venture into this feel good space to say how damn righteous coming from someone like Rick Ridgeway of Patagonia and Yvon Chouinard that have no doubt littered the sides of many pristine mountain sides and walked away, not looking back on all the crap they left behind. Nothing strikes me as more pretentious and spoiled than mountaineers, whom leave tonnage of crap behind for their own vain glory of waving a flag atop a pinnacle of ice. Such arrogance. REI, Patagonia and Kelty et al ought to be spending a bunch to finance the cleanup of of all the mountain chains and trekking paths they have devoted years to promoting the assault and the feel good scarifications.
Wang Yong Han’s Clean Mountain Initiative
Sherpa Guide to Launch Clean Up of Climber’s Crap
You have brains in your head,
you have feet in your shoes,
you can steer yourself any direction you choose.
–Dr. Seuss
INTERVIEW: JOHN SNIVELY BY MONICA TRAUZZI RE PEBBLE MINE
Robert & Mihaela Vicol
