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Hetch Hetchy Aqueduct

eastbayexpress.com - by Robert Gammon - August 23, 2013

The massive Rim Fire is closing in on Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite National Park and is threatening the main water supply for the City of San Francisco and numerous other Bay Area communities. As of this morning, the fast-moving blaze was about 2.5 miles from Hetch Hetchy, according to a map created by the US Forest Service. If the enormous fire reaches the tinder-dry forests surrounding the reservoir, it could pollute the freshwater with huge amounts of ash. That’s bad news for San Franciscans and other communities that depend on Hetch Hetchy because the reservoir is not equipped with a water-filtration system.

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cnn.com - by Arion McNicoll and Stefanie Blendis - July 4, 2013

(CNN) -- "Drop to the ground; take cover by getting under a sturdy table or other piece of furniture; and hold on until the shaking stops."

This is the official advice issued by FEMA for anyone unlucky enough to be caught in an earthquake.

thinkprogress.org - by Joe Romm - June 30, 2013

(SEE LINKS BELOW FOR 2004 STUDY, 2005 STUDY, AND 2013 CRYOSAT ARTICLE)

Scientists predicted a decade ago that Arctic ice loss would bring on worse western droughts. Arctic ice loss has been much faster than the researchers — and indeed all climate modelers — expected (see “CryoSat-2 Confirms Sea Ice Volume Has Collapsed“).

It just so happens that the western U.S. is in the grip of a brutal, record-breaking drought. Is this just an amazing coincidence — or were the scientists right and what would that mean for the future? I ask the authors.

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latimes.com - 

by David Zahniser and Catherine Saillant - June 18, 2013

Los Angeles on Tuesday became the largest city in the nation to move toward a ban on plastic grocery bags, with the City Council barring them in supermarkets, convenience stores and any big retailer that sells groceries.

Nearly three weeks after a similar measure was defeated in the California Legislature, the City Council voted 11-1 to prohibit the so-called "single use" plastic bags in pharmacies, food markets and any large store -- including Target and Wal-Mart -- that has a grocery section.

Councilman Paul Koretz described the ban as one of several environmental initiatives that have been embraced by the city, including a clean-truck program at the Port of Los Angeles and a push to build new rail lines.

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New York Times - June 7, 2013 - Matthew L. Wald

The owners of the San Onofre nuclear power plant in Southern California, which has been shut since January 2012, said on Friday that they would close it permanently because of uncertainty over when it could be reopened.

The two reactors at San Onofre had not run since a small amount of radioactive steam escaped from new tubes damaged by vibration and friction. Coming months after the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown in Japan, the event prompted a wave of public opposition and set off a legal and regulatory battle that included Southern California Edison, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which manufactured the parts that leaked.

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Image: Some of Los Angeles' homeless population.

ktla.com - February 22nd, 2013 - Carolyn Costello

Public health officials are working to contain a persistent outbreak of tuberculosis affecting L.A.’s homeless population.

They want to get a handle on the crisis as quickly as possible, becasue tuberculosis can be deadly if left untreated.

Right now, it’s primarily affecting the homeless population in downtown L.A., and officials have seen the trend continue in the Los Angeles area.

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submitted by Samuel Bendett

homelandsecuritynewswire.com - February 18, 2013

Mounting scientific evidence indicates climate change will lead to more frequent and intense extreme weather that affects larger areas and lasts longer. We can reduce the risk of weather-related disasters, however, with a variety of measures. Experts say that a good strategy should include a variety of actions such as communicating risk and transferring it through vehicles such as insurance, taking a multi-hazard management approach, linking local and global management, and taking an iterative approach as opposed to starting with a master plan.

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A fisherman displays his haul of Bluefin Tuna.

CLICK HERE: STUDY - Radiocesium in Pacific Bluefin Tuna Thunnus orientalis in 2012 Validates New Tracer Technique

huffingtonpost.com - by Aaron Sankin - February 22, 2013

Nearly two years after a powerful earthquake triggered a leak at Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, the effects of that disaster are still being felt on the other side of the planet.

A report released earlier this month by researchers at Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station found that bluefin tuna caught just off the California coast tested positive for radiation stemming from the incident.

The study looked at the levels of radiocesium, one of the most common results of nuclear fission reactions, in Pacific Bluefun Tuna--largely as way to track the species' migratory patterns as the fish make their cross-oceanic journey in search of prey.

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submitted by Samuel Bendett

Homeland Security News Wire - September 26, 2012

According to the July 2011 census, more than thirty-seven million people live in the state of California, increasing the pressure on the state’s water sources. Desalinating sea water as a solution to the scarcity of fresh water is not a new technology — it has been around for more than four decades — but it has more recently been considered as a way to address California’s chronic, and growing, water shortage.

The Seattle Times reports that the idea has run into problems, and rising construction costs, energy requirements for running desalination plants, and legal challenges have limited desalination in California to only one plant producing drinking water.

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Kaili Richards, 6, of San Diego holds up a homemade sign during a nuclear watchdog group's news conference before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's meeting in San Juan Capistrano. The activists are against the restarting of the San Onofre nuclear plant. (Allen J. Schaben, Los Angeles…)

latimes.com - by Abby Sewell - June 19, 2012

NRC officials give their first public account of their probe into the shuttered plant's problems.

Faulty computer modeling caused the equipment problems that are expected to keep the San Onofre nuclear plant dark through the summer, federal regulators said Monday.

Officials from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave their first public account of the initial findings of their investigation into the plant's problems at a meeting in San Juan Capistrano.

What they did not give was any indication of how long the plant is likely to remain out of service, saying there are still questions plant operator Southern California Edison needs to answer and more inspections the NRC must do.

submitted by Samuel Bendett

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Groundwater depletion has been most severe in the purple areas indicated on these maps of (A) the High Plains and (B) California's Central Valley. These heavily affected areas are concentrated in parts of the Texas Panhandle, western Kansas, and the Tulare Basin in California's Central Valley. Changes in groundwater levels in (A) are adapted from a 2009 report by the U.S. Geological Survey and in (B) from a 1989 report by the USGS.

Homeland Security News Wire - May 29, 2012

The U.S. food supply may be vulnerable to rapid groundwater depletion from irrigated agriculture; for example, from 2006 to 2009, farmers in the south of California’s Central Valley depleted enough groundwater to fill the U.S. largest man-made reservoir, Lake Mead near Las Vegas — a level of groundwater depletion that is unsustainable at current recharge rates

submitted by Samuel Bendett

A crew works on levee in the Natomas Basin in this file photo. According to a new report, the state’s biggest water-related concerns include the risk of catastrophic flood or disruptions in the water supply due to levee failures, declining ground water basins and continued uncertainty about the reliability of water supplies.
Todd Quam|Digital Sky Aerial Imaging

Sacramento Business Journal - by Melanie Turner - May 31, 2012

Threats to California's water system must be addressed now in order for the state's economy to grow and prosper, according to a report by the Public Policy Institute of California released late Wednesday.

The continued expansion of water management tools, such as the reuse of highly treated wastewater, underground storage and water "banking," will allow California to manage future water shortages, the report concludes.

The report represents a consensus view of a wide-ranging group of experts on the role of water in the state's economy.

In this Jan. 2, 2005 file photo, a wide area of destruction is shown from an aerial view taken over Meulaboh, 250 kilometers (156 Miles) west of Banda Aceh, Indonesia. Researchers in the United States are hoping to use GPS data to speed up current warnings. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara, File)

U.S. seismologists currently testing new warning system

by Andrew Pinsent - CBC News - May 5, 2012

Scientists in the United States have been testing an advanced tsunami warning system using GPS data, combined with traditional seismology networks, to attempt to detect the magnitude of an earthquake faster so warnings of potential tsunamis can get out to potentially affected areas sooner.

The prototype is called California Integrated Seismic Network (CISN), and is a collaboration between the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, whose focus is on environmental conservation.

submitted by Samuel Bendett

Homeland Security News Wire - April 19, 2012

Researchers place a model hospital on a shake table to assess the structure’s ability to withstand earthquake; in accordance with California latest building code, base isolators, which are rubber bearings intended to absorb the shock of the motion, were installed underneath the structure; the hospital passed the 6.7-magnitude and 8.8-magnitude tests with flying colors.

Last Tuesday, engineers from the University of California, San Diego conducted an ambitious and successful earthquake simulation, with what some called “boring” results.

Engineered had constructed a 5-story building, complete with a hospital operating room, an elevator, a kitchen filled with glassware. They also added a heavy air-conditioning unit to the roof. The building, built to California’s top earthquake codes, was then placed on top of a shake table, a device for shaking structural models or building components with a wide range of simulated ground motions, including reproductions of recorded earthquake time-histories.

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