Schwarzenegger talks water on '60 Minutes'

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger sat down with CBS' Lesley Stahl to talk about the water fights that have dominated California politics for decades.

The interview aired Sunday night as part of a "60 Minutes" segment called "California: Running Dry."

Here's the video:


Watch CBS News Videos Online

Leave a comment and tell me your thoughts on the report.

PBUWCD: Month of January

2009 is coming to an end and I am sad to see it go. So sad, that I thought for the Permian Basin UWCD calendars that I would leave the dates for the month of January as they were in 2009 and not 2010. Yes I have made a mistake. I apologize to those who you who have received the misdated calendar but I have your solution below.

To download the corrected month of January for the Permian Basin UWCD 2010 Calendar,



right click the picture below

select save picture as: choose desktop and hit save

the below picture will then be on the desktop of your computer

Right click the saved file on your desktop: then select PRINT




-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying... that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.” ~Alexander Pope, in Swift, Miscellanies

"Things could be worse. Suppose your errors were counted and published every day, like those of a baseball player." ~Author Unknown

"When you realize you've made a mistake, make amends immediately. It's easier to eat crow while it's still warm. "~Dan Heist

Link It To Me: Round 2

Link It To Me is a list of links suggested by my Twitter followers. I am in no way promoting any products or contests by featuring a link on this blog. It is a way for my readers to see different ideas or products that they may not come across in their daily googling sessions.

--------------------
Eco Sign
Are you lost again? Turn to the nearest manhole for help then. I’m not kidding as we’re showing you an innovative design here, the ‘Eco Sign’. It is a digital manhole that provides information about location of public transportation. Simply put your left or right foot on it for 2 seconds, the manhole will then refer you to the nearest train station or bus stop. More amazingly, it is powered by rainwater.



More About the Eco Sign : http://tinyurl.com/yjxlau3
Source: livebit.com

--------------------
Flying Water Catcher



“I hope I live long enough to own one of these! The fanciful Water Catcher, conceptualized by Penghao Shan from Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, China, is a finalist in the Electrolux Design Lab ‘09.”
“It is a robotic “birdie” that flies about, returning home with a bounty of water gathered from rain or humidity. The idea seems a bit silly initially, but watch the video; you’ll likely be won over with the “wants” for the little hydro-whirlybird like I did. Even the Jetsons didn’t have it this good!”



Source: http://tinyurl.com/ycyuc46
-------------------------------------

Saving Water, Staying Clean

New York Times article by By STEPHEN TREFFINGER.

Treffinger, did a study on 17 shower heads to find which one used the least amount of water, but still provided "an acceptably robust shower", among other things. His findings are interesting.

Read his findings: http://tinyurl.com/yjjso6y

-------------------------------------

Send your links to a interesting website or article, on the subject of water conservation , to : savewater@windstream.net with Link It To Me as the subject

Texas Commodity Symposium : Amarillo

Wednessay December 2nd: Texas Commodity Symposium
Amarillo, Texas

Hope to see you there.....


Texas Commodity Symposium Will Address Impact of Irrigation

AMARILLO, Texas – The ninth annual Texas Commodity Symposium will focus on an issue that seems to be on everyone’s mind – water.
Nearly 40 percent of the crops grown on the Texas High Plains are irrigated, making irrigation a vital portion of the region’s economy. Thanks to better crop varieties and water conservation practices, farmers are now able to produce more using less water. The impact of the region’s total crop production to the regional and state economies is estimated at $2.1 billion and $2.2 billion respectively.

How important is irrigation to the economic activity of the High Plains?
According to Darren Hudson, professor and Larry Combest Chair for Agricultural Competitiveness, irrigation directly contributes $1.6 billion to the economy of the High Plains, and indirectly contributes $2.5 billion to the area. Approximately 16,000 jobs can be attributed to irrigation, which is worth $630 million in regional income.
There are also several unmeasured positive impacts of irrigation, such as property values and tax bases in rural areas, which are all tied to the regional economic activity and activity in population centers like Amarillo, Hudson said.

Hudson will address the positive impacts of irrigation on the economy of the High Plains at this year’s symposium. He will be joined by a panel of Amarillo and Texas Panhandle businessmen and community/regional representatives who will discuss ways to address the challenges facing water conservation, agriculture, rural communities, and urban populations to promote and protect the long-term viability of this key economic base for the region.

The Texas Commodity Symposium will be held in conjunction with the Amarillo Farm and Ranch Show in the Grand Plaza Room at the Amarillo Civic Center. Registration will begin at 8:30 a.m. and the Symposium will begin at 9 a.m. The event is free to all and will conclude with a catered lunch at noon. There will also be a Washington Perspective on issues such as indirect land use, cap and trade and healthcare, and updates from the Natural Resources Conservation Service and the Farm Service Agency.

The symposium is hosted by Corn Producers of Texas (CPAT), Texas Grain Sorghum Association (TGSA), Texas Wheat Producers Association (TWPA), Plains Cotton Growers, Inc. (PCG) and the Texas Peanut Producers Board (TPPB). Everyone is invited to attend.
For more information, contact Lindsay West Kennedy, communications director for the Corn Producers Association of Texas at (806) 763-2676 or at lindsay@texascorn.org.

source: texaspeanutboard.com/TCS2009_WaterPanelPR.pdf

6 Thanksgiving Water Saving Tips

The holiday season is fast approaching….as well as that extra pant size. With more family time and bigger notches on your belt, comes gallons of wasted water. A typical American Thanksgiving dinner for six people requires over 30,000 gallons of water. To help you stay green and on Santa’s water saving “good list”, listed below are 6 ways to save water during Thanksgiving.

1: Run the dishwasher efficiently.

Holiday guests dirty up many dishes, but when it's time to clean up, make sure that you're running your dishwasher in the most efficient way possible. Scrap plates instead of rinsing them with hot water, and making sure the dishwasher is full each time it runs. To save on the costs of heating water, avoid special cycles like pre-rinse and rinse-hold, which can be unnecessary, and stop the dishwasher before it's time to dry—the dishes can air dry, instead.

2: Cooking That Turkey

The best way to thaw a frozen turkey is in the refrigerator. It takes about 24 hours for every 5 pounds. If you are like many Americans, you need to 'speed-thaw' the bird. Keep the turkey in the original tightly sealed bag and place it in a clean and sanitized sink or foodservice safe pan. Submerge in cold water and change the cold water every 30 minutes. The turkey will take about 30 minutes per pound to thaw. Our imaginary turkey is 10 pounds so it would take 300 minutes with 10 changes of water. If you used only 10 gallons of water each time, it would add up to 100 gallons per turkey. If 1/2 of the turkeys in the US were speed-thawed, that's over 2 BILLION gallons of water. Any way you look at it, we use enough water to create a sizable Turkey Lake just to get Mr. Gobbler ready to cook.

3: Impressing your guest

Your having the family over at your house this year for Thanksgiving? Impressing the aunts and uncles with a nice green lawn are always high on your list but unnecessary and wasteful. Cut down watering on cool and overcast days and don't water in the rain. Adjust or deactivate automatic sprinklers. You can save up to 300 gallons per time but opting to impress the extended family with your homemade bread.

4: Leave the China in the closet

Use Recycled-Paper Products instead of setting out your grandmother’s fine china. Products made from 100 percent recycled paper require much less water in their manufacturing than do those made from virgin paper. Who really wants to clean dishes anyways?

5: Cleaning up the Leftovers

Use the garbage disposal less and the garbage more (even better--compost!).

6: HALF TIME.

Approximately 30 million of us will watch football after the meal. The next spike occurs at halftime of the football game. Just like clockwork, American toilets will flush 30 million times and use 108 million gallons of water - enough water to fill an entire football stadium! Water efficient toilets would save 62 million gallons of that water. With the meal, time zones in the US go from east to west and stagger the energy and water use. The football game happens in real-time and much of the country hits the bathroom at the same time.

The point of all this is not to have you eating bologna sandwiches for Thanksgiving, but as you let your belt out after dinner, you may want to give thanks for living in a time and place that allows such enormous energy and water use.




Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due: wattbusters.com , usnews.com

Extreme Makeover Home Edition

I have a good explanation for not blogging last week. The LEUWCD is sponsoring a rainwater harvesting project at the Gaines County Show Barn. We started installing the system last week. So I was busy shoveling and gluing and tucking my nice slacks in my boots.

As much as I would love to give you all the details on the rainwater project, I can’t. We will be completing everything one week from today. Check back then for an entire blog on the project.

Last night I was waiting to watch Desperate Housewives on ABC, and had to sit through ten minutes of Extreme Makeover Home Edition. Luckily enough I turned the TV on in time to see that Ty, the host of the show, and his team had installed a rainwater harvesting system in the chosen family’s yard. My heart started beating a little faster just thinking of all the people watching the show who would see that segment.

Rainwater harvesting is something that all of the districts involved in our cooperative, try to educate their communities on. The amount of money and water that you can save by having a system at your home is astonishing! So to have a popular TV show supporting water conservation through rainwater harvesting…..made my water saving heart happy.

I was not able find the link to the clip but I did find pictures from the show on ABC’s web site. To view the pictures, click on the following link http://tiny.cc/U42lc

LINK IT TO ME

I enjoy getting on Twitter every morning and reading the articles or visiting the websites that my followers suggest. Every once in a while, I will click on a link and just stare at the screen, amazed or applauded at what I’m looking at. Today’s blog is just about that.

Link It To Me

is a list of links suggested by the users i follow on Twitter, that are beyond ordinary. I am in no way promoting any products or contests by featuring a link on this blog. It is a way for my readers to see different ideas or products that they may not have come across in their daily googling. So without further ado – Here are my three picks for today’s link it to me.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Let’s start things off with The Original Rainwater Pillow

Developed by Jim Harrington in response to the drought in Georgia. He recognized the havoc that a lack of available water could wreak on his customers gardens. The result is The Original Rainwater Pillow, an innovative way to take advantage of Georgia's short, heavy downpours and provide ample water for flowers, gardens and other outdoor watering needs. Better yet, we do it without hard-to-disguise tanks and the garden excavation required for cisterns!

The standard 8' x 10' model fits in most crawlspaces and under deck areas, and can hold 1,000 gallons of water at a time. Custom sizes that can hold up to 40,000 gallons of water may also be designed to fit your available space. Prices range from $2,500-$4,200 depending on the size of the pillow you want.
View This Unique Product Yourself: http://www.rainwaterpillow.com/main.aspx

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Next up is a contest sponsored by Smithmag.org, called Six Words On Water

The Six-Word Challenge is about one of summer’s treats and earth’s increasingly rare resources: water. “Whether your half-dozen well-chosen words are about water worries (”Save water, shower with a friend”) or the joys of jumping into the deep blue sea (”Oldster surfing: Call it ‘Gray Crush’”), we want your six words on water,” the article stated.

Three winners received a Spreadshirt tee that shows off their six wet words.
Here is one of the winning t-shirts:

View other whimsical and clever six word challenge winners at the following link: http://tiny.cc/44aC9

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Okay- I saved the best (or worse) for last. PeeOutside.org Peeoutside.org was founded in 2007 as a worldwide effort to get people to save water. The goal is to promote a simple way to ease water consumption. Quite simply, millions of gallons of water could be conserved each day – by having volunteers pee outside.

The site includes pictures (YES PICTURES!!!) and F.A.Q. It is defiantly off-the-wall but I applaud them for their creativity…then I stop clapping once I see the pictures (ha ha).
Vie w the site and make your own opinion! www.peeoutside.org/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you have any links you would like me to feature on our blog send me a email at savewater@windstream.net with Link It To Me as the subject.

PBUWCD Art Contest Winners

We have the results from the 3rd annual Permain Basin UWCD Art Contest. The winners have received their cash prizes and certificates, so we are now ready for you to see their hard work.

There were four schools that participate in this years contest ; Elbow Elementary, Grady Elementary,Sands Elementary & Stanton Elementary. The judges, water district staff, and myself, enjoyed looking at all of the students' art work. It was interesting to see the water conservation message portrayed in so many unique ways.

A special thanks goes out to our judges. We appreciate you taking the time to take part in our education program.

The following picture was our grand prize winner this year. The student's picture will will be featured on the cover of our 2010 calendar.


by Allison Tanis, a student at Elbow Elementary

The following students' artwork will be featured on the monthly pages of our 2010 Calendar.

Aaron Alton, Elbow Elementary

Serena Reese, Elbow Elementary

Saige Stallings, Elbow Elementary

Tina Knelsen, Grady Elementary

Justin Wells, Grady Elementary

Noah Wigington, Sands Elementary

Makenzie Merritt, Grady Elementary

Alexis Bonilla, Stanton Elementary

Austin Luna, Stanton Elementary

Dextiny Traylor, Stanton Elementary

Bryan Garcia, Sands Elementary

Tina Friesen, Sands Elementary

CBS: Calif. Drought Means More Imported Produce

I saw the following news story on CBS Monday night. I Thought it was worth posting on the blog.

To view the video that goes along with the article, visit the following link at http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/10/26/eveningnews/main5422655.shtml

(CBS) The talk in sunny California these days is about water - specifically, the lack of it. Legislators there are working a sweeping plan to overhaul the state's water management system.

The plan includes tough new rules forcing residents to use 10 percent less water by the year 2015. CBS News correspondent Sandra Hughes reports on why such measures are needed.

To combat California's water woes, everyone is having to cut back - and drought buster David Jones is making sure of it.

"It was approximately seven minutes from the time we left the yard before we encountered our first violation," said Jones, who enforces water rules for L.A.'s Department of Water and Power.

"In L.A., you can only water twice a week or face fines up to $600," he said.

"I certainly can't afford a ticket so I'm really glad he just gave me a warning," said Melissa Jordan, one violator Jones caught.

The conservation is needed because almost half the state is in severe drought. Towns and farms in the San Joaquin Valley - known as "the nation's breadbasket" - have been hit hard. About half of U.S. fruits, nuts and vegetables are grown there.

Wheat farmer Todd Allen could only harvest 40 of his 600 acres.

"It's getting to the point where give me water or give me death," he said. "I laid off five employees and some of them have been working here anywhere from 15 to 20 years."

More than half a million acres of California farmland have gone unplanted. Farmers don't just blame the three-year drought.

They're angry over new environmental rules aimed at protecting the endangered delta smelt. Because the fish can be sucked into pumps that distribute water to farm towns, the pumps have been turned down, delivering less water.

As California crop losses continue and farms begin to fold, produce prices will eventually go up. But there may be a more pressing matter. Food safety experts warn with fewer locally grown choices, there will be more foreign-grown produce on the shelves.

"Imported produce is three times more likely than produce that was grown in the U.S. to have salmonella or shigella or other contaminants that can sicken consumers," said Elanor Starmar of the advocacy group Food & Water Watch.

Back in L.A., the drought-busting may be backfiring; officials fear the rush of water through aging pipes on the two days a week when watering is allowed has caused more than 30 water main explosions (and one giant sinkhole).

In the San Joaquin Valley it's hopes that are sinking along with jobs. Unemployment has reached almost 40 percent in some places -and those who used to grow food are standing in line for it

LEUWCD Art Contest

We have the results from the 3rd annual Llano Estacado UWCD Art Contest. The winners have received their cash prizes and certificates, so we are now ready for you to see their hard work.

There were three schools that participate in this years contest ; Seminole Elementary, Seagraves Elementary & Loop Elementary. The judges, water district staff, & myself, enjoyed looking at all of the students' art work. It was interesting to see the water conservation message portrayed in so many unique ways.

A special thanks goes out to our judges Melissa Holbrooks, Norma Billings & Angie Elam. We appreciate you taking the time to be apart of our education program.

The following picture was our grand prize winner this year. The student's picture will will be featured on the cover of our 2010 calendar.

by Lacy Jackson, a student at Seminole Elementary


The following students' artwork will be featured on the monthly pages of our 2010 Calendar.

Brenda Thiessen, Seminole Elementary




Joan Gallegos, Seminole Elementary



Nancy Funk, Seminole Elementary




Zackary Thiessen, Seminole Elementary

Sarah Ottaberry, Seminole Elementary




Ransom Edwards, Seminole Elementary






Layne Alvarado, Seminole Elementary

Madison Jones, Seminole Elementary

David Reimer, Seminole Elementary

Alex Menchaca, Seminole Elementary

Maria Fehr, Loop Elementary

Abbey Graham, Seminole Elementary

Rain Barrel Delivery: SPUWCD

The paint has dried and a final coat has been applied to the horse shoes and wildcat paws. All we needed to finish our rain barrel project was a delivery truck.

As mentioned in my last post, the SPUWCD participated in the Kids and Kows & More program in Brownfield. The fourth graders from Meadow & Wellman-Union decorated rain barrels in their schools colors at our station.

This past Friday I was able to attend both schools and present them with their rain barrel. I could tell that both the teachers and the students were excited for me to bring their barrel to their school. I look forward to seeing where their barrels are placed at, and how they will use them. One teacher mentioned to me that her class had already thought of different ways to use the harvested water in their classroom.

Wellman-Union 4th Grade Class

Meadow 4th Grade Class

I can’t say enough about what a great group of students both of these schools have. I always receive a warm welcome from the staff and students, every time I visit. I am looking forwarding to seeing both classes again in the fall for our art contest.