Fish for Friday

Edited by Morris Dean

[Anonymous selections from recent correspondence]

You know of the very serious drought that California is experiencing. It's in its 4th year. There's finger pointing all around and impending conservation rules on city dwellers that are even stricter than last year's. I don't expect this to accomplish much because most of the water used is by agriculture (80% of the consumption). Starting with my grandfather in 1903, my family has farmed in Tulare County, and I grew up on a farm. Water consumption in Tulare County occurs by drawing on the vast underground water table, which has been dropping at an alarming rate. Every western state but California has long since had laws in place regulating the practice of endlessly pumping from underground aquifers. Big Ag in California managed to shove aside even discussing the necessity to regulate.
    Finally, this last year, a very diluted and weak law was passed. The most it will do is gather information about who is sinking wells. We are treated to weekly opinion pieces in various newspapers by spokesmen for Big Ag that attempt to explain away Big Ag's piggish behavior. (It's free enterprise at its best, doncha know? And besides they're feeding a hungry world.)
    The reality is that tens of thousands of acres have been put into production since 1970. This is land that was not previously irrigated or producing anything. Nobody mentions this. Even without a drought we did not have the ability to sustain this. While this group pretends to care, it really doesn't care so long as they can obtain harvests from a full life cycle of almonds (17-20 years) or pistachios.
    In the meantime, our beneficent Congress has given them hugely outsize depreciation allowances that allow them to recoup in tax saving the whole investment in the hitherto desert land. So, even if they have to abandon the whole thing after 20 years, they will have reaped huge profits and tax savings. Of course, no one talks about whose water it is they have taken. (The assumption, which I strongly dispute, is that it was theirs to take.)

The LA Times article that says "Drought unlikely to cause major damage to California economy" probably needs to distinguish between "hurting the economy" and hurting individual residents who are trying to maintain a more or less normal lifestyle. So many residents are used to being able to water their lawns and gardens, for example. Or take long, languorous showers (or baths). Most are not used to taking measures like having collection barrels or a tank for rainwater, saving water by running it into a gallon jug until it gets hot for washing dishes, turning off the kitchen faucet between rinsing individual items rather than leaving it running the whole time, turning off the shower between initial getting wet and final rinsing. I do those things as a matter of routine and habit, but I'd bet that most people don't even think about running water down the drain for any reason, or letting the shower run the whole time they're in the stall, and staying in there a lot longer than necessary.

Can we talk about what you're eating? At least three times a day we make decisions that have a huge influence on our health and the health of the planet.
    We need your help to better understand perceptions about meat consumption and the environment, so we've put together a brief survey to get your thoughts about food and your own dietary choices.
    The average American diet continues to include quantities of meat that many experts have called wildly unsustainable – not only for our water and our climate but also for the habitat needed by wolves, grizzlies and other wildlife.
    We know that conversations about food choices are often challenging and controversial. But the Center for Biological Diversity has never shied away from taking on tough issues when it comes to protecting life on Earth.
    Act now to take our short, confidential survey and help make sure our campaigns around food systems and the meat industry continue to be effective and hard-hitting.

"Conflicts of Interest at the F.D.A.." [Editorial Board, NY Times] Excerpt:

The Food and Drug Administration’s lethargic regulation of dietary supplements containing a dangerous stimulant described in recent reports in The Times is a classic example of what happens when industry representatives infiltrate the agency that is supposed to regulate them. The worrisome ingredient is BMPEA, a chemical nearly identical to amphetamine that is added to weight-loss and workout products in an effort to enhance their effect. Whether it does so is unclear, since there have never been tests of its effectiveness and safety in humans.
    As noted in The Times, the F.D.A. was actually the first agency to suspect that BMPEA had been added improperly to supplements that listed among their ingredients a little-known plant called acacia rigidula. Experts say that listings like this are often tip-offs that the manufacturer is trying to disguise a chemical additive as a natural botanical extract. The agency tested 21 popular supplements that listed acacia rigidula on their labels and found that nine of them contained BMPEA.

Thirty years ago, an earthquake in Oklahoma was a pretty rare thing. Last year, the Sooner State had 585.
    The increase coincides with expanded hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to extract natural gas and the deep earth disposal of wastewater used in those operations – not that you'd know that from listening to Big Oil's lobbyists at the American Petroleum Institute.
    According to the nation's foremost experts on earthquakes – scientists at the US Geological Survey – the number of magnitude 3 or greater earthquakes in the eastern and central United States has increased exponentially since 2009. That increase coincides with expanded wastewater injection activities that are a key part of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) operations to extract natural gas.
        Places like Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Ohio, and Colorado have never been known for their seismic activity. Now these states experience regular earthquakes. Most quakes are small, but scientists say that larger quakes in Raton Basin, Colorado, and Prague, Oklahoma were likely induced by fracking-related activities.
    It's a connection that Big Oil flatly denies. In fact, the oil and gas industry's main lobbying group, the American Petroleum Institute, says point blank on its website that "hydraulic fracturing does not cause earthquakes."
    That's bad enough, but on at least one occasion Big Oil used its political connections in Oklahoma to put pressure on a scientist who had linked fracking to increased seismic activity. A seismologist whose office is attached to the University of Oklahoma was summoned by the school's president to meet with the head of one of Oklahoma's largest oil and gas companies not long after issuing a statement linking fracking to increased seismic activity in the state.
    When science is denied and researchers are intimidated, the American public is left in the dark about possible risks. And that threatens the safety of the communities where we live.
    Please take a moment right now to sign this urgent petition to the head of the American Petroleum Institute and let Big Oil's lobbyists know that America demands safety and transparency from our energy companies.

The coal industry is waging a war on Appalachia, detonating millions of pounds of diesel fuel and explosives daily to rip the top off of mountains and access seams of coal contained within.
    Dozens of peer-reviewed studies have documented the devastation mountaintop removal mining is wreaking on communities in West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia and Tennessee in the form of elevated rates of birth defects and cancer rates nearly triple the national average. Stunning new research also shows a direct connection between the dust from mountaintop removal mining and lung cancer. ["Mountaintop removal mining is a crime against Appalachia," Al Jazeera America, April 7]
    It is time for Congress to intervene by passing the Appalachian Community Health Emergency Act (ACHE Act), which would place an immediate moratorium on new mountaintop removal mining permits.2
    Sign the petition: Pass the ACHE Act and end mountaintop removal mining now.

A beaver pond in the Sunset Roadless Area

On April 6, the Forest Service announced it was paving the way for the second-largest coal company in the United States to bulldoze across thousands acres of pristine roadless forests in order to mine up to 350 million tons of coal: "Forest Service Moves to Permit Bulldozing for Dirty Coal in Colorado Roadless Forest." [Earth Justice] Excerpt:

Amanda Jahshan, the Wildlife Energy Conservation Fellow with the Natural Resources Defense Council said, "The Forest Service should do what’s good for the people of Colorado—not what’s good for a profit-making company whose product would further pollute our air, despoil our land and worsen carbon pollution that fuels climate change....
    Among the National Forest lands in the crosshairs of coal mine bulldozing under the proposal is the Sunset Roadless Area, a lush aspen and spruce-fir forest dotted with beaver ponds in western Colorado directly adjacent to the West Elk wilderness. [See photos of the Sunset Roadless Area.]

    When final, this deal will allow Arch Coal to reap huge profits while adding hundreds of millions of tons of climate pollution to our atmosphere – all at the expense of thousands of acres of beautiful, wild and public roadless forest.

My ophthalmologist told me that he and his wife had a baby girl since I saw him last. Now they have twin sons and a daughter. Since he likes to play Poker, I told him he now has a Full House – 3 Kings and 2 Queens. He said his wife thinks it's 2 Queens and 3 Jacks.

14th & 15th of 18 Photos from The Smithsonian’s “Wilderness Forever” Photo Contest

Snowy Meadow, Mount Hood Wilderness, Oregon
[Image credits: Jarrod Castaign]

Purple Sea Star, Olympic Wilderness, Washington
[Image credits: Thomas Bancroft]

Teachers can learn new things too:

The author of JT Another Mighty Midyett is deeply knowledgable of his family's history. Reading Randy Somers's book sure made me connect with JT Midyett's life experiences. [Author's website provides links to publisher, Amazon, & Barnes & Noble.]

Chances that a road is unpaved: in the U.S.A. = 1%; in Canada = 0.75%

Albert Einstein:

• Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
• Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it.
• The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.

Rest in peace, Percy Sledge (1940-2015):


You can eat the box after you finish eating the chocolates:

Limerick of the week:

Our novels get longa and longa
Their language gets stronga and stronga
    There’s much to be said
    For a life that is led
In illiterate places like Bonga

[Attributed to H.G. Wells in this compilation of "classic limericks."]

Copyright © 2015 by Morris Dean