Category: Energy

By George J. Janczyn / Groksurf / July 1, 2010

San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders just yesterday announced a new recycled water hookup with Canyonside Park for landscaping irrigation (see video of announcement).

In his speech, Mayor Sanders proclaimed:

“Finding more uses for recycled water is an important way to maximize resources.”

Councilmember Sherri Lightner also spoke, saying:

“I have always and will continue to support the expansion of recycled water in San Diego as a smart reuse of water and as a water conservation measure.”

Was this really a sign of wholehearted support for water reuse, or was it just lip service?

Editor: San Diego is fortunate to have a watchdog on water issues here in our seacoast desert like Groksurf . Run by George, the blog keeps track of anything to do with our liquid necessity. Here is a recent sample of George’s work, as Groksurf observed Councilman Carl DeMaio’s tactics of disruption as he pursues his goal of privatizing water and other city services.

by George/ Groksurf’s San Diego /

Councilmembers Sherri Lightner and Carl DeMaio took advantage of councilmember Marti Emerald’s absence at [the June 16] Natural Resources and Culture Committee meeting and threw a wrench into the gears of San Diego’s Indirect Potable Reuse/Reservoir Augmentation Demonstration Project (IPR Project).

At least 80 people left the OB Street Fair on Saturday, June 26th, to join the “Hands across the sands” movement. They literally crossed the beach and linked hands with each other at the ocean’s edge to form a human wall against any further off-shore oil drilling. The line stretched from close to the pier all the way past the lifeguard station.

The OB event was one of over 800 such happenings across the country, and it was coordinated by Mike James.

Engineers have at least temporarily stopped the flow of oil and gas into the Gulf of Mexico from a gushing BP well, the federal government’s top oil-spill commander, U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, said Thursday morning.

The “top kill” effort, launched Wednesday afternoon by industry and government engineers, had pumped enough drilling fluid to block oil and gas spewing from the well, Allen said. The pressure from the well was very low, he said, but persisting. The top kill effort is not complete, officials caution.

UPDATE: EARTHQUAKE CONFIRMED –

SDNN reports:

A 5.1 magnitude earthquake struck Southern California Monday at 5:38 p.m., 21 miles west of Mexicali where a 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck on Easter Sunday.

It’s 5:39 pm, while waiting for dinner to cook, I just felt the entire house shake a small bit. The wood frame twisted for a half second. Must be earthquake season.

by Jon Carr

Ahhh…Ocean Beach, it’s beside the point. It’s an attitude, not an address, it’s a bastion for bohemian drifters, free thinkers, artists, bikers, and an occasional right wing nut-job. But we love it. We thrive on it. It’s our home.

While on a leisurely bike ride the other day, I was reminded of another reason I love OB; because OB has been keepin’ it weird since before I was born, and local artist Robert Guenther is no exception.

by David Helvarg

Less than six months ago environmentalists were celebrating President Obama’s commitment to our public seas as they went to work in support of his proposed National Ocean Policy.

Of course that was before the president endorsed offshore-oil drilling.

His call for expanded fossil-fuel development on the Outer Continental Shelf at the end of March came less than a month before the catastrophic explosion of a deepwater oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico leased to BP. That April 20 Deepwater Horizon disaster left 11 oil workers missing and presumed dead and 17 injured, then burned for two days before sinking in almost mile-deep water, setting off what turns out to be something like a 200,000-gallon-a-day oil leak that’s quickly covered a large part of the gulf and is affecting the Louisiana coastline.

We’ve all seen it over these last months: water rushing down gutters and streets, partially filling intersections, workers on our avenues, blocked roadways to our houses in paradise.

Why does the City have to waste so much water as it replaces our pipes – especially during this drought? This is a question many of us have asked.

Jim Noble was asking the questions last Thursday while he took these shots. Again a picture or 9 are worth thousands of words.

By Mike Lee /Union-Tribune / April 18, 2010

The goal: The owners of Architects wanted to showcase their passion for energy-efficient design when they moved offices in Ocean Beach last year. Their previous projects had included designing an eco-friendly building for the OB People’s Organic Foods Market a decade ago.

“When we had the opportunity to do our own office, we figured we better practice what we preach,” said Randy Hanna, a principal with the eight-member company.

The process: Hanna and his colleagues bought a 5,000-square-foot auto repair shop at Bacon and Santa Monica streets, intending to redo it as a green showpiece.

The number of earthquakes greater than magnitude 4.0 in Southern California and Baja California has increased significantly in 2010. Scientists are studying the uptick but cannot fully explain it.

Seismologists in California were busy this week fighting rumors apparently floating on Twitter that a major earthquake was likely in the next few days.

Officials at Caltech say that rumor is not true — and that no such prediction can be made. But researchers say there has been an uptick in earthquakes this year.

by David Helvarg

President Obama’s decision to have Interior Secretary Ken Salazar open vast new areas of federal ocean waters to offshore oil drilling is no surprise. In his State of the Union address, the president explained that his vision for a clean energy future included offshore drilling, nuclear power and clean coal. Unfortunately, that’s like advocating a healthy diet based on fast-food snacking, amphetamines and low-tar cigarettes.

If the arguments you hear in the coming days for expanded drilling sound familiar, it’s because they’ve been repeated for generations. We’ve been hearing promises about safer drilling technologies since before Union Oil began drilling in the Santa Barbara Channel. And if you don’t remember what happened that time, you should. Soon after the wells were bored, one of them blew out in January 1969, causing a massive oil slick that slimed beaches and killed birds, fish and marine mammals. The resulting catastrophe helped spark the modern environmental movement.

Editor: This was sent to us by an OBcean who wanted us to know about Gary Headrick’s address to the San Clemente City Council about his safety concerns at the San Onofre Nuclear power station. Headrick made the following remarks before the San Clemente City Council on January 20th:

City Council Members of San Clemente:

I need to take a few minutes of your time to bring something urgent to your attention. I recently wrote an article about the whistle blowers at San Onofre. Since then, another person with many years in management at the power plant has come forward with more serious allegations, but wishes to remain anonymous. This and other revelations are compelling reasons to temporarily halt progress at San Onofre before they fire up the new generators. The normal channels of communication through the NRC and FEMA have failed, and now we can only seek immediate action from Governor Schwarzenegger.