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This is the weblog of
Raymond Powers.
Here I will be sharing what I find of import, humor, concern, inspiration and on the transformational edge
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A Quote:
"When strangers start acting like neighbors, communities are reinvigorated." (Ralph Nader)
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Raymond lives in Ojai, where the time now is:
04:47AM
Unique Readers:
Primarily
Public Domain
Everything I've written here, except my copyrighted
essays, poetry, lyrics, and music is hereby placed in the public
domain. The quotes from other people's writings, and the pictures
used might or might not be copyrighted, but are considered fair
use. Thus the license here would best be described as:
Primarily Public
Domain.
Please ask permission if there is any question in
regards to public domain usage.
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| Friday, March 17, 2006 |  |
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17 Mar 2006 @ 08:51
Ronnie Cummins: Gaia Not Guns, A Declaration of Peace & Inter-Dependence
GAIA NOT GUNS: A DECLARATION OF PEACE & INTER-DEPENDENCE
Posted 3/13/06
By Ronnie Cummins, Organic Consumers Association
Gaia: Named after an ancient Greek Goddess of the Earth, Gaia is the belief
and scientific hypothesis that our entire planet is a living organism with
Humankind as an integral part.
Farmers and consumers, both U.S. and worldwide, share the unique privilege
and daunting responsibility of making sure that everyone is fed, and that
the land, water, and climate are nurtured and protected so that we can feed
and nourish the future generations.
War and the enormous waste of resources spent in waging war and maintaining
a huge military industrial complex, threaten our well-being and the literal
survival of our children and the future generations. U.S. taxpayers, for
example, are currently supporting a military budget of over $578 billion a
year, ($463 billion for ³normal² military spending and $115 billion for the
Iraq & Afghan wars)--enough to pay for the cost of eliminating global hunger
and stabilizing the global climate. The annual costs of waging the war in
Iraq and maintaining military bases in the Middle East alone are sufficient
to launch a crash program to reduce greenhouse gases by 75%, feed the
world¹s hungry, and convert the U.S. economy to renewable energy and organic
and sustainable agricultural practices.
As the world¹s climate scientists and energy analysts warn us, unless we
rapidly transfer billions of dollars from the military budget and other
corporate welfare programs, and implement a far-reaching global program to
eliminate poverty, reduce greenhouse gases, and convert the U.S. and global
economy to renewable energy and sustainable production, civilization, as we
know it today, may not survive more than a few more decades.
As organic and socially responsible consumers, we come together to oppose
the war in Iraq and to challenge the dangerous and unsustainable cycle of
war and militarism that threatens our world. The solution we propose is a
negotiated peace, nuclear disarmament, energy independence (for all
nations), and a concerted global campaign to reduce and eliminate global
poverty, especially rural poverty, through the conversion of agriculture and
global commerce to sustainable and organic production.
We come from different political, religious, and social backgrounds, but
share a common concern that the living Earth or Creation, must be protected,
that the upcoming generations have an inalienable right to a stable climate
and that the United States, founded by small farmers and craftsmen/women,
must return to the spirit and ideals upon which our Republic was founded.
We strive for a world that reduces the risk of war by eliminating its
causes--poverty, control of government and mass media by powerful special
interests (the fossil fuel lobby and the military industrial complex),
environmental degradation, injustice, and religious intolerance. We call
for all countries to stop misappropriating their resources on war and to
focus instead on fighting hunger, promoting public health, stabilizing the
climate, and protecting our common environment and farmlands.
Organic and Socially Responsible Consumers Say No to War and Climate Chaos
Help us build up a national and international network of organic and
socially responsible consumers who wish to protect Gaia/Mother Earth, put an
end to war and military madness, and green and re-localize the global
ecology.
Our group plans to become part of United for Peace and Justice, a coalition
of 1300 local and national anti-war groups in the U.S.
(www.unitedforpeace.org ). Please join us
in building up a powerful coalition that brings about cooperation and
synergy between the anti-war movement, the climate crisis movement, and the
organic community.
Thanks to the Farms Not Arms coalition and peaceroots.org for much of the
wording and inspiration for this document.
And they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into
pruning hooks.
ISAIAH 2:4
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| Sunday, February 19, 2006 | |
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 19 Feb 2006 @ 00:04
Its All Our Fault: Natural Gas Running out in Eight Years
February 11, 2006 06:21 AM - Lloyd Alter, Toronto
A comic said "if I opened a funeral parlour, people would stop dying". We feel that way after installing a brand new high efficiency furnace two days ago and then reading that we are going to run out of natural gas in 8.1 years- before the warranty even runs out. Dave Hughes of Natural Resources Canada gave a lecture in Calgary on February 2 called “The Coming Energy Sustainability Crisis: Alternatives to Oil, Implications of Demand Growth and the Way Forward.”
"North America peaked in terms of conventional natural gas production in 2001–2002. Notable examples of the effects of this peak are the dramatic increase in prices for natural gas and natural gas-dependent products, such as fertilizers and plastics. Consumption trends and patterns were also explored. In every case, the phenomenal growth rates in our economy show a complete disconnect with the reality of the resources currently supporting them. Canada, for example, has 8.1 years left in natural gas reserves."
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| Monday, February 13, 2006 | |
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13 Feb 2006 @ 11:00
EZTradein Electronics under eBay’s ReThink
February 13, 2006 12:15 AM - Warren McLaren, Sydney
We’ve mentioned eBay’s ReThink program for salvaging computer stuff on one or two occasions in the past. Now Tipster Alex D. alerts us to the fact they have a newish scheme, whereby you can get PayPal money by sending in any old electronics goodies that you no longer require. The program is quite broad, it includes the following categories; Desktops-PC, Desktops-Apple, Notebooks-PC, Notebooks-Apple, Camcorders, Digital Cameras, Servers, Multimedia Projectors, Home Audio Receivers, Mobile Phones, Car Audio, Monitors, Game Systems, PDAs and Apple iPods. And is pretty simple. Fill in the online form, it gives you an estimate, if you think the $$$$’s sound half decent, just make a booking, print off the prepaid mailer, and ship the goods to their warehouse. A week later you’ll receive your dough via PayPal. The quoted prices won’t make you rich, but if you’ve run out of friends and family to donate your old computers and hi-fi to, then at least you get something back this way. What exactly happens to the goods at this point isn’t made clear, but given that they've just paid you for them, we doubt they are landfill bound.
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| Wednesday, February 8, 2006 | |
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8 Feb 2006 @ 08:30
Break the Chains of Toxic Pesticides and Farm Worker Exploitation
Valentines Day marks the biggest shopping day of the year, when it comes to chocolate and flowers. But did you know that by purchasing organic and Fair Trade chocolate and flowers your consumer dollars will no longer be going towards toxic pesticides, child slavery, and farm worker exploitation?
Over 40 percent of the world’s conventional chocolate (i.e. non-organic and non-Fair Trade) comes from Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), where the International Labor Organization (ILO) and US State Department have reported widespread instances of child slavery. Exploitation of cacao farmers and farm workers is the global norm in the chocolate industry, rather than the exception.
Meanwhile organizations such as the Pesticide Action Network point out that commercial flowers, produced in countries such as Colombia, are the most toxic and heavily sprayed agricultural crops on Earth, The high profits of the transnational flower exporters are derived from poisoning the land and farmers, while forcing workers in the flower industry, often young women, to work 18 hour days for poverty wages during peak flower buying times such as Valentine’s Day.
This Valentine’s Day, join with the Organic Consumers Association and our allies around the world to put your money where your values lie and to show your loved ones that you truly care. Please break the chains of industrial agriculture and corporate globalization by choosing Fair Trade and organic flowers and chocolate for your Valentine’s Day gifts.
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| Tuesday, February 7, 2006 | |
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7 Feb 2006 @ 07:43
India: Police Investigate Death of Coca-Cola Bottling Plant Opponent
CHENNAI, India, February 2, 2006 (ENS) - A Coca-Cola franchise company in India is the subject of a police inquiry into the death of a community leader who had publicly objected to a planned Coca-Cola bottling plant in the village where he chaired the local council.
On January 30, Justice P. Murgesen of the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court directed the Superintendent of Police to register a case into the suspicious death of V. Kamsan. The judge further directed the Crime Branch Criminal Investigation Department to conduct an investigation into Kamsan's death August 30, 2005.
The court action came as a result of a petition filed by Kamsan's wife, Mrs. Santhanamary.
Kamsan was chairman of the village council in Gangaikondan, southern Tamil Nadu where the South India Bottling Company Private Limited - a Coca-Cola franchisee - plans to locate a bottling plant.
The drinks plant, planned for the government owned Gangaikondan SIPCOT Industrial Estate, would withdraw about five lakh (500,000) liters of water from the Thamirabarani River, drawing opposition from political leaders, community members and activists.
Residents of Gangaikondan, a village near India's southern tip, go for water at the river. (Photo by Nityanand Jayaraman courtesy India Resource Center)
They fear that withdrawal of water from the Thamirabarani River would be harmful to farming activities in the Tirunelveli and Tuticorin districts, which are already suffering a water crisis.
On August 23, 2005, Kamsan convened a meeting of the Gangaikondan village council which passed a resolution against the proposed Coca-Cola plant, saying, "As the unit will cause environmental and health hazards besides triggering acute drinking water scarcity, the government should immediately cancel the permission given to the company, which is planning to prepare a range of soft drinks here."
But less than 12 hours after the village council meeting, Kamsan issued a prepared statement to "The Hindu" newspaper, one of India's leading English newspapers, contradicting the resolution passed earlier in the day.
When asked by "The Hindu" about issuing the conflicting statement, Kamsan said, "I am under immense pressure from the public, the police and some other quarters. So I have issued this statement."
On that same evening, according to Mrs. Santhanamary's petition, Coca-Cola company officials "coerced" her husband into accompanying them to a hotel in Tirunelveli, detained him for days and forced him to drink alcohol, even though he was suffering from jaundice.
Kamsan was brought back home by Coca-Cola company officials on August 28 in very serious condition, and according to the petition, he said that the Coca-Cola company officials had forced him to drink liquor and drop the village council resolution.
Kamsan was admitted to the Tirunelveli hospital where he died on August 30, 2005.
There is strong community opposition to the proposed Coca-Cola bottling plant in Gangaikondan, as there is to several other such bottling plants in locations across India where water is scarce. Foul play is suspected by many community members in Kamsan's sudden disappearance and death, as well as the timing between his public opposition to the plant and his death.
Last Friday, the Gangaikondan village council passed another resolution asking the state government to cancel the license of the proposed facility "as the effluents discharged from the plant will pollute the environment, groundwater and soil."
"The Coca-Cola company in India talks a lot about having good community relations, rainwater harvesting, transparency and accountability but the ground reality is that the company is engaged in all sorts of dubious activities in an attempt to intimidate local communities, particularly where there is significant local opposition to its operations," said T. Fatimson of the Campaign for Right to Livelihood and Food Security, one of the active groups working in Gangaikondan to oppose the bottling plant.
"No company, however large, is above the law, and we expect a thorough police investigation into the suspicious circumstances surrounding Mr. Kamsan's death," said Amit Srivastava of the India Resource Center, an international campaigning organization based in San Francisco. "The investigation must ensure that there is no interference from Coca-Cola company authorities."
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| Wednesday, February 1, 2006 | |
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1 Feb 2006 @ 07:54
Climate Expert Says NASA Tried to Silence Him
QUOTE: "The fight between Dr. Hansen and administration officials echoes other recent disputes. At climate laboratories of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, for example, many scientists who routinely took calls from reporters five years ago can now do so only if the interview is approved by administration officials in Washington, and then only if a public affairs officer is present or on the phone."
Climate Expert Says NASA Tried to Silence Him
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
NEW YORK TIMES, January 29, 2006
[link]
The top climate scientist at NASA says the Bush administration has tried to stop him from speaking out since he gave a lecture last month calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming.
The scientist, James E. Hansen, longtime director of the agency's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said in an interview that officials at NASA headquarters had ordered the public affairs staff to review his coming lectures, papers, postings on the Goddard Web site and requests for interviews from journalists.
Dr. Hansen said he would ignore the restrictions. "They feel their job is to be this censor of information going out to the public," he said.
Dean Acosta, deputy assistant administrator for public affairs at the space agency, said there was no effort to silence Dr. Hansen. "That's not the way we operate here at NASA," he said. "We promote openness and we speak with the facts."
Mr. Acosta said the restrictions on Dr. Hansen applied to all National Aeronautics and Space Administration personnel whom the public could perceive as speaking for the agency. He added that government scientists were free to discuss scientific findings, but that policy statements should be left to policy makers and appointed spokesmen.
READ MORE More >
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| Thursday, January 26, 2006 | |
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26 Jan 2006 @ 22:34
WATER FIGHT: BOLIVIA vs. BECHTEL
Last week brought an end to one of the greatest water battles in history. The people of Bolivia have successfully reclaimed ownership of their water from the Bechtel Corporation. In 1999, Bechtel made an arrangement with the Bolivian government to take ownership of the water supply and charge citizens for its use. Within weeks of the takeover, Bechtel raised water rates by 50% and made it illegal to gather rainwater without a permit. The ensuing citizen revolt forced Bechtel out of the country. Bechtel then sued Bolivia for $50 million for "profit losses." But last week, after four years of legal disputes and public pressure, the case was dropped. "This is the first time that a major corporation like Bechtel has had to back down from a major trade case as the result of global citizen pressure," said Jim Shultz, executive director of The Democracy Center in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Bechtel's surrender coincides with the election of indigenous populist farm leader, Evo Morales, who has long been a sharp critic of Bechtel and other transnational corporations operating in Bolivia. [link] More >
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| Tuesday, January 24, 2006 | |
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 24 Jan 2006 @ 03:33
Greenpeace Dumps Dead Whale at Japanese Embassy to Protest Continuing Whale Slaughter
Dead whale left outside embassy
The demonstration drew a crowd of curious onlookers
(and carrion eaters) {-:
BBC News, Jan. 19, 2006
[link]
A huge beached whale has been dumped outside the Japanese embassy in Berlin in a Greenpeace anti-whaling protest.
The controversial environmental activists hauled the fin whale to Berlin
from the Baltic coast after finding it beached on a sandbank.
The dead whale measured 17m (56ft) long and weighed 20 tonnes.
Activists are trying to demonstrate that there is no need to kill the
mammals for research - as Japan does - because cadavers can be found.
Japan is expected to kill 935 minke whales in the Southern Ocean whale
sanctuary during the first four months of 2006.
The whale got stuck in the Baltic's shallow waters.
The International Whaling Commission imposed a moratorium on commercial
whaling in 1986, but Japan resumed whale hunting the following year. Critics dispute Japan's claim to be whaling for scientific purposes, saying whale meat often ends up on restaurant tables.
A Greenpeace banner in Berlin read: "Science doesn't need harpoons! Stop the
senseless whaling!"
The fin whale in Berlin - between 10 and 20 years old - is believed to have
got lost in the Baltic while looking for herring. Its normal habitat is the
North Atlantic.
The whale is due to be taken to Stralsund on the coast for scientific
examination after the Greenpeace protest. More >
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| Saturday, January 21, 2006 | |
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21 Jan 2006 @ 08:31
World Social Forum: The Great Debate in a Land of Change
From:
Published on Wednesday, January 18, 2006 by the Inter Press Service
World Social Forum: The Great Debate in a Land of Change
by Humberto Márquez
CARACAS - Some 100,000 social activists from across the Americas and the
world will soon be arriving in the Venezuelan capital, where they will
condemn war and imperialism, and lend their support -- although not
unconditionally -- to the changes introduced in this country by President
Hugo Chávez.
"The great people of the United States are our brothers, my salute to them,"
Chavez told the 15.000 World Social Forum participants that managed to get
inside the Gigantinho Stadium in Porto Alegre to hear him speak.
Credit: Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias
The sixth annual World Social Forum (WSF) is being held at several different
sites this year, instead of one centralised forum as in the first five
editions. In addition to the Americas forum in Caracas Jan. 24-29, the
African forum will take place in Bamako, Mali, Jan. 19-23, and the Asian
meet will be in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi in March.
In Venezuela the WSF "will find a process of transformation that has
incorporated some of the policies of mass movements in this continent and in
other regions. People come to the forum to speak and debate, but also to see
and learn," Carlos Torres, of the Canadian non-governmental organisation
Alternatives, told IPS.
READ MORE More >
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| Tuesday, January 17, 2006 | |
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17 Jan 2006 @ 07:59
LIME: Monkey See, Monkey Do
January 16, 2006 07:55 PM - Lime Planet, New York, New York
Inspired by the plight of his film’s über-gorilla, King Kong director Peter Jackson is backing efforts by the International Gorilla Conservation Programme to save Kong’s smaller, less fictional friends. The Independent reports that Jackson’s efforts include charity premieres of the film and plans for the King Kong DVD to include a documentary film about wild gorillas.
There are thought to be fewer than 1,000 gorillas left in the wild, and some folks predict that the species will become extinct within the next few decades.
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| Monday, January 16, 2006 | |
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 16 Jan 2006 @ 18:22
Put two and two together.....
-------------------------------------------------
School districts across the U.S. are responding to government funding cutbacks by beginning the sale of ad space on school buses. For participating districts, banners on the outsides and insides of buses carry ads for everything from soda to pizza to banks. The debate over the issue has become quite contentious among parents and school administrators. "I'm sending my child to school to learn, not to be sold junk food," says Denver parent Melissa Hart. Although only a handful of school districts have begun the practice, they're each reporting an average of half a million dollars per year in ad revenues.
JUNK FOOD ADDITIVES STOP NERVE CELL GROWTH
Mixing common additives, such as aspartame an artificial sweetener, Brilliant Blue, Quinoline Yellow or monosodium glutamate (MSG) causes nerve cell damage, say researchers at the University of Liverpool. The results from a two-year study were recently published in the journal Toxicological Sciences. The researchers found the additives were much more potent in combination with each other than on their own. Mice were exposed to concentrations of additive combinations relative to what a child would receive in an average snack and drink. Researchers were surprised to see the additives interfered with nerve signaling systems and actually stopped the nerve cells from growing. Aspartame is commonly found in diet drinks, candies and flavored medicines, while MSG is frequently found in chips, processed cheese and many processed foods. More >
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 16 Jan 2006 @ 18:15
CALIFORNIA COULD BE FIRST US STATE TO RETURN TO INDUSTRIAL HEMP FARMING
A bill in the California Assembly could bring traditional hemp farming back to the United States. Although industrial hemp is commonly used for making products in the U.S., it cannot be legally grown by domestic farmers. These laws contrast early America when farmers were legally bound to grow hemp during the Colonial Era and Early Republic, due to the plant's versatility. Often confused with marijuana, industrial hemp is actually a very different plant and contains insignificant levels of THC (tetrahyrdocannabinol), the chemical in marijuana that results in psychotropic effects. Industrial hemp, which can be grown easily without the use of pesticides or synthetic fertilizers, can be used to make paper, textiles, bio-fuel, nutrition supplements and fiberboards. Hemp fields clean the air and the soil, and hemp products can be recycled and composted. Industrial hemp production has been illegal in California since 1972. Now there is a bill that would let farmers grow the hemp that is currently imported from other countries. AB 1147, the California Industrial Hemp Farming Act, must pass out of the Assembly by the end of January in order to be considered by the Senate.
If you are a California resident, please take action now: http://www.organicconsumers.org/cahemp.htm More >
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| Wednesday, January 4, 2006 | |
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4 Jan 2006 @ 03:06
Cash-Strapped Schools Turn School Buses into Corporate Billboards
December 27th, 2005
Advertisers Catch the School Bus
By Emily Bazar
USA Today
School districts desperate to plug budget holes are turning their buses into
billboards for soft drinks, credit unions and car dealerships.
Advertisements have popped up on buses in Arizona and Massachusetts. New
ones are set to appear in Michigan and Colorado.
Dozens more districts from Florida to Pennsylvania may join them.
"This will spread across the nation, because there's so much money that will
come into schools as a result of doing this," says Daniel Shearer, director
of transportation at the Scottsdale Unified School District.
The Arizona city just outside Phoenix began displaying ads on the sides of
its buses last December. Advertisers include real estate agencies, a local
toy store and an ambulance company. The district anticipates the ads will
bring in $300,000 this year and up to $900,000 in a few years.
Children 'for sale'?
But some consumer groups and parents are alarmed. They say America's
children < already bombarded by ads < shouldn't become captive audiences on
their way to and from school.
"It teaches children that ... they're for sale," says Gary Ruskin, executive
director of the consumer group Commercial Alert. "They're just a bunch of
sardines packed in a bus being sold to an advertiser."
Read More More >
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| Saturday, December 24, 2005 | |
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24 Dec 2005 @ 00:43
Chocolate's Dark Side - No Jokes
By Robert Cohen
NotMilk.com
12-23-5
Cow's milk naturally contains an addictive opiate (similar to morphine) called casomorphin, and that is not a joke.
For many children, the consumption of milk and dairy opiates translates into attention deficit disorder, and that too is no joke.
Four pounds of milk are required to manufacture one pound of milk-chocolate, and for vegan milk-chocolate addicts, that is not a joke.
Most of the chocolate eaten in America comes from beans grown in Ivory Coast, where children are kidnapped from neighboring countries to live in slavery on abusive plantations, and that is also no joke.
If you support the chocolate industry by eating their product, you have complicity in the most immoral and unethical crime of the twenty-first century, and you area a part of the problem, and that is no joke either.
When it comes to the ethics of slavery and chocolate, Hersehy's and Nestles Chocolate Company's position is that Ivory Coast is a sovereign nation, and they will continue to buy their chocolate because they do not want to do damage to Ivory Coast's economic system.
Men and women of conscience must be one on this issue. An economic system based upon child slavery is not worth saving.
On today's very special eve in which "Peace on Earth and Good Will to Men" reverberates, take a moment to consider that little boy or girl who cries in despair and torment in a world that makes no sense. Consider that child the next time you are tempted to purchase milk chocolate products.
Unless the label on a chocolate product informs you that the contents are grown elsewhere, assume that each bite supports slavery.
A man named Che once wrote:
"If you tremble with indignation at every injustice, then you are a comrade of mine."
Please do the right thing, and become part of the solution.
Robert Cohen
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| Sunday, November 20, 2005 | |
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20 Nov 2005 @ 04:54
Un-Treehugger: Quote by US Senator Chuck Grassley
November 19, 2005 06:06 PM - Michael G. Richard, Ottawa
We try to keep things positive around here and leave it to others to report the negative stories, but once in a while we read something that gives us brain cramps and that has to be mentioned out of some kind of morbid fascination. This quote by Iowa senator Charles "Chuck" Grassley is a prime example of not getting it. He said: "You know what? What makes our economy grow is energy. And Americans are used to going to the gas tank (sic), and when they put that hose in their, uh, tank, and when I do it, I wanna get gas out of it. And when I turn the light switch on, I want the lights to go on, and I don't want somebody to tell me I gotta change my way of living to satisfy them. Because this is America, and this is something we've worked our way into, and the American people are entitled to it, and if we're going improve (sic) our standard of living, you have to consume more energy."
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| Friday, November 11, 2005 | |
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11 Nov 2005 @ 00:13
This is the dam that is less than am ile from where I live.
Ventura County Star
Matilija Dam removal gets a boost
Coastal Conservancy OKs $1 million to help with project planning
By Tony Biasotti, tbiasotti@VenturaCountyStar.com
October 29, 2005
The effort to blow up Matilija Dam and return the Ventura River to a more natural state got a $1 million boost this week from the California Coastal Conservancy.
The conservancy, a state agency that buys and protects coastal resources, voted unanimously to allocate the money during its meeting in Long Beach on Thursday. It will go toward the project's $8 million design phase. Removing the dam will cost about $130 million, with most of it to come from the federal government, according to a Coastal Conservancy report on the project.
Getting federal money any time soon appears doubtful, though, because the cost of repairing levees and other water-related projects destroyed by hurricanes Katrina and Rita is expected to take all of the federal water project money for years to come.
Matilija Dam is near Ojai, along Matilija Creek and a few miles north of Lake Casitas. Since it was built in 1947, 6 million cubic yards of sediment has built up behind it, and the reservoir now holds less than 10 percent of the water it once did.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Ventura County Watershed Protection District blame the dam for the near demise of the southern steelhead trout in the Ventura River. According to the Coastal Conservancy report, the steelhead population has dropped from 5,000 to fewer than 100 since the dam was built. The dam has also contributed to increased erosion downstream at Ventura's beaches, the report says.
The Army Corps of Engineers and the county are still developing a plan to remove the dam.
"It's not like you just take it down and let everything rip," Ventura County Legislative Analyst Sue Hughes said. "There's people who live along the way, and there's a lot that has to be done first."
First, some of the sediment behind the dam must be removed and placed along the Ventura River in "sand-starved" areas, Hughes said. The rest will be allowed to flow naturally downstream.
In 2011, the Corps of Engineers is scheduled to bring the down dam through controlled blasting, Hughes said. By 2020, the rest of the sediment should be gone and Matilija Creek will be much the same as it was in the 1940s.
The project also includes two new bridges along the Ventura River, and two new wells for the city of Ventura's tap water. Non-native plants will be removed, and trails and other recreation areas will be built, Hughes said.
"You'll be able to get all the way from the ocean to the Los Padres National Forest on foot," she said.
But first, the project needs money. The $1 million from the Coastal Conservancy is the first half of an expected $2 million from the state for the design and planning phase, Hughes said.
About $78 million of the project's $130 million budget must come from the federal government, she said. The project is included in a water resources bill passed in June by the U.S. House of Representatives. It is now under consideration in the Senate.
But that bill is only an "authorization" of the money, or a plan to allocate it in the future, Hughes said. Congress must still vote in future bills to allocate the money. More >
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| Saturday, October 15, 2005 | |
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| Saturday, September 24, 2005 | |
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24 Sep 2005 @ 02:15
Farm Aid Benefit Inspires 30,000 Family Farm & Organic Supporters in Chicago
From: Published on Monday, September 19, 2005 by Reuters
Farm Aid Stars Shine in Benefit Show, 20 Years On
by Ros Krasny
TINLEY PARK, Illinois - Farm Aid staged its 20th annual benefit concert on Sunday, with a galaxy of stars pledging help for overlooked rural victims of Hurricane Katrina.
The daylong show at an outdoor arena south of Chicago grossed $1.3 million in ticket sales and played to an enthusiastic crowd of more than 28,000 for over ten hours.
Farm Aid's president, Texas music legend Willie Nelson, with trademark long braid, black cowboy hat and battered guitar "Trigger," closed the show after energetic performances by fellow founding members Neil Young and John Mellencamp.
After thanking the crowd for its support of Farm Aid's Gulf Coast relief effort, Young launched into Fats Domino's "Walking to New Orleans" and a blistering "Southern Man," his rarely performed early 1970s anthem about racial prejudice.
Singer Dave Matthews, who joined the Farm Aid board several years ago, said he was "still a little nervous" during a solo performance but less so around "big brothers like Willie, Neil and John."
Others on the bill included Wilco, Buddy Guy, Emmylou Harris and country singer Kenny Chesney, appearing days after splitting with wife, actress Renee Zellweger.
FARM SUPPORT GROUP CARVES NEW NICHE
Conceived by Nelson during the depths of the U.S. farm income crisis and first staged in Champaign, Illinois, in 1985, when Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash were among the headliners, Farm Aid has survived to see better times for many farmers.
The group is now closely associated with the "good food movement" of small-scale and organic producers against huge factory farms and corporate-driven production agriculture.
"We are here to promote food from family farms," said Caroline Mugar, executive director of Farm Aid. "Changing the food you buy changes the way your food is grown."
The number of farmers' markets in the United States rose by 79 percent in 2002 from 1994. The organic food industry grew by 20 percent in 2003 to account for more than $10 billion in consumer sales.
Farm Aid's organizers moved quickly to ensure that some funds from the concert were earmarked for rural areas on the Gulf Coast devastated by Hurricane Katrina in late August, which they say have been neglected by the authorities.
"It's hard to believe President George Bush gave a speech in New Orleans about disaster recovery and failed to mention the word 'farm' or the word 'rural,'" said Jim Hightower, a columnist and former Texas Agriculture Commissioner.
Two decades worth of Farm Aid events have raised some $27 million, of which the group says over 80 percent has been spent on programs to promote family farming.
Of that, only a small percentage goes directly to farmers in the form of grants, the Chicago Tribune reported on Saturday, raising the hackles of the Farm Aid organization.
The goals of Farm Aid are broader than just cutting checks to needy farmers, said Brian Snyder, executive director of the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture.
"Farmers want organizations like Farm Aid to organize across the country and create an equitable food system," he said, adding that small-scale farmers aimed to be vocal as the 2007 U.S. Farm Bill covering federal agricultural subsidies is written. The Chicago-based American Institute of Philanthropy has graded Farm Aid an A-minus is terms of financial efficiency, ranking it ahead of charities including the American Heart Association and Amnesty International.
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Sounding Circle - Category: Activism
