Posted by George J. Janczyn on October 25, 2009
It was bad enough that SDSU (CSU) increased the semester fee, reduced course offerings, and imposed furlough days for classes (9 days per year), but their timing made it worse. When the CSU trustees made their decision on July 21, many students had already paid their fall semester fees in good faith. Last week, those already-enrolled students were receiving notice to send in an additional $336. The notice included this tidbit:
CSU must reserve the right, even after initial fee payments are made, to increase or modify any listed fees, without notice, until the date when instruction for a particular semester or quarter has begun. All CSU listed fees should be regarded as estimates that are subject to change upon approval by The Board of Trustees. [my emphasis]
Links:
Posted in Miscellaneous | Tagged: Education, San Diego State University (SDSU) | Leave a Comment »
Posted by George J. Janczyn on October 24, 2009
News item: River trash tally to hit million-pound mark – SD Union-Tribune
San Diegans illegally discard tires, cars and appliances; refuse such as clothes and boxes from homeless camps; and common litter such as cans and bottles in the San Diego River environment and elsewhere.
The San Diego River Foundation has collected over a million pounds of trash from the river environment since 2005. I Love a Clean San Diego picks up 500,000 pounds of trash each year throughout the county. Looking around, one can easily see they don’t get it all.
Kudos to these organizations and shame on the thoughtless and irresponsible people trashing our waterways and neighborhoods.
Posted in Environment, Land use, Water | Tagged: Garbage, San Diego River, Trash | Leave a Comment »
Posted by George J. Janczyn on October 23, 2009
Service road down the steep canyon to the beach
Halfway down the canyon
Near the bottom Scripps Pier and La Jolla come into view
A quick glance to the north
The reward
Click here to see the entire Friday Spot Check series.
Posted in Friday spot check, Surfing | Tagged: Black's Beach | Leave a Comment »
Posted by George J. Janczyn on October 22, 2009
One of my daily must-read blogs, Aquafornia, found this “crazy or brilliant” plan for an offshore airport for San Diego at The Infrastructurist. Read it here.
Posted in Environment, Land use, Technology | Tagged: Airports | Leave a Comment »
Posted by George J. Janczyn on October 22, 2009
More confusion.
Today on KPBS Radio’s These Days program, Maureen Cavanaugh interviewed Mike Lee, reporter at the San Diego Union-Tribune, to discuss whether outstanding water conservation efforts in the community means success or if there are unintended consequences.
Ms. Cavanaugh pointed to the relaxation of rules on reduced watering schedules that begin in November and offered the premise that water departments may be doing that because conservation has reduced revenues needed for operating costs. For the most part, Mike Lee went along with that assessment. The implication being that water departments may be forced to increase the price of water if consumers don’t use more water. Catch-22.
In the city of San Diego, that’s just not the way it works. The San Diego Water Department charges a fixed ‘base’ fee for operating expenses. The water ‘used’ fee is separate and by law goes only toward the cost of the water. If the water used fee goes up, it’s because the the water department has to pay more for it. On the other hand, you can use no water at all but you’ll still pay the fixed base fee for those operating expenses.
The San Diego Water Department will face increased water prices in January 2010, which is when their suppliers (Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and California San Diego County Water Authority) will raise their price for water, so San Diegans can expect to see bills go up again. The fixed water base fee may go up too, due to increased operating expense. Almost certainly both fees will go up, but not because people have reduced their consumption.
Athough some water districts do draw operating expenses from their water fees and consequently their operating budget is squeezed when consumers reduce consumption, the San Diego Water Department doesn’t do it that way.
If the San Diego mainstream news media wants to suggest that reduced water use affects revenues for operating expenses, they should explain the intricacies and be specific to which agencies they are referring.
Click here to listen to the KPBS These Days interview.
Posted in Politics, Water | Tagged: KPBS Radio, San Diego Union-Tribune | 1 Comment »
Posted by George J. Janczyn on October 21, 2009
We just had news about additional groundwater contamination near Qualcomm Stadium and now comes a report that the city filed a lawsuit against over a dozen companies, the port district, and the Navy over contamination in San Diego Bay. San Diego CityBeat broke the news with a detailed story on Tuesday and also posted a copy of the lawsuit. The San Diego Union-Tribune has a report in today’s paper. Here are relevant links:
Posted in Environment, Land use, Water | Tagged: San Diego Bay | 1 Comment »
Posted by George J. Janczyn on October 20, 2009
A KPBS news report today revealed that the plume of groundwater contamination caused by petroleum discharges at the fuel tank farm near Qualcomm Stadium is more extensive than previously identified. The petroleum discharges date back to 1986 and the Water Board had issued a clean-up and abatement order in 1992.
According to the city attorney, the deadline for removing gasoline from the soil and groundwater beneath the site is Dec. 31, 2010, and the deadline for reducing dissolved phase petroleum hydrocarbons to background water quality levels is Dec. 31, 2013. KPBS reports that the toxic discharger, Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP, has asked for an additional three years to clean up the newly discovered pollution. An extension of the deadline isn’t likely to be granted, although a deputy director at the Water Department admits that further delays will be inevitable.
An Environment California report says this contamination represents
the largest plume of MTBE contamination in the city. The plume, which originates from a large nearby petroleum storage facility, stretches 6,000 feet and threatens the San Diego River. City officials would like to use the polluted groundwater basin as a drinking water source by 2015. Despite its potential as a water supply, treating the contamination requires permanently discarding 60 million gallons of water from the basin each year. The water is pumped out of the basin, treated and then released to a local creek, where it ultimately flows to the ocean. The MTBE contamination costs the city 180 acre-feet in lost potential water supplies each year.
Sources for this report:
Posted in Environment, Land use, Water | Tagged: Qualcomm Stadium, Groundwater contamination | Leave a Comment »
Posted by George J. Janczyn on October 19, 2009
Bill Wyman has written an outstanding analysis of the state of the newspaper industry in his article Five Key Reasons Why Newspapers Are Failing. In describing the economic/business reasons for newspapers’ decline, he reserves some criticism for management, editors, and writers alike for having avoided building an effective online presence. He advocates more of what is only now being realized: newspapers need to become the focal point for all local issues, not just print occasional hard-hitting local stories. They need to create must-read local blogs. They must become hyper local.
Wyman makes one point I don’t agree with, though, and that’s in advocating that headlines in the print editions, limited by space, should be changed and expanded in the online versions in order to be more descriptive. I’ve found that some newspapers already do this and consequently had trouble finding a particular story because the citation I had was a headline from the print version while the online version had a different headline. I think such a practice poses problems for anybody who needs to cite a story for their review or research publication, for databases such as Lexis/Nexis containing the story, and for libraries that may need to catalog it. Scholarly citation of web-based documents is difficult enough as it is, and morphing titles certainly won’t make it better. I would liken the effect to that which would happen if it occurred with books and movies. Better to make more thoughtful use of keywords, categories, and tags.
Otherwise, I consider Wyman’s piece to be necessary and worthwhile reading for anybody who thinks about the survival of newspapers in an internet-based information age.
Posted in Internet, Newspapers | 1 Comment »
Posted by George J. Janczyn on October 18, 2009
Brandegee's Sage
Anchor Bay Manzanita
The California Native Plant Society had a plant sale at Balboa Park on Saturday and I came home with some Anchor Bay Manzanita and Brandegee’s Sage for our slope, which we keep fairly dry. I’ve noticed that when I look at drought-tolerant offerings at the local nurseries, they always seem to be well-watered, and the soil in the containers always quite moist. The same appeared to be true for the plants at the sale. This probably is not an original idea, but my plan is to keep the plants in the containers for a month or six weeks at the spot where I’ll plant them and keep water to a bare minimum. I’m guessing that should reduce the shock when they go into the soil for good, and they’ll appreciate whatever rain we get this winter that much more!
Posted in Landscaping, Water | 1 Comment »
Posted by George J. Janczyn on October 16, 2009
What won’t the city say in its continued resistance to water budgets to control demand?
Someone at City Hall must really like San Diego’s existing water rate structure.
San Diego water officials have offered numerous reasons this year explaining why it isn’t practical to adopt new rates that could boost conservation and penalize waste.
They’ve praised the concept, currently used in the Irvine Ranch Water District in Orange County. Then they’ve misrepresented key facts about it. Now, as a supportive City Council weighs it as a response to the current water shortage, those same city water officials have a new reason for their resistance: Lawyers would have a field day.
The city would get sued.
Read the full story at Voice of San Diego.
Related posts:
Posted in Politics, Water | Leave a Comment »
