Author Archives: ADMIN
BOYCOTT “GMO’s” STARBUCKS – Neil Young Blasts Starbucks for Supporting Monsanto and GMOs in Rock Anthem – Song in the link below . . .
Another reason to boycott Starbucks can be found on page 23 (in the link directly below) of the document from Goldman Sachs (Rothschild) – Taking a Deep Dive into Water – big profits for bankers set to privatize the water supplies in the United States, right now . .Starbucks is supporting the illusion of scarce water resources – just think a cup of Starbucks using recycled sewer water – a proven endocrine disputer causing cancer . . go to www.PrimaryWater.org to help spread the REAL water facts – Water is RENEWABLE . . . WE do not HAVE SCARCE WATER RESOURCES . . .
http://www.stopthecrime.net/report.pdf
http://www.stopthecrime.net/report.pdf
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BOYCOTT “GMO”s STARBUCKS – Neil Young Blasts Starbucks for Supporting Monsanto and GMOs in Rock Anthem – Song in the link below . . .
EXCERPT:
Young and the band The Promise of The Real debuted an acoustic version of the song, “A Rock Star Bucks A Coffee Shop,” in Maui, Hawaii at “OUTGROW Monsanto,” an event put on to call attention to Monsanto’s destructive practices in Hawaii.
Hawaii is considered the global epicenter for GMO seed testing, according to Paul Towers of Pesticide Action Network. Corporations based around the globe test and grow GMO seeds in Hawaii, which can be grown year-round in the islands’ tropical climate, before shipping them to places like Iowa to sell to U.S. farmers and across the globe, according to Towers. Earlier this month, a jury awarded 15 residents $500,000 in damages for pesticide contamination from the biotech company DuPont-Pioneer.
Young’s new song is part of his upcoming album “The Monsanto Years,” due out June 29. Young has been a food advocate for years. He’s the co-founder of Farm Aid, and when it came to light that Starbucks was supporting Monsanto in fighting Vermont’s GMO labeling law last fall, Young publicly declared he would be boycotting Starbucks.
Starbucks says it has been wrongly accused of supporting the lawsuit, and the Grocery Manufacturers’ Association, which brought the lawsuit, has said neither Starbucks nor Monsanto is participating in the lawsuit, according to Reuters. Still, groups, such as GMO Inside, have been calling for Starbucks to cut ties with the Grocery Manufacturers’ Association, of which it’s an affiliate member (and thus a financial contributor), and to buy only GMO-free, organic milk.
TURN in YOUR Neighbor: Drought app lets you tattle-tale on water wasters in your community . . App to go state-wide, then nation-wide . . .
COMMENT: Remember we DO NOT have a water shortage. Water is RENEWABLE – We have Primary Water. . . go to www.PrimaryWater.org to learn the REAL Water Science . . .
TURN in YOUR Neighbor: Drought app lets you tattle-tale on water wasters in your community . . App to go state-wide, then nation-wide . . .
Amid the drought in California where residents are being asked to conserve water, one county created an app that lets neighbors report people wasting water. VPC . . . 6/3/15
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/06/02/california-drought-water-conservation-app/28361785/
EXCERPT:
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — With Californians tasked to cut back water during a four-year drought, the sound of water run-off has become a call to action.
California’s Placer County Water Agency has two new smart phone apps, launched last October. One is a shower timer, which converts time in shower to gallons of water used.
The second, sure to be more discussed, allows people to report water wasters.
WATER WARS: California Drought: Landlords pass along water bills to coax apartment dwellers to conserve . . .
WATER WARS: SB 7 may require individual water submeters for all NEW construction . . .
California Drought: Landlords pass along water bills to coax apartment dwellers to conserve
Julia Prodis Sulek jsulek@mercurynews.com
Samantha Brown, carrying her son 8-month-old Mateo, walks around the Mountain View Apartments in Concord, Calif., on Tuesday, May 27, 2015. Brown, a former resident of the apartment complex, her husband and four children, moved out after suddenly having to pay for water on a flat rate basis. She felt it was unfair for her to have to pay for other tenants wasteful water habits. Because there are no “sub-meters” on each unit, there is no way to determine how much water is being used in individual units. With cities and water districts across the state enforcing mandatory water restrictions this summer, this creates a real dilemma. (Dan Honda)
CONCORD — For years, renters at the boxy apartment complex on Monument Boulevard were like many tenants across California: They never paid a water bill.
But as California’s devastating drought enters its fourth summer and water rates and penalties are surging, landlords are increasingly passing along those costs — on top of the monthly rent.
It isn’t just the additional cost that’s irking renters — it’s the growing suspicion among neighbors suddenly stuck splitting one big water bill. A vast majority of California’s apartment complexes have one master water meter, not individual ones for each unit. So there’s no way to measure who’s conserving and who is letting the tap run wild.
“I’m not going to pay for other people to do their laundry and take hourlong showers,” said Samantha Brown, who recently moved out of the Concord apartment complex into a single-family home. “It’s not fair.”
Tensions over water are mounting among tenants of multifamily dwellings in a state where more than 40 percent of the population live in apartment buildings — nearly 16 million people. A social experiment on water conservation is playing out on a grand scale, from studio apartments to penthouses, from duplexes to high rises.
The new reality for apartment dwellers is the latest installment in this newspaper’s ongoing series “A State of Drought.”
“When tenants are paying for a water bill, they conserve. When they’re not, they go crazy,” said Doug Smith, president of Fuller Enterprises, who started charging his renters for water last year at the Mountain View apartments in Concord, one of 22 apartment buildings he owns throughout the Bay Area.
Already, he says he has seen a 12 percent reduction in water use since he started billing his renters a year ago. On average, he says, his tenants’ water bills are running about $23 a month.
“Before, when tenants weren’t paying and the toilet was running and the shower was dripping, we’d say, ‘Why didn’t you tell us?’ ” he said. “Now, we get calls all the time. It encourages them to conserve.”
But others say it’s not that simple in the world of multifamily living, where relying on your neighbor is often harder than it sounds. Will tenants conserve if the family down the hall does not? Will landlords install low-flow toilets and fix leaky faucets if they no longer pay the water bill?
“It creates a situation where no one is doing the right thing around conserving water,” said Leah Simon-Weisberg, legal director of the San Francisco-based tenants’ rights group Tenants Together.
That’s not what you want to hear in the midst of California’s worst drought in history, with Gov. Jerry Brown imposing severe water restrictions and big fines for abusers.
While much drought conservation attention has been focused on California farmers and homeowners with big yards, who use far more water than apartment dwellers, water usage among the state’s millions of apartment dwellers still equals about 15 times what the city of San Francisco uses each year.
About 80 percent of apartment dwellers don’t have their own water meters to gauge their personal water use. So, for more than 12 million renters, there is no correlation between the amount of water they use and the cost, according to a legislative analysis of a new bill to correct that in the future.
For more than a decade, state lawmakers have grappled with the issue and are now considering legislation that would require “submeters” installed in each apartment unit for all new construction. But even if SB 7 passes, it would only affect those complexes built after 2018.
So what happens now?
“This summer, you’ll see more and more landlords, if they don’t already and can’t install submeters, they’ll probably ask tenants to pay (some share of) the water bill,” said Debra Carlton, the California Apartment Association’s senior vice president for public affairs, who has lobbied on behalf of 50,000 apartment building owners. “It’s not the best way to do it, but in some cases, it’s the only way.”
Landlords of rent-controlled apartments and Section 8 low-income housing are generally prohibited from billing tenants for water. And San Jose Water Co., which has announced strict water use limits on homeowners, has given its customers living in apartment complexes a pass, asserting that most are already fairly efficient with water use because they tend to have less landscaping than single-family homes.
Built in the 1960s, the Mountain View apartments in Concord look like so many others spread across California: more than 160 units, two-stories with long balconies, three small swimming pools and a few grassy areas.
Smith, who owns the complex, says he is doing his part to achieve state and local water conservation goals. He is cutting back landscape watering on his 22 properties to two days a week, as many local jurisdictions require, he said, and is replacing grass with synthetic lawns at some complexes.
His Fremont property has submeters, he said. But in Concord, he says he’s trying to be as fair as possible without them, picking up 20 percent of the total bill to pay for the common grassy and pool areas, and dividing the rest depending on the size of the apartments and number of occupants.
But if renters don’t do their part to conserve, everyone in the complex will have to pay even more.
“They need to work together,” he said. “If we’re going to be penalized, they’re going to be penalized.”
Easy for him to say. One renter at the Concord complex who didn’t want to be identified tried to band together with her neighbors to protest the water bills, but it fizzled when they feared they had little power or recourse.
William Scott, 25, who lives in the Concord complex, isn’t protesting. But he says splitting the water bill with neighbors isn’t the best solution.
“It’s a little frustrating. You can’t control it,” he said. “Who are you going to complain to? All you can do is try to save enough money to buy a house.”
While Smith is paying to water the common areas at the Concord apartments, he’s not required to by state law. That means some landlords could pass on the entire water bill to tenants — and if they want a lush lawn to attract new renters, drought be damned.
Last summer in Santa Cruz, which imposed some of the strictest water rules in the region, an apartment complex admitted it was overwatering its landscaping and was fined for exceeding its water allocation. While the owners denied they passed along the penalties to the tenants, the renters there contended that was the only explanation for the spike in their water bills.
Those in the apartment industry say that over time, when old apartment buildings are knocked down and new ones are built with submeters, tensions between landlords and tenants and among neighbors will surely diminish.
“I can understand where residents are coming from, that they’re getting a much worse deal now” by having to pay separate water bills, said Michael Foote of NWP Services, which provides utility billing and energy management services to apartment complexes across the country. “But partially, the deal they were getting was contributing to the problem.”
Requiring tenants to share the water bill is “leveling the playing field so everyone has skin in the game to conserve,” he said. “Changing people’s behavior is difficult. But one of the best ways to do it is through their wallets. That’s where people pay attention.”
Contact Julia Prodis Sulek at 408-278-3409. Follow her at twitter.com/juliasulek
California moves to restrict water pumping by pre-1914 rights holders – LA Times 6/12/15 . . .
BREAKING: CALIFORNIA OKS OFFER OF “FORCED” VOLUNTARY WATER CUTS BY FARMERS -News from The Associated Press 5/22/15
BREAKING: CALIFORNIA OKS OFFER OF “FORCED” VOLUNTARY WATER CUTS BY FARMERS -News from The Associated PressINSIDER COMMENT: DO NOT ALLOW those with money to seize our water resources by “Regional Incremental Consolidation” of our resources . . . The false water science of scarcity must be debunked. . We can NO longer remain ignorant and now must learn the REAL WATER SCIENCE . . . Primary Water is WHY we do not have a shortage of water. . . The Earth is the water planet and continuously creates water from within. . WATER is RENEWABLE – we are NOT running out of water. This is good news and must be spread far and wide . . .
Think about what you will read below – California Water “REGULATORS” accepted an offer by farmers to make “voluntary” water cuts to avoid deep “mandatory” water restrictions. WHAT? You Better Volunteer or ELSE you will get deep mandatory water curtailments! Watch the YouTube “Water Wars – Stealing Water for Profit and Power” and take note of the Department of Interior’s Water Conflict Map – where the department anticipates guns battles over water theft from land owners – this is their map. !Please go to www.PrimaryWater.org and also watch the YouTube “Primary Water Explained”.
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CALIFORNIA OKS OFFER OF VOLUNTARY WATER CUTS BY FARMERS -News from The Associated Press . . . Posted on www.PrimaryWater .org
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California regulators have accepted a historic offer by farmers to make a 25 percent voluntary water cut to avoid deeper mandatory losses during the drought.
Officials with the state Water Resources Control Board made the announcement on Friday involving farmers in the delta of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers who hold some of California’s strongest water rights.
The several hundred farmers made the offer after state officials warned they were days away from ordering some of the first cuts in more than 30 years to the senior water rights holders.
California water law is built around preserving the water claims of those rights holders. The threat of state cuts is a sign of the worsening impacts of the four-year drought.
The state already has mandated 25 percent conservation by cities and towns and curtailed water deliveries to many farmers and communities.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.
Farmers along the river delta at the heart of California agriculture expected to get an answer Friday on their surprise offer to give up a quarter of their water this year in exchange for being spared deeper mandatory cutbacks as California responds to the worsening drought.
Regulators with the state Water Resources Control Board promised a decision on the proposal by a group of farmers along the delta of the Sacramento-San Joaquin rivers – a rare concession by holders of some of California’s strongest water rights.
For the first time since a 1977 drought, California regulators are warning of coming curtailments for such senior water-rights holders whose claims date back a century or more.
Earlier in the current drought, the state mandated 25 percent conservation by cities and towns and curtailed water deliveries to many farmers and communities with less solid claims to water.
The most arid winter on record for the Sierra Nevada snowpack means there will be little runoff this summer to feed California’s rivers, reservoirs and irrigation canals. As of Thursday, the U.S. Drought Monitor rated 94 percent of California in severe drought or worse.
About 350 farmers turned out Thursday at a farmers’ grange near Stockton to talk over the delta farmers’ bid to stave off deeper cuts.
“That doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll all participate” in the proposed voluntary cutbacks, said Michael George, the state’s water master for the delta. But based on the farmers’ comments, George said, he believed many will.
If the deal offered by farmers goes forward, delta farmers would have until June 1 to lay out how they will use 25 percent less water during what typically is a rain-free four months until September.
The delta is the heart of the water system in California, with miles of rivers interlacing fecund farmland. It supplies water to 25 million California residents and vast regions of farmland that produces nearly half of the fruits, nuts and vegetables grown in the U.S.
Agriculture experts, however, say they would expect only modest immediate effects on food prices from any reduction in water to the senior water-rights holders. Other states will be able to make up the difference if California moves away from low-profit crops, economists say.
State officials initially said they would also announce the first cuts of the four-year drought to senior rights holders on Friday. Water regulators said Thursday, however, that the announcement involving farmers and others in the watershed of the San Joaquin River would be delayed until at least next week.
It is unclear whether the delta farmers’ offer would go far enough to save drying, warming waterways statewide.
Farmers use 80 percent of all water taken from the land in California. Senior water-rights holders alone consume trillions of gallons of water a year. The state doesn’t know exactly how much they use because of unreliable data collection.
The 1977 cutback order for senior rights holders applied only to dozens of people along a stretch of the Sacramento River.
Although thousands of junior water rights holders have had their water curtailed this year, Gov. Jerry Brown has come under criticism for sparing farmers with senior water rights from mandatory cutbacks.
Increasing amounts of the state’s irrigation water goes to specialty crops such as almonds, whose growers are expanding production despite the drought.
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Knickmeyer reported from San Francisco. Fenit Nirappil contributed to this story from Sacramento.
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Weather-Control-Russian.mp4
This is a lecture from 1985 about Weather-engineered Climate Change
http://dutchsinse.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Weather-Control-Russian.mp4
WATER PSYWARS: Vandals Attack an Inflatable Dam – 50 Million Gallons of Water went into San Francisco Bay
WARNING: Smart Water Metering – The Qonnectis Network | Water Intelligence plc – ROTHSCHILD
Smart Water Metering – The Qonnectis Network | Water Intelligence plc – ROTHSCHILD . . .
http://www.waterintelligence.co.uk/the-qonnectis-network/
Smart Metering Technology – the Qonnectis Network
Qonnectis also provides state-of-the-art smart meter reading technology and systems which make it easy to communicate with remote utility meters and sensors. Through the technology, precise meter readings and sensor data is collected and analyzed. Qonnectis can then convert the remote meter data into useable utility intelligence that helps businesses improve their performance and reduce their costs.
Many utilities as well as commercial and industrial energy users access the Qonnectis Network to monitor their infrastructure, increase their efficiencies and evaluate the effectiveness of their environmental programmes. As a result, many have experienced major operational benefits including significant cost reductions, proactive network management and improved customer service.
The Impacts of California’s Drought on Hydroelectricity Production
WATER WARS: The Impacts of California’s Drought on Hydroelectricity Production . . .
http://eelriver.org/2015/03/the-impacts-of-californias-drought-on-hydroelectricity-production/
EXCERPT
The Pacific Institute just released a report that evaluates how California’s drought has resulted in less energy produced by hydroelectric dams and a greater reliance on the more expensive process of burning natural gas.
The current severe drought has many negative consequences. One of them that receives little attention is how the drought has fundamentally changed the way our electricity is produced. Under normal conditions, electricity for the state’s millions of users is produced from a blend of sources, with natural gas and hydropower being the top two. Since the drought has reduced the state’s river flows that power hundreds of hydropower stations, natural gas has become a more prominent player in the mix. This is an expensive change.
According to the Institute’s report, between October 2011 and October 2014, California’s ratepayers spent $1.4 billion more for electricity than in average years because of the drought-induced shift from hydropower to natural gas. In an average year, hydropower provides around 18 percent of the electricity needed for agriculture, industry, and homes. Comparatively, in this three-year drought period, hydropower made up less than 12 percent of total California electricity generation. The figure below (Figure 6 from the new study) shows the monthly anomalies in state hydropower generation in wet and dry years, and the severe cuts over the past three years.