Rain on the way . . . maybe
So, I know those of you who live in less clement climes are anxiously awaiting the year's first snowfall, and those of you who live on the other other side of the world are watching your days grow longer, but around here, it's the rain we're looking out for.
The weather report says maybe showers Tuesday, to which I reply "better fucking not," because I'm with Gloria all day Tuesday and if it rains before seven-thirty I've basically missed out on the First Flush event and that would be tragic.
What else did I learn at First Flush training today? Well, there's been new ocean disease research and the implications are interesting. Toxoplasmosis is endemic in birds and rodents -- it mostly doesn't make them sick even. Any animal that eats birds and rodents sheds toxoplasmosis in its feces. Any feces that are washed over by rainfall runoff releases toxoplasmosis into that water, and the water is carried in the storm drains to the ocean, where it lives and gets picked up by ocean animals. Otters get the disease and they have seizures and other brain disorders (makes me wonder about that bad-actor otter that was raping and killing baby seals a while back). Makes me wish I had a box cat instead of an outdoors cat.
Also, red tide organisms (there are multiples) like most kinds of nutrients in the water but what they really love is urea, which gets into the bay by way of lawn fertilizer runoff and, again, mammalian excretion. Fertilizer is a big one. Also feedlot runoff, in some areas. This was tested two ways -- in vitro, with colonies in different media, and with enhanced aerial photography, which showed the red tide oranisms really concentrating in the water around the outfalls.
Remember how I said that Huntington Beach and Santa Cruz had each claimed the right to be called "Surf City?" Huntington Beach won. In court. They started the beef, they took it to court, and now that they've won . . . they've issued "cease and desist" letters to little surf shops selling t-shirts with "Santa Cruz Surf City" logos on them. Yes, they have.
Which elevates the issue from a stupid little NorCal-SoCal rivalry to another of those "property rights trumps freedom of expression" events. It makes an insignificant little bit of community marketing into a minor, but significant, attack on the first ammendment.
But how can anybody fight it? This is the same week that Congress just suspended habeas corpus.
The weather report says maybe showers Tuesday, to which I reply "better fucking not," because I'm with Gloria all day Tuesday and if it rains before seven-thirty I've basically missed out on the First Flush event and that would be tragic.
What else did I learn at First Flush training today? Well, there's been new ocean disease research and the implications are interesting. Toxoplasmosis is endemic in birds and rodents -- it mostly doesn't make them sick even. Any animal that eats birds and rodents sheds toxoplasmosis in its feces. Any feces that are washed over by rainfall runoff releases toxoplasmosis into that water, and the water is carried in the storm drains to the ocean, where it lives and gets picked up by ocean animals. Otters get the disease and they have seizures and other brain disorders (makes me wonder about that bad-actor otter that was raping and killing baby seals a while back). Makes me wish I had a box cat instead of an outdoors cat.
Also, red tide organisms (there are multiples) like most kinds of nutrients in the water but what they really love is urea, which gets into the bay by way of lawn fertilizer runoff and, again, mammalian excretion. Fertilizer is a big one. Also feedlot runoff, in some areas. This was tested two ways -- in vitro, with colonies in different media, and with enhanced aerial photography, which showed the red tide oranisms really concentrating in the water around the outfalls.
Remember how I said that Huntington Beach and Santa Cruz had each claimed the right to be called "Surf City?" Huntington Beach won. In court. They started the beef, they took it to court, and now that they've won . . . they've issued "cease and desist" letters to little surf shops selling t-shirts with "Santa Cruz Surf City" logos on them. Yes, they have.
Which elevates the issue from a stupid little NorCal-SoCal rivalry to another of those "property rights trumps freedom of expression" events. It makes an insignificant little bit of community marketing into a minor, but significant, attack on the first ammendment.
But how can anybody fight it? This is the same week that Congress just suspended habeas corpus.