Author: Dan Brekke

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California Drought News: Bishops Call on Faithful to Pray for Rain

With all sorts of bad news about California’s long, long dry spell — flows on the American River will be squeezed down to a relative trickle this week, suburban Sacramento is facing draconian water restrictions — here’s my favorite drought story. The Roman Catholic bishop of Sacramento, who leads the state’s conference of bishops, has issued a call for “people of faith” to ask God to make it rain. (Here’s the post I did on it for the KQED blog earlier today: “As Drought Deepens, Catholic Bishops Say ‘Pray for Rain’ “).

There are no atheists in foxholes, the saying goes, a simple way of communicating the notion that everyone gets religion when their mortal ass is on the line (or they think they’re about to meet their maker). But there are plenty of atheists in droughts, like the person who said to me this evening they can’t believe there’s a god who messes around with the weather. Myself, I don’t scoff at the notion of praying for rain and actually found something moving in some of the language in the bishops’ suggested entreaties to “the Almighty.”

Here’s my favorite, not least because it’s said to have originated in a 1950s volume called “The Rural Life Prayer Book” from the National Catholic Rural Life Conference:

Almighty God, we are in need of rain. We realize now, looking up into the clear, blue sky, what a marvel even the least drop of rain really is. To think that so much water can really fall out of the sky, which now is empty and clear! We place our trust in You. We are sure that You know our needs. But You want us to ask you anyway, to show You that we know we are dependent on you. Look to our dry hills and fields, dear God, and bless them with the living blessing of soft rain. Then the land will rejoice and rivers will sing Your praises, and the hearts of all will be made glad. Amen.

I admit I’m not crazy about the “you want us to ask anyway, to show You that we know we are dependent on you” part of that plea. Assuming we’re not dealing with Zeus and his ilk, what kind of a scheming, manipulative jerk of a god is going to hold back the rain just to maneuver us into begging? (Yeah, I know, scripture is probably chock full of examples of god in his/her various guises acting the jerk.) But what I do like about that prayer is the sense of wonder at nature: “To think that so much water can really fall out of the sky, which is now empty and clear.”

I’m of the mind that help is welcome from whatever quarter it arrives. We have fish runs struggling, pastures withering, farms going fallow, streams dwindling, and forests drying out. Native shamans, do your stuff. Bishops, priests, ministers, rabbis, imams, clerics and monks and religious practitioners of all sorts and stripes — likewise. Let’s clap in the presence of our local kami, Shinto style. Pray, if you’re moved to. Ponder this dry place of ours and all that’s beautiful in it. Then look west, or north, or east, or south — that’s where the rain will be coming from.

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Portrait of a Drought: Folsom Lake

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If you live in California, you’ve been hearing about how dry it is here. Our previous rainy season stopped abruptly just before New Year’s Day 2013. The rains didn’t return this fall, meaning many sites in the state had their lowest recorded precipitation ever. San Francisco, with records dating back to 1849, was one of those places; just 5.59 inches of rain fell during 2013. (The next-lowest total was 8.73 inches, recorded during the severe drought of 1976-77.) San Francisco’s average seasonal rainfall — dated from July 1 through June 30 to take account of the wet season — is about 21 inches. The highest rain total ever: the epic winter of 1861-62, which almost drowned Sacramento: 49.27 inches.

About the wet and dry seasons: Supposing we ever have a “typical” year, storms start arriving from the Pacific in October and keep rolling in through April. Normally, we’ll get breaks between waves of storms that bring lowland rains and huge amounts of snowfall to the Sierra Nevada. Since the state needs water year-round, since so much of it arrives in the form of snow that runs off from the mountains when the weather warms up, since there’s no way of knowing from one year to the next how much rain and snow we’ll get, we live on stored water. We have lots and lots of reservoirs.

And one reservoir that’s getting lots of attention during the current drought is Folsom Lake, on the American River northeast of Sacramento. As California reservoirs go, it’s not one of the biggest — in fact I think it ranks as the tenth largest in storage capacity, with 977,000 acre feet (if you buy the definition that an acre foot can supply about two U.S. households for a year, that’s enough water for roughly 5 million people for a year). The water in the lake is used to generate electricity, for drinking water, and for downstream farms. It’s also supposed to provide flood protection and “recreational opportunities” — swimming, boating, fishing, all those things you can do in a lake that’s in the middle of the hot, dry Sierra foothills.

Right now, Folsom lake is down to about 180,000 acre feet, about 18 percent of capacity. That’s just the sixth time since the reservoir was filled in 1955-56 that the level has fallen below 200,000 acre feet, and it appears to be the lowest the lake has ever been in January, right in the middle of what’s supposed to be the rainy season. And when I say low, I mean low. At capacity, the lake’s surface is 466 feet above sea level; yesterday, the lake level fell below 362 feet.

I drove up yesterday to take a look at the lake, the sand, the rocks, the mud, and the little bit of water that’s still spread out in the lake’s deeper channels. The weather was beautiful. People were out sight-seeing, riding bikes, meditating, even fishing, though one guy told me that when he cast his lures out into the water, they were hitting the bottom. It was pretty hard to imagine that all this was going on 104 feet below the surface of the full reservoir would be. We’ll see how low it goes. Right now, there aren’t any real storms on the horizon.

Here’s the slideshow from yesterday’s trip:

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An American Coot in Oakland (with Very Large Greenish Feet)

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An American coot (Fulica americana) on the rocks next to the Oakland ferry terminal last week. I took the picture (through a window) for one reason: While these coots are omnipresent, cruising the local waterways, I have never seen one out of the water and had no idea what huge, strange feet they have: big, greenish things with prominent claws on the end of each toe. (click on the image for a bigger version and a better view of the coot feet in their full bipedal grandeur).

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Another Roadside Attraction

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Walking The Dog this morning, Kate announced she had something she wanted to show me. It was on Cedar Street, on a block adjacent to the one we live on, but on the side of the street I never use. “Never” meaning I may have walked that block half a dozen times in the 25 years we’ve lived here.

Anyway, what was the mystery object Kate wanted to show me? I thought it would be an exotic plant or impromptu art installation. Well, in a sense, the latter guess was kind of close. We walked down the sidewalk, passed one of the Chinese pistache trees growing along the block, then Kate told me to turn around and look down. Down at the base of one of the trees was a beautifully crafted little “Wind in the Willows” or “House at Pooh Corner” door. Inside were what look like a couple battery-powered candles and some shiny pebbles.

Who made it? I have no idea. A pretty neat gift to passers-by who happen to look down, though.

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Through Streets Broad and Narrow: Curbside Wreck

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This got my attention: A badly damaged car parked at the curb of Warring Street south of the Cal campus, with debris from the apparently recent collision still scattered in the street. Being as impulsively voyeuristic as the next person, I decided to stop and investigate when I saw there was a note on the windshield. I’ll refrain from the particulars in the note except to say that it was the driver who hit the parked car took responsibility, apologized, and left a personal phone number and apparently full insurance information, including a claim number.

Taking a closer look at the car that was hit, I think the owner is in for more than a little body work here. This Honda probably dates back to the mid-90s. And the driver who hit it really hit it — the parked car was pushed maybe 10 feet forward and two or three feet to the right and up over the curb. The back left of the car — destroyed. The rear wheel seems to been pushed askew. All told — 15- to 20-year-old car, severe body damage and chassis and/or axle damage — we’re looking at a total loss. Then again, I’m no insurance adjuster.

(You also kind of wonder how it happened. There’s a stop sign about 300 feet or so from the crash site, so you’d guess the driver either didn’t stop or floored it out of the stop sign to build up enough speed to move the other car as far as they did.)

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First of 2014

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I suppose if I really wanted to bookend the “Last of 2013” with a “first of the year” image, I should have been up at sunrise this morning. But it was not to be. Instead, we got out for a Rose Bowl-time hike up through the upper reaches of Claremont Canyon in the Berkeley Hills, then down across the top of the Caldecott Tunnel on the trail to Sibley Regional Park. After we got back to the car, we drove up to Grizzly Peak Boulevard, just south of Claremont, where dozens of people were parked to take in the first sunset of 2014. Here’s the view across the bay to San Francisco, with the Bay Bridge at center stage.

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Last of 2013

The Dog, watchful as cattle graze and dusk comes down on 2013.

The main outing for the last day of 2013: Kate and I took The Dog out to Carquinez Strait Regional Shoreline, up near Martinez. Having contrived to leave home less than two hours before sunset, we only got a short walk in, up to the top of a ridge with a view out to everywhere — the nearby towns of Martinez and Benicia, the above-mentioned strait and Suisun Bay, Mount Diablo, the mountains in Napa and Solano counties. The light was gorgeous, and as it faded, Scout started studying one of the nearby ridges. There was a cow up there, silhouetted against the twilight. Scout kept his vigil for a couple minutes until the cow ambled off over the hill. Then we all headed back down to the car and into the end of New Year’s Eve.

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Buddhists, Meet Bootists

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The corner of Josephine and Berryman streets in Berkeley. The Three Buddhas pickup is one we see parked in the neighborhood, and in fact the firm seems to have had a very long-running remodeling job going on around the corner from where the picture was taken. I’ve seen cars booted by the half-dozen in Chicago, but rarely here in Berkeley. Given the general laxity regarding parking in most residential neighborhoods here — I’ve had a cop refuse to ticket someone who had parked partway across my driveway on the grounds that it was still possible to get a vehicle past it — I always wonder what someone had to do to wind up with their wheels locked. Probably, they’ve picked up tickets in some of the commercial districts where enforcement has been known to be on the zealous side. (Credit for the headline goes to Kate Gallagher.)

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Berkeley Cares, Then Corrects

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Out with The Dog this evening, walking along a bike path not too far from the house, I was startled to see what looked like a memorial: lots of flowers next to the barrier that separates the path from the BART tracks just north of the mouth of the Berkeley tunnel. Funny how fast I started processing possibilities: Was someone waylaid here? Had someone gone over the barrier and gotten electrocuted or hit by a train?

In the dark, I could see there was a sign. Shining a light on it, I found it said someone died 10 days ago in a cycling accident at this spot, just off the dead end of Neilson Street, just south of Gilman. Looking more carefully, I could see that the message had been edited to add details about the incident, including the name of the man who died and the fact he suffered “a heart attack” after an incident in which he apparently tried to avoid hitting someone else on the path.

Looking for the name online, I see a couple of accounts with more details. Stefano (Steve) Maranzana, a 39-year-old UC Berkeley employee, suffered cardiac arrest after he swerved to avoid a skateboarder on the path and crashed into the BART fence. Yeah — 39, with a child on the way, if the news accounts are correct. On his way home from work, just a mile or two north of this site. (Here’s one story, from Charles Burress on the Albany Patch site, and an obituary in The Daily Californian.)

I have to say there’s something about the edits to the sign that seems to go just a little beyond providing an update — like someone suggesting that the original is ill informed (as opposed to less informed). Also, what’s the whited-out portion about? I’m probably reading too much into it.

In any case, from what I read about Steve Maranzana, he was a thoroughly good guy and probably would have appreciated the original sentiment. Take care, everyone.

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Live at North Berkeley: Winter Evening Rush-Hour Guitar

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Up above, that’s Dave Gardner — I’m not sure I’ve got his last name right — sitting on his amplifier and playing guitar as commuters emerged from the North Berkley BART station last night. I asked him how things were going. “Cold,” he said. Were people responding to his playing, “Some,” he said. Mostly, he let his playing speak for him, and I got out of the way so I wouldn’t deter any passers-by from dropping a buck in his guitar case. I liked the music. I think the two numbers he plays here are takes on “All of Me” and “Sweet Georgia Brown.”