There are some really fascinating genealogy Websites - even the free ones give you some amazing resources. I was recently repeating a search for my oldest ancestors in L.A. to see if anything new popped up--I'd really like to find out where they came from.
Instead, I found something that raises a lot of new questions.
My great great grandmother was Dona Encarnacion Marteniz, who married Ignacio Bilderrain. In searching for her maiden name, I came across a biography of William Richard Rowland. It refers to his mother, a Dona Incarnacion Martinez Rowland.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Water Supply Solution: How California can thrive during the next mega-drought
The main constraints to having sustainable water systems (both human and natural) in California are not technological or economic, but political and social. There is a very simple (simple to lay out but hard to politically follow through) process we need to go through to achieve sustainability. And if the word "sustainability" rubs you or your audience the wrong way, then just replace it with "reliability" which means the same thing over the long term.
Right now we try to "use" every bit of water we can. In a variable climate like California's, and with a water rights system like ours, that is a recipe for disaster--we expand our "needs" in wet years and they must inevitably contract in dry years. This is not sustainable, or reliable, or any way to try to build anything stable. The Westlands (a low-priority water right) should never have been irrigated because
Right now we try to "use" every bit of water we can. In a variable climate like California's, and with a water rights system like ours, that is a recipe for disaster--we expand our "needs" in wet years and they must inevitably contract in dry years. This is not sustainable, or reliable, or any way to try to build anything stable. The Westlands (a low-priority water right) should never have been irrigated because