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March 2012
VOL 17, NO 3
SEVENTY-FIVE CENTS
spotlight
12-year-old joins Israeli school children for charity read-a-thon By StaffWriter
Cayla Quinn (12) from Walnut Creek is marking her Bat Mitzvah celebrations by becoming a guest participant in a charity read-a-thon promoting English literacy to school children in Israel. The annual read-athon is the flagship event of Israeli NGO A.H.A.V.A and attracts hundreds of local school children who are sponsored to read as many English books as they can over the course of a month. 7th grader Cayla, who attends Stone Valley Middle School in Alamo and the Congregation B’nai Shalom in Walnut Creek, will be the first ever participant in the read-a-thon to take part from abroad. Cayla who will celebrate her Bat Mitzvah on June 16, has already convinced three other friends to join the initiative. She said: “One if the reasons I chose to support
ECRWSS
PRESORTED STANDARD US POSTAGE PAID DANVILLE, CA PERMIT NO. 70
See READ-A-THON page 11
FREE RAIN: Practical Actions to Public Policy A homeowner’s perspective By Judy Adler
Postmaster: Dated Material
In Judy Adler’s garden, 3-3000 gallon tanks store recuperated rainwater allowing her to sustain her garden and pond without using treated drinking water. In this year of scarce rainfall, more thought can be given to ways of preserving water resources. Also: Completed ballots for the Clean Water Initiative can be mailed OR hand-delivered to 651 Pine Street, 1st Floor, Room 106, Martinez, California before April 6, 2012 at 5:00 p.m. See cccleanwater.org/cleanwaterinitiative.
The sky is blue again today. I am lounging on the deck at the warm southern end of my house contemplating how little rain we have had this year in contrast to last year’s deluge. It is winter in name alone, for it feels like spring in terms of the air temperature and the fragrant blossoming of my fruit trees. I observe the avian denizens of my backyard pond and appreciate the serenity of this water feature. Three jumbo (3000 gallons each) rain tanks face me and I am feeling a bit smug knowing that they are already 2/3 full despite the limited precipitation. The two images are very much entwined. Water is life. I think about how we, as Americans, think of water. Author, farmer and visionary, Joel Salatin described it this way.
“If we made a list of resources Americans take for granted, the top spot would go to water. Water is so essential for life that throughout history its availability dominated decisionmaking and community planning. Its acquisition required a heavy investment. For most of human history, people have toted water, dug cisterns, bored wooden water conduits. They have invested, viscerally and personally in their own water issues. They didn’t have a phone to call the utility company. They had to understand access, gravity – since they didn’t have pumps – and domicile location relative to available water. Even if you located your
house near a spring or stream or dug a well, you still had to carry the water to the house. “Indoor plumbing” is a fairly recent invention. When you have to carry all your water, it becomes precious. You don’t waste it.”—Joel Salatin, Folks, This Just Aint Normal So how was it that I began to harvest rainwater? Saving water from a rainy day is not a new idea. It actually is quite an ancient concept for insuring water security. My experiment with it actually began with a broken gutter and much of toting of water. Not being particularly handy when it comes to home maintenance, I knew I would soon be consulting with a gutter company to do the repair. “But wait….I am
an environmental educator,” I say to myself. “I need to do something more responsible and sustainable. Since I had to fix the gutter anyway, why not start harvesting rainwater.” I‘d been reading about global water issues and knew that California was a state of particular concern in this regard. Water was to be the new oil. Ac c o rd i n g t o re l i a b l e sources one third of the world’s population is living without access to adequate supplies of freshwater. By 2025 up to two-thirds of people in the world may be facing serious water shortages, including people in 35 percent of cities in the United States. Arizona, California, New Mexico, and See RAIN page 8
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