Earth
 There are people who think the state had a decent rainfall season, even though the state says California is in the third year of drought.
Let's go to the numbers, as compiled by consulting meteorologist Jan Null in the Bay Area. The numbers for the major regions are all below average.
But in those figures, there's a number that causes me to pause. The eight-station Sierra index in Northern California shows 96% of average. That area feeds water into the largest man-made reservoir in the state -- Shasta.
Even so, a quick look at Shasta storage tells you the previous dry years have left it too low for any real recovery, especially with less than average precipitation. It's at about 75% of average for July 1.
In truth, it was a below-average, not-so-bad year. But with depleted reservoirs and a dry watershed in the mountains soaking up snow runoff, the state is still mired in a drought.
Today will be one second longer than yesterday. You've heard of leap year? This is a leap second.
Here's an explanation on the Huffington Post:
"The custodians of time will ring in the New Year by tacking a 'leap second' onto the clock Wednesday to account for the minute slowing of the Earth's rotation. The leap second has been used sporadically at the Royal Observatory at Greenwich since 1972, an adjustment that has kept Greenwich Mean Time the internationally agreed time standard."
Reader Dan Carter of Oakhurst wrote in a broadcast e-mail that came to me:
"Anyone out there know how I can change my watch to account for this?"
 There was a line of red-colored smog readings for Valley air monitors on the state Web page for Sunday. Red is the color used for violations.
Shafter in Kern County and Stockton in San Joaquin County escaped. But the best place to breathe in the region appeared to be Sequoia National Park at the Lower Kaweah Campground.
The campground is several thousand feet higher than the entrance gate where the park's other official monitor takes readings. The one at the park entrance showed a violation.
There's an interesting carbon calculator online that also offers a ranking of the countries around the world. Which country is No. 1 in tons per person?
I'll give you two guesses, but you're only going to need one. It's the United States with 29 tons per person for the year 2001, according to the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
The figure probably has changed in the last eight years, but did it go up or down? I'm hoping down, particularly since Americans are driving millions of miles less now because of the economy.
Australia was second with 21 tons. Canada had 20. Western Europe was close behind. As you can imagine, Asian, African and South American countries were far down the list.
Two cities are talking about turning waste into energy -- one being poop to power, the other being garbage to biogas.
The poop to power project in Sanford, Florida, north of Orlando, is intriguing. The city's treated waste -- sludge -- will be converted into methane, carbon dioxide and hydrogen. The gases can be used to power a dryer that will take the moisture from the sludge.
The other project is in California. San Jose is talking about a biogas facility burning about 150,000 tons of organic waste that would have been destined for a landfill. The energy could power a water treatment plant or it could be sold into the regional electrical utility grid.
 State Sen. Dean Florez is inviting air board member Mike Nelson to further explain his position on air activists at the next Senate Select Committee on Air Quality hearing.
Nelson in May tried to call for all sides in the air quality debate to listen to each other and work together on air quality. He said he needed to heed his own words because he often tunes out when activists speak, believing they are less than truthful.
The remarks sparked a stormy march at the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District's monthly board meeting on Thursday. They demanded his resignation, and they asked other board members to distance themselves from the comments. They left unsatisfied when neither happened.
Florez, a long-time critic of the air district, exchanged letters with Nelson, who is a Merced County Supervisor. Now, the state senator wants a face-to-face discussion.
"The streak" finally ended.
The San Joaquin Valley went 17 days without a federal ozone violation in June. It's not quite the same as Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak in 1941, but it's twice as long as any June streak I could find for the Valley.
For the record, the violations on Thursday occurred in Arvin and Sequoia National Park -- where you won't find rush hours or freeways. We've talked about how ozone precursors move downwind from metro areas, such as Fresno and Bakersfield.
The streak in perspective: The Valley's best ozone summer ever was in 2005. There were 14 federal violations in June that year. If the Valley runs the table with violations the rest of this month, the total would be 13.
 About 100 marchers appeared this morning at the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District meeting in Fresno, demanding the resignation of air board member Mike Nelson.
During the district's May board meeting, Nelson stated he considered activist testimony less than truthful and often tuned out when they spoke. The Merced County supervisor did not resign, but he did say he did not mean to offend anyone.
His comments today did little to quell the anger of the marchers.
"Give Nelson the boot," the marchers yelled as board members entered the building for the meeting. Daniela Simunovic, organizer for the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment, said Nelson is creating a hostile atmosphere for the public to speak.
"We're outraged," she said.
Continue reading "Marchers demand resignation; Nelson remains on board" »
 The University of California, Davis, has begun a $2.8 million study of agricultural-based nitrogen, a key part of modern farming. Nitrogen has become a concern as a contaminant in the air and water. It is also a greenhouse gas.
"This is one of the most important and least publicized environmental issues we face: Escaped nitrogen from agricultural production affects the quality of our air, water, and soil and has huge potential to contribute to climate change," said Tom Tomich, director of the Agricultural Sustainability Institute at UC Davis.
Nitrogen comes from soils, seeps into groundwater and runs off into rivers and lakes. Nitrogen comes from many farm sources, including the waste of cattle, chickens and other livestock.
Farm machines burning oil, gasoline and diesel release nitrogen to the air.
Continue reading "UC studies nitrogen on farms" »
 We're on day 15 without a federal ozone violation. Haven't found anything like this June streak in the records.
In 1998, I wrote about a cool streak in Fresno. There were no 100-degree days in April, May or June that year. Through the first 13 days of June, there were only two violations, but it got ugly real quick, even though there were no 100-degree days the rest of the month.
The Climate Prediction Center that year told me a huge Sierra snowpack might have affected low pressure systems to hang around California, keeping things cool. They later admitted they really didn't know.
And that's pretty much where I've arrived. Why is it so nice? No real answer from anybody who is supposed to know this stuff. But it's very clear that weather has a major influence on air quality.
 Just came back from a float on the Kings River in rubber kayaks. I had never boated the river near the dam, and it was impressive -- seemed like we were seeing nothing but native trees and plants.
I was researching a story on the Kings River Conservancy, a 5-year-old nonprofit with a mission of making a better managed river more accessible to the public.
Executive Officer James A. Van Haun and vice president John Gray guided me through the gentle turns and very tame rapids. The sounds of splashing water and the sights of people fishing were quite a contrast for me this morning, especially after connecting with Highway 180 east from Highway 99 in a mob of jostling, rush-hour cars.
Look for the story next week.
 Since 1990, how many times has the San Joaquin Valley gone 10 days without a federal air violation in June? Never. Not until this June.
There haven't been any federal violations this month, due to an unusual weather pattern. How unusual? It hasn't hit 90 yet in Fresno.
Violent thunderstorms, breezy afternoons and a few goose pimples at night. As a friend says, "If it stayed like this all summer long, we'd have 10 million people here."
It's not all that unusual to get a week of cool, turbulent weather in June. But you don't usually see it continue this long.
If I were going to bet, I would say the streak will continue today. But I also would bet that most of July will be bleeding red with federal violations.
 Luke Cole, founder of the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment, died June 6 in a vehicle accident while visiting Uganda on sabbatical, organization officials announced today. He was 46.
Mr. Cole, a Harvard-educated lawyer, founded the San Francisco-based nonprofit 20 years ago. He is considered a pioneer in the environmental justice movement.
He is well-known in Kings County where he battled the construction of a toxic waste incinerator near Kettleman City. The incinerator was never built.
Later, he represented Corcoran residents in stopping a dairy complex proposed by agricultural giant J.G. Boswell.
Mr. Cole's wife, Nancy Shelby, was injured in the crash, but she is expected to recover.
Lawyer Caroline Farrell, who is based in the organization's Delano office, is acting executive director. She said Memorial Services are pending.
 This is a U.S. Bureau of Reclamation photograph at Friant Dam in the past few days. It's a wonderful sight with water running down the dam, but it's more than a nice picture.
In this third year of drought, it illustrates the struggle to balance water supplies for east Valley farmers. Some water is dribbling over the top of the dam as officials try to keep as much water as possible in Millerton Lake for later in the season.
Officials can drop the level of the lake by sending more water out the Friant-Kern and Madera canals to farm water districts. But that water will be needed more in late June and July. So, the lake stays full, and the water dribbles over.
Federal officials must walk a thin line like this in many years, balancing inflow and farm needs.
Conservationists don't see a problem with letting some water go down stream. It revives the vegetation, helps replenish ground water in the area and maybe even supply a little more water for people downstream.
The differing viewpoints lead to lively discussion almost every year, including this one.
 In Wednesday's paper, you may notice a new name for Smog Log -- Earth Log. It's a change I have been advocating for a while.
Air quality is probably the top natural resources issue in the San Joaquin Valley. Everyone breathes. But there is always something happening in water supply and politics. There is usually something interesting to report out of the mountains. Now, I'll write about all of those things this space.
I've been covering these issues on a full-time basis with The Bee since February 1993. And I have written about natural resource issue off and on since 1978. I still cannot keep up with everything that's going on.
So I invite readers to use the comments here to help me inform, balance, represent and otherwise broaden public consciousness about natural resources.
Federal officials last week released the latest protection requirements for using soil fumigants, and some air monitoring appears to be part of the equation.
A reader brought it to my attention. I confess it's something I have not followed, but I know soil fumigants are powerful chemicals that are both vital for growers and dangerous to humans if they are not properly handled.
You can see the new measures on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Web page.
I read the Web site and generally agree with the reader's assessment. He said they appear to give more protection to people while adding more of a burden to growers.
We saw a quick way to clear the air last night. Pacific Ocean air with a temperature of minus 2 degrees Fahrenheit met balmy June breezes on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley.
The result was something called a supercell, according to private meteorologist Steve Johnson. It is a massive thunderstorm with a deep, continuous rotation and a huge updraft of air.
This storm could have spun off tornadoes. It didn't, but the dense precipitation from it added up fast. In one area on the Valley's west side, Johnson said there as 0.75 of an inch of rain in minutes.
The hail was 1.25 inches in size in some places.
Continue reading "Supercell hit Valley last night, meteorologist says" »
 One of nature's more dramatic shows is a fire burning inside a giant sequoia. Federal officials got this shot on Monday in the Evans Giant Sequoia Grove on the Hume Lake Ranger District.
This started with a lightning strike at the top of this tree, which is in the Giant Sequoia National Monument. The powerful bolt knocked out the top 60 feet of the tree, officials believe.
Here's part of the description from fedederal officials:
"It is a hollow tree with fire burning inside from the base all the way to the top. Given the nature of the tree and its position on the landscape, the options of trying to put out the fire in the tree using aircraft or ground delivery water sources would be ineffective and unsafe for firefighters.
Continue reading "Fire in the hollow sequoia" »
 The farm water community in the San Joaquin Valley will be interested in an announcement today on the biological opinion for chinook salmon.
Translation: Federal officials might enforce further water-pumping restrictions in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, where many west-side farmers get irrigation water.
The National Marine Fisheries Service's biological opinion is directed at the effects of the state and federal water projects on threatened and endangered runs of salmon, steelhead, green sturgeon, and killer whales.
The history and legal arguments are way too much for a blog item. But I know this is a hot issue. One look at San Luis Reservoir, shown in the photo above during March, and you know people are talking about water shortages.
Anyone want to talk about this issue?
Remember those thunderstorms late last week? Apparently, they spawned the type of whirlwind that I don't know about. It's called a gustnado.
The term is a combination of wind gust and tornado. It seems to be both and neither.
A gustnado, which is less powerful than a tornado, is not attached to the thunderclouds -- not the way a tornado is. It's more like a gust of cold wind flowing outward in front of the thunderstorm.
One of them apparently damaged some roofs at a mobile home park near Orosi in Tulare County.
Can anybody out there distinguish these things from tornadoes or dust devils?
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