Selected Morning Star Newsclips - For the record.

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Greater Vernon Athletics Park Track and Artificial Turf Field Opening

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July Was The Hottest Month Ever; Cable News Barely Noticed

Meh. It's just the earth.

 Sam Stein Senior Politics Editor, The Huffington Post

 Posted: 08/24/2015 03:17 PM EDT | Edited: 2 hours ago

 

WASHINGTON -- Last week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a dire report about the state of the planet: July 2015 was the earth's warmest month on record, dating back to 1880.

This wasn’t some one-off study. It was supplemented by similar findings from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the Japanese Meteorological Agency; and, of course, it came on top of other studies underlining the perilous state of global warming.

But for how troubling the data point seemed to be, it got relatively little press attention, at least on the airwaves.

From the morning of August 20 through Sunday evening, the fact that the month we had just endured was the hottest on record was mentioned on major cable news networks all of 10 times.

MSNBC: Discussed the report five times, not counting the two repeats of Rachel Maddow’s show early on Friday morning.

CNN: Discussed the report five times, not counting repeat airings.

Fox News: Did not discuss the report.

To determine this, we searched the archive service TVEyes using the term “hottest month,” “warmest month,” “warmest period,” "July" and "hottest," and "July" and "warmest."

Just how little coverage is that? Consider this: During that same period, the name "Donald Trump" was mentioned more than 245 times on MSNBC, more than 265 times on CNN and more than 240 times on Fox News. Those numbers also don't include shows that reaired (including CNN's hour-long interview with Trump that was rebroadast several times), and they only reflect a TVEyes search for the businessman presidential candidate’s full name, not "Donald" or "Trump."

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Selected Morning Star Newsclips - For the record.

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Re water restrictions: see analysis

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Coldstream Council Meeting - August 24, 2015

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California's nightmare.

Click on photo.

Changing scenery. Is this the result of climate change or just a freak of nature? Scary!

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Readers write - Are you confused?

Anyone  else confused by the info coming out of RDNO? On Kiss FM we are all praised for reducing use by 26% this year, now it seems we are being shamed for only "marginally" cutting back and that we may have to go to stage two to safeguard the supply (that now stands at normal for this time of year) . We need an above average snowfall season to fill the lakes? They filled and spilled for two months this spring on a well below normal snowpack. Oh the politics of this whole thin make my head spring. They are certainly doing a good job of one thing, and that is scaring anyone off from using water, and it's only going to cost us even more next year because of this. End rant.

Don't be confused! We need to show that we are short of water to justify the $6.4 M (2012 dollars)! Are we really short of water? Click here for the answer.

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Bear lounges in pool, moves to hot tub in Vancouver yard

This bear enjoys life to the fullest!

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Further to water supply review. Are we really short of water in Greater Vernon?

In my earlier post I questioned the notion that we were short of water, based on empirical evidence derived mostly from reports provided by consultants and staff. Since then further information was provided by staff with the August 15 Duteau reservoir chart. As can be seen the water level is back in the normal range. Of course, the Kalamalka Lake supply was never in question by staff as it was adequate all alone. In fact, GVWU is using more water from Kal Lake than usual due to availability. The Chart below is the newest release by GVWU. Water level now indicates normal range. One should never ignore empirical evidence!

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Kidston Road industrial site!

Construction of the last phase of the Kidston Road multi-use path is in full swing. Residents experience some inconvenience during construction (like noise!, traffic slow down, etc.) but the benefits will be for everyone. 

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Selected Morning Star Newsclips - In case you missed them.

 

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Selected Morning Star Newsclips - In case you missed them.

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The City of Kelowna's water service.

Source-to-Tap Program

Local health authorities have described the City of Kelowna Water Utility’s “source to tap” program as one of the best in British Columbia.

The water utility supplies water to more than 65,000 residents and more than 1,700 industrial, commercial and institutional properties in north, central and south Kelowna. The raw water source is Okanagan Lake.

Committed to protecting public, environmental and economic health, the utility’s source-to-tap water management approach includes watershed protection, water quality monitoring, treatment, distribution system maintenance, cross-connection control and water-use efficiency. 

Today's Turbidity Index 0.261NTU Rating: Good

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Selected Morning Star Newsclips - In case you missed them.

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Water supply review. Are we really short of water in Greater Vernon?

Greater Vernon Water Utility instituted Stage 1 water conservation measures indicating that our water supply is in danger of running short.

Obviously, there are consequences of such measures in terms of budgetary shortfalls, business activities and inconvenience to domestic and business customers.

Using the information presented below I believe that we are reasonably well off with our water supply and our customers were quite responsible users of water if for no other reasons they were frugal with their money. So read the presentation below and decide whether or not my information is credible.

Figure on below  the Duteau Creek reservoir levels on July 15, 2015.

Figure 1

Figure 1 above demonstrates the status of the Duteau Creek reservoir on July 15, 2015 provided by GVWU staff at the August 6 GVAC meeting. The August 1 level was penciled in by staff as well.

Note the total capacity of the reservoir at slightly over 18,000 ML (18,000,000 cubic meters). On August 1 it contained between 12,000 to 12,500 ML's of water.

Figure 2

 

Agriculture irrigation ends on September 15. Based on the above two figures it is unlikely to have water shortages at the end of the irrigation season.

There is more. The 2012 Master Water Plan was designed based on estimated domestic water demands from 2011 to 2052 as demonstrated by Table 1 below. According to those estimates domestic water demand in 2011 should have been 9,670 ML and by 2052 it would increase to 13,360 ML. The MWP was sized based on these estimates. However, the consultants also provided a Technical Memorandum suggesting methods to reduce consumption. 

Unfortunately, these recommendations were not considered in sizing the MWP system. We actually paid for a plan that is over sized. The real consumption for the years 2011-2014 is depicted in Table 2. While some over sizing is desirable one must also consider the cost implications of an over sizing of 52%. However, that is not the point. The point is that the customers have consumed well below the projected consumption levels and it is not necessary to punish them further with an additional 10% consumption reduction.
   

Table 1

 

As demonstrated by Table 2 below the actual consumption during the four years from 2011 to 2014 was only about 61% of what was predicted.

Table 2

 

Table 3 below demonstrates that the agricultural consumption levels were even more significantly lower lower than what was allocated by the MWP. Instead of using 17,400 ML the actual consumption for 2011-2014 averaged at 39% of predicted or 6,823 ML.

The forgoing demonstrate that both domestic and agriculture consumption are well below that of expected. The question is then: how can we be short of water when we only use 61% of the predicted domestic consumption and 39% of allocated agricultural consumption? As was shown above the Duteau Creek reservoir holds 18,000ML of water and we use an average of slightly over 6,800 ML per year. Duteau could easily provide the actual annual agricultural demand plus the small volume of domestic supply.

Staff also revealed that they are utilizing the Kalamalka source more in order to save Duteau water. That means that we probably use some Kalamalka water for crop irrigation. I believe it would be worth exploring what really is happening with our water supply. 

One additional water source is Goose Lake with an annual storage capacity of 2,360 ML/a. That would be an additional source to supplement the agriculture water supply.

Table 3

 

Table 4 below is the actual consumption table from the GVWU Annual Report 2014. Note the total water consumption (domestic and agriculture combined) for 2014 was 12,630,961 cubic meters. Compare it to the Duteau reservoir capacity at 18,000,000 cubic meters and the available water licenses on Kalamalka Lake of 8,800,000 cubic meters. Are we short of water?

 Table 4

I might be wrong in my assessment even though I used data provided by staff and consultants. If I am wrong please show me where I erred.

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Coldstream Council Meeting

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Selected Morning Star Newsclips - In case you missed them.

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GVAC Meeting August 6, 2015

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