In today’s Chronicle<\/i> are a couple germane articles.<\/p>\n
First, if it doesn’t rain soon (and I don’t think last night really counts) the East Bay Municipal Utilities District may be requiring some form of water rationing<\/a>. Ninety percent of EBMUD’s water comes from the Mokelumne watershed, via the Pardee reservoir. Thank our lucky stars for our precious groundwater basins. However, the actions discussed, like banning outdoor fountains and washing cars, do point out how much potable water is used where recycled water would do.<\/p>\n Then an article<\/a> about just how difficult it is to dispose properly of prescription drugs. Pharmacies won’t take them back as a matter of course, although there are sometimes one-day events that do so. While the federal government recommends flushing them down the toilet or combining them with cat litter and throwing them away (the cat litter is to make them less attractive to steal,) both of these methods get drugs into the environment. Since enough pharmaceuticals pass through the human body and are excreted, we don’t need to add to the problem with flushing more down the toilet. In addition, those drugs that are collected have to be trucked to Utah for incineration, since California’s air quality laws prohibit it here.<\/p>\n Finally, on a make-lemonade sort of note, the Food section suggests alternatives<\/a> to the California king salmon you won’t be seeing available this summer. I’m all over the smaller fish (mmmm…. fresh sardines) but the farmed salmon from Scotland? No. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"