Daniel Salzler No. 1223
EnviroInsight.org Five Items October 13, 2023
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- Lake Mead Water Levels Are Trending Down Again. Lake Mead’s water levels appear to be trending down again as summer comes to a close.
As of October 6, the reservoir’s water levels stood at 1,065.71 feet. This is a slight downturn from the middle of September when levels stood at 1066.46 feet.
Lake Mead borders Arizona and Nevada and is the largest man-made lake in the U.S. It is an integral water source and provides water for around 25 million people living in the Colorado River Basin. When the lake is full, it holds around 31 million acre-feet of water. But this has not been the case for a long time.
There are serious concerns around the lake as its water levels continue to decline amid severe drought conditions in the region. As of now, the lake is only around 30 percent full.
“Water levels in Lake Mead vary seasonally,” Jennifer Pitt, National Audubon Society’s Colorado River Program Director told Newsweek. “It’s most important to keep an eye on the change year over year for both Lakes Mead and Powell, which is indicative of whether the Colorado River water supply is increasing, decreasing, or stable. Both reservoirs are projected to have more water in them at the end of 2023 than they did at the end of 2022, thanks to a very wet winter of 2022-2023.”
At the beginning of this year, Lake Mead’s water levels were incredibly low, at around 1044 feet. It fluctuated slightly over the spring months until May when levels shot up.
The reservoir has seen recent seasonal rains from Hurricane Hilary; however, most of this water replenishment comes from snowmelt in the upper Colorado basin, which has been above average this year.
“Lake Mead levels are up since March, which is a good thing,” Tom Corringham, a research economist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego previously told Newsweek. “Most of the water in the Colorado River is from the upper basin. This has led to more water being released from Lake Powell which refills Lake Mead,” Corringham said.
The above-average snowpack comes from a particular wet year. Although the southwest has been in a drought for years, the region was battered with rain and snow storms throughout the winter and early Spring.
Lake Mead has reached incredibly low levels in recent years. White bathtub rings around the lake show just how much water it has lost since it was first constructed. Soure: Newsweek
2. How Top Lawmakers Are Working To Secure Arizona’s Drinking Water. The Colorado River is one of the most important sources of fresh water in the United States, flowing through Arizona and six other states.
According to the U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Reclamation, it provides water to nearly 40 million people for municipal use.
Without thoughtful planning and legislation to ensure sustainability, this life-giving source could die.
We (ABC News Phoenix) spoke with Senator Mark Kelly about water levels at Lake Mead, a Colorado River reservoir, which had fallen to devastating lows last October.
“When you consider where the water level is today, and the amount of water that’s in the reservoir, that’s the lowest it’s been since the Hoover Dam was built,” said Kelly.
Some progress is being made. Data from The Bureau of Reclamation shows Lake Mead’s water levels were at about 1,046 feet in October of 2022. That number is considered a historic low. However, water levels at Lake Mead are projected to rise just above 1,065 feet by January 2024. The agency credits an extremely wet winter for easing the effects of the longstanding drought.
To keep the Colorado River from falling so low that it would jeopardize the drinking water supply for places like Phoenix, a team of bi-partisan lawmakers is working to secure water for the future.
Many of those efforts are being led by Arizona’s top lawmakers, including Senator Kelly.
“We’ve come a long way since when I got here two and a half years ago on this issue,” Kelly said. “We had a drought contingency plan. Shortly after I got here I realized that that wasn’t going to work.”
The Arizona lawmaker also tells ABC15 that our state continues to make major strides to conserve water and noted that he believed bureaucratic red tape was getting in the way of progress.
He credits that change to the Senate passing a bill he helped shape to get more funding, faster. While Arizona’s summer of extreme heat didn’t help, Kelly said forward-thinking projects will.
That’s partly why he was able to secure $8 billion in federal funding to help. “We’re deploying this money to farmers, and tribes, and communities, to line canals and install drip irrigation,” Kelly said. “But also, in the immediate need of just keeping more water up in Lake Mead, we’re going to be able to solve this problem.”
To address those immediate needs at Lake Mead and Lake Powell, Kelly told ABC15 he was able to secure $4 billion more for Arizona’s future.
“I mean, think about this for a second. We use less water today than we did in 1980, and we have three times the population,” Kelly said. “We’re able to do this because we can build efficiencies like engineering and farming and homes and, and we’re just gonna have to do more of that and we have the tools to do that.”abc15 News , October 5, 2023
3. . According To The Calendar Halloween Is Not Far Away. A favorite candy that kids like to receive is Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. What was it first named?
Buttery Bowls
Cup O’ Sunshine
Penny Cups
Dirt Dimes
Answer at the end of the newsletter
4. If You’re Stupid When Working In A Trench, You Could End Up Dead. A contractor in San Francisco’s Lower Haight died on Sept. 28 after a trench beneath a sidewalk collapsed, CBS Bay Area reported. The San Francisco Fire Department reported that several workers were involved in utility work underground near Oak and Divisadero streets when the trench suddenly caved in at around 10 a.m.
While five workers managed to escape, one male worker became trapped under eight feet of dirt and debris.
After an extensive rescue operation lasting over two hours and involving more than 50 firefighters, they reached the trapped worker. Regrettably, upon reaching him, there were no signs of life .
OSHA visa Subpart P, Excavations, of 29 FR 1926.650; 29 CFR 1926.651, and 20 FR 1926.652 states that if you or your workers are conducting work in a trench 5 feet (1.5 meters) deep or greater, requires a protective system unless the excavation is made entirely in stable rock.
5. Friday The 13th – History. Long considered a harbinger of bad luck, Friday the 13th has inspired a late 19th-century secret society, an early 20th-century novel, a horror film franchise and not one but two unwieldy terms—paraskavedekatriaphobia and friggatriskaidekaphobia—that describe fear of this supposedly unlucky day.
While Western cultures have historically associated the number 12 with completeness (there are 12 days of Christmas, 12 months and zodiac signs, 12 labors of Hercules, 12 gods of Olympus and 12 tribes of Israel, just to name a few examples), its successor 13 has a long history as a sign of bad luck.
The ancient Code of Hammurabi, for example, reportedly omitted a 13th law from its list of legal rules. Though this was probably a clerical error, superstitious people sometimes point to this as proof of 13’s longstanding negative associations.
Fear of the number 13 has even earned a psychological term: triskaidekaphobia.
Why is Friday the 13th Unlucky?
According to biblical tradition, 13 guests attended the Last Supper, held on Maundy Thursday, including Jesus and his 12 apostles (one of whom, Judas, betrayed him). The next day, of course, was Good Friday, the day of Jesus’ crucifixion.
The seating arrangement at the Last Supper is believed to have given rise to a longstanding Christian superstition that having 13 guests at a table was a bad omen—specifically, that it was courting death.
Though Friday’s negative associations are weaker, some have suggested they also have roots in Christian tradition: Just as Jesus was crucified on a Friday, Friday was also said to be the day Eve gave Adam the fateful apple from the Tree of Knowledge, as well as the day Cain killed his brother, Abel.
Friday the 13th in Pop Culture
An important milestone in the history of the Friday the 13th legend in particular (not just the number 13) occurred in 1907, with the publication of the novel Friday, the Thirteenth written by Thomas William Lawson.
The book told the story of a New York City stockbroker who plays on superstitions about the date to create chaos on Wall Street, and make a killing on the market.
The horror movie Friday the 13th, released in 1980, introduced the world to a hockey mask-wearing killer named Jason, and is perhaps the best-known example of the famous superstition in pop culture history. The movie spawned multiple sequels, as well as comic books, novellas, video games, related merchandise and countless terrifying Halloween costumes.
What Bad Things Happened on Friday 13th?
On Friday, October 13, 1307, officers of King Philip IV of France arrested hundreds of the Knights Templar, a powerful religious and military order formed in the 12th century for the defense of the Holy Land.
Imprisoned on charges of various illegal behaviors (but really because the king wanted access to their financial resources), many Templars were later executed. Some cite the link with the Templars as the origin of the Friday the 13th superstition, but like many legends involving the Templars and their history, the truth remains murky.
In more recent times, a number of traumatic events have occurred on Friday the 13th, including the German bombing of Buckingham Palace (September 1940); the murder of Kitty Genovese in Queens, New York (March 1964); a cyclone that killed more than 300,000 people in Bangladesh (November 1970); the disappearance of a Chilean Air Force plane in the Andes (October 1972); the death of rapper Tupac Shakur (September 1996) and the crash of the Costa Concordia cruise ship off the coast of Italy, which killed 30 people (January 2012).
Sources “The Origins of Unlucky Friday the 13th,” Live Science.
“Friday the 13th: why is it unlucky and other facts about the worst day in the calendar,” The Telegraph.
“13 Freaky Things That Happened on Friday the 13th,” Live Science.
“Here’s Why Friday the 13th is Considered Unlucky,” Time.
“Friggatriskaidekaphobes Need Not Apply,” New-York Historical Society.
Answer: Penny Cups
In 1917, Harry Burnett Reese got a job on a dairy farm owned by Milton Hershey, owner of Hershey Chocolate Company. Reese later began working at the chocolate factory, where he was inspired to create his own concoctions. Reese released a chocolate peanut butter candy in 1928, calling them “Penny Cups” because he charged one penny per candy. The cups grew in popularity, and in 1963, Hershey’s purchased H.B. Reese Candy Company for $23.5 million
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