Water Rule #1

Watering of turf with spray irrigation is NOT ALLOWED between the hours of 10 AM and 6 PM.
If you note this happening with a neighbor, let them know they may be fined.

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Denver Water drafts plan to cut water use 22 percent

9 News posted by: Dan Viens Web Producer
Created: 6/5/2006 6:36 AM MST - Updated: 6/5/2006 6:36 AM MST

DENVER (AP) - Denver Water has laid out a $400 million plan aimed at slashing customers' annual water use by 22 percent over the next 10 years.

The utility drafted the plan in hopes of reducing annual consumption by 16.7 billion gallons by 2016. It was to be presented to the utility's board in August.

"Our system is able to meet our current needs, but in the future, it's going to take more supply, more conservation -- or both -- to be able to provide for a rapidly urbanizing Front Range," said Denver Water Commissioner Tom Gougeon.

The plan would step up existing conservation programs, such as homeowner rebates on low-flow toilets, but also launch new measures.

One proposal would require builders to meet certain standards for water efficiency before the utility would hook up a new home to the water system.

Another would require audits of existing homes before they are sold and requiring the replacement of leaky fixtures. The plan also suggests requiring low-flow urinals in new commercial buildings.

Municipal and commercial customers might have to add irrigation water meters and remove park lawns.

Real estate agents and homebuilders said they wanted to hear more on the developing proposal before judging it.

Some of the proposals could require local governments to adopt new ordinances, said Liz Gardener, the utility's conservation program manager.

Gougeon said water officials are trying to build on momentum from the lingering drought, which has encouraged customers to conserve. Since 2002, Denver Water's 1.1 million customers have cut their annual consumption by about 20 percent, to 64 billion gallons last year.

Customers might have to pay for half of the $400 million conservation plan, but utility officials said they would earn that back in water savings within six years.

(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved)

Watering of Turf Landscape:
No more than 3 days a week!

Earth's temp may be at 2,000-year high

By JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press Writer 35 minutes ago

It has been 2,000 years and possibly much longer since the Earth has run such a fever. The National Academy of Sciences, reaching that conclusion in a broad review of scientific work requested by Congress, reported Thursday that the "recent warmth is unprecedented for at least the last 400 years and potentially the last several millennia."

A panel of top climate scientists told lawmakers that the Earth is heating up and that "human activities are responsible for much of the recent warming." Their 155-page report said average global surface temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere rose about 1 degree during the 20th century.

This is shown in boreholes, retreating glaciers and other evidence found in nature, said Gerald North, a geosciences professor at Texas A&M University who chaired the academy's panel.

The report was requested in November by the chairman of the House Science Committee, Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (news, bio, voting record), R-N.Y., to address naysayers who question whether global warming is a major threat.

Last year, when the House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman, Rep. Joe Barton (news, bio, voting record), R-Texas, launched an investigation of three climate scientists, Boehlert said Barton should try to learn from scientists, not intimidate them.

Boehlert said Thursday the report shows the value of having scientists advise Congress.

"There is nothing in this report that should raise any doubts about the broad scientific consensus on global climate change," he said.

Other new research Thursday showed that global warming produced about half of the extra hurricane-fueled warmth in the North Atlantic in 2005, and natural cycles were a minor factor, according to Kevin Trenberth and Dennis Shea of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, a research lab sponsored by the National Science Foundation and universities. Their study is being published by the American Geophysical Union.

The Bush administration has maintained that the threat is not severe enough to warrant new pollution controls that the White House says would have cost 5 million Americans their jobs.

Climate scientists Michael Mann, Raymond Bradley and Malcolm Hughes had concluded the Northern Hemisphere was the warmest it has been in 2,000 years. Their research was known as the "hockey-stick" graphic because it compared the sharp curve of the hockey blade to the recent uptick in temperatures and the stick's long shaft to centuries of previous climate stability.

The National Academy scientists concluded that the Mann-Bradley-Hughes research from the late 1990s was "likely" to be true, said John "Mike" Wallace, an atmospheric sciences professor at the University of Washington and a panel member. The conclusions from the '90s research "are very close to being right" and are supported by even more recent data, Wallace said.

The panel looked at how other scientists reconstructed the Earth's temperatures going back thousands of years, before there was data from modern scientific instruments.

For all but the most recent 150 years, the academy scientists relied on "proxy" evidence from tree rings, corals, glaciers and ice cores, cave deposits, ocean and lake sediments, boreholes and other sources. They also examined indirect records such as paintings of glaciers in the Alps.

Combining that information gave the panel "a high level of confidence that the last few decades of the 20th century were warmer than any comparable period in the last 400 years," the academy said.

Overall, the panel agreed that the warming in the last few decades of the 20th century was unprecedented over the last 1,000 years, though relatively warm conditions persisted around the year 1000, followed by a "Little Ice Age" from about 1500 to 1850.

The scientists said they had less confidence in the evidence of temperatures before 1600. But they considered it reliable enough to conclude there were sharp spikes in carbon dioxide and methane, the two major "greenhouse" gases blamed for trapping heat in the atmosphere, beginning in the 20th century, after remaining fairly level for 12,000 years.

Between 1 A.D. and 1850, volcanic eruptions and solar fluctuations were the main causes of changes in greenhouse gas levels. But those temperature changes "were much less pronounced than the warming due to greenhouse gas" levels by pollution since the mid-19th century, it said.

The National Academy of Sciences is a private organization chartered by Congress to advise the government of scientific matters.

___

On the Net:

National Academy of Sciences: http://nationalacademies.org

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