Page 4 RAIN Spring 1986 I SCATTERED Sustainable Irrigation Major growers in the San Joaquin Valley of California have agreed to pursue an Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) plan to solve the toxic irrigation water crisis there. They had previously rejected any solution except the federally proposed San Luis Drain, which would dump selenium contaminated water in the San Francisco Bay and Delta. The contamination arises from intense irrigation of arid lands with clay soil and poor drainage. Waste water is trapped at the surface where it evaporates and leaves trace elements behind. After decades, normally harmless and even necessary elements build up to toxic proportions. Deformities in water fowl, widespread soil destruction, and drinking water contamination result. The EDF plan works like this; 1. Water use is decreased by efficiency measures, and drainage pipes collect the waste. 2. Desalinization plants separate waste into fresh water and salty brine. Fresh water can be sold to Southern California cities at a much lower cost than new water supply projects. 3. The salty brine flows into solar ponds where the heat differential drives a heat exchanger, which powers a turbine for electricity generation. 4. Selenium and other elements are removed and sold, depending on market conditions. The plants could reclaim up to 90 percent of the polluted waste water. (Source: EDF Letter, November, 1985) Acid Rain Strikes Latin America The mountains near the industrial city of Cubatao in southeastern Brazil are littered with dead and stunted trees. The barren earth slips away in frequent landslides. Scientists say the forest was killed by acid rain. Some 3,800 kilometers away in central Chile, farmers in the town of Los Maitenes are abandoning their homes and fields. The acidity of the rain due to unchecked pollution has corroded their machinery and poisoned livestock and crops. Acid rain, until recently detected only in North America and Europe, is now affecting Latin America. The phenomenon is so new there that many people, even government officials, have never heard of it. (Source: Akwesasne Notes) TreePeople Sends Fruit Trees to Africa The innovation that allowed TreePeople to reforest Los Angeles with surplus trees is still sparking. Success, during the last two years of their fruit tree distribution to very low- income families in Los Angeles, allowed them to make the leap of sending trees to drought-stricken Africa. Other attempts af tree distribution in Africa failed because the trees needed five to eight years to yield fruit. Hungry people can't wait for food, and find trees more valuable as firewood. But TreePeople's adaptable California varieties, already four feet tall and harvestable within a year, give the program a considerable advantage. Education of the local people will be an important part of the program. The committment of TreePeople to a low-cost approach of working with surplus nursery trees has sometimes made fundraising more difficult. They've been told they'd be taken more seriously in Washington if they'd asked ten times the modest $60,000 needed for the multi-national project. “This country is set up for spending money...[but] having a lot of it is also a barrier,” says founder Andy Lipkis. Live Aid hasn't spent any of the millions it's raised and hasn't responded to requests by TreePeople to discuss the project. The Air Force has helped them with truck transport for 12 years and would like to help them with airlift to Africa, but Washington permission is needed, and they are running up against severe legal red-tape. They're still trying, but the necessity of using commercial carriers looks more likely. Kenya, Tanzania, Cameroun, Lesotho, and Senegal are candidate countries. TreePeople will start with a sample program to assure participants the program will work. K%/.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTc4NTAz