Dept. of Ecology declares drought emergency for most of Washington state

[FinLuver]

The Sky is Falling… gets ya more money in the government coffers.

We are manipulated on all fronts of life…
This helps ease the cinch of the purse strings from us serfs.

Ps: this old codger’s 60+ years of weather observation, had the weather closer to the late 1960s/early 1970s, for my neck of the Oregon woods.

 

[Rob Allen]

The Sky is Falling… gets ya more money in the government coffers.

We are manipulated on all fronts of life…
This help ease the synch of the purse strings from us serfs.

While I don't know about this situation specifically I agree with you in principle. Emergencies are not an occasion to either surrender rights and freedoms to government nor for government agencies to size more control.

A bit late to hope for late season snow but fingers crossed anyway.

 

[Matt B]

Suggestion of ulterior motives and profits from drought crack me up. None of the agency folks make more money or gain influence or power from drought, and neither does Cliff. The only ones who do are junior irrigation appropriators, who get emergency grants, I guess to buy water from municipalities and senior appropriators smart enough to farm the drought.

Here is who is eligible for state emergency drought grants:
• County, or city governmental agencies. • Federally-recognized Tribes. • Public utility districts, formed under chapter 54.04 RCW. • Water and sewer districts, formed under chapter 57.02 RCW. • Conservation districts, formed under chapter 89.08 RCW. • Irrigation districts, formed under chapter 87.03 RCW. • Port districts, formed under chapter 53.04 RCW. • Watershed management partnerships, formed under chapter 39.34.200 RCW. (https://apps.ecology.wa.gov/publications/UIPages/SummaryPages/2411013.html)

Lots of different things are eligible, including things like "Stream channel modification such as trenching, sandbagging, or creating berms to protect spawning gravels or to provide migratory channels for fish passage." Still gotta get permits for all this. Better get started 12 months ago. Oh, and the state emergency drought grants also require a 50% match for eligible costs.

 

[krusty]

"Never waste a crisis, emergency, or disaster" is an ancient edict in government. That doesn't necessarily mean that the increased allocations will be used in a self serving manner. In fact it often frees up resources that are desperately needed to solve long-standing problems, and can even facilitate a sense of urgency on the part of permitting agencies to fast-track the approval process for beneficial projects...especially those which are 'shovel-ready'.

 

[charles sullivan]

"Never waste a crisis, emergency, or disaster" is an ancient edict in government. That doesn't necessarily mean that the increased allocations will be used in a self serving manner. In fact it often frees up resources that are desperately needed to solve long-standing problems, and can even facilitate a sense of urgency on the part of permitting agencies to fast-track the approval process for beneficial projects...especially those which are 'shovel-ready'.

Well said, Krusty. This is an excellent description of reality.

Often those most critical of governement know the very least about it. They certainly yell the loudest at times. Always sure, rarely correct.

 

[Mossback]

From the Mass link :

Another word that should have been looked up is emergency

"an unforeseen combination of circumstances or the resulting state that calls for immediate action"

In this case, the word is used as defined under the Administrative Procedures Act, which governs 'urgent or unforseen' (my language) expenditures in cases of need (amongst many other things of course). It is an administrative term in this case, applied to allow expenditures to be made under the relevant RCW'S, and agencies to begin to take action, and applications for assistance from thosei affected.

Purely an administrative declaration as required by law before taking any further action.

Mass likely knows this, but chooses to play to the dumbfucks by disingenously tying it to the more common meaning, shown in bold type on his blog, after implying that everyone could see this precip shortfall coming, there's really no shortfall anyways, and so....blah blah blah...and besides it's no big deal, happened before...so not an "emergency''...just look it up in a dictionary

Lol

 

[SurfnFish]

Well said, Krusty. This is an excellent description of reality.

Often those most critical of governement know the very least about it. They certainly yell the loudest at times. Always sure, rarely correct.

'often wrong but never unconvinced' comes to mind for those folks needing conspiracies to justify their perspective, pretty much the polar opposite of Occam's Razor..."The explanation that requires the fewest assumptions is usually correct, whereas the more the assumptions the more unlikely the explanation."

 

[Peyton00]

There won't be any issues until they can't water the greens at the country club.

 

[krusty]

Well said, Krusty. This is an excellent description of reality.

Often those most critical of governement know the very least about it. They certainly yell the loudest at times. Always sure, rarely correct.

I spent 45 years in government, and yes I know that makes my opinions suspect to some.

I also spent a significant portion of that time as a manager explaining regulations, needs, and consequences to elected and appointed officials who, with very few exceptions, were intelligent and well-meaning individuals....who were also trying to meet legitimate community needs that far outstrip available budgetary resources...or, many cases, that do not enjoy widespread community support.

Contributing to that challenge (aside from their desire to survive reelection) is that fact that most of them (including their appointees) have a very limited lifespan in government, a very full plate, and a resultingly extremely limited opportunity to acquire much of a detailed knowledge of governance. They are flooded with truly critical resource requests, many of which must be rejected even if the hypothetical negative consequences are catastrophic. The common response is "has it happened yet?"....and the can is kicked down the road.

Unfortunately this means that some sort of extreme event or tragedy must often first occur before before policy makers commit the necessary resources to mitigate the situation. In my employer's case it took a particularly gruesome employee death, several permanent life-changing injuries, extensive WISHA/OSHA/USEPA/WADOE citations/fines, a court ordered abatement plan, and $45 million worth of infrastructure catastrophic destruction before it became painfully obvious that something needed to be done.

Humans are inherently reactive, and have a very difficult time allocating resources to prevent things that have not yet happened, and nothing fits that description better than the extremely complicated and politically fraught issue of climate change....it's a slow moving catastrophe that's likely to never be effectively addressed because to do so would require a very painful and sustained proactive response.

Humans mostly live in the 'here and now'.

 

[krusty]

'often wrong but never unconvinced' comes to mind for those folks needing conspiracies to justify their perspective, pretty much the polar opposite of Occam's Razor..."The explanation that requires the fewest assumptions is usually correct, whereas the more the assumptions the more unlikely the explanation."

You lost them at "Occam's Razor"! Maybe they'll better remember the "principle of parsimony"!

 

[Rob Allen]

Well said, Krusty. This is an excellent description of reality.

Often those most critical of governement know the very least about it. They certainly yell the loudest at times. Always sure, rarely correct.

Please delete this personal attack.

 

[krusty]

Please delete this personal

How is this personal? Krusty is not offended!

 

[Mossback]

...Something about a shoe...

 

[Greenbuttskunk]

There’s a fine boat always fishing Sekiu with the name Occams Razor.

Love me some Cliff Mass!

Love how many published scientists on this board chimed in to put him in his place.
He obviously knows nothing about the weather of the Pacific Northwest.

 

[Canuck from Kansas]

There’s a fine boat always fishing Sekiu with the name Occams Razor.

Love me some Cliff Mass!

Love how many published scientists on this board chimed in to put him in his place.
He obviously knows nothing about the weather of the Pacific Northwest.




View attachment 111383

It's actually quite striking, the difference of what he writes in his non-reviewed, non-scholarly blog and his actual refereed publications, only one of which I could find that directly addressed climate change (Mass, C. F., Salathé, E. P., Jr., Steed, R., and Baars, J., 2022. The Mesoscale Response to Global Warming over the Pacific Northwest Evaluated Using a Regional Climate Model Ensemble, Journal of Climate, 35, 2035-2053.). In that article, he did not dispute global climate change, in fact he acknowledged it, but just argued and presented regional modeling that suggested there were regional differences that would not be picked up by global models .... Duuuuh

In his blog, he plays fast an loose with data, as pointed out by @Cabezon, (whom I suspect has more than a few publications and serves as a peer reviewer for a few scientific journals), something that would never get past peer review.

 

[_WW_]

Always tough to pick an expert for a field in which you have very little experience or knowledge of. And picking just one is probably not wise.

 

[SurfnFish]

a butterfly flaps it's wings in Africa and...

 

[charles sullivan]

Please delete this personal attack.

Please delete this personal attack.

If you took that as a personal attack, it can only be because you resemble the remark and you recognize it.
It's the whole communication diagram thing. I am not resposible for how you interprate the message that I sent.
So......no. I will leave it.

 

[Rob Allen]

If you took that as a personal attack, it can only be because you resemble the remark and you recognize it.
It's the whole communication diagram thing. I am not resposible for how you interprate the message that I sent.
So......no. I will leave it.

I believe that to be a dishonest reply, but for the sake of the thread and the moderators I'll drop it.

 

[jact55]

Well said, Krusty. This is an excellent description of reality.

Often those most critical of governement know the very least about it. They certainly yell the loudest at times. Always sure, rarely correct.

Poopity doopity. Governments always right.

There ya'll go, fixed it.

Points were unrelated, I'll concede that.