August 2007 Archives

Today, the 41-cent commemorative stamp honoring former President Gerald R. Ford will be issued nationwide.

Ford was a supporter of the Bighorn Institute, the Palm Desert facility dedicated to helping the endangered herd of Peninsular bighorn sheep. Ford was also a Boy Scout and outdoorsman, having worked in Yellowstone National Park in his younger days.

You can see the stamp showing the stoic former president by clicking here.

Now on to the weekend, which is going to be hotter than hot.

One way to beat the heat is hit the air-conditioned San Bernardino County Museum. Even better, it's free on Sunday.

Also that day, the paleontology curator will give a talk on ocean rocks in the Southern California deserts. Yes, ocean rocks in the desert. Eric Scott says high mountains in the eastern part of the Mojave Desert are composed of marine rocks that date back hundreds of millions of years.

The rocks contain fossils of long-extinct marine-dwelling organisms. He'll talk about how ocean floors became mountain peaks and creatures from the dark watery depths got exposed to the desert sun.

Other options include heading to the mountains, where it will be slightly cooler, and do a hike in the San Jacintos.

Boaters this holiday weekend are being asked by the state to help prevent the spread of quagga mussels, which pose a billion-dollar threat to our water supply system. Here are tips for boaters.

And because it's Labor Day weekend, some may be thinking about barbecues. But once that's over, there's a movement among some in the nation to fast Tuesday to raise awareness about climate change. Thanks to Terry Wold of the Sierra Club for sending this along.

And speaking of the Sierra Club, it will be having a lecture Tuesday night examining how food choices ultimately affects the planet. Dick Morris from EarthSave Inland Empire will be giving the talk about how the way we eat and where we purchase our food affects the planet and our quality of life. Non-Sierra Club members are welcome to the free event at the San Bernardino County Museum, with $1 donation accepted for room rental.

Confused about what to buy to make your home more energy efficient and thus reduce greenhouse gas emissions? One of the first faith groups to address those issues has set up an online energy efficiency store for faith communities and their members. And there are discounts available! Even if you're not part of a faith group, you can check out the website by Interfaith Power & Light to get ideas beyond compact fluorescent light bulbs.

You can also check out the PE's in-depth look at energy from earlier this year. Click on conservation to get a bunch o' ideas for your home.

While it's a very thorough shop, I couldn't find anything that addresses one of the biggest issues getting the most press these days, bottled water and soda. The manufacturing of the bottles and their transport, many say, contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. At least some are trying to reduce the amount of plastic in their products. Check out the Wall Street Journal story on that today. As for me, I recently bought a Nalgene bottle for work. I fill it up every morning with filtered water from home. Even if you recycle, the sight of all the empty plastic bottles on my desk and others looked wasteful. Plus, it's cheaper. Also intriguing are these drinking bottles that come with a filter, some lasting up to three months. If anyone has tried one, let us know how they work.

As for the Interfaith Power and Light, they believe that energy efficiency helps care for the creation. "Every major religion has an ethic of environmental responsibility," they say on the Web site. "We are called to be good stewards of resources and good neighbors to our fellow creatures." Amen!

Tyler Nordgren may just have the best job an Inlander can have. The University of Redlands professor is spending 12 months visiting national parks across the country, from Alaska to Arizona to Maine, to check out the night sky.

As we speak, Nordgren should be in Grand Teton National Park, having caught the lunar eclipse just the other day. You can travel with him in cyberspace by checking out his blog hosted by the Planetary Society's Web site.

Nordgren, an astronomy and physics professor, is spending one to three weeks in each park, with the help of the National Park Service’s Night Sky Team of rangers and astronomers. Dedicated to preserving dark night skies in the parks, the team documents the effects of light pollution. Who knew?

Nordgren writes that the national parks in the United States are fast becoming one of the few places where the average person can see a truly dark sky. "When I talk to my students and ask if any of them have ever seen the Milky Way, only a small handful are ever able to say 'yes,' and often the occasion was some childhood trip to a national park." He says a dark, starry sky is as much an integral part of a park visit as seeing Old Faithful or the Grand Canyon.

I remember him simply as the Earth Man.

David Garcia died this morning at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage of a long-time liver ailment. He was 63.

Long before it became a "hot" topic so to speak, Garcia often reported on environmental issues for several TV stations in Los Angeles and he won several Emmys for his work. He later moved to our neck of the woods in the Coachella Valley but stayed active by co-producing "Go West with David Garcia."

A memorial service is being planned at the Eisenhower Medical Center Auditorium.

With all this talk about saving water, one place to really make a dent is with outdoor landscaping. And as we slowly and I mean slowly slip into fall next month, the time will be here pretty soon when Inlanders can start planting again.

Just because landscaping is water-efficient doesn't mean it has to be prickly cactus and rocks. It can also mean lavender, rosemary and other plants that not only smell good but look good. To get some ideas on what to plant, western Riverside County water agencies are hosting "Native Nights" on Thursday at 6 p.m. in Riverside at the Western Municipal Water District. You can learn more about water-efficient plants and which ones work well in the area. It's free but you have to register. Click the above link to get that information. The agency is also offering a four-part landscaping course, on Saturdays in September. Check out the details here.

Perris-based Eastern Municipal Water District will be offering similar classes throughout the fall, starting Sept. 8, that include composting, landscape design and sprinkler systems. And for those of you in the Coachella Valley, the local water district has some ideas for outdoor gardening in the hotter desert where outdoor water can account for 80 percent of a home's water use.

And don't forget to click on the Rancho Santa Ana Botanical Garden's website to get a weekly tip on native plant gardening.

Update And how could I forget? Thanks to Bob Muir over at Metropolitan Water District for the reminder -- you can also check out www.bewaterwise.com for more tips.

Do you remember when Los Angeles was hosting the Olympics back in 1984 and tried to rid the area of all the homeless so the city would look more inviting? Perhaps that was an easier task than what Beijing is facing as the smoggy Chinese capital prepares to host next summer's Olympic Games.

Maybe it's because I can't imagine having world-class athletes inhale our Inland Empire smog at the height of summer when they're trying to break the 100-meter dash record that I find it so interesting. Or worse yet, trying to run a 26.2-mile marathon from Rubidoux to Mira Loma, where some of our worst air quality hovers.

In fact. Jacques Rogge, the president of the International Olympic Committee, said some Beijing Olympic events might be postponed if the pollution would put the athletes at risk. Some athletes and coaches said it could be a disaster changing events at the last minute. Some athletes, including those from the U.S., will be housed away from Beijing until right before the competition so they will not be exposed to poor air. Geez!

The Chinese government is trying like crazy to find ways to abate the smog for the duration of the Olympics. Reports suggest they will shut down nearby industry and restrict the number of cars allowed to drive in the weeks leading up to the games. Then, if necessary, they'll try to dispel the smog with cloud-seeding technology to moisten it out of the air. Wow! That really seems extreme.

And what happens after the Olympics? We've all heard the stories of how China's air pollution affects California. Now the New York Times is running a series on just how bad it is. Check out the latest story here.

There's something about the Olympics that says summer and holding the events outside under the sunshine is part of it. But perhaps one day we'll have to hold the Olympics inside. Marathoners can run around on an inside track, again and again and again.

Now that the Inland region's space-bound teacher is safe back on Earth after a trip aboard the space shuttle, it's time to look up into the night sky again! You can view the gibbous moon and Jupiter through telescopes Saturday night at the San Bernardino County Museum. The Moon Party is hosted by the San Bernardino Valley Amateur Astronomers and the museum’s education division, and it's free.

Christopher Clarke of the amateur astronomers group said the gibbous moon phase reveals craters, mountains and ancient lava flows created about 3 billion years ago!

This is not for the light-hearted or those who like to sleep in on Sundays. In fact, the local Audubon chapter calls this one "an insane jaunt" to the Salton Sea. And it's early, 5:30 a.m. Non-members are invited to tag along to see the many birds that hang out by the sea, but organizer John Green says do not come without water. Check the link for other things you must have. If anyone noticed our story this week from Sacramento on the desert lake, you'll see that lawmakers raised concerns about the high price tag of the sea's restoration. Environmental groups said they were concerned about that when it was proposed earlier this year.

If you're staying inside this weekend, "Living with Ed," the show with Ed Begley Jr. and his wife, is back on air for a sneak peek on Sunday and then returns to its regular slot Monday night.

Some of us may already know about the "wireless" patch of forest at the James Reserve run by the UC system and Mike Hamilton up near Idyllwild. That's where robotic cameras and other high-tech gadgets spy on wildlife, trees and even the roots below. The idea is to eventually piece together the research to detail the inner workings of a mountain ecosystem.

Along those same lines, the U.S. Forest Service announced this week plans to place monitors in 18 experimental forest and range sites nationwide, including the San Dimas Experimental Forest in the Angeles National Forest, just over the boundary of the San Bernardino National Forest. The monitors wll gauge the impacts from climate change, invasive species, natural disasters and human development.

The data from the transcontinental network will then be integrated into a global monitoring program operated by the United Nations' International Cooperative Programme. Andrzej Bytnerowicz, a research ecologist for the Forest Service's Pacific Southwest Research Lab in Riverside, serves as the liaison for the program. He says the forest network will be the first U.S. sites to contribute specific atmospheric, hydrological and biological information that meets the ICP's high standards of data collection.

Who better than Willie Nelson, co-founder of Farm Aid, to write a book about biodiesel? After all, farmers can produce the required energy for a healthy body, why not let them produce the energy for our rapidly escalating transportation needs, too? That's what Willie asks in the introduction of his new book, "On the Clean Road Again." It's somewhat humorous and includes a chapter called "To All the Oils I've Loved Before." Hmm, that sounds familiar.

Willie will be among the performers in the Hard Rock's "Ambassadors of Rock" tour Sept. 10 in New York's Time Square. The motto is "Save the Planet." The concert will act as the official launch of the Sustainable Biodiesel Alliance, a non-profit founded by Willie's wife Annie Nelson, biodiesel advocate (and sometime actress) Daryl Hannah and others. The concert will include locally grown and organic food from family farms.

Willie says in his book that after his wife filled up the tank of her Volkswagen Jetta with biodiesel he did the same to a Mercedes. That was three years ago. He gives a warning to those motorists behind him: The exhaust smells like "piping hot donuts or french fries." That's enough for anyone to get the munchies.

If you saw the newspaper this morning, you know there could be a settlement announced today in the global warming lawsuit filed by the state attorney general's office against San Bernardino County. So I decided to check in with the Center for Biological Diversity this morning, because they actually filed the first lawsuit against the county for allegedly failing to consider greenhouse gas emissions in its general plan. Updated note: Also the local Sierra Club chapter and the San Bernardino Valley Audubon Society joined the Center in filing the lawsuit back in April.

Jonathan Evans, staff attorney for the Center, said the group's case is moving forward. He said he hadn't seen details of the expected settlement between the county and the AG's office, but he hoped it was a positive step forward.

The Center's lawsuit, he said, is more encompassing, and raises allegations of inadequate protection for wildfire hazards, i.e. allowing development of steep slopes, and lack of protection for significant biological issues. He said his group can't agree to a settlement until those issues are also resolved.

The Center also recently filed a similar lawsuit against the planned Perris Marketplace, which is expected to include a Wal-Mart Supercenter, for not accounting for greenhouse gas emissions.

So I asked Jonathan what most county planners and others say when it comes to global warming -- because the issue is so new there's no guidance from state agencies on how to account for the greenhouse gas emissions. He said there are laws on the books right now that require it. And there are models out there proposed, for instance, by the California Climate Action Registry.

"It's important for us to take steps to fight global warming to solve this environmental threat and we can plan for global warming through existing environmental laws without slowing or stopping sustaintinable development in California."

So what do you think?

The name might not be that familiar to those outside of Palm Springs, but Chino Canyon is the place that many of us Inlanders and scores of tourists know as the road to the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway. The canyon is the subject of new short film, "Voices of the Canyon" that will be making its premiere at the Palm Springs International Festival of Short Films & Short Film Market this Saturday.

The canyon, ancient home to Cahuilla tribes, is the subject of a controversial development known as Shadowrock. Voters in Palm Springs will have the final say this November on whether to keep that project alive. Developer Mark Bragg has called the move against the 288-acre Shadowrock resort unfair, in part, because it's private property. He said the project will preserve 1,100 acres.

The canyon is named for Pedro Chino, a shaman and tribal leader whose spirit still lives there, according to Cahuilla elders.

The film, which will be about 12 minutes, features Cahuilla elders Alvino Siva and Katherine Siva Saubel who say the canyon is sacred, Jim DeForge, head of the Bighorn Institute, who talks about the importance of the area for endangered bighorn sheep, and Pete Dangermond, executive director of the Riverside Land Conservancy, who talks about the importance of preserving the land, according to Frank Gaydos, president of the Friends of Palm Springs Mountains.

"Everybody has a little bit of a different take on why it should be preserved," said Gayados.

Friends of Palm Springs Mountains co-produced the film, along with Rob Taylor, a retired judge who was the director of photography and who edited the piece.

We're on tap for another hot weekend in the Inland region, so why not escape to the cooler regions. I'm talking mountain madness here.

The Big Bear Discovery Center is hosting kayak tours on Saturdays and Sundays until Sept. 16. The two-hour guided tours are in Grout Bay. You get to cruise for wildlife along the shore and hear about the history of the Big Bear Lake and the surrounding valley. Adults $22; kids ages 10 to 16, $15.

As part of its outdoor school at the REI in Rancho Cucamonga, an intermediate class in mountain biking at 9 a.m. Saturday will help raise your skill level on the trails. Organizers warn this trip is not for beginnners. Registration is required by calling 909-646-8360, and cost is $55 for members and $70 for non-members.

It's not until Sept. 15, but space is limited on this one so I thought you might want to know. Robert McKernan, director of the San Bernardino County Museum, is taking a group on a one-day field trip to the San Bernardino Mountains to witness "a spectacular annual avian rite of passage." Cost is $60.

Or cool down at a theater and check out the new movie "Arctic Tale," the coming of age story about a polar bear that they say has subtle hints of global warming's impact on the bear's icy habitat. You can log on to the Web site to find where it's playing. I did a quick check and found it showing at movie theaters in Ontario and Corona, and there could be more.

It seems like everyday there is a new story about global warming.

You may have read about the land grab by different countries for the seabed under the Arctic, made possible by climate change that is melting away the ice. Or the urban heat island effect in Phoenix that is also raising temperatures. That phenomenon is also happening here in the Inland region as Bill Patzert, a NASA/JPL climatologist, has told me.

Anyhow, my point is that this is a complex enough issue for us adults. But how does one explain what's happening to children, those who will be most affected by the dire consequences predicted by scientists?

With school right around the corner, I thought it might be helpful to let teachers and parents know about one resource, a new website by the Northern American Association for Environmental Education and the National Wildlife Federation. It's geared toward helping parents and those who teach K-12.

I also recently came across an interactive global warming map by National Geographic. Check it out here.

There are still some naysayers out there when it comes to global warming, but in California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state lawmakers have made it a top priority to deal with the issue here.

An environmental law firm has put patches of polluted sky up for adoption.

You read that correctly.

They say nearly 22,000 people have already "virtually " adopted sky.

What is this? Keep reading.

Playing off the adopt-a-highway idea, the "Adopt the Sky" campaign was launched by Earthjustice. Essentially, you sign an online petition that asks the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to crack down on polluters. Their goal is to get 50,000 signatures by Oct. 9. That's a deadline for when the EPA will stop taking comments on their recent smog proposal.

The EPA in June proposed tightening current smog standards but not as strong as the standards suggested by its own scientific advisory committee. You can get all sides of the debate by reading a recent article on the issue written by our air pollution reporter David Danelski and our Washington D.C. reporter Ben Goad. Nationwide, 4.5 million kids have asthma, and Earthjustice says its effort is to reduce the number of sick days and premature deaths Americans are suffering from air pollution. I think us Inlanders can relate to smoggy days and asthma.

I always like to let people know about public hearings because that's where you can have your say. The EPA will be holding hearings nationwide at the end of this month on its proposal. The California hearing will be in Los Angeles on Aug. 30. Click here for details.

A regional effort to create a greenbelt along the Santa Ana River, which runs through San Bernardino, Riverside and Orange counties, may get a boost today.

The Riverside City Council is scheduled to vote today on whether to pay $1.75 million for a 55-acre lot near Mount Rubidoux and the river to ensure that commercial development does not occur there. The idea is to expand public park land along the river between Fairmount and Martha McLean parks.

The current owner, Fidelity Family Holdings, once tried to put a golf course on the property, which is the former Tequesquite trash dump. But the environmental impacts proved to be too much, according to a city council memorandum.

"It would have ruined the whole poetry of the river," said Jane Block, member of the Riverside Land Conservancy.

The 55 acres is part of a greater effort by the city to preserve more than 1,000 acres, including private property along the river, according to City Councilman Dom Betro. Betro said Mayor Loveridge handed him the challenge of implementing the recommendations of the Santa Ana River Task Force.

Stay tuned on today's vote!

UPDATE: the land purchase was approved.

Most of us know about the Wildlands Conservancy in Oak Glen and its efforts in outdoor education for school kids. Perhaps lesser known is the Pali Institute, nestled in the San Bernardino Mountain community of Running Springs. School kids go to the 74-acre spread for three-day or five-day jaunts to learn about forest ecology, freshwater biology and water quality, according to Derek Tenney, the institute's director of outdoor education.

Tenney said the students are also taught leadership skills by building a raft together and holding each other up on ropes and chains. Sounds like an episode of "Survivor" to me.

About a dozen schools across Riverside and San Bernardino counties are already signed up for this upcoming school year. Tenney said the majority of kids are in fifth and sixth grades. It costs $250 per student for the three-day stint, which covers food and all the programs, Tenney said. He said that school district sometimes picks up the tab or schools host fund-raisers to collect the fee.

Tenney said the unique thing about the institute is that they offer 32 classes and schools can tailor the curriculum to their needs. Tenney says he's a big supporter of the No Child Left Inside Act, which would use federal funding for environmental education and help reconnect more kids to nature at a time when video games and IPods rule most their worlds.

It's going to be hot this weekend. So what's new? Whether we like it or not, we are experiencing the Dog Days of Summer. The term was coined by the ancient Romans who blamed Sirius, the Dog Star, for the hot, stagnant weather. Sirius, at that time, rose just before or at the same time as the sun.

So as we look out to the constellations, there's another star party this Saturday in Joshua Tree National Park, hosted by the Andromeda Astronomical Society. A note about the park: temporary road closures begin this Sunday on a five-mile stretch of Keys View Road. Check here for more details.

Registration is open for a one-day field trip to the San Andreas Fault on Sept. 22. The trip will be led by geology experts at the San Bernardino County Museum, and will look at the stretch of the fault from the Cajon Pass to the Mojave Desert, with a lunch stop in Wrightwood. Cost is $60 per person. Call LaWanda Avery-Brown at 909-307-2669 ext. 225 for more information.

This Tuesday night at 6:30 p.m., REI in Rancho Cucamonga hosts a free basic bike maintenance course.

Move over Al Gore, Leonardo DiCaprio is now in the house. The young actor has produced and narrates The 11th Hour, what some say is a sequel to Gore's "Inconvenient Truth." "The 11th Hour" essentially is the tipping point of the global environment, and includes solutions for restoring the planet's ecosystems.

One blogger on the Huffington Post said it's a must-see you may not want to see. She got a sneak peek and you can see her full comments here.

The film opens in movie theaters Aug. 17 in Los Angeles and New York and expands elsewhere on Aug. 24. If anyone catches it, let us know what you think.

Who doesn't dream of the beach when we're steeped in 90-plus degree weather and unhealthful smog.

Sometimes, though, we don't realize that the quality of the ocean water is not up to par. In announcing the best and worst beaches this year, the Natural Resources Defense Council praised some by calling them beach buddies and knocked other as beach bums.

The beach buddies, which violated public health standards less than 10 percent of the time, included Laguna Beach, probably a favorite among us Inlanders so that's a good thing. On the beach bum side, which violated public health standards 51 percent or more of the time samples were taken, were Venice State Beach, one of my old haunts.

The annual NRDC report looks at beaches across the country. But if you want to peek at just California, and 400 of our beaches, click here.

The region's largest urban water supplier says it's time to get serious about saving water. The latest series of ads launched this week by Metropolitan Water District will urge consumers to fix leaking faucets and wash only full loads of laundry among other water-saving strategies.

Coincidentally, while getting a crown affixed to my tooth yesterday, my dentist who has an office in Rubidoux, west of Riverside, suggested we look no further than our toilets to save water. If the millions of people who live in our area didn't flush everytime except in the worst cases, and you know what he means, they'd save tons o' water, he claimed.

Of course we've all heard this before but I decided to check the math. Toilets installed before 1994 typically use 3.5 to seven gallons of water per flush, which can mean as much as 20 gallons per person per day. But these days, even if you use an ultra-low toilet, that's still 1.6 gallons per flush, and probably about 10 gallons per day depending on how much coffee you've consumed. Just in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, there are nearly 4 million residents. If each person skipped a flush once per day that would save at least 6.4 million gallons!

Maybe my dentist has something here. What do you think about it or is there too much of a gross factor with this one?

Inland Empire Waterkeeper, relatively new on the Inland environmental scene, has a director after a long vacancy. Lee Reeder, 50, lives in Crestline in the San Bernardino Mountains but will be working out of the group's Riverside office. The group is an offshoot of the Orange County Coastkeeper, which started the I.E. chapter to look at urban runoff and other issues in the upper Santa Ana watershed in San Bernardino and Riverside counties that flow downstream into Orange County and the coast.

Reeder is a nature photographer, writer and environmentalist. He has volunteered with the Children's Forest and the San Gorgonio Wilderness Association, doing trail patrols to make sure people have their permits and to stomp out illegal campfires. As director of the Inland Empire Waterkeeper, Reeder said his focus will be finding runoff problems and working with developers and others to limit it. The group also seeks out volunteers for water monitoring to determine ecosystem health and other activities, he said.

The most problematic issues facing the Santa Ana watershed, he said, is keeping as much of it natural as possible and pushing for low-impact development along creeks and rivers. He said he went the other day to look at the Dos Lagos development in south Corona where they have removed invasive arrundo from the Temescal Creek and re-established habitats for species such as the least Bell's vireo, an endangered bird.

Reeder said it's his dream job to be director of Inland Empire Waterkeeper after years of doing his own business. "I wasn't really looking to go back to work but if I did go back I knew I wanted to come to something I could really sink my teeth into and that I'd feel good about getting up and going to work."

Amen to that!

More warm weather is on tap for the weekend ...

So why not go into an air-conditioned museum? And on Sunday, it's free at the San Bernardino County Museum. You can still catch the special exhibit "Living on the Edge," which runs through the end of October. The exhibit explores natural disasters in our area, including earthquakes.

Tuesday at the same museum, the local Sierra Club chapter is showing "Vertical Frontier," a film about climbing. The film tells the story of Sierra Club founder John Muir and other climbers and how their contributions to mountaineering techniques, equipment and ethics allowed them to be the first to conquer the legendary big walls of Yosemite.

The ascent of El Capitan once took 45 days spread over a year and a half, and now takes under three hours for the most speedy climbers. The film will be shown during the club's regular meeting but everyone is invited.

The film reminds me of the recent and unfortunate death of Michael Reardon, a renowned Southern California climber known for his endeavors in Joshua Tree National Park and in the Idyllwild area. He was swept away by a wave on an island off the Irish coast.

Also the Riverside Public Library this Sunday is kicking of a four-part documentary miniseries about urban sustainability -- making cities more liveable and less taxing on natural resources. First up in the "Edens Lost and Found" series is a film about Philadelphia.

This one isn't until Nov. 17, but you can start thinking about taking a Walk on the Wild Side if you're interested. The second annual 5K walk through the San Diego Zoo raises funds for the care and conservation of endangered great apes. Gorillas, chimpanzees and orangutans are facing threats due to poaching and deforestation throughout their home range.

Most of us are either blue-collar or white-collar workers or somewhere in between. Now there's a movement to create a workforce with a different color.

The House of Representatives this week, possibly tomorrow or Saturday according to sources, is expected to vote on an an energy bill that includes the Green Jobs Act. The act would authorize as much as $125 million to train a green-collar workforce made up of veterans, at-risk youth and workers displaced by layoffs. The workers would do such things as install solar panels, weatherize homes and other buildings, create biofuels, and build and maintain wind farms.

The Oakland-based Ella Baker Center for Human Rights has been a big supporter. Eric Arnold, with the center, says the act represents a pathway out of poverty while at the same time helps to spur the development of the green economic sector.

The bill is co-sponsored by Congresswoman Hilda L. Solis, D-Calif., who has also pushed other environmental issues including the designation of new wilderness areas in Southern California and a national standard for perchlorate in drinking water.

Sounds like a good idea, what do you think?

There's finally a cell phone geared toward those who work or play in the great outdoors!

And it's "ruggedized." Rugged what? That's right. Even though the newspaper's top copy editor and Webster himself says it's not a word, that's what Verizon is calling one of its latest gizmos.

If you're in the market for a new cell phone, the G'zOne might be worth checking out.

What does ruggedized mean? Verizon says the phone is built to survive and can handle just about anything you throw its way. It's water-resistant for those who like to kayak and do other water sports, dust resistant for those who play in the desert, and shock-resistant for those who climb rocks or are just plain klutzy.

If anyone gets one, let us know how it really holds up.