Word: basin
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...southland's smoggy air largely results from poor atmospheric ventilation in the bowl-shaped South Coast Air Basin, where an "inversion layer" traps pollutants under a lid of hot air. In the daytime, ocean breezes waft pollution inland all across the basin. Then sunshine triggers a photochemical reaction that produces the highest ozone concentration in the U.S. Established in 1977, the district aims to bring Southern California's air quality into compliance with federal standards by 2010. If the agency falls short of that goal, Washington could take over. Given the terrain and the hodgepodge of local governments involved, only...
AMAZONIA by Loren McIntyre (Sierra Club Books; $40). This large-format portfolio captures the riches of the vast Amazon Basin, from the white-water region of the western Andes to the black waters of the Rio Negro system, on to the blue of the south, and finally to the brown Amazon mainstream. A dazzling record of an ecological treasure that is fast being destroyed...
...nothing, though, compared with the storm of outrage that the prospect of quincentennial partying has unleashed among the anti-Columbians. "Our celebration is to oppose," says Evaristo Nugkuag, a member of the Aguaruna people, who is president of the Coordinating Body for the Indigenous Peoples' Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA), an umbrella group in Lima, Peru. On Oct. 7, in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, about 1,000 members of COICA and other groups, representing 24 countries in the Western Hemisphere, will gather at a "Continental Encounter" meeting. One of the purposes is to determine strategies to counter the 1992 Columbus celebrations...
...other hand, some farmers, especially in the Upper Basin, and some ranchers have succumbed to the repeated temptations to sell some or all of their water rights to parched urban areas. Whether similar water marketing should be permitted across state lines is a matter of fierce debate. Some experts estimate that Colorado could reap $140 million in new revenues if the deal goes through. But the sale of agricultural water rights could cause many farming communities to dry up and vanish...
...battle over the Colorado's waters has grown even more frenzied because of the five-year drought. So far, California has been able to cope with water % shortages, which have been exacerbated even further by its booming population, by siphoning off the unused portion of the Upper Basin states' allocation from the river and encouraging conservation...