Weekly Roundup August 3, 2012

In today’s weekly roundup, Spencer Michels reports on the statewide water wars in a PBS NewsHour segment. Berkeley enforces a bag ban on larger stores rather than expanding the ordinance to all retailers. Meanwhile, Alcatraz goes green with the addition of solar panels on the island. On the international front, Manila is projected to follow neighboring metropolitan cities and implement their own bag ban.  Finally, local cities plan to restore the Historic El Camino Real road to a world-class boulevard.

PBS NewsHour 08/02/2012
California Water Wars: Will Thirsty Interests Divert More Water?
The San Joaquin delta is a merging spot of rivers, sloughs, and canals, where water and snow from the Sierra Nevada Mountains flows to the Pacific Ocean. But there are some residents, especially farmers, who worry that thirsty interests will divert more of their water and ruin their livelihoods.
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Watch California Water: Will Thirsty Interests Divert More Water? on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

San Jose Mercury News 08/01/2012
Berkeley bans plastic grocery bags at larger stores
BERKELEY — Citing a cost of about $175,000, the City Council dropped plans to expand a ban on plastic carryout bags to all stores in the city, instead opting for a ban at only the largest stores.
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Forbes Magazine 07/29/2012
Solar-Powered Microgrid Slashes Alcatraz Island’s Dependence on Fossil Fuels
Islands face a double threat in our warming world. Rising seas threaten to sweep them from the map; dependence on the fossil fuels largely responsible for those rising seas exposes island populations and economies to increasingly burdensome energy costs.
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Inquirer News 07/29/2012
Manila eyes ban on plastic
After Muntinlupa, Las Piñas and Makati, Manila may be the next city in the metropolis to ban the use and sale of plastic bags and Styrofoam.
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San Francisco Chronicle 08/02/2012
A new vision for El Camino Real
One hundred years ago this week, then-California Highway Commission Chairman Burton Towne, with a dozen other officials looking on, jabbed a shovel into the earth on a dusty section of El Camino Real near San Bruno Avenue, formally breaking ground in San Bruno on the first segment of state highway to be paved.
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