Walking Sophia in misty Slabtown predawn, saw two bald eagles sitting in a tree. When I fetched my camera they split. Edmond was wondering whether I was seeing turkey vultures but I’ve never seen one of those with white tail feathers.
2012/01/24
Haliaeetus leucocephalus
2011/12/20
nautical twilight
Walking southwest on the Rivanna right bank trail toward Monticello {left} and the Woolen Mills Village National Historic District.
In eight days the regional water and sewer authority board (RWSA) will vote on whether to locate a 53 million gallon per-day sewage pumping station in this park.
The following information is provided for Charlottesville, Virginia (longitude W78.5, latitude N38.0):
Tuesday
20 December 2011 Eastern Standard Time
SUN
Begin civil twilight 6:56 a.m.
Sunrise 7:26 a.m.
Sun transit 12:11 p.m.
Sunset 4:57 p.m.
End civil twilight 5:27 p.m.
2011/11/24
slabtown dawn
We pause to express our deep gratitude for the many blessings we enjoy. Give us the strength and the wisdom to demonstrate that gratitude in thoughts and words and deeds acceptable to you. Protect our absent loved ones and protect this family circle with everlasting love.–Charlie Murchison
2011/09/29
2011/08/11
infrastructure
Infrastructure is basic physical and organizational structures needed for the operation of a society or enterprise, or the services and facilities necessary for an economy to function.
The term typically refers to the technical structures that support a society, such as roads, water supply, sewers, electrical grids, telecommunications, and so forth, and can be defined as “the physical components of interrelated systems providing commodities and services essential to enable, sustain, or enhance societal living conditions.”–Wikipedia
Infrastructure can inspire. Carefully engineered, lasting projects are beautiful and cost effective. The Aqua Virgo, an aqueduct supplying Rome with drinking water, was constructed in 19BC, and renovated in 1453.
The large diameter galvanized pipes above are shopping center infrastructure. Presumably, they’ll be buried beneath the ground and deal with storm water unable to penetrate the acres of impervious surface that are part of this new consumer Shangri-La. Could the rainwater be kept on top of the ground in a series of streams, meadows and lakes and allowed to infiltrate? The landscaping could be beautiful and functional. Maybe that is part of the plan? UVA, locally, leads in daylighting piped streams and dealing with stormwater intelligently.
One thing for sure. This is short term infrastructure. No one will be renovating this installation in a millennium. The useful life of corrugated pipe is measured in decades.
2011/07/17
River Thing
Wednesday, July 20, the City Council will interview candidates for the City’s “Planning Commission”.
I hope the Councilors will ask PC wannabees to:
Identify strategies to maximize the presence and value of the Rivanna River in the life of the City.
The city of Charlottesville has a 3.6 mile waterfront without a single path from the river’s edge to the water.
Imagine that.
A city that ignores its river cannot call itself great.
2011/06/07
Havasu Canyon
[Benjamin Lee Whorf] discovered that [Hopi] differs dramatically from languages of the Indo-European family such as English or French, particularly in its expression of the concept of time. English and its related languages have three major tenses – past, present, and future (“it was,” “it is,” “it will be”) – plus the fancier compound tenses such as “it will have been”. Having these tenses, Whorf argued, encourages Europeans and Americans to think of time as so many ducks in a row. Time past is made up of uniform units of time – days, weeks, months, years – and the future is similarly measured out. This division of time is essentially artificial, Whorf said, since people can only experience the present. Past and future are only abstractions, but Westerners think of them as real because their language virtually forces them to do so. This view of time has given rise to the fondness in Western culture for diaries, records, annals, histories, clocks, calendars, wages paid by the hour or day, and elaborate timetables for the use of future time. Time is continually quantified. — David S. Thomson, “Worlds Shaped by Words”
2011/05/24
Collateral damage
This afternoon the RWSA Board of Directors will continue to address the issue of sanitary sewer overflows (SSO’s) occurring in their transmission system secondary to failed infrastructure (leaky pipes) that are part of the collection system.
Fixing the pipes is the expensive option, 400 million to 2 billion dollars.
Building a new sewage pumping plant is the quick fix for SSO’s and comparatively inexpensive (labor and materials cost 25-37 million dollars).
The concern of central Virginians is the collateral damage, the loss of value to our region. Pumping plant plan pricetags discussed to date do not reflect collateral damage costs, damage to the social, economic and cultural fabric at the foot of Monticello Mountain, impacts to a city park, the primary gateway to the Rivanna River, impacts to a national historic district and impacts to a neighborhood.
The overall cost of the project, to date, has not reflected the cost of locating the pumping station in “the wrong place”.
The cost of building a new 53 million gallon per day pumping plant must include the costs to mitigate its calamitous side effects, costs not reflected in the “materials and labor” estimate.
