Quiet time: 5 little-known nature preserves not far from L A yahoo.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from yahoo.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Preserves throughout the West are often run by private conservancies. They can be large or small but share a common goal of protecting particular landscapes. “Often, they’re in place to protect certain plants or animals or eco-systems types or special features, sometimes it’s historical or archeological features,” said Nature Conservancy biologist Sophie Parker. As an example, for 50 years, her organization has worked to protect the remote Amargosa River in the Mojave Desert and the native pupfish and Amargosa toads that live nowhere else.
Preserves also reflect an ethos of land stewardship and a strong belief that wild places should be open to the public for free. The Wildlands Conservancy, which manages more than 20 preserves in the West, believes that access to nature is a birthright. One of its core beliefs: “Free access to our preserves removes the socio-economic barriers that tend to promote a disconnect with nature.”
FAIRFIELD-SUISUN, CALIFORNIA
A $5 billion water project could drill through Anza-Borrego park. Is it a pipe dream? [The San Diego Union-Tribune :: BC-CALIF-PARK-WATERPROJECT:SD]
SAN DIEGO It would be arguably the most ambitious public works project in San Diego history.
The envisioned pipeline would carry Colorado River water more than 130 miles from the Imperial Valley through the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, tunneling under the Cuyamaca Mountains, and passing through the Cleveland National Forest to eventually connect with a water-treatment plant in San Marcos.
An alternative route would run through the desert to the south, boring under Mount Laguna before emptying into the San Vicente Reservoir in Lakeside.
It would be arguably the most ambitious public works project in San Diego history.
The envisioned pipeline would carry Colorado River water more than 130 miles from the Imperial Valley through the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, tunneling under the Cuyamaca Mountains, and passing through the Cleveland National Forest to eventually connect with a water-treatment plant in San Marcos.
An alternative route would run through the desert to the south, boring under Mount Laguna before emptying into the San Vicente Reservoir in Lakeside.
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Estimated cost: roughly $5 billion. New water delivered: None.
Proponents of the modestly named Regional Conveyance System say the project has the potential to save ratepayers billions of dollars by the end of the century.