Download or read book The Control of Nature written by John McPhee and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2011-04-01 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While John McPhee was working on his previous book, Rising from the Plains, he happened to walk by the engineering building at the University of Wyoming, where words etched in limestone said: "Strive on--the control of Nature is won, not given." In the morning sunlight, that central phrase--"the control of nature"--seemed to sparkle with unintended ambiguity. Bilateral, symmetrical, it could with equal speed travel in opposite directions. For some years, he had been planning a book about places in the world where people have been engaged in all-out battles with nature, about (in the words of the book itself) "any struggle against natural forces--heroic or venal, rash or well advised--when human beings conscript themselves to fight against the earth, to take what is not given, to rout the destroying enemy, to surround the base of Mt. Olympus demanding and expecting the surrender of the gods." His interest had first been sparked when he went into the Atchafalaya--the largest river swamp in North America--and had learned that virtually all of its waters were metered and rationed by a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' project called Old River Control. In the natural cycles of the Mississippi's deltaic plain, the time had come for the Mississippi to change course, to shift its mouth more than a hundred miles and go down the Atchafalaya, one of its distributary branches. The United States could not afford that--for New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and all the industries that lie between would be cut off from river commerce with the rest of the nation. At a place called Old River, the Corps therefore had built a great fortress--part dam, part valve--to restrain the flow of the Atchafalaya and compel the Mississippi to stay where it is. In Iceland, in 1973, an island split open without warning and huge volumes of lava began moving in the direction of a harbor scarcely half a mile away. It was not only Iceland's premier fishing port (accounting for a large percentage of Iceland's export economy) but it was also the only harbor along the nation's southern coast. As the lava threatened to fill the harbor and wipe it out, a physicist named Thorbjorn Sigurgeirsson suggested a way to fight against the flowing red rock--initiating an all-out endeavor unique in human history. On the big island of Hawaii, one of the world's two must eruptive hot spots, people are not unmindful of the Icelandic example. McPhee went to Hawaii to talk with them and to walk beside the edges of a molten lake and incandescent rivers. Some of the more expensive real estate in Los Angeles is up against mountains that are rising and disintegrating as rapidly as any in the world. After a complex coincidence of natural events, boulders will flow out of these mountains like fish eggs, mixed with mud, sand, and smaller rocks in a cascading mass known as debris flow. Plucking up trees and cars, bursting through doors and windows, filling up houses to their eaves, debris flows threaten the lives of people living in and near Los Angeles' famous canyons. At extraordinary expense the city has built a hundred and fifty stadium-like basins in a daring effort to catch the debris. Taking us deep into these contested territories, McPhee details the strategies and tactics through which people attempt to control nature. Most striking in his vivid depiction of the main contestants: nature in complex and awesome guises, and those who would attempt to wrest control from her--stubborn, often ingenious, and always arresting characters.

Download or read book Dividing the Waters written by William Andrew Blomquist and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Not only are these water supplies not depleted, they are in fact relatively healthy despite California's recent six-year drought.

Download or read book Geohydrology Geochemistry and Ground water Simulation optimization of the Central and West Coast Basins Los Angeles County California written by and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The San Gabriels written by John W. Robinson and published by . This book was released on 1977 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Annual Report FY of the Chief of Engineers on Civil Works Activities written by United States. Army. Corps of Engineers and published by . This book was released on 1985 with total page 1316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Geological Survey Water supply Paper written by and published by . This book was released on 1976 with total page 1278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Summary of Floods in the United States During 1966 written by Julian Ordean Rostvedt and published by . This book was released on 1971 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Making Appropriations for the Departments of Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban Development and for Sundry Independent Agencies Boards Commissions Corporations and Offices for the Fiscal Year Ending September 30 2001 and for Other Purposes written by United States. Congress and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Report of Progress of Stream Measurements for the Calendar Year 1904 written by Michael Creed Hinderlider and published by . This book was released on 1905 with total page 1350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Performance of Institutions for Groundwater Management San Gabriel Valley written by William Andrew Blomquist and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book State Hydrologic Unit Maps written by Paul R. Seaber and published by . This book was released on 1984 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Los Angeles River written by Blake Gumprecht and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2001-04-30 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the J. B. Jackson Prize from the Association of American Geographers Three centuries ago, the Los Angeles River meandered through marshes and forests of willow and sycamore. Trout spawned in its waters and grizzly bears roamed its shores. The bountiful environment the river helped create supported one of the largest concentrations of Indians in North America. Today, the river is made almost entirely of concrete. Chain-link fence and barbed wire line its course. Shopping carts and trash litter its channel. Little water flows in the river most of the year, and nearly all that does is treated sewage and oily street runoff. On much of its course, the river looks more like a deserted freeway than a river. The river's contemporary image belies its former character and its importance to the development of Southern California. Los Angeles would not exist were it not for the river, and the river was crucial to its growth. Recognizing its past and future potential, a potent movement has developed to revitalize its course. The Los Angeles River offers the first comprehensive account of a river that helped give birth to one of the world's great cities, significantly shaped its history, and promises to play a key role in its future.

Download or read book Water supply and Irrigation Papers of the United States Geological Survey written by and published by . This book was released on 1905 with total page 1042 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Energy and Water Development Appropriations Bill 2001 written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Appropriations and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Corps of Engineers Susquehanna River Basin Commission U S Army Memorial Affair Agency written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Appropriations. Subcommittee on Public Works and published by . This book was released on 1973 with total page 1418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Water Levels and Artesian Pressure in Observation Wells in the United States written by and published by . This book was released on 1913 with total page 454 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Library of Congress Subject Headings written by Library of Congress and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 1164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: