The Coundown Has Begun

The ban on outdoor watering begins next week!

From March 18 to 27, the F.E. Weymouth Water Treatment Plant in LaVerne will undergo a seismic retrofit, during which a major MWD water pipeline through the San Gabriel Valley that supplies about 40 percent of Pasadena's imported water will be shut down.

Everyone in Pasadena will be prohibited from doing any outdoor watering, with very few exceptions.

Beginning this Friday and through March 17, give your gardens and shrubs as much water as you like so they'll be well-saturated during the March 18 to 27 shutdown, then cover flower beds with mulch to prevent the soil from drying out.


If you have a gardener, be sure that person is aware of the watering restrictions! You don't want your gardener to unknowingly put you at risk of a citation and fine.

If you have a sprinkler system, be sure to set the timer so it's turned off from March 18 to 27.

If you don't have a sprinkler system, that doesn't mean you're off the hook! All methods of outdoor watering with city tap water, including by hand, hose, drip, manual and automatic sprinklers, will be strictly prohibited during the shutdown, at all times.

See more information, including tips and answers to frequently asked questions, here.

Ten days will pass quickly, I promise!

Oh, and don't go saying the shutdown isn't necessary since we've had a lot of rain lately. A few inches of rain has done little for our natural supply of water in Pasadena and certainly has nothing to do with 40 percent of our water supply from an outside source.

I'm just sayin'...

Mystery History -- Solved!

Jean wins with her 7:36 a.m. Tuesday guess "Caltech with Charles Richter, showing off his seismographs."

In the photo above, Dr. Charles Richter makes a post-retirement visit in 1976 to the Seismology Lab at Caltech, where his Richter Magnitude Scale was in full swing for quantifying the size of earthquakes.

Richter, who died in 1985 (and is buried at Mountain View Cemetery), was a Caltech seismologist for 42 years until his retirement as professor emeritus in 1970.

A year before finishing his doctorate degree in 1928 in theoretical physics, he applied for an opening for a physicist at the new seismological laboratory.


He invented the Richter Scale in 1935.

He never won the coveted Nobel Prize, but it has been awarded to more than 30 Caltech professors and researchers.

And now the spotlight is on the Caltech Men's Basketball Team, which finally ended its 310-game, 26-year losing streak last week when the freethrow shot heard 'round the world earned the Caltech Beavers a 46-45 victory over Occidental in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletics Conference (SCIAC).

What, you didn't know there were sports teams at Caltech? Well, look again.




Last year Caltech competed in the first annual Pasadena Collegiate Field Tournament against Art Center College of Design, Fuller Theological Seminary, Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts, Pacific Oaks College and Pasadena City College:



Caltech seized the day!



The 2011 Pasadena Collegiate Field Tournament will be on Friday, April 8, at 6:30 p.m. at Pasadena City College's Robinson Stadium. Come cheer on your favorites!


Many thanks to Caltech for the photos of Dr. Richter and the Men's Basketball Team.

Mystery History

Where are we? And what's happening?

The person to guess correctly will win a fabulous prize!

I'll have the full scoop on Thursday.

Looking for Something to Do?

Wednesday, March 2, at 1 p.m. -- This week’s film in the Donald R. Wright Auditorium at Pasadena Central Library is “To Kill a Mockingbird” (1962, NR) starring Gregory Peck, Brock Peters and Robert Duvall in the story of attorney Atticus Finch who defends an innocent black man against rape charges.


Wednesday, March 2, at 4 p.m. – Children and their families are invited to celebrate Dr. Seuss’s birthday with musical guest Billy Brockman at Hastings Branch Library.


Through March 3 -- If you or someone you know may qualify as a junior lifeguard for our summer aquatics program or a PWP electrical engineering aide, we're hiring!


Through March 8 -- If you don’t want to wait for City of Pasadena and/or PUSD Board of Education elections, come to room S208 at Pasadena City Hall during regular business hours. You can vote early here, even if you live in Altadena or Sierra Madre and are voting for board of education seats only.


ONE CITY, ONE STORY EVENTS

This year’s One City, One Story novel in Pasadena is Mudbound by Hillary Jordan that takes place in Mississippi during World War II. Related events are planned through March 31.

Here are related events taking place next week:

Saturday, March 5, at 11 a.m. – Theatre Americana, formed as part of President Franklin Roosevelt’s WPA program, salutes our veterans with music of the ‘30s and ‘40s at Hastings Branch Library that will take you on a sentimental journey through a history of USO camp shows.

Saturday, March 5, at 11:30 a.m. – Old Town Cooking School’s Deb Swartz will demonstrate Southern cooking at Allendale Branch Library with traditional recipes that will make your mouth water (and you’ll get to sample everything!).

Saturday, March 5, at 2 p.m. – See a special screening of the film “The Tuskegee Airmen” (1995, PG) starring Laurence Fishburne, Allen Payne and Malcolm-Jamal Warner at San Rafael Branch Library. The film portrays the true story of the 332nd Air Force squadron during World War II that was honored for keeping casualties low and bombers safe. The squadron also made history because its members were the first African American pilots to take to the skies for the U.S., though few Americans knew of their accomplishments or how they managed to serve in the face of the rampant racism they endured. (626) 744-7270.

More information about Mudbound is here.

All events listed above are free and open to the public.

See a full listing of upcoming events (Feb. 28 to March 5) sponsored by the City of Pasadena here.

Mystery History -- Solved!

Nobody got it exactly right, but Bellis was the first person to name one person in the photo correctly with her 7:55 a.m. Tuesday guess "Mulholland and co. planning to buy up Hahamongna to bring water to LA? (after meeting fierce resistance from the Indiana colony, they headed up to Owens Valley)" so I'm giving her this week's fabulous prize.

Left to right in the 1931 photo above are Franklin E. Weymouth, William Mulholland and W.P Whitsett, and they're actually in the desert*. These three visionaries were responsible for bringing water from northern and central areas of the state to Southern California -- an intricate, expensive and bold move. They predicted that the future growth of Southern California -- Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego and Ventura counties -- would be tied directly to the capacity to import water from somewhere else.

And they were absolutely right.

Weymouth had been the chief construction engineer with the U.S. Reclamation Service (now called the Bureau of Reclamation) when he joined the team that conceived of the California Aqueduct. He was the first general manager and chief engineer of Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) from 1929 to 1941.

Mulholland was a self-taught engineer who had been responsible for the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, which brought water from the Owens Valley to L.A.

Whitsett served on the board of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and was MWD's first chairman of the board from 1930 to 1947.

Today the California Aqueduct, managed by the California Department of Water Resources, is a series of canals, tunnels and pipelines that transport water from Northern and Central California to Southern California.


What's the significance of this week's Mystery History?

MWD is preparing for a seismic upgrade of its F.E. Weymouth Water Treatment Plant in La Verne (below).


From March 18 to 27 (and possibly longer), Pasadena’s water supply will be cut by 40 percent due to the temporary shutdown of a major regional water pipeline served by the treatment plant.

That's where you come in.


You won't be allowed to do any outdoor watering (with some exceptions) during that 10-day period, so here are some answers to frequently asked questions.

There will be a 7:30 p.m. public hearing at the Pasadena City Council meeting this coming Monday to declare a Level 4 water shortage emergency. The agenda will be posted here by tonight and you'll be able to attend the meeting in person or watch it live on KPAS (channel 3 on Charter in Pasadena and 99 on U-Verse) or via streaming video here (click on the KPAS logo)

We're all in this together!

*First time ever a Mystery History photo was not shot in Pasadena, but this was for a good cause.


Many thanks to MWD and Pasadena Water and Power.

Mystery History

Where are we? And what's happening?

The first person to guess correctly will win a fabulous prize!

I'll have the full scoop on Thursday.

Citizen Journalism

Larry Wilson, public editor of the Pasadena Star-News, was the guest speaker at the kickoff of the Citizen Journalism Speaker Series on Wednesday evening.


Bloggers and others gathered in the Donald R. Wright Auditorium at Pasadena Central Library to hear Larry discuss the changing face of professional journalism today and how the average joe can become a competent citizen reporter via blogs, Facebook, cell phones and other social media.

Larry's a blogger, too!

Dean Lee, city editor of Mountain Views News, spoke briefly at the event:


Dean teaches a free class for current and budding citizen reporters every Tuesday at 6 p.m. at 2057 N. Los Robles Ave., at the southwest corner of Los Robles and Woodbury. It's on the first floor of the two-story building (you can't miss it: It has "City of Pasadena" in great big letters). This is where our KPAS studio is!