I suffer a weakness for accumulating the written word, and to read it all during this waning lifetime is my ambition. My library’s most treasured volume is the large-format, visually stunning 1979 cartographic masterpiece The California Water Atlas, commissioned by Governor Brown’s previous administration during the 1976-1977 drought to enhance knowledge of our state’s hydraulic complexity. A brilliant mind behind that epic publication’s execution popped out of the woodwork last week. Project Director and Editor William L. Kahrl’s May 1st CSUF presentation to Friends of the Madden Library was provocatively titled: “Death in the Almond Orchard”. In an authoritative air, white- bearded Sebastian Cabot look-alike Kahrl lectured on principal differences between California’s then and now, and the adequacy of a water system whose infrastructure remains essentially unchanged. The Golden State’s nearly doubled [Read more…]