Capturing rainwater for yard and garden use is practical and environmental. But it’s not an investment that will pencil out anytime soon.

Below, students at Healdsburg High School installed an eight-barrel catchment system on their campus with support from Guerneville's Blue Barrel Systems.

Plans for a new asphalt production facility alongside the Petaluma River on the south side of that city have been a hot button issue for more than five years now. After the Dutra plant was approved by county supervisors in late 2010, it was promptly challenged in court by the city of Petaluma and a group of local environmental groups. That case that was dismissed by the State Court of Appeal last week, but there’s still at least one more round of legal arguments being made, as we hear today.

It’s fairly simple to capture and collect rainfall from rooftops, and use it for watering yards and gardens. But it’s a limited antidote to drought.

  In California’s Central Valley, a small water district is pioneering the use of solar energy to power water desalination through distillation. An extensive article on the pilot project in yesterday’s San Francisco Chronicle reported that this approach cuts the power requirements for desalination by as much as three-fourths, which is a breakthrough in cost-effectiveness. We learn more in this conversation with the article’s author.