Kompany ends 20-month City goal drought in Southampton win.
SOUTHAMPTON, England — Vincent Kompany’s first goal in 20 injury-ravaged months helped Manchester City to a 3-0 win at Southampton on Saturday, lifting the team to third in the Premier League.
"It’s always a long journey back," Kompany told BT Sport television.
"I would like to have been injured less in my career but every single time I put in the hard work I don’t really complain too much about what’s happening to me and I just carry on.
"When this happens (scoring), I feel I am giving something back to the fans.
I feel like I’m finally giving something back to the team as well."
City wrapped up the win with two goals in three minutes.
Then De Bruyne chipped the ball into the Southampton six-yard box where Aguero headed in at the far post as City eased to a second successive win.
The 2012 and 2014 champions are looking to lock down a return to the Champions League and Pep Guardiola’s side moved a point ahead of Liverpool, which occupies the fourth qualification spot.
Everton and Manchester United are six points further back.

0 Sue Efron made a wry admission Thursday evening at the Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach, where she spoke on behalf of her drought-tolerant garden after it won the sixth annual Lesly S. Smith Landscape Award.
“I was not an easy client,” she acknowledged during her remarks.
“Keith, I was a difficult client.
I hope this award compensates you for everything I put you through,” Efron said, prompting a smile from Williams and laughter from the audience.
The house was designed in the British West Indies style by architect Peter Papadopoulos of Smith and Moore Architects and built by contractor Paul Wittmann of Wittmann Building Corp. Cory Meyer of Nievera Williams was the project manager for the gardens.
Williams detailed how Sue Efron, an avid gardener with “a great design sense,” had directed him to create a stylish landscape using mostly drought-tolerant plants.
“Our main focus was sustainability,” Williams said.
Thursday’s honor was the second Smith Award for Williams and the third for the firm he runs with its founder, landscape architect Mario Nievera.
Williams also noted that the gardens had received accolades and extensive media coverage since they were completed a few years ago, which he found surprising and gratifying.
The latter was presented last week to architect Tom Kirchhoff in recognition of a new Bermudan-style house he designed at 320 Island Road in collaboration with owner James Berwind, who shares the home with Kevin Clark.

Paper by B. Udall & J. Overpeck: ‘The 21st Century Colorado River Hot Drought and Implications for the Future’.
At least one-sixth to one-half (average at one-third) of this loss is due to unprecedented temperatures (0.98C above the 1906–1999 average), confirming model-based analysis that continued warming will likely further reduce flows.
Recently published estimates of Colorado River flow sensitivity to temperature combined with a large number of recent climate model-based temperature projections indicate that continued business-as-usual warming will drive temperature-induced declines in river flow, conservatively 220% by midcentury and 235% by end-century, with support for losses exceeding 230% at midcentury and 255% at end-century.
These results, combined with the increasing likelihood of prolonged drought in the river basin, suggest that future climate change impacts on the Colorado River flows will be much more serious than currently assumed, especially if substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions do not occur.
Approximately one-third of the flow loss is due to high temperatures now common in the basin, a result of human caused climate change.
As temperatures increase in the 21st century due to continued human emissions of greenhouse gasses, additional temperature-induced flow losses will occur.
Additional precipitation may reduce these temperature-induced losses somewhat, but to date no precipitation increases have been noted and climate models do not agree that such increases will occur.
Good stuff from a couple of bright guys!
Enjoy!
"Years of drought and famine come and years of flood and famine come, and the climate.and the climate is not changed with dance, libation or prayer. "

ANNOUNCEMENT: Public Meeting to consider Adoption of Mercury Provisions.
The State Water Board will hold a public meeting on May 2, 2017 to consider (1) adoption of the proposed Part 2 of the Water Quality Control Plan for Inland Surface Waters, Enclosed Bays, and Estuaries of California” Tribal and Subsistence Fishing Beneficial Uses and Mercury Provisions (referred to as the proposed Final Provisions) and (2) approval of the Final Staff Report, including the Substitute Environmental Documentation (SED).
The proposed Final Provisions and Final Staff Report will be released to the public no later than April 22, 2017.
The State Water Board will not provide a written comment period for the revisions made to the January 2017 Draft Provisions and Draft Staff Report that will be reflected in the proposed Final Provisions and Final Staff Report; therefore written comments will not be considered.
Interested persons may provide oral comments at the public meeting.
The complete Notice, including time and location of the meeting, are available at this link.
More information on the Mercury Provisions is available at: http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/mercury/

Mixed in with the rain was marble- to golfball-sized hail early Saturday morning, with reports of baseball-size hail north and west of Plainview.
It hit Dimmitt about 7:20 p.m., and at 10 p.m. Friday the National Weather Service on twitter reported that Highway 86 and US 385 were closed in all directions outside of Dimmitt due to flooding.
The storm moved into Plainview about midnight Saturday, bringing with it marble- to golfball-sized hail and heavy rain.
Heaviest measured rainfall was from the Mesonet site 2 miles northeast of Dimmitt with 1.87 inches.
The Plainview Water Treatment Plant reported 0.98 inch, Plainview Herald 0.63 inch and Plainview’s Mesonet site 0.37 inch.
That along with a dryline south of the front and expected weak upper support within a modest west-southwest flow aloft should spur scattered storm development Sunday afternoon and evening.
Just 0.01 percent of Texas is in severe drought, with 1.7 percent in moderate drought, down from almost 3 percent a week ago.
Those dry areas are in northeast Texas.
Currently 13.55 percent of Texas is abnormally dry but not yet in drought.
At this point in 2016, Plainview had just 0.84 inch of moisture.

How the drought changed California forever.
“That probably goes all the way back to the Depression.” The era of massive dam building in California began after the 1929-34 drought.
And the state’s brutal 1987-92 drought prompted water departments in the Bay Area and Southern California to connect their networks of pipes together, to build huge groundwater storage banks and new local reservoirs, and to develop a statewide system of buying and selling water.
To me that’s remarkable.” The drought nevertheless left a lasting impact in at least five key ways: 1) Groundwater: After 100 years of allowing cities and farms to pump as much water as they wanted from the ground, without reporting it to the state or being limited, dozens of communities across California found themselves with precariously dropping water tables as the drought began.
Jerry Brown signed the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, requiring local government agencies in areas with severely overdrawn groundwater to draw up plans by 2020 to bring it into balance.
But some areas are going to really suffer.” 2) Water wasting: Several high-profile rules put into place by the State Water Resources Control Board during the drought will continue forever.
That’s a hard one when you see floods and endless rain.” 3) Proposition 1: In November 2014, during some of the worst months of the drought, California voters approved a $7.5 billion water bond to fund new reservoirs, recycled water projects, desalination and stormwater capture efforts.
Over that time, 2.6 million acre-feet of water was saved — enough to supply more than 13 million people for a year.
The Metropolitan Water District in Southern California spent $310 million alone in rebates for people to remove 160 million square feet of grass, which will save 21,000 acre feet of water every year.
Lawns use 50 percent of all urban water during summer months, and as cities wrote new local rules limiting lawns in new homes and businesses, neighbors looked askance at homeowners who had bright green turf.

Many people must still use water stored in large tanks in their yard to wash dishes and bathe.
The drought emergency remains in effect in Kings, Fresno, Tulare and Tuolumne counties, even after one of California’s wettest winters in years prompted officials to declare an end to the historic, five-year dry spell in nearly all of the nation’s most populous state.
"I wouldn’t drink it."
Miguel and his neighbor survive on the trucked-in water and deliveries of bottled drinking water.
In parts of the San Joaquin Valley, underground aquifers — layers of earth saturated by water — collapsed from over-pumping during years of dry weather, according to scientists at Stanford and NASA who studied satellite imagery to measure sinking land.
Emergency water tanks for residents have cost the state nearly $28 million since 2014, with more than half in Tulare County.
Randy Herman, a long-distance trucker with a family, says it’s obvious to him that his community is a long way from rebounding from drought.
After his well ran dry, he connected to a large water tank before finally hooking up to the community well.
"I don’t think the drought’s over.
In this photo taken April 10, 2017, is David Miguel at his home in the community of Hardwick in the San Joaquin Valley where drought has yet to loosen its grip on some residents near Hanford, Calif. State officials lifted the drought emergency for much California, but thousands of people like Miguel still live on water tanks because their wells ran dry.

The Declaration of Drought Emergency was issued by Gov.
Civil Code 4735(c) prohibited associations from fining or assessing an owner who let their yard “go brown” by not watering it during a declared state of drought emergency.
Under Civil 4735(a)(2) associations may not ban artificial turf, even after the drought emergency has ended.
Many association boards and managers may be misled by the end of the drought emergency, believing incorrectly that associations can now direct homeowners to remove the modifications made to landscaping in order to conserve water.
However, per Civil Code 4735(e), owners who have installed water efficient landscaping measures cannot be required to remove them, even after the drought emergency.
So, for example, associations may not force residents to remove artificial turf installed during the drought emergency.
Furthermore, the right to install xeriscapes (low water-using plants) or artificial turf still is in place under Civil Code 4735(a).
Common interest development associations (aka “HOAs”) should have architectural rules in place already to make sure that xeriscapes or artificial turf yards are presentable and an asset to the community.
The emergency-related provisions of Civil Code Sections 4735 and 4736 were not removed from the law.
The next time a state drought emergency is declared, the laws will again apply to California homeowners associations.

Drought is over in Berkshires.
Rest of Mass.
still suffering below normal water levels The yearlong drought is officially over.
After the above-average snowfall and frequent rainstorms of the past few months, Berkshire County’s status has returned to "normal," according to federal and state officials.
The weekly U.S. Drought Monitor on Thursday has taken the county, and much of Massachusetts, back into the normal range for moisture for the first time since last summer, following designations ranging from moderate to severe drought.
In his weekly summary for the Drought Monitor, prepared by the the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Anthony Artusa of NOAA pointed out that stream flows in the area’s rivers and tributaries are near- to above-normal.
For the 2016-17 season, snowfall totaled 83 inches, about 10 percent above average.
State officials have also proclaimed Western Massachusetts drought-free, but cautioned that people should not let their guard down since a majority of the state is still seeing below normal water levels despite copious amounts of rain and snow last month.
The state’s Drought Management Task Force has been meeting monthly to track water levels and issue advisories.
Along the same lines, Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency Director Kurt Schwartz reported that "while recent precipitation has helped to reduce the severity of the drought in parts of the state, drought conditions continue and the public is urged to take steps to reduce both indoor and outdoor water usage."

The Drought Situation is Getting Better, But It’s Not Over.
Last week’s U.S. Drought Monitor map of New Hampshire showed the orange area of “severe drought” nearly gone from the state.
At the end of September, what the Drought Monitor calls the “start of the water year,” when Strafford, Rockingham, Hillsborough and Merrimack counties were painted in the bright red of “extreme drought,” just a tiny corner of Sullivan County was in severe drought.
The New Hampshire Drought Management Team met on Monday to review the status of the drought and to discuss some of the challenges still facing homeowners, farmers, municipalities and the state as we move into spring.
The Drought Management Team is coordinated by the Department of Environmental Services and includes broad representation from state, federal and local government, and others.
To access the state drought information, visit the DES homepage at www.des.nh.gov and click on “NH Drought Information” on the lower left side of the screen.
The drought webpage includes this primer on drought: “A drought occurs when a region experiences below-average precipitation over an extended period of time, resulting in low stream flows and low surface water and groundwater levels.
Many people mistakenly consider drought a rare and random event, but it is actually a normal, recurrent feature of climate.
As state climatologist, she is also engaged in citizen science and climate literacy programs.
The early April 2016 Drought Monitor map showed just a broad band of “abnormally dry” yellow across much of Rockingham and Strafford counties, plus eastern Hillsborough, the eastern edge of Merrimack and southern Belknap counties.