Back in Long Beach -- after Metropolitan Water District Tour

Vacation is over. Back to business in Long Beach. Several issues are brewing -- allowing alcohol in the parks; the proposal wetlands land swap; the $3 million debt of the Musuem of Art; the growing City deficit with threatened state take aways.

Yesterday I went on a day long tour of Diamond Valley Lake in Riverside County to view a portion of the water system maintained by the Metropolitan Water District which provides most of Long Beach's water.

5th District resident and neighborhood activist, Phyllis Ortman, led the tour. She is employed by MWD and has to be the most knowledgeable person on water issues that I have met.

It was very hot down there in Riverside. Diamond Valley Lake has a visitors' center and the Western Center for Archeology and Paleontology -- which is worth the trip.

The excitement of the day was when the wind whipped up and blew my hat off into the treatment basin. Yes, it had to be fished out and for a brief moment as the hat floated on the water it looked like I may have gone overboard too.