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The U.S. Senate has given advice and consent. Yesterday,it voted 56-43 to confirm President Obama's nominee for attorney general. Her name is Loretta Lynch.She's the first female African-American attorney general in U.S. history.She replaces Eric Holder as the country's top legal officer. Lynch has served as U.S.attorney for the Eastern District of New York. She reportedly has a good relationship with law enforcement. And one issue she'll be addressing involves strained relations between some police forces and the communities they serve. Criminal justice reform and terrorism are other challenges for Attorney General Lynch. Gray water treatment is how some Californians are dealing with their state's historic drought. A new system can add thousands to the cost of a new home. But what it does is take the water from sinks, showers or washing machines, it filters it and then it recycles it to water a lawn. It's one creative solution as parts of California get more and more parched. In an average year, our snow depth at this location would, at this time of year, would be around five, five and a half feet. OK, so that's I'm 5'5,so basically my height? Your height. This is where we should be? That's correct. We are high up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, where you'll find one of California's greatest resources. This is the snowpack. The snowpack is basically nature's version of water storage in the form of snow since the state gets most of its precipitation in the winter. Then from April through July, those warmer temperatures cause the snow to melt in runoff and replenishes. The Golden State's reservoirs before the typically dry summer and fall. The problem is California is in the midst of an historic, multi-year drought. This is, by far, the lowest snowpack on record. You know, it provides somewhere upwards of a third to two thirds of the water supply that we depend upon. I'm standing at the eastern gateway to Yosemite. This is the Tioga Pass. And as you can see, we're almost 10,000 feet up. And at this time of year, in 2011, both of these buildings were completely covered in snow. You can see right now, it's not anywhere near that. This is what we would use to measure the depth of the snow and then, more importantly, the water content. This is last year's measurement. This yellow tape? Yellow tape.The black is the 1977 measurement that generally was the lowest on record before this year.And at the very bottom is this year's measurement. This year's measurement is almost nothing. That's like... About four inches. And you're right, it is virtually nothing. |
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来自： Tidley9012 > 《英语》
