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Geoff Thornton

@geoffthornton.bsky.social
192 followers 293 following 383 posts

Now is the time of returning love, respect, and service | Enviro planner. Risk and hazard mitigation | Family | Music and dance | Skier

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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
It’ll be interesting to see how this goes - it doesn’t look good for those affected by DR’s in near term The concern expressed in the article and by Montano that the memo could result in not funding (or eliminating) recovery and hazard mitigation grants will require congress to amend statutes.
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
Looking more closely at the western sierra, i see that many of the lower elevation towns are not included in the psps. But cruising around the nws pt fx's, those lower elevation areas will also experience the wind event on Thursday night. I know there are other factors for the decisions, but....
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
I noticed ucb and calpoly slo were included. An odd part is a large part of western nv county is (currently) not included.
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
It was fun to review the data for this gauge on its website, in an effort to better understand what would flood, if anything, in the immediate area of Scripps pier. The second highest recording at the gauge was in july.
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
I’ve done this too with eggplant. Yum! Usually do it for a short time while smoking a butt roast or tritip.
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Interesting. Fascinating little basin. I didn't see it mentioned in the Secor book.
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Yeah.
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Approach from Virginia Creek or Lundy Canyon?
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Maybe this will work: archive.ph/submit/?url=...
archive.ph
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
How is “North America” defined?
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
They are a really fun band. They played a free show at ucsd when I was there as an undergrad.
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Nice explanation! Curious if the extent of the nfip floodplain on the bay fringe exceeds the 2, 3, or 4 foot scenarios.
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Setback exceptions add to the challenge. I was at the BRIC kickoff in 2020 in Sac. Former state fire marshal expressed regret for not pushing, at a state level, larger (10-ft) mandatory setbacks in the 1970's. It sounded like it was considered but dismissed.
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Yes! That is always the ultimate discussion in my household when it comes to car ownership. That and the fantasy of an older Miata.
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
W/ a kinda rare car, there’s probably a market as “parts cars” to speciality mechanics or owners.
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Ugh. That’s rough. It took a lot of patience (months) to find the lightly used engine for our truck (and it’s same engine as a tundra). We replaced tannie in our matrix (wft, Toyota?!), which cost more than blue book. But much cheaper than another car. No decision is inexpensive :(. Good luck!
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
What’s the quote for the engine replacement? Went through this for our Land Cruiser several years ago. Pencilled out to replace the engine (salvaged) and keep the truck over replacement of the vehicle. Very different vehicle use and intent, though.
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
The question of ag/water use is always interesting. Last time I was in Vista, I recall huge piles of rotting avo’s. Pretty wasteful. Those same engineers developed ag-scale drip irrigation designs, also in the 1970’s/1980’s. One was John brown, who later was a rep at SWRCB, the other was my father.
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Yeah. My understanding was that this was proposed in the 1970’s at some point. And was in reaction to a WF. I believe there was observation of similar orchard-types serving as fuel breaks between chaparral and burb’s. IDK the size/scale of orchard. The point is the drive of developers to develop.
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I was recently told that some contract ag/civil engineers proposed avo orchards at the northern fringe of Irvine, replacing the edge of master plan development homes with the orchard. Intent: the avo orchard would serve as a landscape scale WF buffer. Irvine Company discarded the concept.
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
River by me is very lazy right now
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Argh
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
But it’s all just politics and money (and real pain for those losing or not receiving funding), but w/o changes in the statutes, all can be undone, in theory. If the statutes remain, there can be opportunity to rebuild with improvements… /hopeful
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
So the current draft bill amends NEPA statute and significantly amends ESA statutes?
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Got to visit Humboldt Bay for a few days last week for a small conference. Bonus was a quick dinner with one of my kids and his partner at ralibertos Beautiful time of year up there.
Humboldt Bay at sunsetNearly full moon over Humboldt Bay
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Thank for the dialog.
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
It’ll be interesting to see post disaster studies and lessons learned….. and hopefully meaningful changes implemented.
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
If this is a storm surge generated from the tropical cyclone activity in the eastern pacific, it’s interesting how much it’s wrapping around cape mendo and affecting Humboldt Bay and not affecting Crescent City Harbor, per the NOAA gages. Fascinating from afar.
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Thanks for this! Interesting “storm surge” anomaly.
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
I feel like the current anomaly is crescent city harbor
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
All fx I’ve seen were forecasting mid/late Oct.
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
It’s a bit early to the party! KELVIN!!
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
The tides along the whole coast and estuaries (except crescent city) are currently substantially higher than predicted tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/inundationdb...
tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov
Inundation Dashboard - NOAA Tides & Currents
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
I think back to the statutes that direct FEMA. Not the terms used or not used but to the programs that are described.
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Thank you for sharing this. Here's the archive version of the article w/o paywall: archive.ph/HZmqU
archive.ph
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Awesome and beautiful. Thanks for sharing.
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
It’s been a minute since i spoke to friends or coworkers about Oakland public schools. From several years ago, I recall a theme that strong parent advocates seems to strongly associate with a successful school. In Oakland, I recall the same school on a pendulum frm the flux of parent advocates.
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Interesting the SoCal resorts are not included. Given the new prediction center fx’s they might have a banner season.
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Here’s the paper. I haven’t read the whole thing, but it seems to gloss over some big things related to water storage, use, and movement in the state, such as water rights. agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...
agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Net Groundwater Recharge in California Occurs Primarily During Above‐Average Snowpack Years
GRACE and GRACE-FO observations reveal rare basin-scale net groundwater recharge events in California Net positive recharge years are strongly associated with above-average snowpack years WY2023...
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Anne Crealock rocks! Not the godfather, but a rock star in the community wildfire space
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
It’d be amazing if this would hold up in court, even with the current makeup of the SC. The definition of “take” and the descriptions of prohibitions are written in the statute and not the regulatory interpretations of the statute.
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Is the argument against AC because of cost of the units, costs for power, method of generating power, something else? On the subject of semantics, installing/utilizing AC, which is an “adaptation” strategy for extreme heat events, could also be called hazard “mitigation” for an extreme heat event
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
The terminology in makes sense in context.
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
“this is how we, your ‘overlords,’ are telling you to ‘control’ us in a manner that we will accept, this is what’s going to make us the most $$, and this will mitigate some liability for us if there’s another hugging face type of incident.”
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
I have worked as a planning-level contractor for some big oil co’s for projects solely focused on remediating their toxic legacy. At properties they haven’t used for decades. I’m all for stopping the extraction and burning of fossil fuels but these companies have a lot of shit to clean-up
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
It could also be framed as part of a component for identifying locations to implement “emergency protective measures.” Emergency protective measures are a different funding pot for FEMA (category b).
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
A future method could be to try to tie it to “preliminary damage assessments”
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Punk or jam band?
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Has SP given rationale for making angel island a priority? I remember the WF on the island in 2008. I understand the rationale of burning areas that are prepped/ready for burning when conditions are good and the potential conflict of balancing the priority of resource use on other lands.
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Geoff Thornton @geoffthornton.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
If I recall correctly, affects to parking was removed from CEQA, first by the city/co of SF (critical mass!!), in part, to make it easier to improve safe cycling routes without having to complete an EIR. I haven’t been to Monterey market in about 20 yrs, but parking was a challenge at that time.
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