(A gardener clipping hedges at Blickling Hall in Norfolk, England. Photo by Anne Nellis. Source.)

BusinessWeek on T. Boone Pickens, the “modern-day John D. Rockefeller” who “owns more water than any other individual in the U.S. and is looking to control even more. He hopes to sell the water he already has, some 65 billion gallons a year, to Dallas, transporting it over 250 miles, 11 counties, and about 650 tracts of private property.”

The LA Times on farming with the sea. (Via del.icio.us/reinito, del.icio.us/bfunk and del.icio.us/bldgblog.)

The New Yorker on the American lawn. “What began as a symbol of privilege and evolved into an expression of shared values has now come to represent expedience. We no longer choose to keep lawns; we just keep on keeping them.” (See also the book, The American Lawn, edited by Georges Teyssot.)

GOOD Magazine on pollution tourism. (Via Temporary Travel Office.)

Pink Tentacle on some floodgates.

Off-Grid on soil power. “Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) that make use of the energy given off by soil microbes are amongst the technologies that hold promise for bringing power to developing states.” (See also the Soil Lamp.)

(More on del.icio.us/pruned.)