Remember that quake back in April just southeast of Calexico at the border?

Did you know there have been thousands of aftershocks, according to a report in the Christian Science Monitor? Thousands.

OK, that may not surprise you.

How about: Did you know that the San Andreas fault activity is increasing ---- particularly in Southern California, from the L.A. area over to Palm Springs?

Did you know new observations show increasing activity spreading throughout the fault systems found near the San Andreas as a result of its activity?

Did you know that 70 percent of the pressure building along the San Andreas is in Southern California?

Did you know that of the fault systems in Southern California ---- those that would feel the effect of that growing pressure ---- the one that is "especially active," according to the Monitor report, is the Elsinore fault?

More than 500 measurable little quakes in the past week alone.

And did you know that Granite Construction's proposed Liberty Quarry sits right in the Elsinore fault zone?

And did you know we can help that activity along?

Turns out that of the man-made causes of quakes, blasting and excavating enormous quantities of earth are at the top of the list.

You needn't tell Laurenn Barker, the De Luz grower/artist who produced a short documentary featured on the SOS-Hills Web site that lays bare the twisted, dishonest rationale that says a quarry would be a really good thing for the citizens of De Luz, Rainbow and Temecula valleys.

You might wonder why you'd listen to a grower with property downwind of the quarry. Maybe because she’s probably as knowledgeable about what’s going here as almost anyone involved in the process.

And she relies on facts.

Turns out in a former life, she was the communications director for a national engineering and environmental consulting firm with expertise concerning water, air, noise, geo-technology and other specialties.

Barker has devoured voluminous scientific research and other material (more of which you will be hearing about here, including the patently false notion that there is no silica involved) relating to dang near everything you might raise as a concern regarding the proposed quarry.

And now, she acknowledges with no glee, quarry opponents have an ace in the hole they never wanted: the awful knowledge that blasting six or seven times a day, a minimum of six days a week, and excavating a hole a mile long by 1,000 feet wide and deep just might be what tips the scale and brings on the Big One.

Blast and dig away, me foolhardies.

Phil Strickland writes from Temecula. Contact him at philipestrickland@yahoo.com.