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Archive for May 14th, 2011
Ministers call emergency summit as drought looms
Posted by Independent: Matt Chorley and Tom Moseley on May 14th, 2011
Independent: Ministers are to hold an emergency drought summit in an attempt to avert a crisis caused by one of the driest springs on record.
A battle plan will be devised tomorrow, as Britain faces the prospect of hosepipe bans, food price rises and more forest fires sweeping the country. April had just 24 per cent of the average rainfall for the month, while several areas experienced the driest March for nearly 50 years.
Firefighters have already been working "to the point of exhaustion" to tackle forest...
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Old levee breaches in Mississippi as main levee holds
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 14th, 2011
Reuters: The Mississippi River at Vicksburg crept to within inches of its 1927 record on Saturday, as residents anxiously watched flood waters invade their historic city.
"I've lived here all my life," said Peter Pikul, a resident, looking at water that had gone past the first floor of the old Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad Station, now a museum. "I've seen this water up and down but I've never seen it as high as it is right now."
In some Vicksburg neighborhoods, only the tops of houses could...
Climate change to create a dustier Southwest
Posted by Salt Lake Tribune: Judy Fahys on May 14th, 2011
Salt Lake Tribune: A warmer Southwest might very well mean a dustier Southwest.
That’s the conclusion of a new study by researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey and the University of California-Los Angeles that has far-reaching implications for all of Utah, where healthy range is vital to livestock, wildlife and recreation, as well as air quality and water supplies.
Seth Munson, a USGS ecologist and the study’s lead author, noted that looking at how climate change might affect wind erosion in arid landscapes...
Louisiana braces as flood spillway opens
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 14th, 2011
Reuters: Army engineers on Saturday opened a key spillway to allow the swollen Mississippi River to flood thousands of homes and crops but spare New Orleans and Louisiana's capital Baton Rouge.
The Army Corps of Engineers opened one of the 125 floodgates at the Morganza Spillway 45 miles northwest of Baton Rouge shortly after 3 p.m. CDT, sending a flume of water onto nearby fields.
The move, last taken in 1973, will channel floodwaters toward homes, farms, a wildlife refuge and a small oil refinery...
The Mississippi: A River That Will Not Be Tamed
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 14th, 2011
National Public Radio: In the summer of 1993, when many people in the Midwest were searching for higher ground, Isabel Wilkerson packed her bags and headed for the Mississippi River. She was there to cover the floods for The New York Times and would go on to win a Pulitzer Prize for her reporting.
In one piece, she described the river as a "rowdy uncle who gives freely in good times and breaks the furniture in bad and pretends not to notice after the damage has been done."
Eighteen years later, that rowdy uncle is...
La. Spillway Opens To Divert Mississippi River
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 14th, 2011
National Public Radio: The Army Corps of Engineers began opening Louisiana's Morganza spillway on Saturday in an attempt to spare New Orleans and Baton Rouge from massive flooding. That move will send almost a third of the water in the Mississippi River spilling out into massive swaths of Cajun country in the next few days. Host Guy Raz gets the latest from NPR's Greg Allen, who's at the spillway.
From NPR News, this is WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Guy Raz.
Our cover story today, saving New Orleans and...
Water shortages threaten the American West lifestyle
Posted by Miller Mccune: Arnie Cooper on May 14th, 2011
Miller Mccune: While not every dire prediction has come true, amid swimming pools and thirsty crops, the hard truth remains that the American West cannot maintain its spendthrift ways of using fresh water.
The view overlooking Phoenix includes patches of green and long stretches of housing. Some say the area's current practices in water use and management are unsustainable.
The next time you fly into a parched, western sprawl such as Phoenix, glance down at the amorphous blots of green and the splattering...
Why Mississippi floods were expected
Posted by Nature: Richard A. Lovett on May 14th, 2011
Nature: Why Mississippi floods were expected
A combination of bad weather, ocean conditions and land development conspired to produce high waters.
Floodwater engulfs a farm after the Army Corps of Engineers blew a massive hole in a levee at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers near Wyatt, Missouri, to divert water from the town of Cairo, Illinois.
Last year, it was Pakistan and Russia. This spring, all talk of disasters attributable to freak weather conditions turns eyes to the United...
Native groups sue over polar bear critical habitat
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 14th, 2011
Associated Press: Alaska Native groups worried about losing tax revenues and royalties from oil development filed a lawsuit Friday challenging the federal government's designation of critical habitat for threatened polar bears on the state's oil-rich North Slope.
The Arctic Slope Regional Corp., North Slope Borough, Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope and other groups took issue with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's decision to designate more than 187,000 square miles -- an area larger than California --...
Allergy seasons growing longer, more challenging
Posted by Associated Press: Carolyn Thompson on May 14th, 2011
Associated Press: In Focus: Allergy seasons growing longer, more challenging
Warmer temperatures and climate change are partly to blame for the misery of millions this spring.
There may be a whiff of truth to claims by allergy sufferers who sniffle that this season is, well, a bigger headache than years past.
Flowers bloom on a tree in Akron, N.Y., in this image from earlier this month. Allergy specialists around the country say this season is or has been especially difficult for sufferers.
And now, more...