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Archive for July, 2015
Washington’s wildfire season gets off to an early, unprecedented start
Posted by LA Times: Maria Laganga on July 6th, 2015
LA Times: The Sleepy Hollow fire raced down the crisp Sage Hills, straight toward the Broadview neighborhood in the apple capital of the world. Flames shot high into the night, torching 29 homes and causing hundreds of people to flee. Then the fire did something no one here had seen before.
Embers flew more than a mile Sunday night, into the hardworking heart of this small city. They ignited four industrial buildings, most involved in fruit packing, at the start of the busy summer agriculture season.
The...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Washington’s wildfire season gets off to an early, unprecedented startNew York’s fracking ban starts the clock for lawsuits
Posted by Press Connects: Jon Campbell on July 6th, 2015
Press Connects: When Gov. Andrew Cuomo's administration officially banned large-scale hydraulic fracturing Monday, it finally put an end to a seven-year review process that drew hundreds of thousands of public comments and sharply divided the general public. For now. The state Department of Environmental Conservation's action started a 120-day clock for fracking proponents to examine whether the ban has any legal holes; fracking opponents have lauded the ban. If a lawsuit isn't filed by Oct. 27, state law says...
California water rates rise as cities lose money in drought
Posted by KPCC: None Given on July 6th, 2015
KPCC: Saving water doesn't always mean saving money in parched California.
Millions of Californians expecting relief on their water bills for taking conservation measures instead are finding higher rates and drought surcharges.
Water departments are increasing rates and adding fees because they're losing money as their customers conserve. They say they still have to pay for fixed costs including repairing pipelines, customer service and enforcing water restrictions -- and those costs aren't decreasing....
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on California water rates rise as cities lose money in droughtAustralia: Drought spreads key farming areas as El Niño gets going
Posted by Morning Herald: Peter Hannam on July 6th, 2015
Morning Herald: Australia's drought-hit regions are expanding in the lower Murray-Darling Basin as key climate influences in the Indian and Pacific oceans tilt towards drier conditions.
While June brought bumper rains to western parts of NSW, "a substantial area" of south-eastern South Australia and western Victoria has posted record-low rainfall over the past 12 months, the Bureau of Meteorology said in its latest drought update.
"Serious or severe rainfall deficiencies have been observed in parts of the...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Australia: Drought spreads key farming areas as El Niño gets goingSaving China from itself: How world’s biggest polluter dealing with climate change
Posted by Age: Philip Wen and Sanghee Liu on July 6th, 2015
Age: The undulating hills of Ningxia have been home for Hai Zhengjun ever since he chiselled out a cave shelter on the side of a ridge with a pickaxe and shovel in the 1970s. The 64-year-old has learned never to take water for granted, having spent all his life rearing sheep and sowing crops of wheat and corn in an area environmentalists identify as among China's driest and most ecologically vulnerable. The central and southern parts of the region, which sprawl across the Loess Plateau and are home...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Saving China from itself: How world’s biggest polluter dealing with climate changeCanada: Tough days for salmon as Fraser River hotter, lower than expected
Posted by Globe and Mail: Mark Hume on July 6th, 2015
Globe and Mail: In the annals of climate change you can record another notable event. The Fraser River is running hotter and lower in the first week of July than it usually does in the dead of August. The water temperature is currently about 19 C, the level at which salmon start to show physiological stress, and the flow has dropped to extreme lows. “These flows are definitely lower than anything we’ve experienced and I’d say the temperatures right now are warmer than anything [on record for July],” said Mike...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Canada: Tough days for salmon as Fraser River hotter, lower than expectedCalifornia drought sends US water agency back to drawing board
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 6th, 2015
New York Times: Drew Lessard stood on top of Folsom Dam and gazed at the Sierra Nevada, which in late spring usually gushes enough melting snow into the reservoir to provide water for a million people. But the mountains were bare, and the snowpack to date remains the lowest on measured record. “If there’s no snowpack, there’s no water,” said Mr. Lessard, a regional manager for the Bureau of Reclamation, the federal agency that built and operates a vast network of 476 dams, 348 reservoirs and 8,116 miles of aqueducts...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on California drought sends US water agency back to drawing boardRadioactive city: how Johannesburg’s townships paying for mining past
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 6th, 2015
Guardian: Johannesburg’s mine dumps look strangely beautiful from a distance. Lustrously yellow in the sun, blazing red at dusk, their huge molehill shapes provide the city with its distinctive skyline.
Up close, it’s a different story. Rasalind Plaatjies has lived in the shadow of a “tailing” – as these piles of mine waste are known – all her adult life. Today, the 62-year-old grandmother from the city’s Riverlea district suffers severe respiratory problems. For 16 hours a day, she is hooked up to an oxygen...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Radioactive city: how Johannesburg’s townships paying for mining pastClimate change compounding threats to Australia’s ecosystems, studies find
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 6th, 2015
Guardian: Climate change is compounding existing threats to Australia’s forests, wetlands and deserts, with several key landscapes now at risk of total collapse, a landmark series of new studies have found.
An assessment of 13 ecosystems across Australia, ranging from the wet tropics of far north Queensland to rare shrubland in Western Australia, found what researchers call a “worrying” climate change impact that adds to existing harm caused by urban development, agriculture and invasive species.
The...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Climate change compounding threats to Australia’s ecosystems, studies findUCSC astronomers court controversy new telescope Hawaii
Posted by Sentinel: None Given on July 6th, 2015
Sentinel: An international coalition of astronomers, including key personnel from UC Santa Cruz, are building the largest telescope in the world at the summit of a sacred Hawaiian mountain.
Construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea, which is considered hallowed ground to native Hawaiians, has sparked heated protests and indefinitely closed the summit of the mountain to the public.
If completed, the $1.4-billion telescope’s 98-foot (30 meters) aperture would allow for more than nine times...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on UCSC astronomers court controversy new telescope Hawaii