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Is Climate Change Showing Up In The Daily Weather Forecast? It’s Complicated

/in , /by /Grist by Zoya Teirstein

Early this month, scientists announced a surprising discovery: The “fingerprint” of climate change is now detectable in everyday weather. In fact, evidence of global warming can be found in the planet’s weather every day, minute, and second since 2012.

But wait —you, a person who actually paid attention in your high school atmospheric science class, say — weather and climate are not the same! Right you are, dear reader. Weather is what happens in the moment (rain passing through, or the current temperature outside). Climate is average weather over time.

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Officials Seeking FEMA Funds To Repair Problem Shasta County Dam

/in , /by /Jefferson Public Radioby Erik Neumann

Officials in Shasta County are preparing to apply for federal emergency management funds to repair a dam from which they can no longer release water, that officials say is in danger of flooding during a major storm event.

Twenty miles west of Redding, near the communities of Igo and Ono, the Misselbeck Dam holds back the Rainbow Lake reservoir. In 2018 the Carr fire burned up the vegetation surrounding the 12-acre reservoir.

 

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2019 Was A Record Year For Ocean Temperatures, Data Show

/in , /by /The New York Times by Kendra Pierre-Louis

Last year was the warmest year on record for the world’s oceans, part of a long-term warming trend, according to a study released Monday.

“If you look at the ocean heat content, 2019 is by far the hottest, 2018 is second, 2017 is third, 2015 is fourth, and then 2016 is fifth,” said Kevin E. Trenberth, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and an author on the study

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Forever Litigated ‘Forever Chemicals’: A Guide To PFAS In Courts

/in , /by /Bloomberg Environmentby Ellen M. Gilmer

Court dockets are ballooning with litigation over PFAS, a vexing family of chemicals used in many consumer and industrial products.

Some types of the man-made per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances are called “forever chemicals,” a shorthand for their ability to build up and stick around indefinitely in people and the environment.

Health risks of some types of PFAS have become clearer in recent years, prompting a rush to the courtroom by people exposed to the chemicals, utilities dealing with contamination, and shareholders facing the financial risks. Lawyers have compared the legal onslaught to litigation over asbestos, tobacco, and lead paint.

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The Delta’s Sinking Islands

/in , /by /San Francisco Chronicle by Peter Fimrite

A fight over the management of a diked island in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta is shining a light on a growing conundrum for California water managers, farmers and environmentalists over the best way to restore natural habitat on cropland created more than a century ago by draining marshes.

The courtroom battle over 9,000-acre Staten Island is the latest conflict in the delta over farming, wetlands and the aging levees that, besides preventing flooding, preserve a way of life on the man-made islands.

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Opinion: Save the San Joaquin? Fresno County Should Reject Cemex Proposal for Deeper Gravel Mine

/in , /by /The Fresno Beeby Marek Warszawski

Remember Jesse Morrow Mountain from a few years ago? This time it’s the San Joaquin River north of Fresno that needs saving from a destructive gravel mine expansion.

Yes, aggregate mining on the San Joaquin has been going on for more than a century. But with production tapering off and newer operations opening on the nearby Kings River, it was generally assumed the poor San Joaquin would finally be given a break and allowed to return to something closer to its natural state.

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Sites Reservoir to Receive $6 Million

/in , /by /Appeal-Democrat (Marysville, Calif.)by Lynzie Lowe

The proposed Sites Reservoir will receive a $6 million investment from the federal government as part of a bipartisan spending bill that was signed during President Donald Trump’s year-end spending package.

According to a release issued by the Sites Project Authority, the funding, authorized by the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation (WIIN) Act, was appropriated to the Bureau of Reclamation to advance Sites Reservoir.

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Pure Water Monterey Finishes Key Water Tests, Delivery Date Delayed Again

/in , /by /The Monterey Herald by Jim Johnson

Pure Water Monterey has completed critical water tests and is now poised to deliver a report to state regulators as part of an effort to seek the final thumbs-up before beginning to deliver water to the Seaside basin. But the recycled water project has again been delayed.

 

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Gov. Tim Walz Proposes Borrowing $300M For Water Projects

/in , /by /CBS Minnesotaby John Lauritsen

As a way to promote his “Local Jobs and Projects Plan,” Governor Walz took a tour today, 80 feet below ground. Pushing for more funding for water quality, Walz walked through a storm tunnel in Minneapolis that was damaged by flooding in 2010.

Gov. Tim Walz unveiled the second of a proposed four packages for his Local Jobs and Projects Plan, and this part says Minnesota should borrow $300 million to replace aging infrastructure and upgrade treatment facilities to protect its water supplies.

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Opinion: Lawmakers Could Stop Arizona’s Next Water War. But Will They?

/in , /by /ascentralby Bruce Babbit

Another water war is getting underway.

This time we are not fighting California. It’s a family feud right here in Arizona. Urban versus rural. Phoenix and Tucson ganging up on the rural communities along the Colorado River in western Arizona.

The opening shots have been fired by out-of-state speculators buying up farms along the river. Once they have these “water farms” in hand, they intend to strip the water from the land and send it 200 miles up the Central Arizona Project canal to developers in Maricopa and Pima counties.

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