“Mega-drought” depletes system that provides water to 40 million
CBSNews
This morning, our series “Eye on Earth” looks at the punishing drought gripping much of the western U.S.
Scientists are calling it a “mega-drought” brought on by climate change.
The latest U.S. Drought Monitor Map shows large areas of the Southwest are “exceptionally dry,” the worst category.
/ Credit: National Drought Mitigation Center
It’s taking a dramatic toll on the Colorado River system that provides water to 40 million people in seven states — and may force the federal government to make a drastic and historic decision.
For more than eight decades, the iconic Hoover Dam has relied on water from Nevada’s Lake Mead to cover up its backside. But now, at age 85, it finds itself uncomfortably exposed. Much of the water the dam is supposed to be holding back is gone.
“This is like a different world,” said Pat Mulroy, the former head of the Southern Nevada Water Authority. She told CBS News senior national and environmental correspondent Ben Tracy that Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir, is on track to soon hit its lowest level ever recorded.
This part of the Colorado River system is a crucial water supply for Las Vegas, Phoenix and Southern California. It makes the vast agricultural land of the desert Southwest possible.
Mulroy said, “This landscape screams problems to me. I mean, just look at the bathtub rings. To me, that is an enormous wake up call.”
Water levels at Lake Mead have dropped precipitously due to the ongoing western drought. / Credit: CBS News
Lake Mead is at just 37% of its capacity.
It hasn’t been full since back in 2000, when the water came right up to the top of Hoover Dam:
A view of the Hoover Dam in 2000. / Credit: U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
This is what it looks like now:
The view at Hoover Dam, 2021. / Credit: CBS News
Since 2000, Lake Mead has dropped 130 feet, about the height of a 13-story building. Islands in the lake that used to be completely submerged are now visible.
Today, Tracy asked, “If you look at 30 feet lower now, what point are we at?”
“We’re at a tipping point,” said Mulroy. “It’s an existential issue for Arizona, for California, for Nevada. It is just that simple.”
For the first time ever, the federal government is expected to declare a water shortage on the lower Colorado River later this summer. That will force automatic cuts to the water supply for Nevada and Arizona starting in 2022. Homeowners have higher priority and, at first, won’t feel the pain as badly as farmers.
Dan Thelander is a second-generation family farmer in Arizona’s Pinal County. The water to grow his corn and alfalfa fields comes from Lake Mead. “If we don’t have irrigation water, we can’t farm,” he said. “So, next year we are going to get about 25% less water, means we’re going to have to fallow or not plant 25% of our land.”
In 2023 Thelander and other farmers in this part of Arizona are expected to lose nearly all of their water from Lake Mead, so they are rushing to dig wells to pump groundwater to try to save their farms.
“The future here is, honestly I hate to say it, pretty cloudy,” Thelander said.
Back at Hoover Dam, facility manager Mark Cook has his own concerns. Lake Mead has dropped so much that it has cut the dam’s hydropower output by nearly 25%.
Cook wanted to show Tracy the brand-new turbine blades they just installed, designed to keep power flowing efficiently at rapidly-dropping lake levels. At some point, the dam could stop producing electricity altogether.
“Our previous number [for cutoff] was at elevation 1,050, and now we’ve lowered that number to 950,” Cook said. “So, we bought ourselves 100 feet.”
Mulroy said a rapidly-retreating reservoir may be the new normal – and the millions of people who rely on this water supply will have to quickly learn to live with less of it. “We don’t change unless we absolutely have to,” she said. “Well, when you look out at this lake, I think that moment of ‘it’s absolutely necessary’ has arrived.”
‘Truly an emergency’: how drought returned to California – and what lies ahead
Gabrielle Canon in San Francisco
Photograph: Josh Edelson/AP
Just two years after California celebrated the end of its last devastating drought, the state is facing another one. Snowpack has dwindled to nearly nothing, the state’s 1,500 reservoirs are at only 50% of their average levels, and federal and local agencies have begun to issue water restrictions.
Governor Gavin Newsom has declared a drought emergency in 41 of the state’s 58 counties. Meanwhile, temperatures are surging as the region braces for what is expected to be another record-breaking fire season, and scientists are sounding the alarm about the state’s readiness.
“What we are seeing right now is very severe, dry conditions and in some cases and some parts of the west, the lowest in-flows to reservoirs on record,” says Roger Pulwarty, a senior scientist in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) physical sciences laboratory, adding that, while the system is designed to withstand dry periods, “a lot of the slack in our system has already been used up”.
How did we get here?
A creeping trend
Drought is not unnatural for California. Its climate is predisposed to wet years interspersed among dry ones. But the climate crisis and rising temperatures are compounding these natural variations, turning cyclical changes into crises.
Drought, as defined by the National Weather Service, isn’t a sudden onset of characteristics but rather a creeping trend. It’s classified after a period of time, when the prolonged lack of water in a system causes problems in a particular area, such as crop damages or supply issues. In California, dry conditions started to develop in May of last year, according to federal monitoring systems.
Dry banks rise above water in Lake Oroville on Sunday 23 May in Oroville, California.Photograph: Noah Berger/AP
The effects really began to show in early spring 2021, when the annual winter rainy season failed to replenish the parched landscape and a hot summer baked even more moisture out of the environment. By March, conditions were dire enough for the US agriculture secretary, Tom Vilsack, to designate most of California as a primary disaster area. Just two months later, 93% of the south-west and California was in drought, with 38% of the region classified at the highest level.
“When you have droughts with warm temperatures, you dry out the system much faster than you’d expect,” says Pulwarty, adding that climate change can make droughts both more severe and harder to recover from. “It is not just how much precipitation you get – it is also about whether or not it stays as water on the ground.”
Dwindling water, rising temperatures
The state’s previous drought lasted roughly seven long years, from December 2011 to March 2019, according to official estimates. But some scientists believe it never actually ended. These researchers suggest that the west is gripped by an emerging “megadrought” that could last for decades. A 2020 study that looked at tree rings for historical climate clues concluded that the region may be entering the worst prolonged period of drought encountered in more than 1,200 years and attributed roughly half of the effects to human-caused global heating.
Meanwhile, California has been getting warmer, and 2020 brought some of the highest temperatures ever recorded. In August of last year, Death Valley reached 130F (54C) and a month later, an area in Los Angeles county recorded a 121F (49.4C) day – the hottest in its history.
When we do not have the snowpack, it puts our water system under tremendous pressure
Safeeq Khan, professor and climate researcher
Heat changes the water cycle and creates a thirstier atmosphere that accelerates evaporation. That means there’s less water available for communities, businesses, and ecosystems. It also means there will be less snow, which California relies on for roughly 30% of its water supply.
“The snowpack, in the context of the western US and specifically in California, is really critical for our water supply,” says Safeeq Khan, a professor at University of California, Merced, who researches the climate crisis and water sustainability. “The snowpack sits on the mountain and melts in the spring and early summer. That provides the buffer to overcome the extreme summer heat,” he explains.
But in recent years, even during wet winters, he says, the snowpack wasn’t as strong as it used to be. This year, even before the summer, it is already nearly gone. The melt has also produced less runoff than expected, meaning less trickled into streams, rivers and reservoirs.
“Years like this, when we do not have the snowpack, it really puts our water system under tremendous pressure,” Khan says. He doesn’t think that will change anytime soon, adding that, while drought isn’t new in the west, “the kind of drought we are experiencing is new. The impact is a lot more than it was in the past.”
What will the impact be?
Drought disasters are among the most costly, according to the US National Centers for Environmental Information, running an average of $9.3 bn in damage and loss. Dry conditions are also expected to fuel another potentially devastating wildfire season. In 2020, roughly 4.1 m acres were consumed by the flames, tens of thousands of buildings burned and 31 people lost their lives.
The browning hillsides and dying trees are not only increasing the risk of ignitions, they also cause fire behavior to be more extreme when blazes erupt, according to Scott Stephens, a fire ecologist at the University of California, Berkeley. “We’ll probably get to typical fire season moisture levels six weeks early this year because of the drought,” he said as part of an interview series for the Public Policy Institute of California.
Along with wildfire risks, short water supply is putting immense pressure on the state’s agricultural industry, which grows over a third of the country’s vegetables and supplies two-thirds of the fruits and nuts in the US. Already farmers are culling crops and fallowing fields in anticipation of water shortages. Karen Ross, California’s food and agriculture secretary, told the California Chamber of Commerce that she expected 500,000 acres would have to sit idle this year.
Shallow, stagnant water lines the ‘A Canal’ in Klamath Falls, Oregon, on Tuesday.Photograph: Dave Killen/AP
The federal government has already announced a dramatic reduction in water allotments to farmers in California’s Central Valley, while further north, tensions are running high in the Klamath Basin, where a federal canal servicing 150,000 acres of farmland will run dry for the first time in 114 years.
Cities and other urban regions are also set to receive less water, and residents are being asked to conserve where they can.
“We are truly in an emergency situation,” Rick Callender, CEO of the Santa Clara Valley Water District, which delivers water to 2 million residents south of the San Francisco Bay Area, told the Mercury News last week. The agency will enact mandatory restrictions across the county, adding that the public should anticipate cutbacks to increase as the situation intensifies. “We’re going to be seeking everything we can do to address this emergency.”
Worsening drought will also exacerbate longstanding problems for people in the Central Valley, who have suffered through shortages in water for drinking, cooking and sanitation. During the previous drought, wells ran dry and never recovered. More than a million Californians still don’t have access to safe drinking water.
Low water levels also have the potential to affect the state’s electrical grid, which depends on hydroelectric power plants, the Los Angeles Times has reported. Lake Oroville is expected to fall below 640 ft – the level state officials say is required to run a plant – by August. Currently, it stands just above 700ft.
How ready is the state?
California has already invested billions to prepare and has learned key lessons from the last round, when the state experienced its driest four-year stretch in history. In 2014, the state also passed the Groundwater Management Act, landmark legislation that requires communities to monitor groundwater basins and develop plans to protect them. But implementation is still in its early stages.
Newsom has proposed a $5.1 bn investment over the next four years to respond to the disaster and improve infrastructure. Cal Fire, the state’s firefighting agency, has also added 1,400 new firefighters to its ranks, along with picking up new helicopters and fire engines.
“California has done a remarkable job,” says Pulwarty, but he adds that more ambitious solutions are still needed.
“There are innovations that we need to scale up,” he says, from urban conservation and reuse to upping agricultural efficiency and creating land reserves that will help regions become more resilient when drought disasters strike.
Others warn the state must take the long view, with drought conditions likely to get worse before they get better.
“If we are worried about this year we are really playing the short game,” says Doug Parker, the director of the California Institute for Water Resources. “It’s next year that I think is more important.”
The water system, he says, is designed to handle short-term shortages. “When you get into three, four, five years in a row of drought – that’s when things really start to get serious. We all wish we knew what was going to happen next winter.”
We’re Inching Towards Actual Violence Over Access to Water
Charles P. Pierce
Photo credit: Robert Alexander – Getty Images
Here at the shebeen, one of the larger elements in our portfolio is water—specifically, the increasing political salience of water, especially in the West, where they are experiencing such profound drought conditions that the Hoover Dam, of all things, is losing its reason for being. From CBS News:
For more than eight decades, the iconic Hoover Dam has relied on water from Nevada’s Lake Mead to cover up its backside. But now, at age 85, it finds itself uncomfortably exposed. Much of the water the dam is supposed to be holding back is gone. “This is like a different world,” said Pat Mulroy, the former head of the Southern Nevada Water Authority. She told CBS News senior national and environmental correspondent Ben Tracy that Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir, is on track to soon hit its lowest level ever recorded.
The dam is estimated to have lost a quarter of its customary hydroelectric power. Worse, the lower Colorado River, without which the country would have a lot of new deserts, is at a crisis stage, and the federal government may have to take serious action that will affect the region’s farmers—and that I guarantee you will set off the Bundy-ite fringe.
For the first time ever, the federal government is expected to declare a water shortage on the lower Colorado River later this summer. That will force automatic cuts to the water supply for Nevada and Arizona starting in 2022. Homeowners have higher priority and, at first, won’t feel the pain as badly as farmers. Dan Thelander is a second-generation family farmer in Arizona’s Pinal County. The water to grow his corn and alfalfa fields comes from Lake Mead. “If we don’t have irrigation water, we can’t farm,” he said. “So, next year we are going to get about 25% less water, means we’re going to have to fallow or not plant 25% of our land.” In 2023 Thelander and other farmers in this part of Arizona are expected to lose nearly all of their water from Lake Mead, so they are rushing to dig wells to pump groundwater to try to save their farms.
Meanwhile, a few degrees north, the High Country Newsreports the drought is killing fish and local economies, in that order.
Fish have been dying on the Klamath since around May 4, according to the Yurok Tribal Fisheries Department. At that time, 97% of the juvenile salmon caught by the department’s in-river trapping device were infected with the disease C. shasta, and were either dead, or would die within days. Over a two-week period, 70% of the juvenile salmon caught in the trap were dead.
Irrigators upriver from the fish kill were told in mid-May that for the first time since “A” Canal in the Klamath Project began operating in 1907, they would not receive any water from it. The irrigators say they need 400,000 acre-feet of water but this year, they will receive just 33,000 acre-feet from the Klamath Project — a historic low. The situation has put pressure on an embattled region already caught in a cyclical mode of crisis due to a drying climate. “For salmon people, a juvenile fish kill is an absolute worst-case scenario,” Myers said in a statement.
As is obvious, this is all yet another crisis within the general climate crisis. We are inching closer to the days when we might see actual violence over access to water. As if we all need another excuse.
Arizona farmers to bear brunt of cuts from Colorado River
Felicia Fonseca
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Colorado River Water Storage
FILE – In this Oct. 8, 2019, file photo, the Central Arizona Project canal runs through rural desert near Phoenix. Water officials in Arizona say they are prepared to lose about one-fifth of the water the state gets from the Colorado River in what could be the first federally declared shortage in the river that supplies millions of people in the U.S. West and Mexico. The voluntary and mandatory Tier 1 cuts mean Arizona will lose 18% of its Colorado River supply, or 512,000 acre-feet of water. The amount represents 30% of the water that goes to the Central Arizona Project, which manages the canal system and had made excess water available for farmers. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File)
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — Arizona is prepared to lose about one-fifth of the water the state gets from the Colorado River in what could be the first federally declared shortage in the river that supplies millions of people in the U.S. West and Mexico, state officials said Thursday.
Arizona stands to lose more than any other state in the Colorado River basin that also takes in parts of Wyoming, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, Nevada and California. That’s because Arizona agreed long ago to be the first in line for cuts in exchange for federal funding for a canal system to deliver the water to Arizona’s major metropolitan areas.
The Arizona Department of Water Resources and the Central Arizona Project, which manages the canal system, said the anticipated reductions will be painful, but the state has prepared for decades for a shortage through conservation, water banking, partnerships and other efforts.
“It doesn’t make it any less painful. But at least we know what is coming,” said Ted Cooke, general manager of the Central Arizona Project.
Farmers in central Arizona’s Pinal County, who already have been fallowing land amid the ongoing drought and improving wells to pump groundwater in anticipation of the reductions, will bear the brunt of the cuts. Most farms there are family farms that are among the state’s top producers of livestock, dairy, cotton, barley, wheat and alfalfa.
In Pinal County, up to 40% of farmland that relies on Colorado River water could be fallowed over the next few years, said Stefanie Smallhouse, president of the Arizona Farm Bureau Federation.
“That’s a big blow,” she said. “I can’t think of many other businesses that can take a 40% cut in their income within a few months and still be sustainable. When you farm, it’s not only a business, it’s your livelihood.”
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation projected earlier this month that Lake Mead, which delivers water to Arizona, Nevada, California and Mexico, will fall below 1,075 feet (328 meters) for the first time in June 2021. If the lake remains below that level in August when the bureau issues its official projection for 2022, Arizona and Nevada will lose water.
The two states already voluntarily have given up water under a separate drought contingency plan.
The voluntary and mandatory Tier 1 cuts mean Arizona will lose 18% of its Colorado River supply, or 512,000 acre-feet of water. The amount represents 30% of the water that goes to the Central Arizona Project and 8% of Arizona’s overall water supply.
Some of that water will be replaced through water exchanges, transfers from cities to irrigation districts or through water that was stored in Lake Mead in a sort of shell game. The state, tribes and others also contributed financially to help develop groundwater infrastructure.
“We like to think we find ways to take care of ourselves collectively,” said Tom Buschatzke, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources.
Smallhouse said farmers are thankful for the help coming but believes there’s more flexibility in the system to further ease the reductions. While farmers regularly face criticism for the amount of water they use, Smallhouse said the coronavirus pandemic highlighted the importance of a local supply chain for meat, dairy and crops.
Some water users simply won’t get the water they once had if the Bureau of Reclamation’s projections pan out.
The cutbacks come at a time when temperatures are rising and drought has tightened its grip on the U.S. Southwest, increasingly draining Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the two largest man-made reservoirs in the U.S., to their lowest levels since they were filled.
Lake Mead along the Arizona-Nevada border has dropped by about 16 feet (4.88 meters) feet since this time last year. Lake Powell on the Arizona-Utah border has fallen by 35 feet (10.67 meters) feet, the Bureau of Reclamation said.
The reductions in Arizona won’t hit cities or people’s homes, or affect water delivered through the canal system for Native American tribes. Still, anyone living in the desert should be concerned — but not panic — about water and think ways to live with less, said Rhett Larson, an associate professor at Arizona State University and an expert on water law and policy.
“The fact that you’re not feeling it in your tap doesn’t mean you won’t feel it at the grocery store because Pinal County farmers are growing a lot of the things you eat and use,” he said.
‘It will be beautiful again’: how California’s redwood forest is recovering after last year’s wildfires
Gabrielle Canon in Big Basin
There are spots inside Big Basin Redwoods state park that appear to be frozen in time.
Roughly 10 months after the CZU Complex fire burned 97% of California’s oldest park, some trees still smoke and smolder. An open champagne bottle sits untouched atop a scorched picnic table alongside cooking utensils that are melted and singed together. Contents from a toppled cooler, left agape, have begun to blend into the forest duff. The skeletons of burnt cars and trucks are still parked in front of once-iconic headquarters, now reduced to rubble.
But, amid the wreckage, there are also signs of rebirth. Wildflowers are growing over charred debris. Blackened trees have sprung vibrant green sprouts. Birdsongs and hammering woodpeckers accent the hum of state-run construction crews working to ready the beloved park for a new chapter in its history.
“The biggest loss is the human side. This park is not going to be the same place that I saw as a little girl,” says Joanne Kerbavaz, a senior environmental scientist with California state parks on a tour of the park this week. “But as an ecologist, part of me is thrilled by the opportunity to watch how the redwood forest recovers.”
Big Basin is home to roughly 4,400 acres (1,780 hectares) of old-growth redwood trees, majestic giants that are among the oldest living things on Earth. Their lifespan can stretch beyond 2,000 years and they have adapted to survive and thrive in California’s Mediterranean fire-prone climate.
After being heavily logged in the 1800s, the Sempervirens Fund, a non-profit group, formed to protect the trees in 1900 and two years later Big Basin was created – California’s first state park – so millions of people from around the world could travel to marvel at them.
Just like the redwoods, Big Basin, too, will survive this fire. But when it reopens, it will look different. Along with new structures and facilities, many of the park’s 80 miles (128km) of trails will have to be newly carved into the rewilded landscape with new bridges, steps and railings built to support them.
“We have the opportunity to reimagine how to interact with this park,” Kerbavaz says. There are discussions around how to rebuild the park back, to be even more accessible for generations to come. Attitudes have changed over the last 119 years and the park, like others across the US, has exploded in popularity. The climate is also changing, adding new pressures and threats to the ecosystems.
“There is going to be a very robust planning process,” she adds, acknowledging the range of views about how old-growth forests should be protected and enjoyed into the future. “It is going to be open and inclusive and that means it is going to take a while to make some of the calls.”
Most agree that increasing resilience should be a priority. “The near-complete destruction of the buildings and facilities at Big Basin illustrates just how ill-adapted they were to fire,” the Sempervirens Fund wrote on its website in February. “If you love Big Basin, please consider this: rebuilding Big Basin can pioneer a new model for California’s state parks, just as Big Basin accomplished more than a century ago.”
Before rebuilding begins, though, there’s a considerable amount left to be cleared.
Along with toxic debris and crumpled buildings that need to be cleared, hazardous trees are being assessed for removal. The process of identifying which trees are dead or dying is delicate and layered. Five agencies have already weighed in, and perspectives on what should stay and what should be pulled out do not always align.
Several beloved old-growth trees have already been saved by park officials, including the famous Auto Tree, which is the most photographed Redwood in Big Basin. Estimated to be more than 1,500 years old, generations of visitors have climbed into its large opening created by fires in the past. The pictures go back to the park’s beginnings. There are photos of horses and buggies backed in and of ranger trucks in the 1970s.
“There was a mark to cut down the tree,” Kerbavaz says, “but I said, hey, this is one we really don’t want to lose.” So far, it’s showing signs of survival, with small green offshoots at the base and sparse growth in the canopy, and there’s hope that it has enough structural support to stay standing.
The process of deciding what will stay and what will go has been thorough and arduous. First, CalFire came through and cleared a path for crews. CalTrans examined what might become hazardous to the roads. Santa Cruz county officials assessed the areas managed by the municipality, and then PG&E did their analysis. California’s Department of Emergency Services is currently in the park and still finding trees to mark for removal.
Trees are painted with a series of letters and numbers, meant to catalog them and indicate to crews that they should be culled. Some also have flags and ties, showing that park officials, who have overseen the process, do not agree.
“There is a science and an art,” Kerbavaz says of the process. “I come, of course, from the parks’ perspective, which is we really would like to keep as much as we can”.
Along with tree removal, trails will have to be remade. Most of the wooden infrastructure, including steps, bridges and railings were obliterated in the fire. Some of it was put in place to hold erosive hillsides, which have since crumbled. Other hazards have to be assessed before guests can be welcomed back in. There are pits left from where subterranean roots from more flammable trees, such as Douglas Firs, burned into the earth.
Meanwhile, scientists are utilizing the opportunity to use the burn scar to learn about fire behavior, ecological resilience, and climate change. “We are trying to get baseline data so people can return in maybe 5 or 10 years down the line, and see how it grows and changes into the future,” says vegetation ecologist Alexis Lafever.
“There are so many baby redwood seedlings and they are so cute,” she says. In some areas, she’s encountered hundreds of seedlings. They won’t all survive, but, she adds, “things are growing back. The forest will be fine.”
There are also signals that animals are emerging and returning. Salamanders survived by burrowing under the duff, banana slugs took refuge underground, and birds have re-inhabited the burned branches.
“Almost everything that lives here has some strategy for avoiding fire,” Kerbavaz says. “But any kind of disturbance like that, there are some species that are harmed and some species that are favored.”
There are those that thrive after fire. The Knobcone Pine requires temperatures up to 350F (177C) to melt a resin from its cones to sprout seeds. Some woodpeckers prefer dead trees to living ones. But the fire, which burned fast and hot, with flames that licked the canopy 300 feet (91 metres) into the sky and tore through close to 18,000 acres (7,285 hectares) of the park in only 24 hours, did leave devastation in its wake. Current assessments show even with the resiliency of the redwoods, 10% of the trees won’t recover. The damage is also expected to cost nearly $200m.
“Those buildings are gone. That specific experience is gone,” Kerbavaz says. “There’s some of that loss of the big trees that make it such a special forest. But we have opened up places for the next generation of big trees to grow,” she adds. “It will be beautiful again – even if it is not as you remember it”.
The last few years have been some of the worst on record for ticks, and not just in the Northeast. At least one variety of disease-transmitting tick has been found in all of the lower 48 states, …
For many of us this past year, our backyards took on a profoundly important role. In the era of social distancing, yards were transformed into outdoor oases, and even now, there are no signs that the trend is slowing down—increasing demand and a national lumber shortage has made it difficult to acquire wood to build a deck.
In order to stay safe in your yard this spring and summer, it’s crucial to avoid exposure to ticks, which can transmit about a dozen common diseases. The past few years have been some of the worst on record for ticks, and not just in the Northeast. At least one variety of disease-transmitting tick has been found in all of the lower 48 states, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
And a lab at Cornell University has identified 26 species of ticks along the East Coast alone—far more than the deer ticks most of us associate with Lyme disease.
With a little bit of work, including cutting your grass more often, you can significantly limit exposure to the insects in your yard.
“Tick control is mostly about wildlife,” says Jody Gangloff-Kaufmann, coordinator of New York State’s Integrated Pest Management Program at Cornell. “If you have an open yard where animals can enter, you’re almost certainly going to have ticks.”
One way to know for sure? Perform what’s called a tick drag. Cut a 5-inch-square swatch of fabric and tie it to an 18-inch-long pole or stick. Holding the pole, drag the fabric along tall grass or weeds, particularly near woodland edges of your lawn. Ticks will typically transfer themselves to the swatch.
If you spot them on the fabric, you’ll need to deal with the problem now to safely enjoy your yard. And even if you don’t find ticks, it could pay to be proactive. Follow these five steps to deal with them effectively.
1. Keep Your Grass Short
“Black-legged ticks, the type that transmit Lyme disease, don’t like dry, hot environments,” Gangloff-Kaufmann says. The taller the grass, the cooler the environment, because taller blades cast a shadow and create shade. That means that leaving your lawn a little shaggy is a bad idea in tick-rich areas.
Gangloff-Kaufmann says it’s okay to let your grass reach the 4 to 4½ inches that Consumer Reports recommends, then trim it down to about 3 inches with each cut. That strategy promotes healthy growth. If you shear your lawn down to an inch or two, you’ll send the grass into a panic and it will grow too tall, too fast, and suffer from a weak root structure. The trick is to be vigilant about keeping up with mowing and not letting grass grow to a height of 5 or 6 inches.
If you miss a week and the grass gets tall, it’s a good idea to use the bagging attachment with your tractor or lawn mower, because leaving those long lawn clippings behind can create the perfect environment for ticks.
2. Make a Mulch Moat
Many tick varieties, including the Lyme-transmitting black-legged variety, favor the dense cover of woodlands over open lawn. That makes any wooded areas adjacent to your property potential hotbeds for ticks. Adding a 3-foot-wide protective barrier of mulch around the perimeter of your yard does double duty.
First, it creates a physical barrier that’s dry and sometimes hot, something ticks can’t tolerate. Second, it serves as a visual reminder to anyone in your household to be especially careful once they step past the perimeter.
For the border, you want mulch made from broad, dry wood chips or bark, not the damp, shredded variety, which creates exactly the kind of cool, damp conditions ticks love.
3. Trim Tall Grass and Weeds
“Ticks like to climb to the top of tall grass blades and look for questing opportunities—the chance to grab on to animals like deer or humans,” Gangloff-Kaufmann says.
By keeping grass and weeds at bay with a string trimmer, you’ll minimize those chances and make it more difficult for ticks to latch on to you or members of your family, or to travel around your property by hitching a ride on your dog.
4. Eliminate Tick Habitat
CR has long recommended mulching grass clippings when you mow. That’s because these clippings break down and release nitrogen into the soil, feeding your yard and potentially reducing the amount of fertilizer you use by about 20 percent.
And in many instances, it’s okay or even preferable to leave behind fallen leaves to nourish the lawn for the same reason. But if you live in an area with a large tick population, you might benefit from a different approach.
By bagging grass and blowing leaves into piles for collection, you keep your yard clear and cut back on tick-friendly places. You’ll want to recycle leaves and grass clippings through your town if possible, or compost them in a pile far from the house.
Rather than letting them rot in a landfill, you can let your leaves and clippings break down naturally and use the resulting compost to feed and fertilize plants around your yard.
5. Consider a Targeted Approach
Following the four steps above will make your yard less inviting to ticks. But if you want to make a serious dent in the tick population on your property, you’ll need to focus on methods that kill them.
Many people opt for spraying their entire yard with pesticide, an approach that CR’s experts say is ineffective and potentially dangerous.
“Spraying your yard provides a false sense of security,” explains Michael Hansen, PhD, senior scientist at Consumer Reports. “Instead, consider products that treat the fur of mice or deer with small quantities of tick-killing agents.”
Why target mice or deer rather than your yard? “Mice play an important role in the transmission cycle of Lyme disease,” says Laura Goodman, senior research associate in Cornell’s department of population medicine and diagnostic sciences. If you can stop critters from transmitting ticks, you can curb the tick population in and around your yard.
“Tick tubes” are one product we’ve encountered. They’re essentially cardboard tubes stuffed with cotton treated with permethrin, a tick-killing chemical. Mice collect the cotton and take it back to their nests. The permethrin binds to oils on their fur, killing any ticks that try to attach without harming the mice.
The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station (PDF) has found that such systems have resulted in statistically meaningful drops in tick levels after several years of use. And at about $4 per tube, they’re cheaper than tick bait boxes.
Bonus: Tickproof Yourself
When working in the yard, wear a long-sleeved shirt, long pants, socks, and closed-toe shoes. Use insect repellent; the best in our tests provide more than 8 hours of tick protection.
“And regardless of the time of year, perform a tick check as soon as you return indoors,” Goodman says.
If you do suffer a bite, Goodman advises properly removing the tick. For more information about ticks in your area, check your state health department’s website. Connecticut, home to the town of Old Lyme, where the disease was first documented, has a particularly comprehensive guide to ticks (PDF).
The poison used to eradicate a biblical mouse plague ravaging southeast Australia is having a deadly effect on native wildlife
Zac Ntim
The poison used to eradicate a biblical mouse plague ravaging southeast Australia is having a deadly effect on native wildlife. Dead Galah birds in Parkes, New South Wales. Kelly Lacey/Facebook
Mice scurrying around stored grain on a farm near Tottenham, Australia, on May 19, 2021. Rick Rycroft/AP
The poison that is being used to cull Australia’s mouse infestation is damaging the native wildlife.
Experts say birds in New South Wales have died after ingesting poison intended for mice.
The infestation has ravaged large parts of southeast Australia.
The poisonous bait that is being used to eradicate a huge mouse plague ravaging large parts of Australia is having a deadly effect on native wildlife, experts have warned.
Earlier this week, an image of dozens of Galah Cockatoo birds dead in a cemetery in Parkes, New South Wales, went viral after it was shared on Facebook by Kelly Lacey, a volunteer for the NSW Wildlife Information, Rescue and Education Service (WIRES).
In the post, she said: “Seeing them sitting with each other under trees, knowing they were suffering until they have eventually died, has utterly broke me. Found 2 still alive, sadly 1 died on way home. (whatever the poison was it is more potent then I have experienced, and they have bled internally).”
Later during an interview with The Guardian, Lacey said that she found over 100 dead Galahs in the cemetery.
“I received a call from another WIRES member, saying ‘I think you might want to see this, there are dead galahs everywhere,'” she told the newspaper. “My heart sank. When I arrived and began collecting all the dead bodies I was in shock.”
In a statement released earlier this week, the New South Wales Environmental Protection Agency asked the public to “think carefully” about the location and amount of poisonous bait that is being used after an investigation by the organization found that dozens of birds in the state had died after ingesting the poison.
“The safe baiting of mice is an important step in reducing mice numbers and pesticide users must make sure they handle baits safely and are careful to always follow the directions on the label to protect their family, neighbors, domestic animals, wildlife, and the environment from harm,” the statement read.
A mixture of poisonous bait and other deadly traps have been deployed across southeast Australia to deal with the huge rise in mice populations. Experts say that the infestation is the result of wet weather that has provided ample food for the mice, fueling their fast reproductive cycle.
Farmers across the region have felt the brunt of the infestation with reports of mice ravaging crops, destroying farming equipment, and causing electricity blackouts. The state government has called the plague “absolutely unprecedented” and warned that it could cause huge economic damage.
The NSW Farmers Association, an agricultural group in the state, estimated that the plague could cost farmers a total of 1 billion Australian dollars ($771,000) during the winter crop season, which runs from June to August, the AP reported.
Earlier this month, Adam Marshall, the agriculture minister for New South Wales, announced a $50m support package to help farmers that include the wide-scale use of bromadiolone, a poison described as “napalm” for mice.
“It’ll be the equivalent of napalming mice across rural NSW,” Marshall told the ABC. “This chemical, this poison, will eliminate mice that take these baits within 24 hours.”
Hundreds of lakes in U.S., Europe are losing oxygen
Drew Costley
Oxygen levels have dropped in hundreds of lakes in the United States and Europe over the last four decades, a new study found.
And the authors said declining oxygen could lead to increased fish kills, algal blooms and methane emissions.
Researchers examined the temperature and dissolved oxygen — the amount of oxygen in the water — in nearly 400 lakes and found that declines were widespread. Their study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, found dissolved oxygen fell 5.5 % in surface waters of these lakes and 18.6% in deep waters.
The authors said their findings suggest that warming temperatures and decreased water clarity from human activity are causing the oxygen decline.
“Oxygen is one of the best indicators of ecosystem health, and changes in this study reflect a pronounced human footprint,” said co-author Craig E. Williamson, a biology professor at Miami University in Ohio.
That footprint includes warming caused by climate change and decreased water clarity caused in part by runoff from sewage, fertilizer, cars and power plants.
Dissolved oxygen losses in Earth’s water systems have been reported before. A 2017 study of oxygen levels in the world’s oceans showed a 2% decline since 1960. But less was known about lakes, which lost two to nine times as much oxygen as oceans, the new study’s authors said.
Prior to this study, other researchers had reported on oxygen declines in individual lakes over a long period of time. But none of have looked at as many lakes around the world, said Samuel B. Fey, a Reed College biology professor who studies lakes and was not involved in this study.
“I think one of the really interesting findings here is that the authors were able to show that there’s this pretty pronounced decline in dissolved oxygen concentrations in both the surface and (deep) parts of the lake,” Fey said.
The deep water drop in oxygen levels is critical for aquatic organisms that are more sensitive to temperature increases, such as cold water fish. During summer months, they depend on cooler temperatures found deeper in the water, but if deep waters are low on oxygen, these organisms can’t survive.
“Those are the conditions that sometimes lead to fish kills in water bodies,” said study co-author Kevin C. Rose, a professor of biology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. “It really means that a lot of habitats for cold water fish could become inhospitable.”
Other organisms, Rose said, are more tolerant of warmer temperatures found at the surface level and can get enough oxygen by remaining near the surface, where water meets air.
About a quarter of the lakes examined actually showed increasing oxygen in surface waters, which Rose says is a bad sign because it’s likely attributable to increased algal blooms — sudden growth of blue green algae.
In these lakes, he said, dissolved oxygen was “very low” in deep waters and was unlivable for many species.
And the sediment in such oxygen-starved lakes tends to give off methane, a potent greenhouse gas, research shows.
Lakes examined in the new study were in the U.S. or Europe, except for one in Japan and a few in New Zealand. The authors said there was insufficient data to include other parts of the world.
Rose said lakes outside the study area probably are experiencing drops in dissolved oxygen, too. The reason, he said, is that warmer temperatures from climate change reduce the ability of oxygen to dissolve in water — its solubility.
“We know that most or many places around the planet are warming,” he said. “And so we would expect to see declining solubility.”
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Study: California fire killed 10% of world’s giant sequoias
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California Wildfires Redwoods Killed
FILE – In this April 22, 2021, file photo, provided by the National Park Service, shows a smoldering tree in Sequoia National Park, Calif. The giant sequoia was found smoldering and smoking in an area of the park burned by the 2020 Castle Fire. At least a tenth of the world’s mature giant sequoias were destroyed by a single California wildfire that tore through the southern Sierra Nevada last year, according to a draft report prepared by scientists with the National Park Service. (Tony Caprio/National Park Service via AP, File)
SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARK, Calif. (AP) — At least a tenth of the world’s mature giant sequoia trees were destroyed by a single California wildfire that tore through the southern Sierra Nevada last year, according to a draft report prepared by scientists with the National Park Service.
The Visalia Times-Delta newspaper obtained a copy of the report that describes catastrophic destruction from the Castle Fire, which charred 273 square miles (707 square km) of timber in Sequoia National Park.
Researchers used satellite imagery and modeling from previous fires to determine that between 7,500 and 10,000 of the towering species perished in the fire. That equates to 10% to 14% of the world’s mature giant sequoia population, the newspaper said.
“I cannot overemphasize how mind-blowing this is for all of us. These trees have lived for thousands of years. They’ve survived dozens of wildfires already,” said Christy Brigham, chief of resources management and science at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.
The consequences of losing large numbers of giant sequoias could be felt for decades, forest managers said. Redwood and sequoia forests are among the world’s most efficient at removing and storing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The groves also provide critical habitat for native wildlife and help protect the watershed that supplies farms and communities on the San Joaquin Valley floor.
Brigham, the study’s lead author, cautioned that the numbers are preliminary and the research paper has yet to be peer reviewed. Beginning next week, teams of scientists will hike to the groves that experienced the most fire damage for the first time since the ashes settled.
“I have a vain hope that once we get out on the ground the situation won’t be as bad, but that’s hope — that’s not science,” she said.
The newspaper said the extent of the damage to one of the world’s most treasured trees is noteworthy because the sequoias themselves are incredibly well adapted to fire. The old-growth trees — some of which are more than 2,000 years old and 250 feet (76 meters) tall — require fire to burst their pine cones and reproduce.
“One-hundred years of fire suppression, combined with climate change-driven hotter droughts, have changed how fires burn in the southern Sierra and that change has been very bad for sequoia,” Brigham said.
Sequoia and Kings Canyon have conducted controlled burns since the 1960s, about a thousand acres a year on average. Brigham estimates that the park will need to burn around 30 times that number to get the forest back to a healthy state.
The Castle Fire erupted on Aug. 19 in the Golden Trout Wilderness amid a flurry of lightning strikes. The Shotgun Fire, a much smaller blaze burning nearby, was discovered shortly afterward, and the two were renamed the Sequoia Complex.
The headline of this story has been corrected to say the fire destroyed 10% of all giant sequoias, not 10% of all redwoods.
A 20-Foot Sea Wall? Miami Faces the Hard Choices of Climate Change.
Patricia Mazzei
A high rise apartment building in the Brickell neighborhood of Miami on May 19, 2021. (Zack Wittman/The New York Times)
MIAMI — Three years ago, not long after Hurricane Irma left parts of Miami underwater, the federal government embarked on a study to find a way to protect the vulnerable South Florida coast from deadly and destructive storm surge.
Already, no one likes the answer.
Build a wall, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed in its first draft of the study, now under review. Six miles of it, in fact, mostly inland, running parallel to the coast through neighborhoods — except for a 1-mile stretch right on Biscayne Bay, past the gleaming sky-rises of Brickell, the city’s financial district.
The dramatic, $6 billion proposal remains tentative and at least five years off. But the startling suggestion of a massive sea wall up to 20 feet high cutting across beautiful Biscayne Bay was enough to jolt some Miamians to attention. The hard choices that will be necessary to deal with the city’s many environmental challenges are here, and few people want to face them.
“You need to have a conversation about, culturally, what are our priorities?” said Benjamin Kirtman, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Miami. “Where do we want to invest? Where does it make sense?
“Those are what I refer to as generational questions,” he added. “And there is a tremendous amount of reluctance to enter into that discussion.”
In Miami, the U.S. metropolitan area that is perhaps most exposed to sea-level rise, the problem is not climate change denialism. Not when hurricane season, which begins this week, returns each year with more intense and frequent storms. Not when finding flood insurance has become increasingly difficult and unaffordable. Not when the nights stay so hot that leaving the house with a sweater to fend off the evening chill has become a thing of the past.
The trouble is that the magnitude of the interconnected obstacles the region faces can feel overwhelming, and none of the possible solutions is cheap, easy or pretty.
For its study, the Corps focused on storm surge — the rising seas that often inundate the coastline during storms — made worse lately by stronger hurricanes and higher sea levels. But that is only one concern.
South Florida, flat and low-lying, sits on porous limestone, which allows the ocean to swell up through the ground. Even when there is no storm, rising seas contribute to more significant tidal flooding, where streets fill with water even on sunny days. The expanding saltwater threatens to spoil the underground aquifer that supplies the region’s drinking water and crack old sewer pipes and aging septic tanks. It leaves less space for the earth to absorb liquid, so floodwaters linger longer, their runoff polluting the bay and killing fish.
And that is just sea-level rise. Temperatures have gotten so sweltering over recent summers that Miami-Dade County has named a new interim “chief heat officer.”
“What you realize is, each of these problems, which are totally intersecting, are handled by different parts of the government,” said Amy Clement, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Miami and the chair of the city of Miami’s climate resilience committee. “It’s divided up in ways that make things really, really difficult to move forward. And the bottom line is, it’s way more money than any local government has to spend.”
The state could help, to a point. Republican lawmakers, who have controlled the Florida Legislature for more than 20 years, acknowledged in late 2019 that they had ignored climate change for so long that the state had “lost a decade.” They have begun to take steps to fund solutions, directing more than $200 million in tax dollars, collected on real estate transactions, to sea-level rise and sewer projects. Legislators also designated $500 million in federal stimulus money for the fund.
The price tag for all that needs to be done, however, is in the billions. The estimate for Miami-Dade County alone to phase out some 120,000 septic tanks is about $4 billion, and that does not include the thousands of dollars that each homeowner would also have to pay.
Enter the Corps, whose engineering projects, if funded by Congress, are covered 65% by the federal government and 35% by a local government sponsor.
No one wants to turn away a penny from Washington, but the proposal for a massive sea wall along one of Miami’s most scenic stretches has produced a rare moment of agreement between environmentalists and real estate developers, who fear harm to the bay’s delicate ecology and lower property values.
“We were like, ruh-roh,” said Ken Russell, the Miami city commissioner whose district includes Brickell. “The $40 billion in assets you’re trying to protect will be diminished if you build a wall around downtown, because you’re going to affect market values and quality of life.”
Other parts of the Corps’ draft plan, which includes surge barriers at the mouth of the Miami River and several other waterways, are more appealing: fortifying sewer plants and fire and police stations to withstand a crush of seawater. Elevating or flood-proofing thousands of businesses and homes. Planting some mangroves, which can provide a first line of defense against flooding and erosion. Miami-Dade County wants all of those portions to take priority; a final draft of the plan is due this fall.
Sticking points remain. Among the homes proposed to be elevated on the taxpayer dime are multimillion-dollar waterfront mansions — a result of the Corps’ mandate to efficiently protect as much life and property as possible, which critics say inevitably leads to more protection for the wealthy, whose properties are worth more.
And then there are the walls. The inland walls — some fairly small, but others up to 13 feet high — would divide neighborhoods, leaving homes on the seaward side with less protection. The sea wall along Biscayne Bay, which could rise to 20 feet and look as formidable as the sound barriers along Interstate 95, would reverse decades of policies intended to avoid dredging and filling the bay.
To some critics, the plan harks back to more than a century of dredging and pumping the Florida Everglades, which made way for intensive farming and sprawling development but disregarded the serious damage to the environment that the state is still wrestling with.
“It is my sense that most Floridians would live with the risk of water to preserve their lifestyle,” said Cynthia Barnett, a Gainesville, Florida-based environmental journalist who has published books about rain and the fate of the oceans. “This idea of working with water rather than always fighting against it is really the lesson of Florida history. If Florida history has taught us one thing, it’s that hardscaping this water that defines us will bring hardships to future generations.”
When local governments have asked the public how they would like to tackle climate change, residents by far prefer what is known as green infrastructure: layered coastal protection from a mix of dunes, sea grasses, coral reefs and mangroves, said Zelalem Adefris, vice president for policy and advocacy at Catalyst Miami, which works with low-income communities in the county.
“The Army Corps’ plan just looks so different,” she said. “It seemed to be really incongruous with the conversations that are being had locally.”
Officials with the Corps, though, say — gently — that they see no way around what they call structural elements. The storm surge threat to Miami-Dade County is just too grave.
“It’s going to be a part of the solution,” said Niklas Hallberg, the study’s project manager.
He said the Corps is committed to working with the community in the next phase of design for the project so “maybe it doesn’t look like so much of a wall.”
That sounds like inching toward the vision that emerged from engineering consultants hired by Swire Properties, a big local developer, after the Corps’ draft plan alarmed Miami’s Downtown Development Authority. The consultants suggested building a berm of earth and rock that could be further elevated over time. (A landscape architectural firm brought in by the Downtown Development Authority developed renderings of the Corps’ plan showing dirty brown water in the bay and, yes, “Berlin” graffitied on the wall.)
On a recent afternoon along the stretch of Brickell Bay Drive where a wall might go, Rachel Silverstein, executive director of Miami Waterkeeper, an environmental research and activist group, stood next to high-rises built right up to the water, which she called “the fundamental problem with Miami” because they leave the storm surge with nowhere to go.
(Silverstein is in the camp of people who favor more natural structural elements to combat storm surge, such as bolstering coral reefs that would also provide an ecological benefit to the bay.)
She pointed over the shimmering blue-green bay.
“Instead of seeing this beautiful water, you would see a gross wall,” she said.
