‘It took everything’: the disease that can be contracted by breathing California’s air

The Guardian

‘It took everything’: the disease that can be contracted by breathing California’s air

Dani Anguiano in Los Angeles – August 29, 2022

<span>Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty Images</span> — Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty Images

The illness that would change Rob Purdie’s life started with a headache, a terrible pain that began around New Year’s 2012 and stayed for months.

It was only after several trips to urgent care facilities, multiple doctors and incorrect diagnoses – everything from sinus infections to cluster headaches – he learned what was wrong with him.

The Bakersfield, California, resident had meningitis caused by Valley fever, a disease that comes from Coccidioides, a fungus endemic to the soil of the US south-west. Years of debilitating illness, struggles finding effective treatments and other hardships followed.

“It took everything – my health,” Purdie said. “It had a huge impact on my family. We lost everything, all our financial security, all our retirement.”

The father of two is among the small percentage of people who develop serious forms of Valley fever – most people don’t get sick after exposure and very few have severe symptoms. But for those who develop the chronic form of the disease, it can be devastating.

Valley fever is increasing in California’s Central Valley, as it has for years, and experts say that in the future cases could rise across the American west as the climate crisis renders the landscape drier and hotter.

Kern county, located just north of Los Angeles at the end of the Central Valley, has reported a substantial increase over the last decade. The county, where Purdie lives, documented about 1,000 cases in 2014. In 2021, there were more than 3,000 cases, according to public health data.

A sign for Bakersfield, California, is displayed over a city street. — Valley fever is increasing in California’s Central Valley. For Bakersfield, California, resident Rob Purdie, it would take years to get it under control. Photograph: Lisa Mascaro/AP

Feeding off the climate crisis

Testing and awareness of Valley fever has improved in recent years, and at the same time the county has grown, leading to more cases. But there has also been a significant growth in the illness, said Dr Royce Johnson, the medical director of the Valley Fever Institute in Bakersfield.

“There’s enormously more Valley fever now. I can tell that just from the work,” Johnson said. “We think most of that has to do with climate and weather.”

The fungus that causes Valley fever needs hot and dry conditions to survive, which the US south-west provides, said Morgan Gorris, an earth system scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory who has studied the relationship between climate crisis and Valley fever, or coccidioidomycosis.

“Much of the western US is very dry already. When we look at projections of climate change it’s expected that the western half of the US will continue to remain pretty dry and that’s going to continue to support Valley fever,” said Gorris.

The fungus grows in the dirt as a filament, Johnson said, that segments and breaks off and becomes airborne when disturbed, traveling as far as 75 miles – it has even infected sea otters. People can become exposed to Valley fever by digging in undisturbed soil or simply by breathing.

“Somebody that lives in Long Beach and drives to the Bay Area and has their window rolled down on the 5 can get Valley fever,” Johnson said. “If you’re doing an archaeological dig in the foothills west of [Bakersfield] you can … you’re basically standing on top of it.”

Farm workers stand bent over in a field of carrots. In the foreground are piles of upturned dirt. — Those who work outdoors, like these farm workers in Kern county, are thought to be at greater risk for Valley fever. Photograph: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

People who work outdoors are thought to be at greater risk. Last summer, seven firefighters who responded to fires around the Tehachapi mountains, south-east of Bakersfield, experienced respiratory illness. Three were diagnosed with Valley fever, according to an article published by the CDC.

About 40% of people develop a respiratory illness that can be very mild, according to Johnson, and 1% have more severe outcomes. Most people won’t become ill after exposure to the fungus, and of those who do, experts estimate very few actually receive a Valley fever diagnosis.

In the US, primarily in Arizona and California, there were roughly 20,000 cases of Valley fever reported to the CDC in 2019 and an average of about 200 associated deaths each year from 1999 to 2019, according to the most recent data available.

Research authored by Gorris and others has shown that the climate crisis could expand the areas in which Valley fever is found. In a high greenhouse gas emissions climate warming scenario, the area endemic to Valley fever expanded farther north, reaching the US-Canadian border by 2100, Gorris said of the research.

Under a more moderate scenario with less warming and fewer emissions, there is less northward expansion of the disease, she said.

“Mitigating climate change could mitigate the health effects of Valley fever,” she said. “It’s important to understand that it’s not just doom and gloom.”

In California, as the climate shifts to more intense periods of rainfall and then subsequent dry seasons, conditions in which Valley fever thrives, there could be more cases, she added.

An aerial view of a dry field. A tractor plowing the field produces a long cloud of dust that carries on the wind. — The fungus that causes Valley fever needs hot and dry conditions to thrive, which the US south-west, such as California’s Central Valley, provides. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Raising awareness

Purdie became sick after such a period, a wet year followed by dry weather, he recalls. At the time, he lived on a few acres on the outskirts of Bakersfield where he frequently spent time outdoors.

Valley fever threw his life into disarray. Purdie, who was then a financial planner, struggled to work and had to sell treasured family mementoes to support his family as he sought to get a hold on the illness.

He was eventually able to find the right treatment, which requires four pills a day and medication administered directly into his brain every 16 weeks. It’s a difficult treatment that causes him severe vomiting, sometimes to the point of nearly passing out. Purdie sometimes struggles to interact with people and carry on conversations.

But he’s become an advocate for Valley fever awareness and has been able to resume working again. He works for the Valley Fever Institute as a patient and program development coordinator.

“I have a really severe form of Valley fever,” he said. “The disease can be very terrifying and very debilitating. But I don’t want people to be afraid of it. I want people to be aware of it.”

‘Zombie ice’ from Greenland will raise sea level 10 inches

Associated Press

‘Zombie ice’ from Greenland will raise sea level 10 inches

Seth Borenstein – August 29, 2022

Zombie ice from the massive Greenland ice sheet will eventually raise global sea level by at least 10 inches (27 centimeters) on its own, according to a study released Monday.

Zombie or doomed ice is ice that is still attached to thicker areas of ice, but is no longer getting fed by those larger glaciers. That’s because the parent glaciers are getting less replenishing snow. Meanwhile the doomed ice is melting from climate change, said study co-author William Colgan, a glaciologist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland.

“It’s dead ice. It’s just going to melt and disappear from the ice sheet,” Colgan said in an interview. “This ice has been consigned to the ocean, regardless of what climate (emissions) scenario we take now.”

Study lead author Jason Box, a glaciologist at the Greenland survey, said it is “more like one foot in the grave.”

The unavoidable ten inches in the study is more than twice as much sea level rise as scientists had previously expected from the melting of Greenland’s ice sheet. The study in the journal Nature Climate Change said it could reach as much as 30 inches (78 centimeters). By contrast, last year’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report projected a range of 2 to 5 inches (6 to 13 centimeters) for likely sea level rise from Greenland ice melt by the year 2100.

What scientists did for the study was look at the ice in balance. In perfect equilibrium, snowfall in the mountains in Greenland flows down and recharges and thickens the sides of glaciers, balancing out what’s melting on the edges. But in the last few decades there’s less replenishment and more melting, creating imbalance. Study authors looked at the ratio of what’s being added to what’s being lost and calculated that 3.3% of Greenland’s total ice volume will melt no matter what happens with the world cutting carbon pollution, Colgan said.

“I think starving would be a good phrase,” for what’s happening to the ice, Colgan said.

One of the study authors said that more than 120 trillion tons (110 trillion metric tons) of ice is already doomed to melt from the warming ice sheet’s inability to replenish its edges. When that ice melts into water, if it were concentrated only over the United States, it would be 37 feet (11 meters) deep.

This is the first time scientists calculated a minimum ice loss — and accompanying sea level rise — for Greenland, one of Earth’s two massive ice sheets that are slowly shrinking because of climate change from burning coal, oil and natural gas. Scientists used an accepted technique for calculating minimum committed ice loss, the one used on mountain glaciers for the entire giant frozen island.

Pennsylvania State University glaciologist Richard Alley, who wasn’t part of the study but said it made sense, said the committed melting and sea level rise is like an ice cube put in a cup of hot tea in a warm room.

“You have committed mass loss from the ice,” Alley said in an email. ”In the same way most of the world’s mountain glaciers and the edges of Greenland would continue losing mass if temperatures were stabilized at modern levels because they have been put into warmer air just as your ice cube was put in warmer tea.”

Although 10 inches doesn’t sound like much, that’s a global average. Some coastal areas will be hit with more, and high tides and storms on top of that could be even worse, so this much sea level rise “will have huge societal, economic and environmental impacts,” said Ellyn Enderlin, a geosciences professor at Boise State University.

Time is the key unknown here and a bit of a problem with the study, said two outside ice scientists, Leigh Stearns of the University of Kansas and Sophie Nowicki of the University of Buffalo. The researchers in the study said they couldn’t estimate the timing of the committed melting, yet in the last sentence they mention, “within this century,” without supporting it, Stearns said.

Colgan responded that the team doesn’t know how long it will take for all the doomed ice to melt, but making an educated guess, it would probably be by the end of this century or at least by 2150.

Colgan said this is actually all a best case scenario. The year 2012 (and to a different degree 2019 ) was a huge melt year, when the equilibrium between adding and subtracting ice was most out of balance. If Earth starts to undergo more years like 2012, Greenland melt could trigger 30 inches (78 centimeters) of sea level rise, he said. Those two years seem extreme now, but years that look normal now would have been extreme 50 years ago, he said.

“That’s how climate change works,” Colgan said. “Today’s outliers become tomorrow’s averages.

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‘Devastation’: South Shasta County residents deal with drought conditions not seen in 100 years

Redding Record Searchlight

‘Devastation’: South Shasta County residents deal with drought conditions not seen in 100 years

Damon Arthur – August 29, 2022

Ed Roberts drives his truck out into Bill Robison's, left, orchard to fill barrels used to water Robison's walnut trees. Roberts' wife, Elaine Roberts, helps carry hose. — Ed Roberts drives his truck out into Bill Robison’s, left, orchard to fill barrels used to water Robison’s walnut trees. Roberts’ wife, Elaine Roberts, helps carry hose.

Bill Robison has a “lifesaver” who drives a 1973 Ford truck.

A couple times a week, Ed Roberts rolls up to Robison’s house with a 500-gallon tank of water in the bed of his pickup. The truck bounces out into Robison’s orchard along Balls Ferry Road in Anderson, where the two fill barrels with water.

At this time of year Robison usually floods his pecan and walnut orchards with irrigation water from the Anderson-Cotttonwood Irrigation District.

But for the first time in its 106-year history, the district this year did not supply water to residents in southern Shasta and northern Tehama counties.

Residents and local officials said the effect of losing irrigation has hurt the economy, residents and wildlife.

Laurrie Shaw, whose family owns a ranch off Balls Ferry Road, said a group she belongs to called the Anderson-Cottonwood Irrigation District Water Users Association hired a consultant to assess the impacts on the area.

“He was shocked at the devastation that had taken place at that point, when we still had half of our hot weather left to go,” Shaw said.

Josh Davy, a livestock and pasture advisor for the University of California Cooperative Extension, said cattle ranchers and other growers have been hit hard.

Most of the agriculture in the district is pastureland, Davy said.

“So losing it, it’s not just property value, but the overall scheme, the production. And what’s the fallout to our local stores that supply these people and everything else? So yeah, it’s scary right now,” Davy said.

Drought three years in the making

The third year of the drought began to take shape last winter when the rain stopped falling in January, and the meager amounts of precipitation persisted through the spring.

Due to the drought and reduced water allocations from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, district officials said last spring they did not have enough water to send down its network of canals to its 800 customers.

With no irrigation, the thousands of acres of green pastures and wetlands in the south county died and turned brown and yellow. Scores of trees throughout the 7,000-acre district also withered and died.

Officials with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection have warned that the area poses a fire danger that residents have not seen before.

Several trees in Bill Robison's orchard in Anderson died this year because of the drought. — Several trees in Bill Robison’s orchard in Anderson died this year because of the drought.

The bureau supplies water to most water agencies in western Shasta County, as well as irrigation districts throughout the Sacramento Valley. Most of those agencies had their water allotments cut severely.

Because the district has senior water rights, it is typically immune to having its water allocation reduced by more than 25%, she said.

But the North State has not had a typical water year in three years.

Lake Shasta, a major water source to much of California, was only 35% full and at 57% of average for late August. Even though the lake is low, the water level is about 24 feet higher than last year.

Lake Shasta is primarily filled by rainfall, and precipitation remained low for the North State. Redding has received just over 5 inches of rain since January, less than a quarter of its normal rainfall, according to the National Weather Service.

The U.S. Drought Monitor places most of the North State in an “extreme” drought.

Not enough water to go around

Because of the ongoing dearth of precipitation, A.C.I.D.’s allotment was reduced to 22,500 acre-feet of water, about 18% of what it gets in a normal year, said Brenda Haynes, president of the A.C.I.D. board.

Because that amount had to be spread throughout the irrigation season, from April to October, it was not enough to fill the district’s canals to the point water could flow all the way to Anderson and Cottonwood, Haynes said.

Also a concern was that the district canals aren’t lined with concrete, which would have meant that the water would have soaked into the ground underneath before it reached customers’ fields, she said.

So instead of wasting the water, the district sold it to be used for drinking water by local agencies such as the city of Redding, the Bella Vista Water District, the city of Shasta Lake and Shasta Community Services District.

Some of the water was also sold to use as irrigation to the Tehama Colusa Canal Authority, Haynes said.

More: ‘It’s just scary:’ Farmers and ranchers in Anderson and Cottonwood won’t get ag water

Haynes said many of the district’s customers don’t understand why they did not receive irrigation water this year. Some district board of directors meetings have drawn up to 160 people, and many of them angry that their crops and pastures are dried up, she said.

South county residents have formed the water users association to help spread information about the impacts on the area.

Neighbors helping neighbors

Roberts said he found out about Robison and his orchard through the association.

Robison grows mainly pecan and walnut trees on his 7 acres, but he also has apples, peaches and pear trees.

“But they’re not doing so good. It’s knocked them down bad. I mean, we didn’t get any fruit at all hardly, just little bitty stuff that ain’t worth eating,” he said.

Even though it was only August, the leaves on Robison’s trees had already begun to turn brown.

Many of the trees had dropped early their leaves, littering the ground with dry, brown leaves that crunched as Robison walked through his pecan orchard.

He estimates 15 of his walnut trees and four pecan trees had died this year due to lack of water.

He usually floods his orchard with A.C.I.D. water in the summer months.

But this year Robison has 55-gallon barrels set out near his walnut trees. After he and Roberts fill the barrels, the water slowly leaks out through a small hole at the bottom of each container, like a trickle irrigation system.

Roberts, who lives in the district, has also delivered water to others suffering through the dry summer.

“He’s a lifesaver. I’ll tell you, he’s one heck of a guy,” Robison said of his friend.

Roberts said through the water users association he heard about residents in the south county whose wells had gone dry because of the groundwater level dropping, so he initially delivered water to five people.

“I had the ability and the means, so just I felt like I needed to,” Roberts said.

Roberts fills his tank with excess water from Shasta Sustainable Resource Management, a co-generation plant formerly known as Wheelabrator.

By late August, he was down to supplying water to two people, he said. He no longer bothers to take the tank out of the bed of his pickup unless he needs to haul hay for his own cattle.

Wells go dry throughout Shasta County

The loss of A.C.I.D. irrigation water has a secondary effect beyond watering crops and pasture, said Charleen Beard, a supervising engineer with the Shasta County Public Works Department.

The flood irrigation and the district’s network of canals also recharges billions of gallons into the underground aquifer annually. She said the annual irrigation adds from 30,000 acre-feet to 40,000 acre-feet of water a year.

Haynes said the groundwater recharge from district irrigation is about 77,000 acre-feet annually.

An acre-foot of water is about 326,000 gallons of water, enough to supply water to one-half to one California household for a year.

Without the irrigation water recharging the aquifer, the groundwater table in the area served by A.C.I.D. has fallen, Beard said. However, she said the county won’t know how much until it does measurements in October.

Dozens of residents in several areas in the county are reporting residential wells going dry from Lakehead and Oak Run to Millville to Anderson and Cottonwood, she said.

The county has a program to provide financial assistance to residents who need to drill a new water well or sink an existing one deeper, she said. Countywide, there were 36 applications for assistance, 22 of those in the A.C.I.D. district boundaries, Beard said.

But residents who want new or deeper wells may be waiting for weeks, she said, because well drillers have a backlog of clients waiting for help.

Bill Robison of Anderson fills a barrel to water trees in his orchard. Robison usually irrigates his trees with water from the Anderson-Cottonwood Irrigation District, but the agency did not supply its customers this year.

The county also provides bottled water and delivers water by truck, she said. The well drilling assistance is provided based on financial income qualifications, Beard said.

But bottled and hauled water is free for those whose wells have gone dry, Beard said.

Cattle ranchers sell their herds

Davy said cattle ranchers will likely feel the impact of irrigation shut-offs beyond this summer.

Many ranchers were forced to sell their cows and calves last spring because the pasture they fed on died from lack of irrigation.

“So the cow base in northern Tehama and southern Shasta has significantly dropped. It’ll take years to recover from that,” he said.

Because the bureau did not fulfill its contract to provide the water owed to the district, there have been discussions about whether the bureau would provide reparations to ranchers and farmers, Davy said.

“But we have no idea how that will unfold or whether the water users would even get it at this point,” he said.

Like many other areas withing the Anderson-Cottonwood Irrigation District boundaries, a pasture that is typically green along Deschutes Road in Anderson has turned brown this year.

Wildlife also takes a hit from the drought

Humans aren’t the only ones affected by the ongoing drought, Shaw said.

The irrigation canals and the pastures around them acted as wetland areas that supported water birds, insects, frogs and other small animals.

“I can’t help but think the terrible impact to natural environment is the most serious aspect of no water. It’s inconceivable that the Mouth of Cottonwood Creek Wildlife Area has been allowed to go dry. Anderson Creek and all its habitat is dead,” Shaw said.

The wildlife area consists of 1,100 acres situated along Cottonwood Creek where it flows into the Sacramento River. The area is owned and managed by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Peter Tira, a spokesman for the department, said that before irrigation cutbacks, the area received water from the A.C.I.D.

Even though water from the district did not flow into the wildlife area this summer, he said the animals living there are drought-adapted and still have access to water in Cottonwood Creek and the Sacramento River.

Mike Berry, a former fish and wildlife environmental scientist, said throughout the area served by the district, the effects on wildlife have been significant.

“There has also been mass killing of field mice, voles, and other small rodents with a small home range that could not travel all the way to the river for water,” Berry said in an email.

“For over 100 years the water has been delivered to them. The death of tens of thousands of these animals seems minor except these all form the base of the food chain for foxes, bobcats, herons, egrets, owls, raptors, snakes, bats etc. This loss of food source occurred at the height of young rearing for most of these species,” Berry said.

Damon Arthur is the Record Searchlight’s resources and environment reporter. He is part of a team of journalists who investigate wrongdoing and find the unheard voices to tell the stories of the North State.

Contamination leaves New Mexico town with fewer than 20 days of clean water

The Hill

Contamination leaves New Mexico town with fewer than 20 days of clean water

Tyler Wornell – August 29, 2022

(NewsNation) — Contamination has left a northern New Mexico town with less than three weeks worth of clean water.

Wildfires that spread through the northern part of the state earlier this year tainted the water supply for the city of Las Vegas, forcing the town to distribute bottled water and cut consumption.

“We’re very fortunate in that the community has been very supportive through this crisis,” Mayor Louie Trujillo said Sunday on “NewsNation Prime.” “Everyone is doing a fantastic job in conserving the water that we do have.”

The city’s watershed was burned over in the Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak Fire, and now debris is running off into the Gallinas River. The current filtration system can’t handle the excess contaminants, leaving the city looking elsewhere for a clean water supply.

Residents have cut their usage by about 40% to 50% of typical levels, Trujillo said, and officials are investigating tapping into other nearby reservoirs, among other solutions.

“We’re relying now mostly on a temporary filtration system,” Trujillo said. He said there are fewer than 20 days worth of clean drinking water left.

Monsoon floods in Pakistan kill nearly 1,000 since mid-June

The cleanup effort could take up to 10 years, Trujillo has been told. It could mean having to completely replace the city’s water filtration system.

“We’re told that we’re in this for quite some time,” Trujillo said. “Now we will have to design and pay for a huge improvement or replacement of our filtration system.”

As climate change results in hotter temperatures, drier air and more frequent wildfires, the economic costs of natural disasters are rising. Flooding in Dallas last week resulted in an estimated $6 billion in damages.

Economist Rebecca Ryan said the insurance market is facing higher claims than its ever had. Additionally, the White House has estimated climate change will cost the U.S. $2 trillion each year by the end of the century.

“This is more than the value of Google,” Ryan said. “Sometimes those numbers don’t include things like loss of life … so I think that’s probably a pretty conservative number.”

Next year’s food crisis will be different from this year’s. Here’s how it could change — for the worse — in 2023.

Business Insider

Next year’s food crisis will be different from this year’s. Here’s how it could change — for the worse — in 2023.

Huileng Tan – August 28, 2022

The food crisis could worsen in 2023, with a supply squeeze overtaking logistical constraints as the key challenge.

The Ukraine war has disrupted sowing and other farm activities, which has affected yields.

Elsewhere, farmers are using less fertilizers due to high prices, which could depress harvests.

The pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and the ensuing supply-chain chaos have collectively driven up the prices of everything from wheat and sunflower oil to lemons and avocados.

While the supply-chain has been in a state of disruption since the COVID-19 pandemic started in 2020, the dislocations have been compounded by the war between Russia and Ukraine, both of which are major wheat exporters. This has contributed to food inflation that’s hitting the most vulnerable especially hard, according to Mercy Corps, a humanitarian organization that distributes aid to the needy globally.

“Skyrocketing food prices in 2022 have meant that the cash assistance we provide vulnerable families doesn’t go as far,” Tjada D’Oyen McKenna, the CEO of Mercy Corps, told Insider. “The main constraint to accessing food is decreased purchasing power coupled with increased food prices.”

Last month, Ukraine and Russia reached an agreement brokered by the United Nations and Turkey that allows Ukraine to restart grain exports out of the Black Sea. The move has offered some relief to global markets: The UN Food and Agriculture Organization Food Price Index — which tracks a basket of commonly trade commodities — fell for the fourth consecutive month in July after hitting a record high earlier in 2022.

But, the price declines are unlikely to trickle down to the consumers immediately.

“While many food prices have been decreasing in recent weeks, with some returning to prewar levels, markets will continue to be volatile and even if global prices come down, local markets may not see price adjustments for upwards of a year,” said McKenna.

And by then, we could see a new chapter in the food crisis that could push up prices again. Here’s how the food crisis could change — for the worse — in 2023.

This year, it’s a logistics problem. Next year, it could be a supply issue.

This year’s food crisis is mostly due to a logistics disruption tied to issues in shipping Ukrainian and Russian grains out of the countries. But next year, the food supply itself could be in peril — particularly in Ukraine.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, launched on February 24, threw a wrench into the annual farm cycle and disrupted the spring sowing season in April and May. Another sowing cycle takes place from September to November.

In July, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy took to Twitter to warn that the country’s farm harvest could be halved this year due to the war. “Ukrainian harvest this year is under the threat to be twice less,” Zelenskyy tweeted.

In an August 17 report, consultancy firm McKinsey forecast a sharp drop in harvest volumes: It estimates Ukraine’s production of grains, such as wheat, will drop by 35% to 45% in the next harvesting season.

“The ongoing conflict is interfering with farmers’ ability to prepare fields, plant seeds, and protect and fertilize crops, which will likely result in even lower volumes next harvest season,” McKinsey wrote in the report about global food security amid the Ukraine war and impact from climate change.

Per McKinsey forecasts, Ukraine’s harvest will be 30 to 44 million tons below normal levels this year. This is due to fewer plantings on an acreage basis, reduced farmer cashflow as much of their last harvest can’t be shipped, and the possibility of grain left untended or unharvested, the consultancy firm said.

“In the next planting season, due to the war’s disruption of Ukrainian planting and harvesting and combined with less-than-optimal inputs into Russian, Brazilian, and other growing countries’ crops, supply will likely tighten,” wrote McKinsey. The consultancy interviewed local growers and reviewed local data for its report.

Soaring fertilizer prices and climate change add to supply shock

Russia accounted for almost one-fifth of 2021 fertilizer exports, but the war in Ukraine has caused severe disruption to the supply of crop nutrient. Prices of urea, a common nitrogen fertilizer, have more than doubled from a year ago, according to Bloomberg’s Green Markets service. As a result, farmers around the world are using less fertilizer.

“Fertilizer shortages and higher prices for fertilizers are also expected to reduce yields in countries that depend heavily on fertilizer imports, such as Brazil. This will likely further decrease the volume of grain on the world market,” McKinsey wrote in its report.

Mercy Corps has observed the same trend. “Farmers we work with in Guatemala have been unable to invest in the next production cycle either because they cannot afford to buy fertilizers and other inputs derived from oil, such as plastics for padding and pipes for irrigation systems, or because they cannot find agricultural inputs in the market,” said McKenna.

Given that the shocks to farming and supply come at a time of extreme climate conditions, including severe droughts in Europe and floods in Australia, McKinsey expects the next food crisis to be worse than those in 2007 to 2008, and from 2010 to 2011.

“The conflict in Ukraine is shaking important pillars of the global food system in an already precarious context,” the consultancy said.

Dried-Out Farms From China to Iowa Will Pressure Food Prices

Bloomberg

Dried-Out Farms From China to Iowa Will Pressure Food Prices

Kim Chipman and Tarso Veloso – August 28, 2022

(Bloomberg) — Drought is shrinking crops from the US Farm Belt to China’s Yangtze River basin, ratcheting up fears of global hunger and weighing on the outlook for inflation.

The latest warning flare comes out of the American Midwest, where some corn is so parched stalks are missing ears of grain and soybean pods are fewer and smaller than usual. The dismal report from the Pro Farmer Crop Tour has helped lift a gauge of grain prices back to the highest level since June.

The world is desperate to replenish grain reserves diminished by trade disruptions in the Black Sea and unfavorable weather in some of the largest growing regions. But an industry tour of US fields over the past week stunned market participants — who had been more optimistic — with reports of extensive crop damage due to brutal heat and a lack of water.

Meanwhile, drought is taking a toll in Europe, China and India, while the outlook for exports out of Ukraine, a major corn and vegetable oil shipper, is hard to predict amid Russia’s invasion.

“Even before this week’s news from the crop tour, I have been concerned that we would not see much stock rebuilding until 2023,” said Joe Glauber, a former chief economist at the US Department of Agriculture who now serves as a senior fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington. The “opening of Ukraine ports is a welcome sign, but volumes remain far below normal levels.”

Read more: Smallest US Corn Crop Since 2019 Signals Higher Food Costs Ahead

Traders always watch weather forecasts closely but this year the vigilance has intensified — every bushel matters. While corn, wheat and soybean prices have cooled off from record or near-record highs seen earlier this year, futures remain highly volatile. Bad weather surprises from now until fall harvests are finished could send prices soaring again.

An index of grains and soybeans is trading almost 40% above the five-year average and the surge in crop prices has been a major contributor to global inflation. Already, food shortages helped lead to the downfall of Sri Lanka’s government earlier this year when the country ran out of hard currency needed to pay for imports.

The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization’s index tracking food prices fell last month from June, though remains 13% higher from the same period last year.

In the US, corn is the most dominant crop and a lackluster harvest will have ripple effects across the global food supply chain, adding pressure on South America to produce bumper crops early next year. That’s especially the case if China, which is suffering its worst drought since the early 1960s, is forced to import more grains to feed its massive livestock herds and shore up domestic inventories.

After the recent crop tour, officials now estimate that US production will be 4% lower than the formal government forecast. The pinch follows drought-driven shortfalls of US winter wheat as well as soybeans in Brazil, the top grower.

The global farming outlook going into 2023 has market watchers worried. For the first time in more than 20 years, the world is facing a rare third consecutive year of the La Nina phenomenon, when the equatorial Pacific cools, causing a reaction from the atmosphere above it. This could have dire consequences for drought across the US as well as dryness across the vital crop regions of Brazil and Argentina.

And while it’s hard to link the weather in any given year to long-term climate patterns, analysts warn that global warming will be a growing drag on agricultural output in years to come.

READ: Drought Threatens China’s Harvest When World Can Least Afford It

For now, Europe is in the throes of a drought that appears to be the worst in at least 500 years, according to a preliminary analysis by experts from the European Union’s Joint Research Center. Several EU crops are being hit particularly hard, with the yield forecasts for corn 15% below the five-year average, the latest data show.

“With energy prices remaining elevated at least through this coming winter, any major shortfall in corn supplies will have devastating impact on food and feed sectors,” said Abdolreza Abbassian, a food market analyst and a former economist with the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization.

In China, historic drought has hit regions along the Yangtze River and the Sichuan basin, hurting rice crops, the country’s top food grain.

India’s rice planting has shrunk 8% this season due to a lack of rainfall in some areas. The government is discussing curbs on exports of so-called broken rice, which is mainly used for animal feed or to produce ethanol in India. Top buyers include China, which uses it mostly to nourish its livestock, and some African countries, which import the grain for food.

India accounts for about 40% of global rice trade and is the world’s biggest shipper.

‘This Climate Thing’

In the US, Nebraska farmer Randy Huls, a participant in the crop tour, is staring down a smaller corn harvest this year due to lack of rain. In the longer term, he’s concerned how changing weather patterns might impact the farm he leaves behind.

“They are predicting the Corn Belt to move north,” said Huls, 71, who raises corn, soybeans, wheat and hogs in southern Nebraska. “We could be a lot drier yet and that’s this climate change thing they are talking about.

“I doubt in my lifetime I’ll see that, but I always wonder about my son and especially my grandsons,” he added. “What are they going to see?”

(Adds food-price index in eighth paragraph. A previous version of this story was corrected to fix a reference to the Black Sea in the third paragraph.)

Have we reached a tipping point on climate change?

New Hampshire Union Leader, Manchester

Have we reached a tipping point on climate change?

Shawne Wickham – August 28, 2022

Aug. 28—Ray Sprague doesn’t try to convince anyone that climate change is real. But the second-generation Plainfield farmer has seen the evidence during his own lifetime that, for him, ends any debate.

It’s not just that the fall frost now comes almost a month later than it used to.

“We’re not having winters,” he said.

Sure, New Hampshire still has cold weather, but the Upper Valley doesn’t get the “straight-through” snow it used to, Sprague said. “When we were kids, it was the end of November, early December until the stuff melted in March or April,” he said. “That doesn’t happen.”- ADVERTISEMENT -https://s.yimg.com/rq/darla/4-10-1/html/r-sf-flx.html

Sprague is not an old-timer; he’s 39.

For decades, scientists have been warning about the effects of climate change.

Lethal floods and wildfires. Drought and violent storms.

Crop failures and loss of habitat leading to food shortages and higher prices. Invasive insects and the new diseases they bring with them.

Rising tides that destroy coastal homes and contaminate drinking water. Warmer winters that threaten the ski industry on which New Hampshire’s tourist economy depends.

But those scholarly, data-driven reports about climate change largely have been ignored by a public busy with more pressing personal and pocketbook matters — and downright rejected by some who believe it’s a hoax.

Lately, however, that may be changing.

Time to change

Have we reached a tipping point?

“I hope we’re at the tipping point, because things need to change,” said Mary Stampone, New Hampshire’s state climatologist. “We still have time to do something about it.”

There’s some evidence. More of our neighbors are putting up solar panels, installing heat pumps and buying electric cars.

TV meteorologists now regularly report the connection between natural disasters and climate change.

American automakers have embraced the transition to electric vehicles — even the iconic Ford F150 and Chevy Silverado trucks soon will have electric versions. New Hampshire auto dealers say they can’t get enough vehicles to meet demand. And California regulators plan to ban gas-powered cars by 2035.

Meanwhile, a divided Congress recently passed the first significant climate-change legislation, which will provide consumer rebates and tax credits for energy-saving measures and spur investments in clean-energy infrastructure.

Public understanding and acceptance of climate change are more widespread today, and there’s a reason for that, said Stampone, an associate professor of geography at the University of New Hampshire.

“What climate scientists were predicting 20 years ago, we’re actually seeing happen now,” she said. “The storms are getting worse, we’re seeing more damage, and it’s hitting more people because we have ever more populated coastlines. More people are in the way of worse storms, so more people are being affected by it.

“That’s an unfortunate way people tend to change their minds,” Stampone said.

Effects already felt

Climate is not the same as weather — but they are linked, Stampone said.

“Climate is the system that drives day-to-day weather,” she explained. “Those larger-scale patterns manifest as short-term weather.”

In many places, the effects of climate change are already hitting people’s wallets, she said.

“There are places that you cannot get insurance,” she said. And in flood-prone areas, she said, “you pay through the roof.”

In seaside communities, Stampone said, “It’s starting to hit home.”

“Whole towns are dealing with this,” she said. “Property values are affected, taxes are affected, and it’s a spiral.”

Extreme weather is making the already difficult job of family farming even tougher, Plainfield’s Sprague said.

This year, he said, “We’re really dry. We’ve had less than 5 inches of rain since the beginning of June.”

And when it does rain, he said, it’s no longer the day-long soaking rains that crops need. Instead, he said, “If you’re going to pick up rain, it’s going to be fast and it’s going to be hard for it to soak in.”

Last year, it was just the opposite. “July a year ago, we had almost 20 inches of rain in a month.”

The volatility makes it difficult to plan, Sprague said. “Are we going to be super dry or are we going to have crazy, high-intensity storms, and lose crops to flooding in the middle of droughts?” he said.

At his family’s Edgewater Farm, they now plant some crops in “tunnels,” a sort of temporary greenhouse, to try to avoid the worst effects of severe weather.

The delayed frosts have extended the growing season for some crops, which is a plus. But certain pests and plant diseases are coming earlier than in the past, and some weeds are staying longer.

“It just feels like a gauntlet, getting through the seasons now,” Sprague said.

Awareness growing

Chris Mulleavey, president and chief executive officer at Hoyle, Tanner & Associates, Inc., said engineers don’t spend time debating climate change. “We’re practitioners, and we address whatever Mother Nature throws our way,” he said.

“Things are changing, which is what the climate does,” Mulleavey said. “So when we look into the future, certainly from an engineering perspective, our job is to protect the health and safety in the designs we make for the public.”

His engineering consulting firm has created a Resilience, Innovation, Sustainability, Economics and Renewables group — something that’s especially attractive to a new generation of engineers, Mulleavey said.

“I’m not sure if it’s a tipping point yet, but I think there’s certainly a larger awareness of it,” said Mulleavey, president of the state’s Board of Professional Engineers.

As an engineer, he said, “I find myself in the middle: Let’s work together to find solutions without this hysteria one way or another.”

Dan Weeks, co-owner and vice president of business development at ReVision Energy in Brentwood, said his company is “blessed to be very busy.”

ReVision, which installs solar panels, heat pumps, electric vehicle-chargers and batteries for storage, has grown from 130 employees five years ago to nearly 400 today, Weeks said. “And that’s been in response to growing demand,” he said.

Part of that is driven by the rising cost of electricity, he said. “The source of our power is still free, the sun,” Weeks said. “Which makes it easier and easier to compete with sources of energy that actually at this point in time cost more.”

But there’s another reason.

“We do hear increasingly from clients on both the residential and commercial side that they’re concerned about the state of our climate,” Weeks said. “They’ve got kids and grandkids, and it becomes clearer and clearer with every passing season.”

Weeks sees it himself. “Anybody who, like me, was fortunate enough to grow up here, the winters of today are nothing like the winters we knew growing up,” Weeks said. “You sort of feel it in your bones.”

Sam Evans-Brown, executive director of Clean Energy New Hampshire, said past energy transitions — wood to coal, then coal to oil — have taken at least 50 years. And that’s a good way to consider the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy, he said.

“It’s a marathon, not a sprint, and there are going to be so many hurdles from here to a zero-carbon economy,” he said.

Years ago, people predicted that it would take a “horrendous disaster” to wake people up to the threat of climate change, Evans-Brown said. “What I’ve witnessed over the past 10 years is a litany of horrendous climate disasters, but folks have not woken up,” he said. “At least they haven’t woken up at the speed and scale we assumed they would.

“We are immensely adaptable creatures, and we are adapting to climate reality,” he said.

Workforce and supply chain challenges remain a barrier to full implementation, Evans-Brown said. But, he said, “The goal is once you’ve seen solar go up on the roof of your library, and watched them put in heat pumps to heat and cool it, more people will become educated about the quality of these technologies and start to adopt them in their own lives.”

Most consumers still make decisions based on their pocketbooks, he said. “So we have to make it so this stuff is affordable if we want to transform society,” he said.

When that happens, he said, “They’ll sell themselves on the economics; they’ll sell themselves on the public health benefits.”

A range of reactions

Lawrence Hamilton, a professor of sociology and a senior fellow at the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire, has been asking the same question in surveys since 2010: Whether people believe that climate change is happening now, and whether it’s caused mainly by human activities or by natural forces. He also asks whether people think winters have gotten warmer compared to 30 or 40 years ago.

Hamilton has been watching for a tipping point, a seismic shift in public attitudes. He expected that might happen after major hurricanes, and then again after Pope Francis’s 2015 encyclical on the environment, which called climate change “one of the principal challenges facing humanity in our day.” Instead, he said, “The behavior we have seen is very gradual recognition.”

It’s “really slow compared with the actual pace of climate change,” he said.

Some of Hamilton’s research focuses on North Country residents, where 65% of those surveyed agree that “climate change is happening now, caused mainly by human activities.” Six in 10 respondents say winters in Northern New England are warmer than winters 30 or 40 years ago.

That’s not surprising; folks in northern regions have seen the changes firsthand, Hamilton said.

“Ski season ends earlier, ice-out is earlier,” he said. “A few degrees can be crossing that 32-degree mark, and can be the difference between liquid and frozen water. And that’s really visible.”

His surveys find that political identity influences both perceptions of winter weather and beliefs about climate change.

Climatologist Stampone said her students give her hope. “This is going to affect their lives,” she said. “We’re talking about their life span. So their passion for it and interest in it makes me very, very hopeful.”

“I just hope it’s not too late,” she said.

Her UNH colleague Hamilton, too, finds hope in the younger generation. But it’s not enough to sit back and wait for them to tackle the problem, he said.

“There’s something that I wish people understood better, which is that all these things cost money, but the cost of doing nothing will just be vastly higher,” he said.

“The future is now,” he said. “The future has come, and we don’t have a huge amount of time to prevent or slow down the unfortunate things that are going to happen.

“Every day we don’t act makes it harder to avoid bad consequences that are in some cases even disastrous.”

Despite the challenges, Plainfield farmer Sprague said he has no plans to quit. Farmers are adaptable, he said.

“They’re a pretty savvy group, and they’ll figure things out,” he said. “We’re in it for the long haul up here.”

It’s not worth trying to convince people who don’t accept that climate change is real, he said.

“I think there’s people, when the world’s on fire, they’ll find a reason not to believe in it,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s worth having that battle.”

Forget Covid (and Monkeypox) the Las Vegas Strip Has a Bigger Problem

The Street

Forget Covid (and Monkeypox) the Las Vegas Strip Has a Bigger Problem

Daniel Kline – August 25, 2022

Explosive growth has been a huge positive for the Las Vegas Strip but there are some dark clouds ahead.

Growth comes with a cost, especially when that growth was not in the original plans.

Think of it like you would an old town, versus a new one. In high-growth parts of the country, builders have created something called a “master-planned community,” that’s a town or city planned out fully. This means that before builders put up a single house or erect the first shopping center, they build (or at least plan) the infrastructure needed for the community when it’s fully built.

You can’t easily go back and make roads wider or increase the capacity of the sewage treatment plant. It’s much more cost-effective to plan for what might be decades out than to sort of build as you go (which is pretty much how every major American city was built and explains why those cities have expensive problems ranging from housing to transportation, and well water).

Las Vegas, as you likely know, was essentially built in a desert and it’s highly unlikely that its founding fathers foresaw the megaresorts of today. That has led to a city that has some significant infrastructure problems that need to be addressed as Sin City continues to exponentially grow.

A Period of Triumph for Post-Pandemic Las Vegas

While covid hasn’t actually gone anywhere, Las Vegas has managed to put the impact of the pandemic (and a hopefully brief monkeypox scare) behind it. Caesars Entertainment, MGM Resorts International, and Wynn Resorts have all reported Las Vegas Strip results nearing or passing 2019 numbers even while the convention and international traveler business has not yet fully recovered.

It’s a hopeful time for Las Vegas which has led to a construction boom with multiple major casino projects, at least one, probably two NBA-ready arenas being built, and even talk of expanding the boundaries of the Las Vegas Strip itself.

That’s all encouraging news for operators including Caesars, MGM, and Wynn, but Alan Feldman, a distinguished fellow at UNLVs International Gaming Institute, believes there’s one major problem which could put the brakes on Las Vegas growth.

Las Vegas Needs More Water

Feldman spoke at the NAIOP Southern Nevada (a commercial real estate group) breakfast meeting at the Orleans on Aug. 18. He warned that not having enough water could create major problems for Las Vegas — and certainly any new construction — going forward.

“This is a huge political discussion, but we’re going to need more water,” Feldman said during his presentation at the Orleans, the Las Vegas Sun reported. “I think, at some point, the federal government is going to have to step in and override some of the debate that’s been happening at the state and regional levels.”

Nevada draws water from the Colorado River which has essentially been providing more water than it actually has so the Department of Interior will be cutting Nevada’s allotment by 8%. The river flows into Lake Mead, a key water source for Las Vegas, which has seen its water levels drop.

Feldman believes there is a solution but does not think the city or even the state can handle the problem on their own.

“At some point in America’s future, we’re going to have to deal with desalination, I don’t see any way around that. That’s not something we’d want to see from the states. We’d want the federal government to step in on that,” he said.

Resorts only use about 5% of the region’s water allotment.

The World’s Rivers, Canals and Reservoirs Are Turning to Dust

The World’s Rivers, Canals and Reservoirs Are Turning to Dust

Brian K Sullivan – August 25, 2022

(Bloomberg) — Rivers across the globe are disappearing.

From the US to Italy to China, waters have receded, leaving nothing but barren banks of silt and oozing, muddied sand. Canals are empty. Reservoirs have turned to dust.

The world is fully in the grip of accelerating climate change, and it has a profound economic impact. Losing waterways means a serious risk to shipping routes, agriculture, energy supplies — even drinking water.

Rivers that have been critical to commerce for centuries are now shriveled, threatening the global movement of chemicals, fuel, food and other commodities.

The Rhine — a pillar of the German, Dutch and Swiss economies — has been virtually impassable at times in recent weeks. The Danube, which winds its way 1,800 miles (roughly 2,900 kilometers) through central Europe to the Black Sea, is gummed up too. Trade on Europe’s rivers and canals contribute about $80 billion to the region’s economy just as a mode of transport.

In China, an extreme summer has taken a toll on Asia’s longest river, the Yangtze. Diminished water levels have hobbled electricity generation at many key hydropower plants. Mega cities including Shanghai are turning off lights to curb power use, and Tesla Inc. has warned of disruptions in the supply chain for its local plant. Toyota Motor Corp. and Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., the world’s top maker of batteries for electric vehicles, have shuttered factories.

Drought plaguing the Colorado River — a source of water for 40 million people between Denver and Los Angeles — has gotten so extreme that a second round of drastic water cuts are hitting Arizona, Nevada, and Mexico. The river and its tributaries irrigate about 4.5 million acres of land, generating about $1.4 trillion a year in agricultural and economic benefits.

The retreating waters of the US Southwest are exposing dead bodies and dinosaur footprints that had been submerged for perhaps millions of years.

Why Are Rivers Shrinking?

The reasons global waterways have dried to a trickle are complex. There’s the impact of the weather-roiling La Nina, prolonged drought in many regions and also simple bad luck. But the biggest driver underpinning the shift is climate change.

“It’s a combination of many factors leading to this particularly extreme event,” said Daniel Swain, a climatologist at the University of California Los Angeles. “But there is clearly a role for climate change, which made multiple underlying, record-breaking, and in some cases, record-shattering heat waves dramatically more likely.”

The Earth’s rising temperatures have meant mountain ranges are getting less snow, leaving less water to flow down to streams in summer during the melt, said Isla Simpson, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.

Mountain snow is nature’s reservoir. When snowfalls dwindle, the source of many rivers — from the US to China to Europe to the Middle East— vanishes, said Swain of UCLA.

“The loss of snow and mountain glaciers in the Alps has been extraordinary this summer as well, shocking even seasoned climatologists and glaciologists,” Swain said.

Then there is La Nina, a cooling of the equatorial Pacific Ocean that upsets global weather patterns, bringing heavy rains to some areas and drought to others. The world is in its second straight La Nina, and the odds are rising 2023 will see another one.

“The ongoing and strong La Nina connects the droughts and low river flows in North America, Europe, Middle East and the southern hemisphere,” said Richard Seager, a research professor at Columbia University’s Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory.

The world’s hotter temperatures also mean that waterways are literally evaporating away.

Or as Seager puts it, the warming atmosphere “is sucking more moisture from the land surface.”

A deeper water shortage on Lake Mead is hardly the worst thing we’re facing

AZ Central – The Arizona Republic

A deeper water shortage on Lake Mead is hardly the worst thing we’re facing

Joanna Allhands, Arizona Republic – August 25, 2022

The federal Bureau of Reclamation has declared a deeper level of water shortage for Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir.

But that was not the most consequential thing Reclamation announced – or, more accurately, skirted – on Aug. 16.

It’s also not the gargantuan cut that some media reports make it out to be.

If anything, we got off easy.

What did Reclamation declare?

A Tier 2a shortage is the deepest mandatory cut we have made to date, one that entails 592,000 acre-feet – 21% – of Arizona’s apportionment from Lake Mead. Nevada must cut 25,000 acre-feet (8%) and Mexico 104,000 acre-feet (7%).

These are significant amounts of water.

But considering that Arizona has already left 800,000 acre-feet of water in the lake this year – a combination of mandated cuts and voluntary, compensated conservation efforts – it’s not exactly a “drastic” cut, as one headline suggested.

Nor is it something new or unexpected. We’ve been planning for this for years.

Where were we before?

A sign marks Lake Mead's 2002 water level -- with the current shoreline far in the background -- on July 9, 2022, near Boulder City, Nev. — A sign marks Lake Mead’s 2002 water level — with the current shoreline far in the background — on July 9, 2022, near Boulder City, Nev.

Reclamation declared the first water shortage on Lake Mead last August – a Tier 1 shortage – which was created as part of a 2007 agreement that aimed to cut use when the lake hit certain low levels.

Arizona agreed to take the brunt of the cuts, and in a Tier 1 shortage, Arizona must trim 512,000 acre-feet of use. So, a Tier 2a ratchets that up for us by 80,000 acre-feet.

What’s in Lake Mead? 5 bodies, sunken boats and a ghost town – so far

These amounts of water stem from the 2019 Drought Contingency Plan, which ratcheted up cuts when it became clear the 2007 amounts weren’t enough. California agreed to take cuts for the first time as part of that plan, but not until the lake reaches deeper levels of shortage (a Tier 2b shortage, to be exact, but more on that in a second).

Arizona also passed an internal Drought Contingency Plan in 2019 to help lessen the pain of cuts within the state. Pinal farmers – those with the lowest priority rights – were given a bit of water in 2022, plus some funding to help drill wells and transport that water to fields. That hasn’t produced the amount or quality of water that farmers had hoped, but that’s another blog for another day.

How will a Tier 2a shortage play out?

When the Tier 2a shortage goes live in 2023, Pinal farmers will receive no water from the Central Arizona Project, which delivers water to users from Phoenix to Tucson. They must now fully rely on groundwater to survive.

Then again, Pinal farmers were already in line to lose all of their CAP water in 2023, even if we remained in a Tier 1 shortage.

A Tier 2a shortage also will wipe out the next higher priority pool of CAP water – the so-called Non-Indian Agricultural pool. Most of that water goes to central Arizona cities and tribes.

Then again, they won’t necessarily be up a (suddenly dry) creek because the 2019 in-state plan mitigates 75% of their losses. In the grand scheme of things, it could be a lot worse.

Why did we get off easy?

This chart shows the key water levels in Lake Mead, which is used to determine water deliveries for Arizona, Nevada and California.

Shortage declarations are tied to specific lake levels. But Reclamation decided to fudge that with a concept they call “operational neutrality.”

It stems from an emergency action this spring to help prop up Lake Powell. Reclamation kept 480,000 acre-feet in Lake Powell that should have flowed downstream to Lake Mead, then promised to pretend that water was in Lake Mead when determining shortage levels.

The lake has physically reached the threshold to be in a deeper – and more consequential – Tier 2b shortage, one that would ratchet up Arizona’s cuts to 640,000 acre-feet and would require California to cut for the first time, to the tune of 200,000 acre-feet initially.

That’s important because everyone that relies on Lake Mead would be making mandatory cuts, leaving larger, guaranteed amounts of water in the lake as it is rapidly tanking.

Relying on voluntary savings doesn’t always pan out, as we found this year with the 500-plus plan, a separate emergency action (notice that there are a lot of these?) to prop up Lake Mead. The goal was to pay people to leave 500,000 acre-feet in the lake each year, but users only volunteered a little more than half of that in 2022 – mostly from Arizona.

The benefits of those savings evaporated almost immediately once they hit the lake. Essentially, we spent millions on actions that did almost nothing for lake levels.

So, if anything, a Tier 2a shortage is an underreaction, and at a crucial moment when we need to be doing so much more.

Why is this the least of our worries?

We could make every cut we’ve already laid out, all the way down to a Tier 3 shortage, the deepest for which we’ve planned.

And Lake Mead would still be on a freefall to “dead pool” – the point where lake levels fall so low that water can no longer flow downstream through Hoover Dam to users in Arizona, California and Mexico.

Reclamation’s August 24-month study, which was released at the same time as the Tier 2a shortage declaration, projects the lake will fall below 1,000 feet of elevation in 2024 – more than 20 feet below the minimum protection level that Reclamation had hoped to maintain.

That’s why Reclamation said in June that the full Colorado River basin – all seven states that rely on the river – needed to cut an additional 2 million to 4 million acre-feet of water use in 2023.

Their modeling shows we need to cut at least 2.5 million acre-feet simply to maintain that minimum protection level on Lake Mead (and a similarly low protection level on Lake Powell, which also is tanking quickly).

And that’s on top of every water-saving action to which we’ve previously agreed.

So, what’s the takeaway?

We could carry out the cuts in a Tier 2a shortage, or a Tier 2b, or the deepest Tier 3, and it still wouldn’t be enough to keep Lake Mead on life support. We must cut way deeper than that in 2023 – and sustain those deep levels until at least 2026 – if we have any chance of saving it and Lake Powell.

And no, there is no plan yet to do so.

The states couldn’t agree by Reclamation’s mid-August deadline, and while Reclamation promised on Aug. 16 to keep working with states on as many voluntary measures as possible, it did not offer any firm deadlines, water amounts or what exactly it might mandate if states still can’t do enough to fill the giant chasm between supply and demand.

That’s the whole reason we’re in this mess. Despite all that we’ve done so far to trim use, we are still consuming far more water than the Colorado River produces.

A Tier 2a shortage, though painful and consequential, is not enough to solve this problem. Yet it’s unclear how or when we’re going to do enough to keep the lakes from dying.

That’s the problem.