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"content": "\u003cp>https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/qbl-int-usw2/QUEST+Nebraska/Radio/Stream/MarkSvoboda_web.mp3\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_70443\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 540px\">\u003cimg class=\"wp-image-70443 size-large\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2014/04/LiedBridge_20120807_Forsberg_491-540x360.jpg\" alt=\"The Platte River in Nebraska in 2012, one of the hottest and driest years on record. (Photo credit Michael Forsberg, Platte Basin Timelapse)\" width=\"540\" height=\"360\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Platte River in Nebraska in 2012, one of the hottest and driest years on record. (Photo credit Michael Forsberg, Platte Basin Timelapse)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A new tool called the Drought Risk Atlas promises to help decision-makers and the public better understand and prepare for future drought. 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That was the motivation in building this tool, to help decision makers, citizens, and the media. \u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">We’re going to generate more than 500,000 maps of drought for each week of every year back to the early 1900s.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong class=\"wp-image-70354 size-full\">For a citizen, what can they expect to see and draw from this?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You can search and hopefully find your station in the town you live in. If that doesn't exist or doesn't have a long history, there will be a station close to you. We've clumped these stations into clusters that have similar drought behavior. You can find your location, then look at drought and how it's behaved over time in your region with a variety of maps, time series, and all sorts of neat visualization tools on the interface. And that's all free and available to the public.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_70354\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 224px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2014/04/droughtmonitor.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"wp-image-70354 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2014/04/droughtmonitor.jpg\" alt=\"droughtmonitor\" width=\"224\" height=\"136\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The U.S. Drought Monitor releases weekly reports on drought conditions across the country. You can find more at droughtmonitor.unl.edu\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong class=\"wp-image-70354 size-full\">Why is this needed or useful?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s to give people a better sense of how they might need to adapt, preparing to get a different mindset about droughts, that they’re a normal part of our climate. We’ve seen [droughts] in the past and we’ll see them in the future with a changing climate. Are these droughts changing in their frequency? Are we seeing them become more intense but more short-lived, are they long-lived but of just a moderate intensity? Knowing how that impacts you and your operation, whether you’re a farmer or rancher or whoever it might be, may help us look to what we should expect from droughts in the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong class=\"wp-image-70340 size-thumbnail\">Do you think our ability to predict and prepare for drought is improving or has improved during the last few decades?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">This can help folks better hedge their bets... What sort of operational decisions they'll make could be driven by knowing something a few months to half a year in advance.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>I think it's improved, but it has an awful long way to go. Especially in this part of the country, we're sort of landlocked. When you hear about El Niño and La Niña, things that are in the news quite often, they have a much stronger relationship to driving weather along the coastal areas of the country, or the Gulf Coast region, for example. In Nebraska it's not quite as strong, but there are indicators out there that if the ocean's in a certain state, whether abnormally warm or cold, you might expect to have a better chance of seeing drought. This can help folks better hedge their bets. Maybe what sort of operational decisions they'll make, depending on their business, could be driven by knowing something a few months to half a year in advance. But the forecast skill depends on a strong oceanic state, and the problem we've had the last two winters -- it's been neutral, not abnormally warm or cool in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/teleconnections/enso/enso-tech.php\">ENSO \u003c/a>(El Niño-Southern Oscillation) region of the equatorial Pacific. So the forecast hasn't been very skillful. So, in those times you want to always be prepared for drought as if it will occur any year, not just when there's a forecast to do so.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_70437\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 179px\">\u003cimg class=\"wp-image-70437 size-medium\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2014/04/022806_svoboda037a-179x253.jpg\" alt=\"022806_svoboda037a\" width=\"179\" height=\"253\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mark Svoboda has been with the National Drought Mitigation Center since it formed in 1995. As the NDMC’s Monitoring Program Area Leader, his duties include overseeing the center’s operational drought monitoring activities and providing expertise on climate and water management issues. (Courtesy photo)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong class=\"wp-image-70437 size-medium\">Will the Drought Risk Atlas help predict drought and prepare for drought in the future, knowing the historical record?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Where I think this tool will be useful is if you see a forecast for drought, or if you’re in a certain stage of drought, you can go back in the Atlas and look at other periods of drought that behaved the same way and maybe you’ll have a better anticipation of what impacts might be coming if this drought continues, if it gets more intense. If it covers a larger area, will this affect my water supply? Everyone will have a different question they want answered, but our goal was to provide some of the visualization tools that can answer several questions, and most questions we've anticipated. And if it doesn't, we've encouraged people to contact us and let us know what they'd like to see in the Atlas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Some irrigators in Nebraska have talked about the “new normal” -- meaning they’re getting used to operating with less water year after year. Do you think the same concept applies to drought, in the sense that we’re in these longer phases of drought or maybe we’re entering a longer dry period?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"wp-image-70437 size-medium\">That’s the kicker question. The million-dollar question is, is this an interlude? We may go back into wetter times. The models that the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) released in \u003ca href=\"http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg2/\">its report\u003c/a> still show the continuing trend of a hotter atmosphere, which exacerbates drought, but also a moister atmosphere. \u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">It’s not as easy as it was to look at the past and say, the climate of the past is going to equal the climate of the future. The bars have changed.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp> So it depends on the timing of these rains, how many days in between these rains. But in general, it’s not as easy as it was to look at the past and say the climate of the past is going to equal the climate of the future. The bars have changed. And if that shift continues long enough -- say, a couple decades -- that would mean more of a climate shift to the climate regime of a region. We would call that more arid, or aridity, which is a permanent feature of the climate, versus drought, which is a temporary departure from the normal of a region’s climate. So, droughts are going to then be the departure from that new, drier regime.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong class=\"wp-image-70437 size-medium\">This interview has been condensed and edited. \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/qbl-int-usw2/QUEST+Nebraska/Radio/Stream/MarkSvoboda_web.mp3\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_70443\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 540px\">\u003cimg class=\"wp-image-70443 size-large\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2014/04/LiedBridge_20120807_Forsberg_491-540x360.jpg\" alt=\"The Platte River in Nebraska in 2012, one of the hottest and driest years on record. (Photo credit Michael Forsberg, Platte Basin Timelapse)\" width=\"540\" height=\"360\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Platte River in Nebraska in 2012, one of the hottest and driest years on record. (Photo credit Michael Forsberg, Platte Basin Timelapse)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A new tool called the Drought Risk Atlas promises to help decision-makers and the public better understand and prepare for future drought. The Atlas was developed and launched by the \u003ca href=\"http://drought.unl.edu/\">National Drought Mitigation Center \u003c/a>at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, which offers a variety of tools and data related to drought, including reports on precipitation, water supply, vegetation, climate, and drought indices. A climatologist with the Center, Mark Svoboda, explained how their latest innovation will help inform our understanding of drought.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_70340\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"wp-image-70340 size-large\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2014/04/droughtriskatlas-e1399334774136-640x360.jpg\" alt=\"droughtriskatlas\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Drought Risk Atlas\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Can you explain the Drought Risk Atlas and what it’s going to be used for?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the questions we always get from the newspapers and radio and TV and people in general is, how does this drought compare to the Dust Bowl years or the ’70s or '88? Everyone seems to have a drought they remember. The\u003ca href=\"http://droughtatlas.unl.edu/\"> Drought Risk Atlas\u003c/a> was built with the idea that for the best climate stations out there that have really nice, long-term histories and not a lot of missing data, we can go back and look at the drought history. We’ve built a nice visual interface for that. People that want to download the raw data can get it, but it’s also a nice way to come in and look at the spatial behavior of drought, the intensity of drought. How large of an area, how long did it last, how often does that sort of drought come around? That was the motivation in building this tool, to help decision makers, citizens, and the media. \u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">We’re going to generate more than 500,000 maps of drought for each week of every year back to the early 1900s.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong class=\"wp-image-70354 size-full\">For a citizen, what can they expect to see and draw from this?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You can search and hopefully find your station in the town you live in. If that doesn't exist or doesn't have a long history, there will be a station close to you. We've clumped these stations into clusters that have similar drought behavior. You can find your location, then look at drought and how it's behaved over time in your region with a variety of maps, time series, and all sorts of neat visualization tools on the interface. And that's all free and available to the public.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_70354\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 224px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2014/04/droughtmonitor.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"wp-image-70354 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2014/04/droughtmonitor.jpg\" alt=\"droughtmonitor\" width=\"224\" height=\"136\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The U.S. Drought Monitor releases weekly reports on drought conditions across the country. You can find more at droughtmonitor.unl.edu\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong class=\"wp-image-70354 size-full\">Why is this needed or useful?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s to give people a better sense of how they might need to adapt, preparing to get a different mindset about droughts, that they’re a normal part of our climate. We’ve seen [droughts] in the past and we’ll see them in the future with a changing climate. Are these droughts changing in their frequency? Are we seeing them become more intense but more short-lived, are they long-lived but of just a moderate intensity? Knowing how that impacts you and your operation, whether you’re a farmer or rancher or whoever it might be, may help us look to what we should expect from droughts in the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong class=\"wp-image-70340 size-thumbnail\">Do you think our ability to predict and prepare for drought is improving or has improved during the last few decades?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">This can help folks better hedge their bets... What sort of operational decisions they'll make could be driven by knowing something a few months to half a year in advance.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>I think it's improved, but it has an awful long way to go. Especially in this part of the country, we're sort of landlocked. When you hear about El Niño and La Niña, things that are in the news quite often, they have a much stronger relationship to driving weather along the coastal areas of the country, or the Gulf Coast region, for example. In Nebraska it's not quite as strong, but there are indicators out there that if the ocean's in a certain state, whether abnormally warm or cold, you might expect to have a better chance of seeing drought. This can help folks better hedge their bets. Maybe what sort of operational decisions they'll make, depending on their business, could be driven by knowing something a few months to half a year in advance. But the forecast skill depends on a strong oceanic state, and the problem we've had the last two winters -- it's been neutral, not abnormally warm or cool in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/teleconnections/enso/enso-tech.php\">ENSO \u003c/a>(El Niño-Southern Oscillation) region of the equatorial Pacific. So the forecast hasn't been very skillful. So, in those times you want to always be prepared for drought as if it will occur any year, not just when there's a forecast to do so.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_70437\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 179px\">\u003cimg class=\"wp-image-70437 size-medium\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2014/04/022806_svoboda037a-179x253.jpg\" alt=\"022806_svoboda037a\" width=\"179\" height=\"253\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mark Svoboda has been with the National Drought Mitigation Center since it formed in 1995. As the NDMC’s Monitoring Program Area Leader, his duties include overseeing the center’s operational drought monitoring activities and providing expertise on climate and water management issues. (Courtesy photo)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong class=\"wp-image-70437 size-medium\">Will the Drought Risk Atlas help predict drought and prepare for drought in the future, knowing the historical record?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Where I think this tool will be useful is if you see a forecast for drought, or if you’re in a certain stage of drought, you can go back in the Atlas and look at other periods of drought that behaved the same way and maybe you’ll have a better anticipation of what impacts might be coming if this drought continues, if it gets more intense. If it covers a larger area, will this affect my water supply? Everyone will have a different question they want answered, but our goal was to provide some of the visualization tools that can answer several questions, and most questions we've anticipated. And if it doesn't, we've encouraged people to contact us and let us know what they'd like to see in the Atlas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Some irrigators in Nebraska have talked about the “new normal” -- meaning they’re getting used to operating with less water year after year. Do you think the same concept applies to drought, in the sense that we’re in these longer phases of drought or maybe we’re entering a longer dry period?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"wp-image-70437 size-medium\">That’s the kicker question. The million-dollar question is, is this an interlude? We may go back into wetter times. The models that the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) released in \u003ca href=\"http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg2/\">its report\u003c/a> still show the continuing trend of a hotter atmosphere, which exacerbates drought, but also a moister atmosphere. \u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">It’s not as easy as it was to look at the past and say, the climate of the past is going to equal the climate of the future. The bars have changed.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp> So it depends on the timing of these rains, how many days in between these rains. But in general, it’s not as easy as it was to look at the past and say the climate of the past is going to equal the climate of the future. The bars have changed. And if that shift continues long enough -- say, a couple decades -- that would mean more of a climate shift to the climate regime of a region. We would call that more arid, or aridity, which is a permanent feature of the climate, versus drought, which is a temporary departure from the normal of a region’s climate. So, droughts are going to then be the departure from that new, drier regime.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "California Drought: Hopes Rising for El Niño",
"headTitle": "California Drought: Hopes Rising for El Niño | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Federal climatologists say it’s looking more likely that El Niño conditions will develop in the Pacific Ocean by this summer. It’s a combination of ocean conditions long associated with wet, stormy winters, though the connection can be tenuous — especially in Northern California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_17367\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/05/1997_El_Nino_crop.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-17367\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-17367\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/05/1997_El_Nino_crop.jpg\" alt=\"Heat map shows formation of the 1997-98 El Nino, which produced huge amounts of rain and snow in California. (NASA JPL)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Heat map shows formation of the 1997-98 El Nino, which produced huge amounts of rain and snow in California. (NASA JPL)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca title=\"NOAA - CPC - ENSO\" href=\"http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.pdf\">latest report\u003c/a> from the NOAA \u003ca title=\"NOAA - CPC\" href=\"http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/\">Climate Prediction Center\u003c/a> puts the chance of a summer El Niño at better than 65 percent, based on observations that, “collectively indicate a continued evolution toward El Niño.” That’s when, in simplest terms, the usual trade winds ease, plowing less surface water westward, reducing upwelling of colder water below and allowing the surface water to warm up more than usual.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_17366\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/05/ENSO_NOAA_140430.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-17366\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-17366\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/05/ENSO_NOAA_140430.jpg\" alt=\"Surface temperatures trending at least 0.5 degrees above normal point to a likely summer El Nino. (NOAA)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Surface temperatures trending at least 0.5 degrees above normal point to a likely summer El Nino. (NOAA)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Scientists caution — and history affirms — that having an El Niño is by no means a clear indicator of heavy precipitation, though some of California’s biggest soakings have coincided with that phase of the “oscillation,” as it’s known by meteorologists. In the El Niño winter of 1997-98, parts of California saw as much as double their normal amounts of precipitation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”7dc914854f606784e019dcd64b78bae8″]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The conventional pattern is for El Niño conditions to create wetter winters in the Southwest, drier in the Pacific Northwest, with the flip side of the oscillation, known as La Niña, favoring the opposite. But central and Northern California lie along a fuzzy dividing line, where often it can go either way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The stronger the El Niño (the warmer the water), the more likely it is to produce stormy conditions and a wet winter throughout California. But, “It’s no sure thing,” says Mike Halpert, acting director of the Maryland-based CPC.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For about the past ten years, the atmosphere and the whole climate system in the Pacific has favored more of the cold phase — the La Niña phase,” Halpert cautions. “It’s possibly one of the reasons why, back in 2012, we were at a 75 percent chance of El Nino, and it didn’t develop.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Halpert says it’s definitely premature to mark “\u003ca title=\"Q-Sci - post\" href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2014/04/24/california-is-now-100-percent-in-drought/\">end of drought\u003c/a>” on your fall calendar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One of the things I like to tell folks is that with a probabilistic forecast, you’re never really right or wrong.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Federal climatologists say it’s looking more likely that El Niño conditions will develop in the Pacific Ocean by this summer. It’s a combination of ocean conditions long associated with wet, stormy winters, though the connection can be tenuous — especially in Northern California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_17367\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/05/1997_El_Nino_crop.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-17367\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-17367\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/05/1997_El_Nino_crop.jpg\" alt=\"Heat map shows formation of the 1997-98 El Nino, which produced huge amounts of rain and snow in California. (NASA JPL)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Heat map shows formation of the 1997-98 El Nino, which produced huge amounts of rain and snow in California. (NASA JPL)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca title=\"NOAA - CPC - ENSO\" href=\"http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.pdf\">latest report\u003c/a> from the NOAA \u003ca title=\"NOAA - CPC\" href=\"http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/\">Climate Prediction Center\u003c/a> puts the chance of a summer El Niño at better than 65 percent, based on observations that, “collectively indicate a continued evolution toward El Niño.” That’s when, in simplest terms, the usual trade winds ease, plowing less surface water westward, reducing upwelling of colder water below and allowing the surface water to warm up more than usual.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_17366\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/05/ENSO_NOAA_140430.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-17366\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-17366\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/05/ENSO_NOAA_140430.jpg\" alt=\"Surface temperatures trending at least 0.5 degrees above normal point to a likely summer El Nino. (NOAA)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Surface temperatures trending at least 0.5 degrees above normal point to a likely summer El Nino. (NOAA)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Scientists caution — and history affirms — that having an El Niño is by no means a clear indicator of heavy precipitation, though some of California’s biggest soakings have coincided with that phase of the “oscillation,” as it’s known by meteorologists. In the El Niño winter of 1997-98, parts of California saw as much as double their normal amounts of precipitation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The conventional pattern is for El Niño conditions to create wetter winters in the Southwest, drier in the Pacific Northwest, with the flip side of the oscillation, known as La Niña, favoring the opposite. But central and Northern California lie along a fuzzy dividing line, where often it can go either way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The stronger the El Niño (the warmer the water), the more likely it is to produce stormy conditions and a wet winter throughout California. But, “It’s no sure thing,” says Mike Halpert, acting director of the Maryland-based CPC.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For about the past ten years, the atmosphere and the whole climate system in the Pacific has favored more of the cold phase — the La Niña phase,” Halpert cautions. “It’s possibly one of the reasons why, back in 2012, we were at a 75 percent chance of El Nino, and it didn’t develop.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Halpert says it’s definitely premature to mark “\u003ca title=\"Q-Sci - post\" href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2014/04/24/california-is-now-100-percent-in-drought/\">end of drought\u003c/a>” on your fall calendar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One of the things I like to tell folks is that with a probabilistic forecast, you’re never really right or wrong.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Auburn Dam: The Water Project That Won't Die",
"headTitle": "Auburn Dam: The Water Project That Won’t Die | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>In California, it’s as dependable as the rainy season. Okay, more so. Whenever there’s too much water or not enough, \u003ca title=\"SacBee - post\" href=\"http://www.sacbee.com/2014/03/14/6235822/why-dont-we-build-the-auburn-dam.html\">people start talking\u003c/a> about \u003ca title=\"Wiki - Auburn Dam\" href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auburn_Dam\">Auburn Dam\u003c/a>. It’s California’s biggest dam that has never been built — and probably never will be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_17060\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-17060\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/auburn_dam_sketch2_crop_.jpg\" alt=\"Auburn Dam\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An artist’s rendering of how the completed Auburn Dam would appear on the North Fork of the American River. (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The latest revival occurred at a recent show-and-tell for the \u003ca title=\"YouTube - Folsom Spillway\" href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gn3eIlLNpr8\">new spillway under construction\u003c/a> at Folsom Dam. Congressman Tom McClintock, R-Auburn, seized the occasion — not so much for congratulations — but to decry recent releases of water from dams on the American River.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It infuriates me that for the past three days, we have seen releases of water out of dams on the American River triple in order to meet environmental regulations that place the interests of fish above those of human beings.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The congressman then pivoted and called for completion of Auburn Dam, a long-stagnant project on the North Fork of the American River originally green-lighted by Congress in 1965, near the end of what the late writer Marc Reisner called the “go-go years” of American dam building. McClintock’s colleague from across the aisle, Sacramento Democrat Doris Matsui, sat nearby, literally shaking her head.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McClintock told the assembled dignitaries that a brimming Auburn Lake reservoir upstream, “could fill and refill Folsom Lake nearly 2 1/2 times.” The current drought has left Folsom Lake at alarmingly low levels this spring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Indeed, the project, designed by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, would create one of the state’s biggest reservoirs, with a capacity of more than 2 million acre-feet of water, about half the volume of Shasta Lake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then McClintock took aim at Governor Jerry Brown’s plan to construct \u003ca title=\"Q-Sci - post\" href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2013/03/14/california-to-release-chapters-of-plan-to-restore-delta/\">bypass tunnels\u003c/a> to carry water through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Even with the inflated costs we’re seeing today,” said McClintock, “[the dam project] could be done for much less than the current proposal to build a cross-Delta facility that produces zero additional water storage.” (According to Reclamation, there hasn’t been a reliable cost update on the project since 2006.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He went on to extoll other potential advantages, such as, “power for a million homes” and “a major new recreational resource for our region.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_17064\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-17064\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/3405918292_99db0a4b41_b.jpg\" alt=\"ADD CAPTION (Alisha Vargas/Flickr)\" width=\"300\" height=\"400\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Excavations remain from where engineers began laying the foundations for Auburn Dam in the 1970s. (\u003ca href=\"https://www.flickr.com/photos/alishav/3405918292\">Alisha Vargas/Flickr\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Of course, those who enjoy (or profit from) rafting and paddling the scenic, frothy reaches of the North Fork have long taken a different view of the recreational potential, as those reaches would disappear under hundreds of feet of flat water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Auburn Dam was never completed but it was started. Reminders are still there, the most obvious being the \u003ca title=\"SacBee - post\" href=\"http://www.sacbee.com/2014/04/16/6330719/foresthill-bridge-undergoes-a.html\">Forresthill Bridge\u003c/a>, a green metal and concrete ribbon that soars more than 700 feet above the American River, built to span a reservoir that never was. If you’re more ambitious and \u003ca title=\"EveryTrail - Auburn Dam\" href=\"http://www.everytrail.com/guide/base-of-auburn-dam\">hike down into the river canyon\u003c/a>, you can still see where it was carved out on both sides to anchor the concrete arch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By 1975, taxpayers had already shelled out about $137 million for the project. But the following year, when a magnitude 5.7 quake occurred a little too close for comfort, Reclamation took a time-out to revisit the dam’s design and work has never resumed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The dam was redesigned to meet those seismic considerations,” McClintock told me in an interview after his remarks at the spillway. “So yes, that’s already been engineered around.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We did not go back and do a full engineering analysis,” said Drew Lessard, Reclamation’s area manager for central California, referring to an updated study by the Bureau in 2006. He says that in the late 1970s, Reclamation did “move the location slightly,” to minimize seismic impacts. Lessard says that moving forward now would require a full “reformulation study,” reassessing the project’s costs and priorities, and that such a study by itself would take years and cost millions of dollars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You know, that thing’s been studied over and over and over again,” said Matsui, in a separate interview. “And you know what? There’s no support for it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2008, the California State Water Resources Board revoked the water rights that had been set aside for the Bureau of Reclamation. Most water rights are a use-it-or-lose-it proposition in California, to prevent what the Board calls “cold storage,” which is to say sitting on water rights without actually using the water. Many believed that was the final nail in the project’s coffin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Well, apparently not everybody.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_18177\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/Auburn_1733.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-18177\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/Auburn_1733.jpg\" alt=\"An illustration from a USBR report shows the prospective size and location of Auburn Dam, compared to Folsom and Nimbus Dams, which were built. (USBR)\" width=\"640\" height=\"640\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An illustration from a USBR report shows the prospective size and location of Auburn Dam and reservoir, compared to Folsom and Nimbus Dams, which were built. (USBR)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>In California, it’s as dependable as the rainy season. Okay, more so. Whenever there’s too much water or not enough, \u003ca title=\"SacBee - post\" href=\"http://www.sacbee.com/2014/03/14/6235822/why-dont-we-build-the-auburn-dam.html\">people start talking\u003c/a> about \u003ca title=\"Wiki - Auburn Dam\" href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auburn_Dam\">Auburn Dam\u003c/a>. It’s California’s biggest dam that has never been built — and probably never will be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_17060\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-17060\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/auburn_dam_sketch2_crop_.jpg\" alt=\"Auburn Dam\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An artist’s rendering of how the completed Auburn Dam would appear on the North Fork of the American River. (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The latest revival occurred at a recent show-and-tell for the \u003ca title=\"YouTube - Folsom Spillway\" href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gn3eIlLNpr8\">new spillway under construction\u003c/a> at Folsom Dam. Congressman Tom McClintock, R-Auburn, seized the occasion — not so much for congratulations — but to decry recent releases of water from dams on the American River.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It infuriates me that for the past three days, we have seen releases of water out of dams on the American River triple in order to meet environmental regulations that place the interests of fish above those of human beings.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The congressman then pivoted and called for completion of Auburn Dam, a long-stagnant project on the North Fork of the American River originally green-lighted by Congress in 1965, near the end of what the late writer Marc Reisner called the “go-go years” of American dam building. McClintock’s colleague from across the aisle, Sacramento Democrat Doris Matsui, sat nearby, literally shaking her head.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McClintock told the assembled dignitaries that a brimming Auburn Lake reservoir upstream, “could fill and refill Folsom Lake nearly 2 1/2 times.” The current drought has left Folsom Lake at alarmingly low levels this spring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Indeed, the project, designed by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, would create one of the state’s biggest reservoirs, with a capacity of more than 2 million acre-feet of water, about half the volume of Shasta Lake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then McClintock took aim at Governor Jerry Brown’s plan to construct \u003ca title=\"Q-Sci - post\" href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2013/03/14/california-to-release-chapters-of-plan-to-restore-delta/\">bypass tunnels\u003c/a> to carry water through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Even with the inflated costs we’re seeing today,” said McClintock, “[the dam project] could be done for much less than the current proposal to build a cross-Delta facility that produces zero additional water storage.” (According to Reclamation, there hasn’t been a reliable cost update on the project since 2006.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He went on to extoll other potential advantages, such as, “power for a million homes” and “a major new recreational resource for our region.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_17064\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-17064\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/3405918292_99db0a4b41_b.jpg\" alt=\"ADD CAPTION (Alisha Vargas/Flickr)\" width=\"300\" height=\"400\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Excavations remain from where engineers began laying the foundations for Auburn Dam in the 1970s. (\u003ca href=\"https://www.flickr.com/photos/alishav/3405918292\">Alisha Vargas/Flickr\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Of course, those who enjoy (or profit from) rafting and paddling the scenic, frothy reaches of the North Fork have long taken a different view of the recreational potential, as those reaches would disappear under hundreds of feet of flat water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Auburn Dam was never completed but it was started. Reminders are still there, the most obvious being the \u003ca title=\"SacBee - post\" href=\"http://www.sacbee.com/2014/04/16/6330719/foresthill-bridge-undergoes-a.html\">Forresthill Bridge\u003c/a>, a green metal and concrete ribbon that soars more than 700 feet above the American River, built to span a reservoir that never was. If you’re more ambitious and \u003ca title=\"EveryTrail - Auburn Dam\" href=\"http://www.everytrail.com/guide/base-of-auburn-dam\">hike down into the river canyon\u003c/a>, you can still see where it was carved out on both sides to anchor the concrete arch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By 1975, taxpayers had already shelled out about $137 million for the project. But the following year, when a magnitude 5.7 quake occurred a little too close for comfort, Reclamation took a time-out to revisit the dam’s design and work has never resumed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The dam was redesigned to meet those seismic considerations,” McClintock told me in an interview after his remarks at the spillway. “So yes, that’s already been engineered around.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We did not go back and do a full engineering analysis,” said Drew Lessard, Reclamation’s area manager for central California, referring to an updated study by the Bureau in 2006. He says that in the late 1970s, Reclamation did “move the location slightly,” to minimize seismic impacts. Lessard says that moving forward now would require a full “reformulation study,” reassessing the project’s costs and priorities, and that such a study by itself would take years and cost millions of dollars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You know, that thing’s been studied over and over and over again,” said Matsui, in a separate interview. “And you know what? There’s no support for it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2008, the California State Water Resources Board revoked the water rights that had been set aside for the Bureau of Reclamation. Most water rights are a use-it-or-lose-it proposition in California, to prevent what the Board calls “cold storage,” which is to say sitting on water rights without actually using the water. Many believed that was the final nail in the project’s coffin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Well, apparently not everybody.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_18177\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/Auburn_1733.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-18177\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/Auburn_1733.jpg\" alt=\"An illustration from a USBR report shows the prospective size and location of Auburn Dam, compared to Folsom and Nimbus Dams, which were built. (USBR)\" width=\"640\" height=\"640\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An illustration from a USBR report shows the prospective size and location of Auburn Dam and reservoir, compared to Folsom and Nimbus Dams, which were built. (USBR)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "True Water Restrictions Rare, Even in California's Record-Breaking Drought",
"headTitle": "True Water Restrictions Rare, Even in California’s Record-Breaking Drought | KQED",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"audio-wrap\">\n\u003ch2>Listen:\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>http://www.kqed.org/.stream/anon/radio/science/2014/04/20140428science.mp3\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_16939\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/san-lorenzo-1024x575.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-16939\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-16939\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/san-lorenzo-1024x575.jpg\" alt=\"The San Lorenzo River is the main source of supply for Santa Cruz residents. (Amy Standen/KQED)\" width=\"1024\" height=\"575\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The San Lorenzo River is the main source of supply for Santa Cruz residents. (Amy Standen/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>May is fast approaching, and with it, the end of the rainy season. At least, what passed for a rainy season this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Much of California is still in an “extreme” or even “exceptional” state of drought, the highest designation offered by the federal government’s \u003ca href=\"http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/\">U.S. Drought Monitor\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So communities are cracking down on water wasters, right? Demanding that residents take shorter showers and stop watering their lawns?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not exactly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.acwa.com/content/drought-map\">Up and down the state\u003c/a>, water agencies use words like “emergency,” “critical” and “dire” but make only modest requests of their customers: voluntary ten percent cutbacks (a few toilet flushes’ worth) or supposedly “mandatory” restrictions that, upon closer inspection, are virtually unenforced.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">\n“There’s no place in California that should think they have enough water that wasteful or inefficient use can be condoned.”\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Take, for example, the East Bay Municipal Utility District, or East Bay MUD, which supplies 1.3 million residential customers from Oakland, Berkeley, Lafayette and other East Bay towns.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last week, the utility’s Board of Directors summoned staff members to brief them on how much water is available in the system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The picture presented by Eileen White, a Manager of Operations for the utility, was grim. Key reservoirs are at 50 and 60 percent capacity. Snowpack levels, which indicate how much fresh water is stored as snow in the Sierra, are less than 20 percent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been a very dry winter,” White told the Board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Armed with that information, the Board approved two staff proposals:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>First, purchase water from the Sacramento River — for the first time ever — at a cost of $8 million.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Second, continue a request that customers trim water use by ten percent.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Despite one of the worst droughts in history, board members agreed that it wasn’t yet time for anything more strict.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Different Communities, Different Water Sources, Same Drought\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There is no single source of water for California residents; nearly every community gets its supply from a different combination of sources. But the drought is affecting everyone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For us, it’s actually quite serious, says Frank Jahn, a Public Information Supervisor for the Alameda County Water District, which supplies water to residents of Fremont, Newark and Union City.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jahn’s district relies on flows from the State Water Project, a vast network of pumps and canals that brings water from the wetter north of the state to the drier south.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a normal year, says Jahn, his district would get about 40 percent of its supply – some 17 million gallons of water – from the State Water Project. This year, says Jahn, they’re expecting zero.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The town of Cloverdale is in similar straits, says city manager Paul Cayler. “I guess you could call it an emergency,” he says, referring to the town’s primary reservoir, Lake Mendocino, which is at half capacity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cayler says it’s enough water to get them through the season. “Our concern is what’s going to happen later this summer and into the fall.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>No ‘Water Cop’ to Enforce Restrictions\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"http://www.acwa.com/content/drought-map\">map\u003c/a> maintained by the Association of California Water Agencies shows several towns which have imposed mandatory restrictions on water for customers in their service area.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">“To my knowledge we have not sent out any warnings yet.”\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>But few of these restrictions are enforced, or even enforceable, and water managers concede they’re relying on the honor system to ensure that customers actually cut back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, in towns served by the Alameda County Water District, homeowners are now prohibited from watering their lawns more than once a week. Hosing down sidewalks and re-filling pools are prohibited entirely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But customers who break the rules will probably get away with it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“To my knowledge we have not sent out any warnings yet,” says Frank Jahn. “We have a lot of reports that have come in that we haven’t been able to substantiate.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Few, if any, towns have the resources to hire teams of enforcement agents, so must rely on citizen complaints, followed up by site visits from department staff. District officials can’t issue tickets unless they see the violation in progress.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cloverdale’s mandatory restrictions also rely on “community compliance,” said Holley. “We don’t have a water cop,” he explains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In towns where water use is metered, one way to lean on water hogs is through monthly water bills, levying a penalty on customers who exceed a monthly allotment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But despite one of the worst droughts in recorded history, water managers say it’s not yet time for such measures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is short-sighted, according to Peter Gleick, who heads the Pacific Institute, a non-profit water policy think tank in Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If 2014 or 2015 are as dry as last year, says Gleick, “we’re going to be sorry that we haven’t kept more water in our reservoirs for next year or the year after.”\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">Water rationing gets customers “a lot more worked up.”\u003cbr>\n\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Even if the rains return, he says, water resources are finite. Over time, the pressures of population growth and climate change will only further squeeze water districts trying to supply their customers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The truth is there’s no place in California that should think they have enough water that wasteful or inefficient use can be condoned, or accepted.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Reluctance to Ration Water\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What many managers really seem to fear is making their customers unhappy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Asked why the utility seems so reluctant to crack down on customers who waste water, Doug Linney, an East Bay MUD board member representing Alameda and West Oakland, says rationing gets customers “a lot more worked up.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It can create some adversarial relationships,” says American Canyon’s Jason Holley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re in the service business,” said Paul Cayler of Cloverdale. “If we are able to meet our demands for our customers, that’s what we want to do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are some places where cities are putting meaningful water rationing into place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_16938\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/goddard-1024x575.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-16938\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-16938\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/goddard-1024x575.jpg\" alt=\"Toby Goddard says he hopes resident cutbacks will make up for the low flows in the San Lorenzo River. (Amy Standen/KQED)\" width=\"1024\" height=\"575\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Toby Goddard says he hopes resident cutbacks will make up for the low flows in the San Lorenzo River. (Amy Standen/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Take Santa Cruz, where the drought has left water managers in particularly tight straits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Santa Cruz hasn’t built a new reservoir in 50 years, largely because of environmental opposition. It imports no water from other parts of the state. Recent efforts to build a desalination facility were met with bitter opposition from environmentalists and some residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With the city’s primary source, the San Lorenzo River, running virtually at a trickle, the city has enacted some of the most restrictive water policies in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Starting May 1, residents in most single-family homes will receive an allotment of 249 gallons a day. Use too much and the price-per-gallon jumps by a factor of ten. Customers who exceed their allotment could see bills climb to $500 a month, or more.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">Santa Cruz will lose $4 million as a result of asking customers to buy less water.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>“It’s a big jump,” says Toby Goddard with the City of Santa Cruz’s Water Conservation Office. Goddard says local residents have already done a great deal to conserve water, even without expensive restrictions. But at a certain point, the requests aren’t enough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m not sure just a voluntary call is actually going to move many communities to do something differently,” Goddard says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Selling Less Water Is Expensive\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Goddard points out that these water restrictions will be a burden for his agency, which points to a harsh paradox in the water business: Selling less of it is expensive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Goddard’s office is planning to hire up to 20 new staff members to run the program, respond to customer complaints and questions, and do outreach, Goddard says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s $1 million on top of $3 million the agency expects to lose in revenue as a result of selling less water. The city plans to make up the deficit with surplus funds from previous years. But if the drought continues, Goddard says, those costs may have to be passed on to customers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Pacific Institute’s Peter Gleick says water agencies have a financial disincentive to encourage conservation among their customers.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">\nIf revenue drops, rates must go up, leaving customers paying more money for less water.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>“If their conservation programs are really successful, they sell less water and their revenues drop,” says Gleick. He points out that water agencies often have expensive construction costs and overhead. If revenue drops, rates must go up, leaving customers paying more money for less water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gleick says there are ways around this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, electrical utilities, like PG&E, structure bills in such a way that they don’t need to sell lots of electricity in order to make a profit. Regulators call that “de-coupling.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need to do the same thing with water,” says Gleick. “We should have done this many years ago.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Standing on a bridge overlooking the San Lorenzo River, Toby Goddard says if the rains don’t come, the city could face some tough years ahead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But we’ll get through,” he says. “I’m sure the community will rally and do what it takes to save its water supply.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And if they don’t, it’s going to cost them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "With California deep in a drought, communities are cracking down on water wasters, right? Demanding that residents take shorter showers and stop watering their lawns? Not exactly.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/div>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_16939\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/san-lorenzo-1024x575.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-16939\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-16939\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/san-lorenzo-1024x575.jpg\" alt=\"The San Lorenzo River is the main source of supply for Santa Cruz residents. (Amy Standen/KQED)\" width=\"1024\" height=\"575\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The San Lorenzo River is the main source of supply for Santa Cruz residents. (Amy Standen/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>May is fast approaching, and with it, the end of the rainy season. At least, what passed for a rainy season this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Much of California is still in an “extreme” or even “exceptional” state of drought, the highest designation offered by the federal government’s \u003ca href=\"http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/\">U.S. Drought Monitor\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So communities are cracking down on water wasters, right? Demanding that residents take shorter showers and stop watering their lawns?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not exactly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.acwa.com/content/drought-map\">Up and down the state\u003c/a>, water agencies use words like “emergency,” “critical” and “dire” but make only modest requests of their customers: voluntary ten percent cutbacks (a few toilet flushes’ worth) or supposedly “mandatory” restrictions that, upon closer inspection, are virtually unenforced.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">\n“There’s no place in California that should think they have enough water that wasteful or inefficient use can be condoned.”\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Take, for example, the East Bay Municipal Utility District, or East Bay MUD, which supplies 1.3 million residential customers from Oakland, Berkeley, Lafayette and other East Bay towns.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last week, the utility’s Board of Directors summoned staff members to brief them on how much water is available in the system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The picture presented by Eileen White, a Manager of Operations for the utility, was grim. Key reservoirs are at 50 and 60 percent capacity. Snowpack levels, which indicate how much fresh water is stored as snow in the Sierra, are less than 20 percent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been a very dry winter,” White told the Board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Armed with that information, the Board approved two staff proposals:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>First, purchase water from the Sacramento River — for the first time ever — at a cost of $8 million.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Second, continue a request that customers trim water use by ten percent.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Despite one of the worst droughts in history, board members agreed that it wasn’t yet time for anything more strict.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Different Communities, Different Water Sources, Same Drought\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There is no single source of water for California residents; nearly every community gets its supply from a different combination of sources. But the drought is affecting everyone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For us, it’s actually quite serious, says Frank Jahn, a Public Information Supervisor for the Alameda County Water District, which supplies water to residents of Fremont, Newark and Union City.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jahn’s district relies on flows from the State Water Project, a vast network of pumps and canals that brings water from the wetter north of the state to the drier south.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a normal year, says Jahn, his district would get about 40 percent of its supply – some 17 million gallons of water – from the State Water Project. This year, says Jahn, they’re expecting zero.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The town of Cloverdale is in similar straits, says city manager Paul Cayler. “I guess you could call it an emergency,” he says, referring to the town’s primary reservoir, Lake Mendocino, which is at half capacity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cayler says it’s enough water to get them through the season. “Our concern is what’s going to happen later this summer and into the fall.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>No ‘Water Cop’ to Enforce Restrictions\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"http://www.acwa.com/content/drought-map\">map\u003c/a> maintained by the Association of California Water Agencies shows several towns which have imposed mandatory restrictions on water for customers in their service area.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">“To my knowledge we have not sent out any warnings yet.”\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>But few of these restrictions are enforced, or even enforceable, and water managers concede they’re relying on the honor system to ensure that customers actually cut back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, in towns served by the Alameda County Water District, homeowners are now prohibited from watering their lawns more than once a week. Hosing down sidewalks and re-filling pools are prohibited entirely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But customers who break the rules will probably get away with it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“To my knowledge we have not sent out any warnings yet,” says Frank Jahn. “We have a lot of reports that have come in that we haven’t been able to substantiate.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Few, if any, towns have the resources to hire teams of enforcement agents, so must rely on citizen complaints, followed up by site visits from department staff. District officials can’t issue tickets unless they see the violation in progress.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cloverdale’s mandatory restrictions also rely on “community compliance,” said Holley. “We don’t have a water cop,” he explains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In towns where water use is metered, one way to lean on water hogs is through monthly water bills, levying a penalty on customers who exceed a monthly allotment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But despite one of the worst droughts in recorded history, water managers say it’s not yet time for such measures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is short-sighted, according to Peter Gleick, who heads the Pacific Institute, a non-profit water policy think tank in Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If 2014 or 2015 are as dry as last year, says Gleick, “we’re going to be sorry that we haven’t kept more water in our reservoirs for next year or the year after.”\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">Water rationing gets customers “a lot more worked up.”\u003cbr>\n\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Even if the rains return, he says, water resources are finite. Over time, the pressures of population growth and climate change will only further squeeze water districts trying to supply their customers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The truth is there’s no place in California that should think they have enough water that wasteful or inefficient use can be condoned, or accepted.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Reluctance to Ration Water\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What many managers really seem to fear is making their customers unhappy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Asked why the utility seems so reluctant to crack down on customers who waste water, Doug Linney, an East Bay MUD board member representing Alameda and West Oakland, says rationing gets customers “a lot more worked up.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It can create some adversarial relationships,” says American Canyon’s Jason Holley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re in the service business,” said Paul Cayler of Cloverdale. “If we are able to meet our demands for our customers, that’s what we want to do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are some places where cities are putting meaningful water rationing into place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_16938\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/goddard-1024x575.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-16938\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-16938\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/goddard-1024x575.jpg\" alt=\"Toby Goddard says he hopes resident cutbacks will make up for the low flows in the San Lorenzo River. (Amy Standen/KQED)\" width=\"1024\" height=\"575\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Toby Goddard says he hopes resident cutbacks will make up for the low flows in the San Lorenzo River. (Amy Standen/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Take Santa Cruz, where the drought has left water managers in particularly tight straits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Santa Cruz hasn’t built a new reservoir in 50 years, largely because of environmental opposition. It imports no water from other parts of the state. Recent efforts to build a desalination facility were met with bitter opposition from environmentalists and some residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With the city’s primary source, the San Lorenzo River, running virtually at a trickle, the city has enacted some of the most restrictive water policies in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Starting May 1, residents in most single-family homes will receive an allotment of 249 gallons a day. Use too much and the price-per-gallon jumps by a factor of ten. Customers who exceed their allotment could see bills climb to $500 a month, or more.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">Santa Cruz will lose $4 million as a result of asking customers to buy less water.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>“It’s a big jump,” says Toby Goddard with the City of Santa Cruz’s Water Conservation Office. Goddard says local residents have already done a great deal to conserve water, even without expensive restrictions. But at a certain point, the requests aren’t enough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m not sure just a voluntary call is actually going to move many communities to do something differently,” Goddard says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Selling Less Water Is Expensive\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Goddard points out that these water restrictions will be a burden for his agency, which points to a harsh paradox in the water business: Selling less of it is expensive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Goddard’s office is planning to hire up to 20 new staff members to run the program, respond to customer complaints and questions, and do outreach, Goddard says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s $1 million on top of $3 million the agency expects to lose in revenue as a result of selling less water. The city plans to make up the deficit with surplus funds from previous years. But if the drought continues, Goddard says, those costs may have to be passed on to customers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Pacific Institute’s Peter Gleick says water agencies have a financial disincentive to encourage conservation among their customers.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">\nIf revenue drops, rates must go up, leaving customers paying more money for less water.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>“If their conservation programs are really successful, they sell less water and their revenues drop,” says Gleick. He points out that water agencies often have expensive construction costs and overhead. If revenue drops, rates must go up, leaving customers paying more money for less water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gleick says there are ways around this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, electrical utilities, like PG&E, structure bills in such a way that they don’t need to sell lots of electricity in order to make a profit. Regulators call that “de-coupling.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need to do the same thing with water,” says Gleick. “We should have done this many years ago.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Standing on a bridge overlooking the San Lorenzo River, Toby Goddard says if the rains don’t come, the city could face some tough years ahead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But we’ll get through,” he says. “I’m sure the community will rally and do what it takes to save its water supply.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And if they don’t, it’s going to cost them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "California Edging Closer to Regulating Groundwater for the First Time",
"headTitle": "California Edging Closer to Regulating Groundwater for the First Time | KQED",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_16770\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/Irrigation_1764.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-16770\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-16770\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/Irrigation_1764.jpg\" alt=\"An irrigation ditch in the Central Valley. When surface water is scarce, farmers pump more groundwater to make up the difference. (Craig Miller/KQED)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An irrigation ditch in the Central Valley. When surface water is scarce, farmers pump more groundwater to make up the difference. (Craig Miller/KQED) \u003ccite>(Craig Miller/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>We hear a great deal about California’s reliance on its “frozen reservoir,” a reference to the (currently anemic) Sierra snowpack. We hear a lot less about the Golden State’s \u003cem>invisible\u003c/em> reservoir, the water that resides in underground aquifers beneath our feet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s about to change. Today, state Sen. Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills) puts a trio of water conservation bills before her Natural Resources and Water Committee, the centerpiece of which (SB 1168) is a frontal assault on the management of California’s groundwater, which, compared to other western states, is almost unregulated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The current drought appears to be putting a new level of pressure on the groundwater debate. Cutbacks in state and federal water allocations have unleashed a \u003ca title=\"Bakersfield Californian - post\" href=\"http://www.bakersfieldnow.com/news/business/California-drought-spawns-well-drilling-boom-255206371.html\">drilling frenzy\u003c/a> for water wells, and parts of the San Joaquin Valley are actually \u003ca title=\"Merc - post\" href=\"http://www.mercurynews.com/drought/ci_25447586/california-drought-san-joaquin-valley-sinking-farmers-race\">sinking from groundwater depletion\u003c/a> below.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The single most critical element in achieving [water] sustainability in California is groundwater,” Lester Snow told members of the \u003ca title=\"SWRCB - main\" href=\"http://www.swrcb.ca.gov/\">State Water Resources Control Board\u003c/a> at a hearing last week. Snow would know. For years he was the state’s chief water manager and now heads the relatively new \u003ca title=\"CWF - main\" href=\"http://www.californiawaterfoundation.org/\">California Water Foundation\u003c/a>, a non-profit devoted, as he describes it, to “achieving sustainable water management” in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_16760\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 290px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/aquiferaside.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-16760\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/aquiferaside.jpg\" alt=\"aquiferaside\" width=\"290\" height=\"222\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">So what, exactly, is an aquifer? Click image to see full infographic.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In a good year, which is to say “wet,” Snow says that groundwater provides about 40 percent of the state’s water supply. In dry years, like this one, we lean on aquifers for 60 percent of our water (up from 40 percent as recently as 2 to 3 years ago).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Effectively managed, it is the single biggest mechanism that gives us the flexibility to deal with the vagaries of our water system in California,” said Snow. “And if we can not get our hands around that, we will not have a sustainable water supply.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But some, especially in farm country, are more than a little spooked by what getting our hands around it might entail. If you want to see farmers and ranchers turn ornery, make like you’re a state bureaucrat going after their water — or their right to pump as much as they need out of the ground. So as the battle lines begin to form, here are some key points.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>State Intervention\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California is the only western state that doesn’t exercise some degree of control over its groundwater. But how much control is too much? Matt Conant, a walnut grower in Sutter County, articulated the greatest fear of many in the ag community: “I’m afraid that the state will come in and try to over-regulate groundwater and surface water,” he told me outside a recent hearing of the State Water Resources Control Board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But David Orth, who sits on the groundwater task force at the \u003ca href=\"http://www.acwa.com/\">Association of California Water Agencies\u003c/a>, says leaving it entirely in local hands may not be enough, especially when local and regional agencies are falling down on the job. “In those instances, we believe the state board should step in,” says Orth. “It creates, frankly, some bit of incentive for the locals to get together and get it right.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s a fairly bold statement, coming from an organization that has, in the past, taken a firm stand against groundwater regulation. But Orth says times are changing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A year ago it was, ‘This is mine and I don’t want anybody to mess with my personal property right,'” he says. “Today, I think more and more people are recognizing that we have a choice; we can either let this continue to be managed in a somewhat insufficient way in some regions and see significant economic loss, or we can more effectively manage it and do so in coordination with the state, so we can protect that groundwater resource for decades to come.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Early in April, ACWA \u003ca title=\"ACWA - policy paper\" href=\"http://www.acwa.com/content/groundwater/acwa-recommendations-achieving-groundwater-sustainability\">proposed one of the most comprehensive blueprints\u003c/a> yet for protecting the state’s aquifers. Pavley’s bill is likely to draw on that. The harmonic convergence only extends so far, however. As Jim Beck at the Kern County Water Agency told KQED’s Lauren Sommer, “California is not a one-size-fits-all when it comes to any regulation. And we believe groundwater is certainly one of those areas of resource management were local folks really understand what’s best for their area.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Transparency\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s a growing chorus insisting that whatever else happens, we need better data, to know what’s going on with our aquifers. Presently there is no coordinated tracking of aquifer health or the volume of water being pumped. Drillers file well completion reports, which can only be accessed by public agencies “conducting studies,” according to state law. But there is precious little information available on how much water those wells are producing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Conant told me that farmers know from their wells, what’s going on underground. But no one else really does, though scientists have been trying to piece together the big picture with a combination of monitoring wells and satellites that measure ground density. And once the data is gathered for what individual landowners are pumping, who should have access to it? Should it remain on confidential file with public agencies or be available to anyone?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pricing\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then there’s perhaps the thorniest question of all: whether farmers should pay for water that resides naturally under their own property. They’re already paying for the energy required to pump it to the surface. But now the water wonks are freely tossing around terms like “tiered pricing” and “groundwater management fees.” These are theoretical administrative charges to property owners, possibly based on how much groundwater they pump. [contextly_sidebar id=”841ad067163b293b3c4fb002ef0c62ee”]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the regulators can’t make this happen themselves. These ideas will have to coalesce into a groundwater bill that lawmakers can make stick. The current version of the Pavley bill contains a definition of “sustainability” but leaves it up to local districts to determine the volume of groundwater pumping that is sustainable in each are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite the lingering uncertainties, even some water policy insiders have expressed surprise at what Jonas Minton of the Planning and Conservation League calls, the “unprecedented consensus” on a possible approach to groundwater management. At that state hearing last week, he pronounced, “This is the year to do it.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Power players in California water policy seem to agree for once: It's time to get serious about groundwater.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_16770\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/Irrigation_1764.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-16770\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-16770\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/Irrigation_1764.jpg\" alt=\"An irrigation ditch in the Central Valley. When surface water is scarce, farmers pump more groundwater to make up the difference. (Craig Miller/KQED)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An irrigation ditch in the Central Valley. When surface water is scarce, farmers pump more groundwater to make up the difference. (Craig Miller/KQED) \u003ccite>(Craig Miller/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>We hear a great deal about California’s reliance on its “frozen reservoir,” a reference to the (currently anemic) Sierra snowpack. We hear a lot less about the Golden State’s \u003cem>invisible\u003c/em> reservoir, the water that resides in underground aquifers beneath our feet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s about to change. Today, state Sen. Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills) puts a trio of water conservation bills before her Natural Resources and Water Committee, the centerpiece of which (SB 1168) is a frontal assault on the management of California’s groundwater, which, compared to other western states, is almost unregulated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The current drought appears to be putting a new level of pressure on the groundwater debate. Cutbacks in state and federal water allocations have unleashed a \u003ca title=\"Bakersfield Californian - post\" href=\"http://www.bakersfieldnow.com/news/business/California-drought-spawns-well-drilling-boom-255206371.html\">drilling frenzy\u003c/a> for water wells, and parts of the San Joaquin Valley are actually \u003ca title=\"Merc - post\" href=\"http://www.mercurynews.com/drought/ci_25447586/california-drought-san-joaquin-valley-sinking-farmers-race\">sinking from groundwater depletion\u003c/a> below.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The single most critical element in achieving [water] sustainability in California is groundwater,” Lester Snow told members of the \u003ca title=\"SWRCB - main\" href=\"http://www.swrcb.ca.gov/\">State Water Resources Control Board\u003c/a> at a hearing last week. Snow would know. For years he was the state’s chief water manager and now heads the relatively new \u003ca title=\"CWF - main\" href=\"http://www.californiawaterfoundation.org/\">California Water Foundation\u003c/a>, a non-profit devoted, as he describes it, to “achieving sustainable water management” in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_16760\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 290px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/aquiferaside.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-16760\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/aquiferaside.jpg\" alt=\"aquiferaside\" width=\"290\" height=\"222\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">So what, exactly, is an aquifer? Click image to see full infographic.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In a good year, which is to say “wet,” Snow says that groundwater provides about 40 percent of the state’s water supply. In dry years, like this one, we lean on aquifers for 60 percent of our water (up from 40 percent as recently as 2 to 3 years ago).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Effectively managed, it is the single biggest mechanism that gives us the flexibility to deal with the vagaries of our water system in California,” said Snow. “And if we can not get our hands around that, we will not have a sustainable water supply.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But some, especially in farm country, are more than a little spooked by what getting our hands around it might entail. If you want to see farmers and ranchers turn ornery, make like you’re a state bureaucrat going after their water — or their right to pump as much as they need out of the ground. So as the battle lines begin to form, here are some key points.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>State Intervention\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California is the only western state that doesn’t exercise some degree of control over its groundwater. But how much control is too much? Matt Conant, a walnut grower in Sutter County, articulated the greatest fear of many in the ag community: “I’m afraid that the state will come in and try to over-regulate groundwater and surface water,” he told me outside a recent hearing of the State Water Resources Control Board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But David Orth, who sits on the groundwater task force at the \u003ca href=\"http://www.acwa.com/\">Association of California Water Agencies\u003c/a>, says leaving it entirely in local hands may not be enough, especially when local and regional agencies are falling down on the job. “In those instances, we believe the state board should step in,” says Orth. “It creates, frankly, some bit of incentive for the locals to get together and get it right.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s a fairly bold statement, coming from an organization that has, in the past, taken a firm stand against groundwater regulation. But Orth says times are changing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A year ago it was, ‘This is mine and I don’t want anybody to mess with my personal property right,'” he says. “Today, I think more and more people are recognizing that we have a choice; we can either let this continue to be managed in a somewhat insufficient way in some regions and see significant economic loss, or we can more effectively manage it and do so in coordination with the state, so we can protect that groundwater resource for decades to come.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Early in April, ACWA \u003ca title=\"ACWA - policy paper\" href=\"http://www.acwa.com/content/groundwater/acwa-recommendations-achieving-groundwater-sustainability\">proposed one of the most comprehensive blueprints\u003c/a> yet for protecting the state’s aquifers. Pavley’s bill is likely to draw on that. The harmonic convergence only extends so far, however. As Jim Beck at the Kern County Water Agency told KQED’s Lauren Sommer, “California is not a one-size-fits-all when it comes to any regulation. And we believe groundwater is certainly one of those areas of resource management were local folks really understand what’s best for their area.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Transparency\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s a growing chorus insisting that whatever else happens, we need better data, to know what’s going on with our aquifers. Presently there is no coordinated tracking of aquifer health or the volume of water being pumped. Drillers file well completion reports, which can only be accessed by public agencies “conducting studies,” according to state law. But there is precious little information available on how much water those wells are producing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Conant told me that farmers know from their wells, what’s going on underground. But no one else really does, though scientists have been trying to piece together the big picture with a combination of monitoring wells and satellites that measure ground density. And once the data is gathered for what individual landowners are pumping, who should have access to it? Should it remain on confidential file with public agencies or be available to anyone?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pricing\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then there’s perhaps the thorniest question of all: whether farmers should pay for water that resides naturally under their own property. They’re already paying for the energy required to pump it to the surface. But now the water wonks are freely tossing around terms like “tiered pricing” and “groundwater management fees.” These are theoretical administrative charges to property owners, possibly based on how much groundwater they pump. \u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the regulators can’t make this happen themselves. These ideas will have to coalesce into a groundwater bill that lawmakers can make stick. The current version of the Pavley bill contains a definition of “sustainability” but leaves it up to local districts to determine the volume of groundwater pumping that is sustainable in each are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite the lingering uncertainties, even some water policy insiders have expressed surprise at what Jonas Minton of the Planning and Conservation League calls, the “unprecedented consensus” on a possible approach to groundwater management. At that state hearing last week, he pronounced, “This is the year to do it.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Drones: The Newest Water-Saving Tool for Parched Farms",
"headTitle": "Drones: The Newest Water-Saving Tool for Parched Farms | KQED",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"audio-wrap\">\n\u003ch2>Listen:\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>http://www.kqed.org/.stream/anon/radio/science/2014/04/20140421science.mp3\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_16722\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-16722\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/agdroneday.jpg\" alt=\"John Faus of HoneyComb demonstrating an agricultural drone. (Photo courtesy Zach Sheely)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">John Faus of HoneyComb demonstrates an agricultural drone in a pistachio orchard. (Photo courtesy Zach Sheely)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Farmers represent a growing share of the market for drones. The \u003ca title=\"Home - Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International\" href=\"http://www.auvsi.org\">Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International\u003c/a>, a trade group that represents drone producers, predicts farms will eventually account for 80 percent of the commercial drone market. And in California, some farmers are looking at the technology as a way to save water during the drought. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When we last \u003ca title=\"Farmers in a World with Less Water: The California Report | The California Report\" href=\"http://www.californiareport.org/archive/R906080850/a\">checked in with him\u003c/a> five years ago, then 27-year-old Zach Sheely was already on the cutting edge of water conservation, using his iPhone to check how much water his tomatoes were getting. (Our \u003ca title=\"Keeping Track of Every Drop on the Farm\" href=\"http://www.kqed.org/assets/slideshow/watersavingfarm/index.html\">audio slideshow\u003c/a> from that story shows Sheely engaged in his two passions—farming and singing opera.) Sheely and his dad, Ted, were \u003ca href=\"http://www.netafimusa.com/files/literature/agriculture/other-literature/crop-applications/Farm-Press-Article.pdf\">among the first to convert\u003c/a> to remote-controlled drip irrigation on their sprawling Kings County farm. Now they’re taking one more step into the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘We don’t have enough water, and having a coyote chew a line in two, now that line of trees is getting half the water.’\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>They recently gathered some of their neighbors to watch a demo of a drone that can collect video and thermal images of farmland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You’ve got a tablet which is going to help figure out the mission, and is connected to a ground control station,” Zach Sheely explains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Listening to farmers programming a drone is sort of like eavesdropping on NASA’s Mission Control. But the mission here has to do with coyotes gnawing the two rows of drip irrigation lines that feed pistachio trees. The Sheelys grow more than a thousand acres of pistachios in this remote corner of Kings County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t have enough water, and having a coyote chew a line in two, now that line of trees is getting half the water,” Ted says. “We’ve got to be precise.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While coyotes are the main culprits, two-legged interlopers can be just as much of a headache, Zach adds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Humans are a problem,” he says. “They’ll come out and hunt doves or something in our orchard, and the shotgun BBs will put little holes in all the lines. We do have no trespassing signs, but those are just signs, I think, to most people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Sheelys are hoping a thermal camera mounted in the drone will pick up leaks in the orchard, so they can fix them faster.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxDgS9w9I_Q\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They’ve invited several drone companies to the farm to demo their crafts, including a company called \u003ca title=\"Home\" href=\"http://www.honeycombcorp.com/\">HoneyComb. \u003c/a>That company is the brainchild of a group of 20- and 30-somethings like John Faus, who grew up farming in Oregon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We designed this for farming,” Faus says. “That’s why it’s called HoneyComb. This is your worker bee out over your fields scanning your crops.”\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘We want it to be the tractor of the sky.’\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>But demo day turns out to be \u003cem>really\u003c/em> windy. And the little plane careens wildly above the orchard before a rocky landing on a dirt road.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Sorry you got a little ding in your wing there!” Ted Sheely exclaims.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nothing a little gorilla glue can’t fix,” Faus says. “Our motto is we want it to be the tractor of the sky. We want it to be reliable and rugged.” He says his company can’t keep up with orders for farm drones fast enough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Zach Sheely says he’s sold on the drone, which will set him back about $15,000. He says that’s far less than what the lost water from leaks might cost him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A drone can cover a thousand acres in an hour-long flight. Zach says it would take a farmworker more than a week to drive up and down the same orchards in an all-terrain vehicle, looking for chewed irrigation lines.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘For agricultural purposes, they’re going to be a real powerful tool.’\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>“So if I can eliminate that job,” he says, “or use that person more wisely than just drive up and back mindlessly looking for leaks, it’s going to benefit my business, and he’s probably going to like his job a little bit better, too.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Irrigation experts say California farmers looking to save water will be early adopters of drone technology, and not just to check for leaks. Drones can help determine when plants are water-stressed or when they’re getting too much water, by using thermal cameras.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For agricultural purposes, they’re going to be a real powerful tool” says David Zoldoske, who heads the \u003ca title=\"Welcome to CIT.\" href=\"https://www.fresnostate.edu/jcast/cit/\">Center for Irrigation Technology at Fresno State \u003c/a>, and co-authored a recent \u003ca title=\"CCST Delivers Roadmap to a Sustainable Water Future for California\" href=\"https://www.ccst.us/news/2014/0409water.php\">state report \u003c/a>on water-saving technologies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Drones will help farmers “to get more information, in real time, to make better decisions,” about everything on the farm, adds Zoldoske. “We joke about being able to take pictures of individual bugs sitting on the plants. With the right algorithm you could count all the bugs on the plants if things work out.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Right now that’s still a big if. It’s still unclear how much leeway farmers will have to fly drones. At this point, the FAA does not allow their commercial use. Farm groups have been \u003ca href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/files/2014/04/Joint-Letter-to-FAA-on-Expediting-UAS-rulemaking-Final.pdf\">weighing in heavily \u003c/a>to change that. Later this year, the agency \u003ca title=\"Realtors and soybean farmers agree: Drone rules are overdue\" href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/04/08/realtors-and-soybean-farmers-agree-drone-rules-are-overdue/\">may propose rules\u003c/a> to cover the small drones farmers are starting to buy.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/div>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_16722\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-16722\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/agdroneday.jpg\" alt=\"John Faus of HoneyComb demonstrating an agricultural drone. (Photo courtesy Zach Sheely)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">John Faus of HoneyComb demonstrates an agricultural drone in a pistachio orchard. (Photo courtesy Zach Sheely)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Farmers represent a growing share of the market for drones. The \u003ca title=\"Home - Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International\" href=\"http://www.auvsi.org\">Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International\u003c/a>, a trade group that represents drone producers, predicts farms will eventually account for 80 percent of the commercial drone market. And in California, some farmers are looking at the technology as a way to save water during the drought. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When we last \u003ca title=\"Farmers in a World with Less Water: The California Report | The California Report\" href=\"http://www.californiareport.org/archive/R906080850/a\">checked in with him\u003c/a> five years ago, then 27-year-old Zach Sheely was already on the cutting edge of water conservation, using his iPhone to check how much water his tomatoes were getting. (Our \u003ca title=\"Keeping Track of Every Drop on the Farm\" href=\"http://www.kqed.org/assets/slideshow/watersavingfarm/index.html\">audio slideshow\u003c/a> from that story shows Sheely engaged in his two passions—farming and singing opera.) Sheely and his dad, Ted, were \u003ca href=\"http://www.netafimusa.com/files/literature/agriculture/other-literature/crop-applications/Farm-Press-Article.pdf\">among the first to convert\u003c/a> to remote-controlled drip irrigation on their sprawling Kings County farm. Now they’re taking one more step into the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘We don’t have enough water, and having a coyote chew a line in two, now that line of trees is getting half the water.’\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>They recently gathered some of their neighbors to watch a demo of a drone that can collect video and thermal images of farmland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You’ve got a tablet which is going to help figure out the mission, and is connected to a ground control station,” Zach Sheely explains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Listening to farmers programming a drone is sort of like eavesdropping on NASA’s Mission Control. But the mission here has to do with coyotes gnawing the two rows of drip irrigation lines that feed pistachio trees. The Sheelys grow more than a thousand acres of pistachios in this remote corner of Kings County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t have enough water, and having a coyote chew a line in two, now that line of trees is getting half the water,” Ted says. “We’ve got to be precise.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While coyotes are the main culprits, two-legged interlopers can be just as much of a headache, Zach adds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Humans are a problem,” he says. “They’ll come out and hunt doves or something in our orchard, and the shotgun BBs will put little holes in all the lines. We do have no trespassing signs, but those are just signs, I think, to most people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Sheelys are hoping a thermal camera mounted in the drone will pick up leaks in the orchard, so they can fix them faster.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/TxDgS9w9I_Q'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/TxDgS9w9I_Q'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>They’ve invited several drone companies to the farm to demo their crafts, including a company called \u003ca title=\"Home\" href=\"http://www.honeycombcorp.com/\">HoneyComb. \u003c/a>That company is the brainchild of a group of 20- and 30-somethings like John Faus, who grew up farming in Oregon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We designed this for farming,” Faus says. “That’s why it’s called HoneyComb. This is your worker bee out over your fields scanning your crops.”\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘We want it to be the tractor of the sky.’\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>But demo day turns out to be \u003cem>really\u003c/em> windy. And the little plane careens wildly above the orchard before a rocky landing on a dirt road.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Sorry you got a little ding in your wing there!” Ted Sheely exclaims.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nothing a little gorilla glue can’t fix,” Faus says. “Our motto is we want it to be the tractor of the sky. We want it to be reliable and rugged.” He says his company can’t keep up with orders for farm drones fast enough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Zach Sheely says he’s sold on the drone, which will set him back about $15,000. He says that’s far less than what the lost water from leaks might cost him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A drone can cover a thousand acres in an hour-long flight. Zach says it would take a farmworker more than a week to drive up and down the same orchards in an all-terrain vehicle, looking for chewed irrigation lines.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘For agricultural purposes, they’re going to be a real powerful tool.’\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>“So if I can eliminate that job,” he says, “or use that person more wisely than just drive up and back mindlessly looking for leaks, it’s going to benefit my business, and he’s probably going to like his job a little bit better, too.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Irrigation experts say California farmers looking to save water will be early adopters of drone technology, and not just to check for leaks. Drones can help determine when plants are water-stressed or when they’re getting too much water, by using thermal cameras.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For agricultural purposes, they’re going to be a real powerful tool” says David Zoldoske, who heads the \u003ca title=\"Welcome to CIT.\" href=\"https://www.fresnostate.edu/jcast/cit/\">Center for Irrigation Technology at Fresno State \u003c/a>, and co-authored a recent \u003ca title=\"CCST Delivers Roadmap to a Sustainable Water Future for California\" href=\"https://www.ccst.us/news/2014/0409water.php\">state report \u003c/a>on water-saving technologies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Drones will help farmers “to get more information, in real time, to make better decisions,” about everything on the farm, adds Zoldoske. “We joke about being able to take pictures of individual bugs sitting on the plants. With the right algorithm you could count all the bugs on the plants if things work out.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Right now that’s still a big if. It’s still unclear how much leeway farmers will have to fly drones. At this point, the FAA does not allow their commercial use. Farm groups have been \u003ca href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/files/2014/04/Joint-Letter-to-FAA-on-Expediting-UAS-rulemaking-Final.pdf\">weighing in heavily \u003c/a>to change that. Later this year, the agency \u003ca title=\"Realtors and soybean farmers agree: Drone rules are overdue\" href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/04/08/realtors-and-soybean-farmers-agree-drone-rules-are-overdue/\">may propose rules\u003c/a> to cover the small drones farmers are starting to buy.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_16593\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 639px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-16593\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/1825scr_c09a7077bf407dd-e1397606745612.jpg\" alt=\"Wind turbines in Solano County. (Craig Miller/KQED)\" width=\"639\" height=\"359\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Wind turbines in Solano County. (Craig Miller/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The commercial wind industry was born in California, and the state has one of the strongest renewable energy incentive programs in the country. Still, when it comes to wind, Texas has us beat by a long shot, according to \u003ca href=\"http://awea.files.cms-plus.com/images/figure15AMR13.png\">a new report\u003c/a> from the Washington, D.C.-based American Wind Energy Association.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California generates 5,829 megawatts of wind energy, compared with 12,354 megawatts in the Lone Star State. Iowa is a close third at 5,177 megawatts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At least one explanation is simple: Texas is a bigger and windier place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California was first out of the gate to promote wind, so we got a reputation for being the biggest and best wind state,” says Nancy Rader, Executive Director of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.calwea.org/about.html\">California Wind Energy Association\u003c/a>. “But our resources pale in comparison to Texas and other states in that Great Plains region.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While California has pursued both wind and solar energy, Texas has focused on wind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California currently gets seven percent of its electricity from wind, through turbines in Altamont Pass and the Tehachapis, among other places. But our remaining windy spots are harder to access.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Transmission is a key enabler of wind,” says Ryan Wiser, a staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. “We need to expand our transmission system to be able to access the higher quality wind resource sites.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s wind industry has gotten a big boost from one of the most aggressive renewable energy policies in the country. Wind energy in the state has tripled since 2002, when the state \u003ca href=\"http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/PUC/energy/Renewables/\">set a goal\u003c/a> to get a third of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that goal, says Wiser, has “largely been met.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wind is still more expensive than non-renewable energy, says Wiser, so bringing more wind power online will require new government incentives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state’s renewable energy goals “will need to be re-upped in order to stimulate additional demand for not only wind, but other renewable resources as well,” says Wiser.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rader says another hurdle has been convincing federal managers to open up land to wind development, particularly in the desert.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Bureau of Land Management is going to have to make itself a little more friendly to wind energy development,” says Rader. “Almost all of the developments are on private land, and frankly, those resources are tapped out now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Read the report \u003ca href=\"http://www.awea.org/AnnualMarketReport.aspx?ItemNumber=6308&RDtoken=61755&userID=\">here\u003c/a>.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>And our own award-winning series on California’s renewable power goals is \u003ca href=\"http://www.kqed.org/news/science/climatewatch/33by20/index.jsp\">here\u003c/a>.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_16593\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 639px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-16593\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/1825scr_c09a7077bf407dd-e1397606745612.jpg\" alt=\"Wind turbines in Solano County. (Craig Miller/KQED)\" width=\"639\" height=\"359\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Wind turbines in Solano County. (Craig Miller/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The commercial wind industry was born in California, and the state has one of the strongest renewable energy incentive programs in the country. Still, when it comes to wind, Texas has us beat by a long shot, according to \u003ca href=\"http://awea.files.cms-plus.com/images/figure15AMR13.png\">a new report\u003c/a> from the Washington, D.C.-based American Wind Energy Association.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California generates 5,829 megawatts of wind energy, compared with 12,354 megawatts in the Lone Star State. Iowa is a close third at 5,177 megawatts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At least one explanation is simple: Texas is a bigger and windier place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California was first out of the gate to promote wind, so we got a reputation for being the biggest and best wind state,” says Nancy Rader, Executive Director of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.calwea.org/about.html\">California Wind Energy Association\u003c/a>. “But our resources pale in comparison to Texas and other states in that Great Plains region.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While California has pursued both wind and solar energy, Texas has focused on wind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California currently gets seven percent of its electricity from wind, through turbines in Altamont Pass and the Tehachapis, among other places. But our remaining windy spots are harder to access.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Transmission is a key enabler of wind,” says Ryan Wiser, a staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. “We need to expand our transmission system to be able to access the higher quality wind resource sites.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s wind industry has gotten a big boost from one of the most aggressive renewable energy policies in the country. Wind energy in the state has tripled since 2002, when the state \u003ca href=\"http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/PUC/energy/Renewables/\">set a goal\u003c/a> to get a third of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that goal, says Wiser, has “largely been met.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wind is still more expensive than non-renewable energy, says Wiser, so bringing more wind power online will require new government incentives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state’s renewable energy goals “will need to be re-upped in order to stimulate additional demand for not only wind, but other renewable resources as well,” says Wiser.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rader says another hurdle has been convincing federal managers to open up land to wind development, particularly in the desert.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Bureau of Land Management is going to have to make itself a little more friendly to wind energy development,” says Rader. “Almost all of the developments are on private land, and frankly, those resources are tapped out now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Read the report \u003ca href=\"http://www.awea.org/AnnualMarketReport.aspx?ItemNumber=6308&RDtoken=61755&userID=\">here\u003c/a>.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>And our own award-winning series on California’s renewable power goals is \u003ca href=\"http://www.kqed.org/news/science/climatewatch/33by20/index.jsp\">here\u003c/a>.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Chevron Tries Again With Richmond Refinery Revamp",
"headTitle": "Chevron Tries Again With Richmond Refinery Revamp | KQED",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"audio-wrap\">\n\u003ch2>Listen:\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>http://www.kqed.org/.stream/anon/radio/science/2014/04/20140414science.mp3\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>The rust-red painted tanks of Chevron’s Richmond refinery are a familiar sight for drivers in the East Bay. The facility, sprawling across about four and a half miles at the foot of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, is the biggest refinery in Northern California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was built in 1902. Picture those \u003ca href=\"http://libraryphoto.cr.usgs.gov/cgi-bin/show_picture.cgi?ID=ID.%20Degenkolb,%20H.%2013\">black and white photos\u003c/a> of Victorian ladies after the 1906 earthquake. The refinery was already here, chugging along.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There was pretty much nothing else here. It just looked like an open plain,” said Chevron’s Brian Hubinger.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://projects1.kqed.org/imageslider/chevronsliders.html\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" width=\"640\" height=\"530\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, according to the company, one out of every five cars on the road in the Bay Area is driving with gas from here, and two-thirds of the jet fuel used at Bay Area airports starts here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now Chevron is looking to launch a \u003ca href=\"http://chevronmodernization.com/\">billion-dollar construction project\u003c/a> at the refinery. It’s a slimmed down version of a project that environmentalists stopped with a lawsuit a few years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After that legal battle and a \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2013/04/21/how-the-chevron-richmond-fire-happened-feds-release-blow-by-blow-animation-of-accident/\">fire at the refinery\u003c/a> in 2012, Chevron is trying to win back the community’s trust not only with a new environmental impact report on the project, but also with a \u003ca href=\"http://richmondstandard.com/\">company-published local news website\u003c/a> and billboards celebrating the city of Richmond, and TV ads supporting the proposed project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_16467\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-16467\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/chevrontanks.jpg\" alt=\"A view of the Chevron refinery from its wharf, where ships deliver crude oil. (Josh Cassidy/KQED)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A view of the refinery from its wharf, where ships deliver crude oil. (Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Hubinger, the technical advisor for what Chevron’s calling its modernization project took me on a tour of the facility. (Critics of the project are more apt to call it an “expansion.”) We drove to the end of the wharf where tankers full of oil from the Middle East and Alaska unload, and then back into the heart of the refinery, past right-angled tangles of pipeline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We parked near what looked like a brown barn on stilts: Chevron’s half-built hydrogen plant. That’s how much the company was able to construct before a state court judge \u003ca href=\"http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_14963441\">stopped the project\u003c/a> in 2010. This plant would produce more hydrogen, more efficiently, than the existing one does.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chevron wants the upgrade — and other changes it’s proposing — because hydrogen helps clean the sulfur out of crude oil. And the company wants to refine crude that has more sulfur in it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_16478\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 346px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-16478 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/RS9520_Chevron032714-JoshC-5195-scr-e1397259831604.jpg\" alt=\"The partially-built hydrogen plant. (Josh Cassidy/KQED)\" width=\"346\" height=\"230\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The partially-built hydrogen plant, the “barn on stilts.” (Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It provides flexibility to the refinery to remain competitive in the future,” Hubinger said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chevron won’t say exactly where that oil would be coming from, but the refinery can only receive crude via ship. So this is not about using trains to bring in oil from \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/audio/valero-rail-project-fuels-tar-sands-speculation-in-bay-area/\">Canada’s tar sands\u003c/a> or \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/audio/bay-area-residents-resist-crude-by-rail-as-accidents-rise/\">North Dakota’s Bakken formation\u003c/a>, the company says. Instead, the project would allow Chevron to process crude from declining oil fields, which are often higher in sulfur.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s another case where, like “modernization” versus “expansion,” the language drives a point of view: Opponents call the crude that’s higher in sulfur “dirty.” In the oil industry, they call it “sour.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s no debating, though, that sulfur is an impurity in crude oil, and that processing higher sulfur crude will affect emissions at the refinery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Whatever Chevron says, we have to look at the truth and not accept their word for it,” said Andrés Soto, an organizer with \u003ca href=\"http://www.cbecal.org/\">Communities for a Better Environment\u003c/a> (CBE).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CBE, with other partner organizations, was the group that won the lawsuit to stop the earlier project. CBE argued, and a state judge agreed, that Chevron hadn’t provided enough information about how the project would affect air pollution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_16483\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 342px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-16483 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/RS9531_Chevron032714-JoshC-5225-scr-e1397261318631.jpg\" alt=\"Andrés Soto is the Richmond organizer with Communities for a Better Environment. (Josh Cassidy/KQED)\" width=\"342\" height=\"229\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Andrés Soto in Atchison Village, a neighborhood near Chevron’s Richmond refinery. (Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Chevron refused to disclose the crude slate quality that they would process as a result of this project,” Soto said. “If they were going to expand their hydrogen production, that was because they were going to be processing dirtier crude.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unlike Chevron’s last attempt at the project, this time its environmental impact report does provide details on the amount of air pollution that will be created. And it describes how Chevron will try to offset that pollution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our commitments for no net increase are: no net increase in criteria air pollutants, no net increase in health risk and no net increase in greenhouse gas,” said Nicole Barber, a spokeswoman for Chevron. (Criteria air pollutants are particulates that the Environmental Protection Agency regulates for human and environmental health, such as lead, carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Greenhouse gas emissions could go up by 15 percent or more if this project happens, but, Barber said, Chevron would offset that by buying carbon credits, giving money to greenhouse gas reduction programs in Richmond and making changes on-site like using LED lighting and reusing water. That’s on the climate change side.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"left\">The \u003ca href=\"http://chevronmodernization.com/project-documents/\">draft environmental impact report\u003c/a>, including appendices, is thousands of pages long. If you want to learn more about the emissions from the project, here are some places to start.\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://chevronmodernization.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/4.8_Greenhouse-Gases.pdf\">Greenhouse gases\u003c/a>: Page 36 shows a table with baseline emissions and potential changes.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://chevronmodernization.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/4.3_Air-Quality.pdf\">Air quality\u003c/a>: Page 85 shows a table listing baseline criteria air pollutant emissions and potential changes. Page 96 shows the same for toxic air contaminants.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>In terms of emissions that could make people sick — toxic air contaminants and criteria air pollutants – Barber said Chevron will offset those, too. The company’s proposals include installing new burners that lower nitrogen oxide emissions and replacing three tanker ships with newer ships that have more efficient engines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s all according to the environmental impact report. The Bay Area Air Quality Management District, which regulates emissions, and CBE have both said they’re still examining the report, and have no comment yet on whether the details Chevron provides are thorough and sufficient.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We know they are claiming there will be no net increase in emissions,” said Soto. “And that sounds great. Except that the current level of emissions are already killing us. We have disproportionately high rates of cancers, asthma, other autoimmune diseases.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Richmond is \u003ca href=\"http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/news/2012/pollution-poverty-and-people-of-color-richmond-day-1\">an industrial area\u003c/a>. There are other refineries, shipping, trucking and factories. And year in and year out, Chevron’s refinery is one of the biggest polluters in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_16496\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-16496\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/9516scr_be7b8f9f55a4074-e1397264375694.jpg\" alt=\"Pipes inside the refinery. (Josh Cassidy/KQED)\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pipes inside the refinery. (Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Soto said the 2012 fire at the refinery is an extreme example of the health risks a refinery poses. The fire released a dark plume of smoke into the sky and sent more than 10,000 people to the hospital complaining of breathing problems\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That was an episodic exposure,” he said. “But then there’s the persistent and prolonged every day exposure that also happens.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Richmond mayor Gayle McLaughlin said she wants the project and the 1,000 construction jobs it’s expected to create, but she also wants to make sure it’s safe. And she sees it as a chance to push Chevron for lower emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“How often do we have an opportunity to determine whether or not to permit a $1 billion expansion project from a large refinery?” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The draft environmental impact report is open for public comment until May second. The planning commission could vote on it as soon as this summer. There’s a public hearing on the project this week on \u003ca href=\"http://chevronmodernization.com/meetings/\">Thursday night\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>The rust-red painted tanks of Chevron’s Richmond refinery are a familiar sight for drivers in the East Bay. The facility, sprawling across about four and a half miles at the foot of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, is the biggest refinery in Northern California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was built in 1902. Picture those \u003ca href=\"http://libraryphoto.cr.usgs.gov/cgi-bin/show_picture.cgi?ID=ID.%20Degenkolb,%20H.%2013\">black and white photos\u003c/a> of Victorian ladies after the 1906 earthquake. The refinery was already here, chugging along.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There was pretty much nothing else here. It just looked like an open plain,” said Chevron’s Brian Hubinger.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://projects1.kqed.org/imageslider/chevronsliders.html\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" width=\"640\" height=\"530\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, according to the company, one out of every five cars on the road in the Bay Area is driving with gas from here, and two-thirds of the jet fuel used at Bay Area airports starts here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now Chevron is looking to launch a \u003ca href=\"http://chevronmodernization.com/\">billion-dollar construction project\u003c/a> at the refinery. It’s a slimmed down version of a project that environmentalists stopped with a lawsuit a few years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After that legal battle and a \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2013/04/21/how-the-chevron-richmond-fire-happened-feds-release-blow-by-blow-animation-of-accident/\">fire at the refinery\u003c/a> in 2012, Chevron is trying to win back the community’s trust not only with a new environmental impact report on the project, but also with a \u003ca href=\"http://richmondstandard.com/\">company-published local news website\u003c/a> and billboards celebrating the city of Richmond, and TV ads supporting the proposed project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_16467\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-16467\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/chevrontanks.jpg\" alt=\"A view of the Chevron refinery from its wharf, where ships deliver crude oil. (Josh Cassidy/KQED)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A view of the refinery from its wharf, where ships deliver crude oil. (Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Hubinger, the technical advisor for what Chevron’s calling its modernization project took me on a tour of the facility. (Critics of the project are more apt to call it an “expansion.”) We drove to the end of the wharf where tankers full of oil from the Middle East and Alaska unload, and then back into the heart of the refinery, past right-angled tangles of pipeline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We parked near what looked like a brown barn on stilts: Chevron’s half-built hydrogen plant. That’s how much the company was able to construct before a state court judge \u003ca href=\"http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_14963441\">stopped the project\u003c/a> in 2010. This plant would produce more hydrogen, more efficiently, than the existing one does.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chevron wants the upgrade — and other changes it’s proposing — because hydrogen helps clean the sulfur out of crude oil. And the company wants to refine crude that has more sulfur in it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_16478\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 346px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-16478 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/RS9520_Chevron032714-JoshC-5195-scr-e1397259831604.jpg\" alt=\"The partially-built hydrogen plant. (Josh Cassidy/KQED)\" width=\"346\" height=\"230\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The partially-built hydrogen plant, the “barn on stilts.” (Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It provides flexibility to the refinery to remain competitive in the future,” Hubinger said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chevron won’t say exactly where that oil would be coming from, but the refinery can only receive crude via ship. So this is not about using trains to bring in oil from \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/audio/valero-rail-project-fuels-tar-sands-speculation-in-bay-area/\">Canada’s tar sands\u003c/a> or \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/audio/bay-area-residents-resist-crude-by-rail-as-accidents-rise/\">North Dakota’s Bakken formation\u003c/a>, the company says. Instead, the project would allow Chevron to process crude from declining oil fields, which are often higher in sulfur.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s another case where, like “modernization” versus “expansion,” the language drives a point of view: Opponents call the crude that’s higher in sulfur “dirty.” In the oil industry, they call it “sour.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s no debating, though, that sulfur is an impurity in crude oil, and that processing higher sulfur crude will affect emissions at the refinery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Whatever Chevron says, we have to look at the truth and not accept their word for it,” said Andrés Soto, an organizer with \u003ca href=\"http://www.cbecal.org/\">Communities for a Better Environment\u003c/a> (CBE).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CBE, with other partner organizations, was the group that won the lawsuit to stop the earlier project. CBE argued, and a state judge agreed, that Chevron hadn’t provided enough information about how the project would affect air pollution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_16483\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 342px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-16483 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/RS9531_Chevron032714-JoshC-5225-scr-e1397261318631.jpg\" alt=\"Andrés Soto is the Richmond organizer with Communities for a Better Environment. (Josh Cassidy/KQED)\" width=\"342\" height=\"229\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Andrés Soto in Atchison Village, a neighborhood near Chevron’s Richmond refinery. (Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Chevron refused to disclose the crude slate quality that they would process as a result of this project,” Soto said. “If they were going to expand their hydrogen production, that was because they were going to be processing dirtier crude.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unlike Chevron’s last attempt at the project, this time its environmental impact report does provide details on the amount of air pollution that will be created. And it describes how Chevron will try to offset that pollution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our commitments for no net increase are: no net increase in criteria air pollutants, no net increase in health risk and no net increase in greenhouse gas,” said Nicole Barber, a spokeswoman for Chevron. (Criteria air pollutants are particulates that the Environmental Protection Agency regulates for human and environmental health, such as lead, carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Greenhouse gas emissions could go up by 15 percent or more if this project happens, but, Barber said, Chevron would offset that by buying carbon credits, giving money to greenhouse gas reduction programs in Richmond and making changes on-site like using LED lighting and reusing water. That’s on the climate change side.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"left\">The \u003ca href=\"http://chevronmodernization.com/project-documents/\">draft environmental impact report\u003c/a>, including appendices, is thousands of pages long. If you want to learn more about the emissions from the project, here are some places to start.\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://chevronmodernization.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/4.8_Greenhouse-Gases.pdf\">Greenhouse gases\u003c/a>: Page 36 shows a table with baseline emissions and potential changes.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://chevronmodernization.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/4.3_Air-Quality.pdf\">Air quality\u003c/a>: Page 85 shows a table listing baseline criteria air pollutant emissions and potential changes. Page 96 shows the same for toxic air contaminants.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>In terms of emissions that could make people sick — toxic air contaminants and criteria air pollutants – Barber said Chevron will offset those, too. The company’s proposals include installing new burners that lower nitrogen oxide emissions and replacing three tanker ships with newer ships that have more efficient engines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s all according to the environmental impact report. The Bay Area Air Quality Management District, which regulates emissions, and CBE have both said they’re still examining the report, and have no comment yet on whether the details Chevron provides are thorough and sufficient.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We know they are claiming there will be no net increase in emissions,” said Soto. “And that sounds great. Except that the current level of emissions are already killing us. We have disproportionately high rates of cancers, asthma, other autoimmune diseases.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Richmond is \u003ca href=\"http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/news/2012/pollution-poverty-and-people-of-color-richmond-day-1\">an industrial area\u003c/a>. There are other refineries, shipping, trucking and factories. And year in and year out, Chevron’s refinery is one of the biggest polluters in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_16496\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-16496\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/9516scr_be7b8f9f55a4074-e1397264375694.jpg\" alt=\"Pipes inside the refinery. (Josh Cassidy/KQED)\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pipes inside the refinery. (Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Soto said the 2012 fire at the refinery is an extreme example of the health risks a refinery poses. The fire released a dark plume of smoke into the sky and sent more than 10,000 people to the hospital complaining of breathing problems\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That was an episodic exposure,” he said. “But then there’s the persistent and prolonged every day exposure that also happens.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Richmond mayor Gayle McLaughlin said she wants the project and the 1,000 construction jobs it’s expected to create, but she also wants to make sure it’s safe. And she sees it as a chance to push Chevron for lower emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“How often do we have an opportunity to determine whether or not to permit a $1 billion expansion project from a large refinery?” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The draft environmental impact report is open for public comment until May second. The planning commission could vote on it as soon as this summer. There’s a public hearing on the project this week on \u003ca href=\"http://chevronmodernization.com/meetings/\">Thursday night\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "California Wildfire Study: Spend on Prevention to Save on Disasters",
"headTitle": "California Wildfire Study: Spend on Prevention to Save on Disasters | KQED",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_16457\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-16457\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/6501scr_74e0f2dda29239a.jpg\" alt=\"Flames from the Rim Fire consume trees on August 25, 2013 near Groveland, California. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Flames from the Rim Fire consume trees on August 25, 2013 near Groveland, California. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"http://www.sierranevada.ca.gov/our-work/mokelumne-watershed-analysis/macafullreport\">new study\u003c/a> from the U. S. Forest Service and two environmental groups finds that investing in forest management could shrink the size of wildfires and save California hundreds of millions of dollars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a classic case of pay me now, or pay me a lot more later when the big fires occur,” says David Edelson, the Sierra Nevada Project Director at The Nature Conservancy and a primary author on the report.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘We are in a negative feedback loop, and we’ve gotta stop doing that.’\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Scientists from The Nature Conservancy, the Sierra Nevada Conservancy and the Forest Service concluded that forest management can save two to three times what it costs to fight and clean up after fires, and shrink the size and intensity of fires up to 75 percent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report recommends two steps to manage forests: Thin the undergrowth by cutting down smaller trees so they won’t be able to carry the fire up into the canopy; and conduct prescribed burns to clear the underbrush.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“By having frequent low-severity fires the underbrush and small trees cleared out, and the risk of these kinds of destructive megafires was much lower,” says Edelson. “Currently, we’re robbing Peter to pay Paul. When there’s a huge fire, we take the money away from the pots that are used to reduce wildfire risk. We are in a negative feedback loop, and we’ve gotta stop doing that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The biggest costs of a wildfire come from damage to homes and buildings, clean-up after the fire and the massive amount of carbon dioxide released during the fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdl id=\"attachment_16433\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"width: 898px\">\n\u003cdd class=\"wp-caption-dd\">Total Costs and Benefits for Fuel Treatment Scenarios\u003c/dd>\n\u003c/dl>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_16433\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 888px\">\u003ca style=\"background-color: #f3f3f3;text-align: center\" href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/firechartbig.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-16433\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/firechartbig.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"888\" height=\"385\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This chart, taken from the report, compares the cost of a fuel treatment program with the money saved by preventing large wildfires, over a 30-year period. The “low” and “high” columns reflect the range of savings.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The study drew on 30 years of fire data from the Mokelumne River watershed, an area researchers said is representative of watersheds across the Sierra Nevada. Based on that history, they forecasted the rate and intensity of fires over the next 30 years under two scenarios: with forest management and without it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The current drought is drying out soils and leaving trees weakened, conditions that are conducive to megafires, say scientists.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“An event such as the Rim Fire would be more likely in these drought condition years because they are more conducive to intense burning,” says Phil Bowden, the Regional Fuels Program Manager for the U. S. Forest Service Pacific Southwest Region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/audio/can-california-burn-its-way-out-of-its-wildfire-problem/\">Fire scientists say\u003c/a> a lack of funding combined with a century of fire suppression has left a massive load of undergrowth in the state’s forests. Right now, the U.S. Forest Service takes fire prevention measures on about 150,000 acres of national park land in California each year; its goal is to raise that to 500,000 acres.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The issue has long been on the agenda at the national level, as well. On April 10, the Obama administration released the \u003ca href=\"http://www.doi.gov/news/loader.cfm?csModule=security/getfile&pageid=526008\">National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy\u003c/a>, which focuses on fire prevention. For a quick breakdown of its recommendations, check out this Grist \u003ca href=\"http://grist.org/news/climate-change-just-reshaped-americas-wildfire-strategy/\">article\u003c/a> by John Upton.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_16457\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-16457\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/6501scr_74e0f2dda29239a.jpg\" alt=\"Flames from the Rim Fire consume trees on August 25, 2013 near Groveland, California. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Flames from the Rim Fire consume trees on August 25, 2013 near Groveland, California. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"http://www.sierranevada.ca.gov/our-work/mokelumne-watershed-analysis/macafullreport\">new study\u003c/a> from the U. S. Forest Service and two environmental groups finds that investing in forest management could shrink the size of wildfires and save California hundreds of millions of dollars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a classic case of pay me now, or pay me a lot more later when the big fires occur,” says David Edelson, the Sierra Nevada Project Director at The Nature Conservancy and a primary author on the report.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘We are in a negative feedback loop, and we’ve gotta stop doing that.’\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Scientists from The Nature Conservancy, the Sierra Nevada Conservancy and the Forest Service concluded that forest management can save two to three times what it costs to fight and clean up after fires, and shrink the size and intensity of fires up to 75 percent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report recommends two steps to manage forests: Thin the undergrowth by cutting down smaller trees so they won’t be able to carry the fire up into the canopy; and conduct prescribed burns to clear the underbrush.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“By having frequent low-severity fires the underbrush and small trees cleared out, and the risk of these kinds of destructive megafires was much lower,” says Edelson. “Currently, we’re robbing Peter to pay Paul. When there’s a huge fire, we take the money away from the pots that are used to reduce wildfire risk. We are in a negative feedback loop, and we’ve gotta stop doing that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The biggest costs of a wildfire come from damage to homes and buildings, clean-up after the fire and the massive amount of carbon dioxide released during the fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdl id=\"attachment_16433\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"width: 898px\">\n\u003cdd class=\"wp-caption-dd\">Total Costs and Benefits for Fuel Treatment Scenarios\u003c/dd>\n\u003c/dl>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_16433\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 888px\">\u003ca style=\"background-color: #f3f3f3;text-align: center\" href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/firechartbig.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-16433\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/firechartbig.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"888\" height=\"385\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This chart, taken from the report, compares the cost of a fuel treatment program with the money saved by preventing large wildfires, over a 30-year period. The “low” and “high” columns reflect the range of savings.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The study drew on 30 years of fire data from the Mokelumne River watershed, an area researchers said is representative of watersheds across the Sierra Nevada. Based on that history, they forecasted the rate and intensity of fires over the next 30 years under two scenarios: with forest management and without it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The current drought is drying out soils and leaving trees weakened, conditions that are conducive to megafires, say scientists.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“An event such as the Rim Fire would be more likely in these drought condition years because they are more conducive to intense burning,” says Phil Bowden, the Regional Fuels Program Manager for the U. S. Forest Service Pacific Southwest Region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/audio/can-california-burn-its-way-out-of-its-wildfire-problem/\">Fire scientists say\u003c/a> a lack of funding combined with a century of fire suppression has left a massive load of undergrowth in the state’s forests. Right now, the U.S. Forest Service takes fire prevention measures on about 150,000 acres of national park land in California each year; its goal is to raise that to 500,000 acres.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The issue has long been on the agenda at the national level, as well. On April 10, the Obama administration released the \u003ca href=\"http://www.doi.gov/news/loader.cfm?csModule=security/getfile&pageid=526008\">National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy\u003c/a>, which focuses on fire prevention. For a quick breakdown of its recommendations, check out this Grist \u003ca href=\"http://grist.org/news/climate-change-just-reshaped-americas-wildfire-strategy/\">article\u003c/a> by John Upton.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Soil Science May Be Important Key to Tackling Climate Change",
"headTitle": "Soil Science May Be Important Key to Tackling Climate Change | KQED",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_16376\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/Oak_tree_with_moon_and_wildflowers.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-16376\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-16376\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/Oak_tree_with_moon_and_wildflowers.jpg\" alt=\"Healthy grassland has the potential to absorb enough carbon to offset carbon emmissions from electrical and industrial activities in California. (Almonroth/Wikimedia)\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Healthy grassland has the potential to offset carbon emissions from electrical and industrial activities in California. (\u003ca title=\"Almonroth, Oak tree with moon and wildflowers photo\" href=\"http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oak_tree_with_moon_and_wildflowers.jpg\" class=\"nofancybox\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Almonroth/Wikimedia\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>There’s a groundswell movement afoot that author \u003ca title=\"Kristin Ohlson's website\" href=\"http://www.kristinohlson.com/books/soil-will-save-us\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Kristin Ohlson\u003c/a> brings to light in her new book, “The Soil Will Save Us: How Scientists, Farmers, and Foodies Are Healing the Soil to Save the Planet.” Kristin was part of a panel discussion this past Wednesday that included local soil experts Al Courchesne of \u003ca href=\"http://www.cuesa.org/seller/frog-hollow-farm\">Frog Hollow Farm\u003c/a> and Jeff Creque, co-founder of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.marincarbonproject.org/\">Marin Carbon Project \u003c/a>. The panel was hosted by \u003ca title=\"Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture\" href=\"http://www.cuesa.org/about-cuesa\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">CUESA \u003c/a>and sponsored by Book Passage in San Francisco’s Ferry Building.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ohlson shared with the audience that one possible solution to global climate change could be as simple as healing the land beneath our feet and encouraging the plants to do what they do best: sequester carbon in the soil. She originally wanted to call her book, “Heroes of the Underground,” in recognition of the multitude of biota found in the soil as well as the farmers, range managers and foodies working to make a difference. In her book, Ohlson recounts the fascinating stories of visionaries at the forefront of soil science and land management who are working to improve soil and rangeland management practices to encourage greater soil fertility and plant diversity. With better care of our soil, it’s possible that our excess atmospheric carbon could be sequestered in the soil, bringing our atmosphere back into balance and reversing climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_16377\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 242px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/Real_Compost-242x162.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-16377\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-16377\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/Real_Compost-242x162.jpg\" alt=\"Compost added to rangeland in two experiments increased the soil's ability to absorb carbon as well as better retain water. (Kessner Photography/Wikimedia)\" width=\"242\" height=\"162\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Compost added to rangeland in two experiments increased the soil’s ability to absorb carbon as well as better retain water. (\u003ca title=\"Real Compost by Kessner Photography, Wikimedia\" href=\"http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Real_Compost.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"nofancybox\" rel=\"noopener\">Kessner Photography/Wikimedia\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Locally, we have our own visionaries working on this strategy including the two speakers on this panel. The Marin Carbon Project has three-year-long carbon farming test projects underway on three farms in West Marin: Stemple Creek Ranch (700 acres), Straus Dairy (500 acres) and Corda Ranch (in the San Antonio Creek watershed). Rangelands, Jeff Creque noted, store 1/3 of the world’s carbon. Al Courchesne discussed his comprehensive approach to producing Frog Hollow Farm’s legendary organic fruit: compost and soil health. He noted that California produces 80,000 tons of food waste per day with 30 million metric tons buried in landfills. Many Bay Area municipal waste programs are in place now to divert food waste from landfills and into compost, but it’s up to each of us to do our part (see \u003ca title=\"StopWaste.org\" href=\"http://www.stopwaste.org/home/index.asp?page=528\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">StopWaste.org\u003c/a> for Alameda County).\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_16378\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 105px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/9781609615543-105x162.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-16378\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-16378\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/9781609615543-105x162.jpg\" alt=\"Kristin Ohlson's new book gives hopeful insight into the soil's ability to absorb carbon and highlights inspiring visionaries working to save us from climate change.\" width=\"105\" height=\"162\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kristin Ohlson’s new book gives hopeful insight into the soil’s ability to absorb carbon and highlights inspiring visionaries working to save us from climate change.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Ohlson and the other panelists also confirmed the promising message that citizens can all be part of the solution. From managing vast swaths of rangeland, caretaking our backyard gardens and supporting government initiatives for good soil management, communities can all participate. Ohlson emphasized that she wants people to have a feeling of wonder about the soil with awe for the billions of microorganisms at work. Maybe more of them exist under San Francisco than there are stars in the universe!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She also wants us to be inspired and support farmers participating in “regenerative agriculture”; working with nature, not against it. For some practical ideas, \u003ca title=\"C2ES Take Action\" href=\"http://www.c2es.org/years-of-living-dangerously-resources\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Center for Climate and Energy Solutions\u003c/a> – an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization working to advance strong policy and action to address the twin challenges of energy and climate change — has a good list of actions we can all take to reduce our energy use and carbon in the atmosphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For a good primer about carbon sequestration, see the TED talk “\u003ca title=\"Putting Carbon Back Where it Belongs: In the Earth, Tony Lovell TED Talk\" href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgmssrVInP0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Putting Carbon Back Where it Belongs: In the Earth\u003c/a>” by Tony Lovell, Australia, a country hard at work on this issue.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Studying the important partnership between soil and plants may lead to some solutions for the ongoing problems arising from climate change. The East Bay Regional Park District's Sharol Nelson-Embry highlights a recent panel discussion in San Francisco with local soil scientists and author Kristin Ohlson on carbon sequestration. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_16376\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/Oak_tree_with_moon_and_wildflowers.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-16376\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-16376\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/Oak_tree_with_moon_and_wildflowers.jpg\" alt=\"Healthy grassland has the potential to absorb enough carbon to offset carbon emmissions from electrical and industrial activities in California. (Almonroth/Wikimedia)\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Healthy grassland has the potential to offset carbon emissions from electrical and industrial activities in California. (\u003ca title=\"Almonroth, Oak tree with moon and wildflowers photo\" href=\"http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oak_tree_with_moon_and_wildflowers.jpg\" class=\"nofancybox\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Almonroth/Wikimedia\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>There’s a groundswell movement afoot that author \u003ca title=\"Kristin Ohlson's website\" href=\"http://www.kristinohlson.com/books/soil-will-save-us\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Kristin Ohlson\u003c/a> brings to light in her new book, “The Soil Will Save Us: How Scientists, Farmers, and Foodies Are Healing the Soil to Save the Planet.” Kristin was part of a panel discussion this past Wednesday that included local soil experts Al Courchesne of \u003ca href=\"http://www.cuesa.org/seller/frog-hollow-farm\">Frog Hollow Farm\u003c/a> and Jeff Creque, co-founder of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.marincarbonproject.org/\">Marin Carbon Project \u003c/a>. The panel was hosted by \u003ca title=\"Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture\" href=\"http://www.cuesa.org/about-cuesa\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">CUESA \u003c/a>and sponsored by Book Passage in San Francisco’s Ferry Building.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ohlson shared with the audience that one possible solution to global climate change could be as simple as healing the land beneath our feet and encouraging the plants to do what they do best: sequester carbon in the soil. She originally wanted to call her book, “Heroes of the Underground,” in recognition of the multitude of biota found in the soil as well as the farmers, range managers and foodies working to make a difference. In her book, Ohlson recounts the fascinating stories of visionaries at the forefront of soil science and land management who are working to improve soil and rangeland management practices to encourage greater soil fertility and plant diversity. With better care of our soil, it’s possible that our excess atmospheric carbon could be sequestered in the soil, bringing our atmosphere back into balance and reversing climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_16377\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 242px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/Real_Compost-242x162.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-16377\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-16377\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/Real_Compost-242x162.jpg\" alt=\"Compost added to rangeland in two experiments increased the soil's ability to absorb carbon as well as better retain water. (Kessner Photography/Wikimedia)\" width=\"242\" height=\"162\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Compost added to rangeland in two experiments increased the soil’s ability to absorb carbon as well as better retain water. (\u003ca title=\"Real Compost by Kessner Photography, Wikimedia\" href=\"http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Real_Compost.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"nofancybox\" rel=\"noopener\">Kessner Photography/Wikimedia\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Locally, we have our own visionaries working on this strategy including the two speakers on this panel. The Marin Carbon Project has three-year-long carbon farming test projects underway on three farms in West Marin: Stemple Creek Ranch (700 acres), Straus Dairy (500 acres) and Corda Ranch (in the San Antonio Creek watershed). Rangelands, Jeff Creque noted, store 1/3 of the world’s carbon. Al Courchesne discussed his comprehensive approach to producing Frog Hollow Farm’s legendary organic fruit: compost and soil health. He noted that California produces 80,000 tons of food waste per day with 30 million metric tons buried in landfills. Many Bay Area municipal waste programs are in place now to divert food waste from landfills and into compost, but it’s up to each of us to do our part (see \u003ca title=\"StopWaste.org\" href=\"http://www.stopwaste.org/home/index.asp?page=528\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">StopWaste.org\u003c/a> for Alameda County).\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_16378\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 105px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/9781609615543-105x162.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-16378\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-16378\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/9781609615543-105x162.jpg\" alt=\"Kristin Ohlson's new book gives hopeful insight into the soil's ability to absorb carbon and highlights inspiring visionaries working to save us from climate change.\" width=\"105\" height=\"162\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kristin Ohlson’s new book gives hopeful insight into the soil’s ability to absorb carbon and highlights inspiring visionaries working to save us from climate change.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Ohlson and the other panelists also confirmed the promising message that citizens can all be part of the solution. From managing vast swaths of rangeland, caretaking our backyard gardens and supporting government initiatives for good soil management, communities can all participate. Ohlson emphasized that she wants people to have a feeling of wonder about the soil with awe for the billions of microorganisms at work. Maybe more of them exist under San Francisco than there are stars in the universe!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She also wants us to be inspired and support farmers participating in “regenerative agriculture”; working with nature, not against it. For some practical ideas, \u003ca title=\"C2ES Take Action\" href=\"http://www.c2es.org/years-of-living-dangerously-resources\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Center for Climate and Energy Solutions\u003c/a> – an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization working to advance strong policy and action to address the twin challenges of energy and climate change — has a good list of actions we can all take to reduce our energy use and carbon in the atmosphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For a good primer about carbon sequestration, see the TED talk “\u003ca title=\"Putting Carbon Back Where it Belongs: In the Earth, Tony Lovell TED Talk\" href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgmssrVInP0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Putting Carbon Back Where it Belongs: In the Earth\u003c/a>” by Tony Lovell, Australia, a country hard at work on this issue.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>These are magic weeks in the groves of the Central Valley citrus belt, a time when orchards are buzzing with honeybees and redolent with the heady, sweet smell of orange blossoms. But around the Tulare County town of Terra Bella, farmers like Matt Fisher smell doom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You don’t want all these flowers,” Fisher says, reaching into a tree and knocking off some blossoms. “The reason this tree is blooming so hard, is because the tree by nature wants to come out fighting from a freeze.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_16309\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-16309\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/Terra-Bella-4-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"Jeff Fisher and his wife invested their life savings in 40 acres of citrus in Terra Bella, only to be hit with a devastating freeze last winter, and the drought this year. (Sasha Khokha/KQED)\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Matt Fisher and his wife invested their life savings in 40 acres of citrus in Terra Bella, only to be hit with a devastating freeze last winter, and the drought this year. (Sasha Khokha/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"http://www.californiareport.org/archive/R201401060850/b\">cold snap\u003c/a> last December \u003ca title=\"LAT - post\" href=\"http://articles.latimes.com/2014/feb/03/business/la-fi-mo-citrus-damage-20140203\">hit this area hard\u003c/a> and dried up lots of Fisher’s fruit. Many of his baby mandarin trees are still brown and fried. The surviving orange trees face a double-whammy: first the freeze, now no irrigation water whatsoever to keep them alive as they move into the spring and summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The trees are already starting to go into a wilt,” says Fisher. “You see the leaves are curling. These trees are just running out of gas. It’s hard.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fisher farms in the \u003ca title=\"USBR - doc\" href=\"http://www.usbr.gov/mp/watershare/wcplans/2013/Terra_Bella%20.pdf\">Terra Bella Irrigation District\u003c/a>, which is in an especially tight spot. Farmers in other parts of the San Joaquin Valley may decide not to plant tomatoes or onions this year. But in Terra Bella, the main crops are citrus and pistachio trees. Not watering them could cripple the local farm economy for years to come.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘You’ve literally just got to watch your trees go into a dead wilt, turn brown, and that’s it.’\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Unlike other parts of California’s farm belt, Terra Bella has almost no groundwater. Now Terra Bella’s 600 farmers have gotten some shattering news. For the first time ever, they’re likely to get \u003ca title=\"USBR - release\" href=\"https://www.usbr.gov/newsroom/newsrelease/detail.cfm?RecordID=46045\">no water this year\u003c/a> from the federally-operated \u003ca title=\"Wiki - Friant-Kern Canal\" href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friant-Kern_Canal\">Friant-Kern canal\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t have any well water, so we’re waiting on rain, and that’s it,” says Fisher. “The noose is tightening around our necks, more and more every day. You’ve literally just got to watch your trees go into a dead wilt, turn brown, and that’s it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Farmers in this part of the valley have always enjoyed priority rights to the water that comes from the federal canals. But last month, authorities here sealed the water connections to all farms in the district.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fisher opens up the lid to his water meter to show me a wire wrapped around the spigot, hooked to a green tag that reads, “No irrigation water is available this year. Illegal use of irrigation water is subject to penalties. Your meter has been sealed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_16313\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-16313\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/Terra-Bella-7-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"The Terra Bella Irrigation District has put a physical seal on the spigots that deliver water to farmers. There is a $10,000 penalty for breaking the seal. (Sasha Khokha/KQED)\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Terra Bella Irrigation District has put a physical seal on the spigots that deliver water to farmers. There is a $10,000 penalty for breaking the seal. (Sasha Khokha/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The irrigation district is levying some hefty fines, including a $10,000 penalty for cutting the seal. But with Terra Bella’s $100 million citrus crop at stake, irrigation district manager Sean Geivet knows a $10,000 fine may not be enough of a deterrent to keep farmers from breaking the seals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve heard rumors that it may be worth paying the penalties to keep your trees alive, so we’ll see how it works,” says Geivet, standing in the pump house that usually sends canal water out to Terra Bella’s 7,000 acres of citrus. “I don’t want to be a water cop, but this year, that’s what we’re looking like.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”040792ff5c8448f89bab0ced86ac667c”]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Geivet’s also looking like a banker. Desperate farmers have dropped off $4 million in checks at Geivet’s office. He’s just holding them in his safe until he can find some water to buy on their behalf.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With a projected allocation of “zero” water from the federal \u003ca title=\"USBOR - CVP\" href=\"https://www.usbr.gov/projects/Project.jsp?proj_Name=Central+Valley+Project\">Central Valley Project\u003c/a>, Geivet spends nearly all his time on the phone, trying to drum up other sources of water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But at zero,” he says. “There’s not even enough water in the system to try and trade things around.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That zero adds up to trouble for the town of Terra Bella, where about 6,000 people rely heavily on the citrus industry – and the same irrigation canal that feeds area farms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The federal government does plan to continue supplying drinking water for residential customers here who rely on the Friant-Kern canal, but only half the usual amount.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘We don’t know what’s going to happen with our jobs if there’s no water.’\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp> At the irrigation district office, Patty Gutierrez tries to explain the importance of conservation to residential customers like farmworker Miguel Cortes, who comes to pay his bill in his cowboy hat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You have to conserve water,” Gutierrez reminds him in Spanish. “You can’t use more than 32,670 cubic feet per year.” (That’s about three-quarters of what a typical American household uses.) Customers who go beyond that in Terra Bella may face a $3,000 fine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At this point, Cortes is more worried about losing his livelihood than whether or not there’s enough water to wash his car.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We depend on the work in the fields,” he says in Spanish. “We don’t know what’s going to happen with our jobs if there’s no water. What can we do? All we can do is wait for what’s coming next,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just down the road, Terra Bella resident Jose Melendez is carefully watering his plants with a coffee can. “There’s no water coming in. We’re out. I get it,” he says, pointing to the hose he once used to wash off his patio.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like many residents here, Melendez has two meters: one for outdoor irrigation, and one that provides filtered canal water for indoor use. And like Terra Bella famers, his outdoor irrigation meter is sealed. So now he’s having to use the more expensive drinking water for his plants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He’s willing to do that, and to stop watering his lawn. But he wants the irrigation district to do a better job of educating residents on conservation and helping them calculate a running total of how much they are using. There’s nothing on their monthly bill that shows how close they are getting to the limit set by the district.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Because if we don’t know. How are we supposed to really conserve?” asks Melendez. “They shouldn’t be keeping us in the dark.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The water district says it is sending out letters to residents about conservation, but its main concern is not household use. It’s agriculture. Farmers use more than 90 percent of the water here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"166\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" src=\"https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/143726744&color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_artwork=true\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>These are magic weeks in the groves of the Central Valley citrus belt, a time when orchards are buzzing with honeybees and redolent with the heady, sweet smell of orange blossoms. But around the Tulare County town of Terra Bella, farmers like Matt Fisher smell doom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You don’t want all these flowers,” Fisher says, reaching into a tree and knocking off some blossoms. “The reason this tree is blooming so hard, is because the tree by nature wants to come out fighting from a freeze.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_16309\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-16309\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/Terra-Bella-4-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"Jeff Fisher and his wife invested their life savings in 40 acres of citrus in Terra Bella, only to be hit with a devastating freeze last winter, and the drought this year. (Sasha Khokha/KQED)\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Matt Fisher and his wife invested their life savings in 40 acres of citrus in Terra Bella, only to be hit with a devastating freeze last winter, and the drought this year. (Sasha Khokha/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"http://www.californiareport.org/archive/R201401060850/b\">cold snap\u003c/a> last December \u003ca title=\"LAT - post\" href=\"http://articles.latimes.com/2014/feb/03/business/la-fi-mo-citrus-damage-20140203\">hit this area hard\u003c/a> and dried up lots of Fisher’s fruit. Many of his baby mandarin trees are still brown and fried. The surviving orange trees face a double-whammy: first the freeze, now no irrigation water whatsoever to keep them alive as they move into the spring and summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The trees are already starting to go into a wilt,” says Fisher. “You see the leaves are curling. These trees are just running out of gas. It’s hard.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fisher farms in the \u003ca title=\"USBR - doc\" href=\"http://www.usbr.gov/mp/watershare/wcplans/2013/Terra_Bella%20.pdf\">Terra Bella Irrigation District\u003c/a>, which is in an especially tight spot. Farmers in other parts of the San Joaquin Valley may decide not to plant tomatoes or onions this year. But in Terra Bella, the main crops are citrus and pistachio trees. Not watering them could cripple the local farm economy for years to come.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘You’ve literally just got to watch your trees go into a dead wilt, turn brown, and that’s it.’\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Unlike other parts of California’s farm belt, Terra Bella has almost no groundwater. Now Terra Bella’s 600 farmers have gotten some shattering news. For the first time ever, they’re likely to get \u003ca title=\"USBR - release\" href=\"https://www.usbr.gov/newsroom/newsrelease/detail.cfm?RecordID=46045\">no water this year\u003c/a> from the federally-operated \u003ca title=\"Wiki - Friant-Kern Canal\" href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friant-Kern_Canal\">Friant-Kern canal\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t have any well water, so we’re waiting on rain, and that’s it,” says Fisher. “The noose is tightening around our necks, more and more every day. You’ve literally just got to watch your trees go into a dead wilt, turn brown, and that’s it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Farmers in this part of the valley have always enjoyed priority rights to the water that comes from the federal canals. But last month, authorities here sealed the water connections to all farms in the district.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fisher opens up the lid to his water meter to show me a wire wrapped around the spigot, hooked to a green tag that reads, “No irrigation water is available this year. Illegal use of irrigation water is subject to penalties. Your meter has been sealed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_16313\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-16313\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/Terra-Bella-7-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"The Terra Bella Irrigation District has put a physical seal on the spigots that deliver water to farmers. There is a $10,000 penalty for breaking the seal. (Sasha Khokha/KQED)\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Terra Bella Irrigation District has put a physical seal on the spigots that deliver water to farmers. There is a $10,000 penalty for breaking the seal. (Sasha Khokha/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The irrigation district is levying some hefty fines, including a $10,000 penalty for cutting the seal. But with Terra Bella’s $100 million citrus crop at stake, irrigation district manager Sean Geivet knows a $10,000 fine may not be enough of a deterrent to keep farmers from breaking the seals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve heard rumors that it may be worth paying the penalties to keep your trees alive, so we’ll see how it works,” says Geivet, standing in the pump house that usually sends canal water out to Terra Bella’s 7,000 acres of citrus. “I don’t want to be a water cop, but this year, that’s what we’re looking like.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Geivet’s also looking like a banker. Desperate farmers have dropped off $4 million in checks at Geivet’s office. He’s just holding them in his safe until he can find some water to buy on their behalf.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With a projected allocation of “zero” water from the federal \u003ca title=\"USBOR - CVP\" href=\"https://www.usbr.gov/projects/Project.jsp?proj_Name=Central+Valley+Project\">Central Valley Project\u003c/a>, Geivet spends nearly all his time on the phone, trying to drum up other sources of water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But at zero,” he says. “There’s not even enough water in the system to try and trade things around.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That zero adds up to trouble for the town of Terra Bella, where about 6,000 people rely heavily on the citrus industry – and the same irrigation canal that feeds area farms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The federal government does plan to continue supplying drinking water for residential customers here who rely on the Friant-Kern canal, but only half the usual amount.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘We don’t know what’s going to happen with our jobs if there’s no water.’\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp> At the irrigation district office, Patty Gutierrez tries to explain the importance of conservation to residential customers like farmworker Miguel Cortes, who comes to pay his bill in his cowboy hat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You have to conserve water,” Gutierrez reminds him in Spanish. “You can’t use more than 32,670 cubic feet per year.” (That’s about three-quarters of what a typical American household uses.) Customers who go beyond that in Terra Bella may face a $3,000 fine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At this point, Cortes is more worried about losing his livelihood than whether or not there’s enough water to wash his car.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We depend on the work in the fields,” he says in Spanish. “We don’t know what’s going to happen with our jobs if there’s no water. What can we do? All we can do is wait for what’s coming next,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just down the road, Terra Bella resident Jose Melendez is carefully watering his plants with a coffee can. “There’s no water coming in. We’re out. I get it,” he says, pointing to the hose he once used to wash off his patio.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like many residents here, Melendez has two meters: one for outdoor irrigation, and one that provides filtered canal water for indoor use. And like Terra Bella famers, his outdoor irrigation meter is sealed. So now he’s having to use the more expensive drinking water for his plants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He’s willing to do that, and to stop watering his lawn. But he wants the irrigation district to do a better job of educating residents on conservation and helping them calculate a running total of how much they are using. There’s nothing on their monthly bill that shows how close they are getting to the limit set by the district.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Because if we don’t know. How are we supposed to really conserve?” asks Melendez. “They shouldn’t be keeping us in the dark.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The water district says it is sending out letters to residents about conservation, but its main concern is not household use. It’s agriculture. Farmers use more than 90 percent of the water here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
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"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
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"soldout": {
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