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"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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"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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"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",
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"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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"title": "California Trails Texas in Wind Power, Says New Report",
"headTitle": "California Trails Texas in Wind Power, Says New Report | KQED",
"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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"excerpt": "Despite some of the strongest renewable energy incentives in the country, California produces less than half the wind energy generated in the Lone Star State. ",
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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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"excerpt": "Chevron is looking to launch a billion-dollar construction project at its Richmond refinery. It’s a slimmed down version of a project that environmentalists stopped with a lawsuit a few years ago. ",
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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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"title": "Cold, Then Dry: Dealing California Citrus Farmers a Double Punch",
"headTitle": "Cold, Then Dry: Dealing California Citrus Farmers a Double Punch | KQED",
"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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"excerpt": "First the freeze, now a crippling water shortage confront citrus growers in the Central Valley.",
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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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"title": "Sierra Snowpack: Better But Far From What's Needed for Drought",
"headTitle": "Sierra Snowpack: Better But Far From What’s Needed for Drought | KQED",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_16049\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-16049\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/sierrasnowwater.jpg\" alt=\"Abut a third of California's water comes from snow in the Sierra Nevada. (David McNew/Getty Images)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Abut a third of California’s water comes from snow in the Sierra Nevada. (David McNew/Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>After months of nervous anticipation, the jury is back on the water potential from this winter’s Sierra snowfall. Make no mistake: the flurry of late-season precipitation has helped, but \u003ca title=\"Merc - post\" href=\"http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_25468885/droughts-not-over-yet-california-storms-improve-sierra\">has not rescued California\u003c/a> from its historic drought.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than a week’s worth of \u003ca title=\"CoCo Times - post\" href=\"http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_25458057/rain-thunderstorms-expected-monday-and-tuesday-bay\">rain and snow \u003c/a>that rounded out March and seemed to be shaping up as an “April miracle” gave the \u003ca title=\"DWR - snowpack\" href=\"http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cdecapp/snowapp/sweq.action\">meager snowpack\u003c/a> a significant boost, from about a quarter of the 30-year average to about a third. That’s the good news.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bad news: it’s still only 32 percent of average. In the northern Sierra, it’s even worse: water content is still only 23 percent of normal. This is an ugly prospect for a state that counts on the “frozen reservoir” for about a third of its water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”e327cf882e2a712168b6bf40c866653e”]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of the five monthly surveys officials do of the Sierra snowpack each winter, April is considered the most important benchmark. This is usually when the snowpack has peaked, the wet season is winding down, things are warming up and the runoff season begins.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“February and March storms have probably kept us from breaking records for historic drought this year,” Mark Cowin, the head of California’s Department of Water Resources told reporters, “but they certainly haven’t rescued us from that drought.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cowin said that state and federal water managers will try to harness some of the recent precipitation by temporarily increasing pumping of water to customers south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As water managers were weighing in the scant water content of Sierra snows, the Association of California Water Agencies \u003ca title=\"ACWA - release\" href=\"http://www.acwa.com/news/water-supply-challenges/acwa-calls-statewide-conservation-response-drought\">weighed in\u003c/a> with its 400-plus members, issuing an unusual plea for them to \u003ca title=\"ACWA - Drought map\" href=\"http://www.acwa.com/content/drought-map\">ask more sacrifices\u003c/a> of its urban customers. The Sacramento-based trade group is urging local water managers to “request heightened water conservation from their customers in response to drought conditions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s the first time that ACWA has made such a call to its member agencies. “Reducing water use has been standard practice in California for more than a decade,” noted ACWA President John Coleman in a written statement, “but given the severity of this drought and the impacts starting to be felt across the state’s economy, it is imperative that all residents step up their conservation efforts now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\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/142610983&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>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_16049\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-16049\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/04/sierrasnowwater.jpg\" alt=\"Abut a third of California's water comes from snow in the Sierra Nevada. (David McNew/Getty Images)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Abut a third of California’s water comes from snow in the Sierra Nevada. (David McNew/Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>After months of nervous anticipation, the jury is back on the water potential from this winter’s Sierra snowfall. Make no mistake: the flurry of late-season precipitation has helped, but \u003ca title=\"Merc - post\" href=\"http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_25468885/droughts-not-over-yet-california-storms-improve-sierra\">has not rescued California\u003c/a> from its historic drought.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than a week’s worth of \u003ca title=\"CoCo Times - post\" href=\"http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_25458057/rain-thunderstorms-expected-monday-and-tuesday-bay\">rain and snow \u003c/a>that rounded out March and seemed to be shaping up as an “April miracle” gave the \u003ca title=\"DWR - snowpack\" href=\"http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cdecapp/snowapp/sweq.action\">meager snowpack\u003c/a> a significant boost, from about a quarter of the 30-year average to about a third. That’s the good news.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bad news: it’s still only 32 percent of average. In the northern Sierra, it’s even worse: water content is still only 23 percent of normal. This is an ugly prospect for a state that counts on the “frozen reservoir” for about a third of its water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of the five monthly surveys officials do of the Sierra snowpack each winter, April is considered the most important benchmark. This is usually when the snowpack has peaked, the wet season is winding down, things are warming up and the runoff season begins.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“February and March storms have probably kept us from breaking records for historic drought this year,” Mark Cowin, the head of California’s Department of Water Resources told reporters, “but they certainly haven’t rescued us from that drought.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cowin said that state and federal water managers will try to harness some of the recent precipitation by temporarily increasing pumping of water to customers south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As water managers were weighing in the scant water content of Sierra snows, the Association of California Water Agencies \u003ca title=\"ACWA - release\" href=\"http://www.acwa.com/news/water-supply-challenges/acwa-calls-statewide-conservation-response-drought\">weighed in\u003c/a> with its 400-plus members, issuing an unusual plea for them to \u003ca title=\"ACWA - Drought map\" href=\"http://www.acwa.com/content/drought-map\">ask more sacrifices\u003c/a> of its urban customers. The Sacramento-based trade group is urging local water managers to “request heightened water conservation from their customers in response to drought conditions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s the first time that ACWA has made such a call to its member agencies. “Reducing water use has been standard practice in California for more than a decade,” noted ACWA President John Coleman in a written statement, “but given the severity of this drought and the impacts starting to be felt across the state’s economy, it is imperative that all residents step up their conservation efforts now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\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/142610983&color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_artwork=true\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "IPCC: Climate Change Is Taking a Toll in California and It's Going to Get Worse",
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"content": "\u003cp>The latest \u003ca href=\"http://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/\">report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change\u003c/a> focuses on impacts from climate change, both current and looming, and recommendations for how to adapt. It also ratchets up considerably the confidence levels for those predicted impacts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201404010900\">KQED’s Forum\u003c/a> hosted a segment on the report Tuesday morning. And the \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/01/science/earth/climate.html\">New York Times has this story\u003c/a> on the scope of the IPCC’s work, the expected impacts from climate change — hunger, thirst, flooding, violent conflicts, mass migrations — and the political response (or lack thereof):\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"mceItemEmbedly\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/03/31/science/earth/31climate/31climate-videoSixteenByNine1050.jpg\" class=\"thumb embedly-thumbnail-small\">\u003ca class=\"embedly-title\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/01/science/earth/climate.html\" rel=\"noopener\">Panel’s Warning on Climate Risk: Worst Is Yet to Come\u003c/a>YOKOHAMA, Japan – Climate change is already having sweeping effects on every continent and throughout the world’s oceans, scientists reported on Monday, and they warned that the problem was likely to grow substantially worse unless greenhouse emissions are brought under control.\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly-clear\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"embedly-powered\" style=\"float:right\">\u003ca target=\"_blank\" href=\"http://embed.ly/code?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2014%2F04%2F01%2Fscience%2Fearth%2Fclimate.html\" title=\"Powered by Embedly\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://static.embed.ly/images/logos/embedly-powered-small-light.png\" alt=\"Embedly Powered\">\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"media-attribution\">\u003cspan>via \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com\" class=\"media-attribution-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Nytimes\u003c/a>\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly-clear\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"http://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/images/uploads/WGIIAR5-Chap26_FGDall.pdf\">North America\u003c/a> section drills down into some local impacts. Here’s a taste of what the IPCC says we can expect in California. And yes, the report says that some of this is already happening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Flooding in the \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/ca-delta/\">Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Loss of suitable land for wine growing\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://science.kqed.org/quest/video/heat-and-harvest/\">Declines in agricultural productivity\u003c/a> for other crops, though some of that may be softened by irrigation\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>A longer \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/audio/can-california-burn-its-way-out-of-its-wildfire-problem/\">wildfire season\u003c/a> and more acreage burned\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Earlier spring runoff and declines in the amount of water stored by the mountain snowpack\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://science.kqed.org/quest/audio/san-francisco-a-test-case-for-coping-with-rising-seas/\">Sea level rise\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The latest \u003ca href=\"http://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/\">report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change\u003c/a> focuses on impacts from climate change, both current and looming, and recommendations for how to adapt. It also ratchets up considerably the confidence levels for those predicted impacts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201404010900\">KQED’s Forum\u003c/a> hosted a segment on the report Tuesday morning. And the \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/01/science/earth/climate.html\">New York Times has this story\u003c/a> on the scope of the IPCC’s work, the expected impacts from climate change — hunger, thirst, flooding, violent conflicts, mass migrations — and the political response (or lack thereof):\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"mceItemEmbedly\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/03/31/science/earth/31climate/31climate-videoSixteenByNine1050.jpg\" class=\"thumb embedly-thumbnail-small\">\u003ca class=\"embedly-title\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/01/science/earth/climate.html\" rel=\"noopener\">Panel’s Warning on Climate Risk: Worst Is Yet to Come\u003c/a>YOKOHAMA, Japan – Climate change is already having sweeping effects on every continent and throughout the world’s oceans, scientists reported on Monday, and they warned that the problem was likely to grow substantially worse unless greenhouse emissions are brought under control.\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly-clear\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"embedly-powered\" style=\"float:right\">\u003ca target=\"_blank\" href=\"http://embed.ly/code?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2014%2F04%2F01%2Fscience%2Fearth%2Fclimate.html\" title=\"Powered by Embedly\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://static.embed.ly/images/logos/embedly-powered-small-light.png\" alt=\"Embedly Powered\">\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"media-attribution\">\u003cspan>via \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com\" class=\"media-attribution-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Nytimes\u003c/a>\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv class=\"embedly-clear\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"http://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/images/uploads/WGIIAR5-Chap26_FGDall.pdf\">North America\u003c/a> section drills down into some local impacts. Here’s a taste of what the IPCC says we can expect in California. And yes, the report says that some of this is already happening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Flooding in the \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/ca-delta/\">Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Loss of suitable land for wine growing\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://science.kqed.org/quest/video/heat-and-harvest/\">Declines in agricultural productivity\u003c/a> for other crops, though some of that may be softened by irrigation\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>A longer \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/audio/can-california-burn-its-way-out-of-its-wildfire-problem/\">wildfire season\u003c/a> and more acreage burned\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Earlier spring runoff and declines in the amount of water stored by the mountain snowpack\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://science.kqed.org/quest/audio/san-francisco-a-test-case-for-coping-with-rising-seas/\">Sea level rise\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "bay-area-cities-and-environmentalists-respond-to-crude-by-rail-boom",
"title": "Bay Area Cities and Environmentalists Respond to Crude-By-Rail Boom",
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"headTitle": "Bay Area Cities and Environmentalists Respond to Crude-By-Rail Boom | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_15986\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-15986\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/03/tankcarsrichmond-1024x575.jpg\" alt=\"Tank cars parked in Richmond. (Molly Samuel/KQED)\" width=\"1024\" height=\"575\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tank cars parked in Richmond. (Molly Samuel/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>More and more crude oil is being transported into California by rail lines, and questions about safety are prompting local governments and environmentalists to take action.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Environmental groups filed suit yesterday against the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and energy company \u003ca href=\"http://www.kindermorgan.com/\">Kinder Morgan\u003c/a>. A \u003ca href=\"http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/03/14/trains-carrying-fracked-oil-spotted-in-bay-area/\">KPIX investigation\u003c/a> found Kinder Morgan has been unloading trains full of crude in Richmond.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this week, the Richmond and Berkeley city councils both passed resolutions opposing crude-by-rail projects. \u003ca href=\"http://www.ci.richmond.ca.us/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/5723\">Richmond’s\u003c/a> was against the Kinder Morgan operations; \u003ca href=\"http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/Clerk/City_Council/2014/03_Mar/Documents/2014-03-25_Item_29_Opposition_to_Rail_Transport_of_Hazardous.aspx\">Berkeley’s\u003c/a> against a \u003ca href=\"http://www.phillips66.com/EN/about/our-businesses/refining-marketing/refining/santamaria/Pages/rail-project-information.aspx\">Phillips 66\u003c/a> plan to build a rail terminal at its San Luis Obispo County refinery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s a quick review of what’s going on with crude-by-rail in the Bay Area, and why.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Oil companies want to transport crude oil by train because it’s cheap and (relatively) local.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Area refineries mostly get their oil from pipelines and ships, from \u003ca href=\"http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/petroleum/statistics/crude_oil_receipts.html\">Southern California, Alaska and the Middle East\u003c/a>. But there’s an oil boom right now in the middle part of North America. In North Dakota it’s oil coming from the Bakken formation, and in Alberta it’s from the tar sands. Oil companies want to get all that oil to the coasts, where the refineries and most of their customers are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In defense of the projects, oil companies point out that this oil is either from right here in the U.S. or from our friendly neighbor Canada, rather than from overseas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Crude oil imports by rail into California have \u003ca href=\"http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/petroleum/statistics/2013_crude_by_rail.html\">shot up in recent years\u003c/a>, from zero in early 2009, to more than a million barrels in December 2013.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Opponents of crude-by-rail are concerned about public safety and environmental impacts.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”e32339a5417a6ad21b6a745149deb72f”]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Crude oil from Alberta’s tar sands is heavy and high in sulfur. Environmentalists say it’s “dirty,” that it pollutes more to get it out of the ground and to refine it. So that’s the climate change and air pollution side.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the other hand, the safety concerns are mostly about the oil from the Bakken formation. It’s light and sweet, that is, lower in sulfur. But it’s also volatile. The oil trains that have derailed and exploded recently, including the one in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, that killed 47 people, were carrying Bakken crude.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>It turns out crude-by-rail was already coming into Richmond.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kinder Morgan has been bringing in 100-car trains of crude oil to its \u003ca href=\"http://www.kindermorgan.com/business/products_pipelines/terminals_W_richmond.cfm\">terminal in Richmond\u003c/a>, which is on the BNSF rail line. \u003ca href=\"http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/03/14/trains-carrying-fracked-oil-spotted-in-bay-area/\">KPIX followed the oil\u003c/a> as it was loaded into a truck and brought to the \u003ca href=\"http://tsocorp.com/refining/martinez-calif/\">Tesoro refinery in Martinez\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A team of \u003ca href=\"http://earthjustice.org/news/press/2014/groups-challenge-crude-by-rail-shipments-to-bay-area-city\">environmental and community groups is suing\u003c/a> the Air District and Kinder Morgan to stop the operation. They say there should have been a full environmental review before bringing in trains full of crude oil. Kinder Morgan was already using the facility to bring in chemicals like ethanol. (The lawsuit is embedded at the bottom of this article.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13016\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13016\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/01/pittsburgoilprotest.jpg\" alt=\"About 150 people marched to Pittsburg city hall on January 11, protesting a proposed oil terminal. (Molly Samuel/KQED)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">About 150 people marched to Pittsburg city hall on January 11, protesting a proposed oil terminal. (Molly Samuel/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>There are more crude-by-rail projects on the table in the Bay Area and Central Coast. \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Valero wants to build a crude-by-rail terminal at its \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/audio/valero-rail-project-fuels-tar-sands-speculation-in-bay-area/\">refinery in Benicia\u003c/a>. The city is working on an \u003ca href=\"http://www.ci.benicia.ca.us/index.asp?SEC=%7BC45EA667-8D39-4B30-87EB-9110A2F9CE13%7D\">environmental impact report\u003c/a> on the project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Pittsburg, an energy company called WesPac is trying to open an \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/audio/bay-area-residents-resist-crude-by-rail-as-accidents-rise/\">oil terminal\u003c/a> that would bring crude in by rail, pipeline and ship. The city recently reopened that \u003ca href=\"http://www.ci.pittsburg.ca.us/index.aspx?page=700\">environmental impact report\u003c/a>, to do more research on the project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And on the Central Coast, the Phillips 66 refinery in San Luis Obispo County has applied to build a rail terminal. The \u003ca href=\"http://www.slocounty.ca.gov/planning/environmental/EnvironmentalNotices/railproject.htm\">comment period\u003c/a> on that project has also just been reopened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>There has been some progress on making transporting crude oil by train safer.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The National Transportation Safety Board \u003ca href=\"https://www.ntsb.gov/news/2014/140123.html\">has been asking for safety upgrades\u003c/a> to the tank cars used to transport oil. Those would need to go through the U.S. Department of Transportation; the NTSB can make recommendations, but not regulations. That’s been a slow process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, the Association of American Railroads has announced \u003ca href=\"https://www.aar.org/newsandevents/Press-Releases/Pages/Freight-Railroads-Join-U-S-Transportation-Secretary-Foxx-in-Announcing-Industry-Crude-By-Rail-Safety-Initiative.aspx#.UzYLfYUXJfQ\">voluntary safety improvements\u003c/a> for crude-by-rail, including more inspections on rail lines, decreased speeds in urban areas and updated brake systems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"margin: 12px auto 6px auto;font-family: Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif;font-style: normal;font-variant: normal;font-weight: normal;font-size: 14px;line-height: normal\">\u003ca style=\"text-decoration: underline\" title=\"View Crude-By-Rail Lawsuit on Scribd\" href=\"http://www.scribd.com/doc/215141448/Crude-By-Rail-Lawsuit\">Crude-By-Rail Lawsuit\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"doc_75730\" src=\"//www.scribd.com/embeds/215141448/content?start_page=1&view_mode=scroll&show_recommendations=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"600\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/141950402&color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_artwork=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"166\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "More and more crude oil is being transported into California by rail lines, and questions about safety are prompting local governments and environmentalists to take action.",
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"title": "Bay Area Cities and Environmentalists Respond to Crude-By-Rail Boom | KQED",
"description": "More and more crude oil is being transported into California by rail lines, and questions about safety are prompting local governments and environmentalists to take action.",
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"headline": "Bay Area Cities and Environmentalists Respond to Crude-By-Rail Boom",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_15986\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-15986\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/03/tankcarsrichmond-1024x575.jpg\" alt=\"Tank cars parked in Richmond. (Molly Samuel/KQED)\" width=\"1024\" height=\"575\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tank cars parked in Richmond. (Molly Samuel/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>More and more crude oil is being transported into California by rail lines, and questions about safety are prompting local governments and environmentalists to take action.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Environmental groups filed suit yesterday against the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and energy company \u003ca href=\"http://www.kindermorgan.com/\">Kinder Morgan\u003c/a>. A \u003ca href=\"http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/03/14/trains-carrying-fracked-oil-spotted-in-bay-area/\">KPIX investigation\u003c/a> found Kinder Morgan has been unloading trains full of crude in Richmond.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this week, the Richmond and Berkeley city councils both passed resolutions opposing crude-by-rail projects. \u003ca href=\"http://www.ci.richmond.ca.us/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/5723\">Richmond’s\u003c/a> was against the Kinder Morgan operations; \u003ca href=\"http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/Clerk/City_Council/2014/03_Mar/Documents/2014-03-25_Item_29_Opposition_to_Rail_Transport_of_Hazardous.aspx\">Berkeley’s\u003c/a> against a \u003ca href=\"http://www.phillips66.com/EN/about/our-businesses/refining-marketing/refining/santamaria/Pages/rail-project-information.aspx\">Phillips 66\u003c/a> plan to build a rail terminal at its San Luis Obispo County refinery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s a quick review of what’s going on with crude-by-rail in the Bay Area, and why.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Oil companies want to transport crude oil by train because it’s cheap and (relatively) local.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Area refineries mostly get their oil from pipelines and ships, from \u003ca href=\"http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/petroleum/statistics/crude_oil_receipts.html\">Southern California, Alaska and the Middle East\u003c/a>. But there’s an oil boom right now in the middle part of North America. In North Dakota it’s oil coming from the Bakken formation, and in Alberta it’s from the tar sands. Oil companies want to get all that oil to the coasts, where the refineries and most of their customers are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In defense of the projects, oil companies point out that this oil is either from right here in the U.S. or from our friendly neighbor Canada, rather than from overseas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Crude oil imports by rail into California have \u003ca href=\"http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/petroleum/statistics/2013_crude_by_rail.html\">shot up in recent years\u003c/a>, from zero in early 2009, to more than a million barrels in December 2013.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Opponents of crude-by-rail are concerned about public safety and environmental impacts.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Crude oil from Alberta’s tar sands is heavy and high in sulfur. Environmentalists say it’s “dirty,” that it pollutes more to get it out of the ground and to refine it. So that’s the climate change and air pollution side.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the other hand, the safety concerns are mostly about the oil from the Bakken formation. It’s light and sweet, that is, lower in sulfur. But it’s also volatile. The oil trains that have derailed and exploded recently, including the one in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, that killed 47 people, were carrying Bakken crude.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>It turns out crude-by-rail was already coming into Richmond.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kinder Morgan has been bringing in 100-car trains of crude oil to its \u003ca href=\"http://www.kindermorgan.com/business/products_pipelines/terminals_W_richmond.cfm\">terminal in Richmond\u003c/a>, which is on the BNSF rail line. \u003ca href=\"http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/03/14/trains-carrying-fracked-oil-spotted-in-bay-area/\">KPIX followed the oil\u003c/a> as it was loaded into a truck and brought to the \u003ca href=\"http://tsocorp.com/refining/martinez-calif/\">Tesoro refinery in Martinez\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A team of \u003ca href=\"http://earthjustice.org/news/press/2014/groups-challenge-crude-by-rail-shipments-to-bay-area-city\">environmental and community groups is suing\u003c/a> the Air District and Kinder Morgan to stop the operation. They say there should have been a full environmental review before bringing in trains full of crude oil. Kinder Morgan was already using the facility to bring in chemicals like ethanol. (The lawsuit is embedded at the bottom of this article.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13016\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13016\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/01/pittsburgoilprotest.jpg\" alt=\"About 150 people marched to Pittsburg city hall on January 11, protesting a proposed oil terminal. (Molly Samuel/KQED)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">About 150 people marched to Pittsburg city hall on January 11, protesting a proposed oil terminal. (Molly Samuel/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>There are more crude-by-rail projects on the table in the Bay Area and Central Coast. \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Valero wants to build a crude-by-rail terminal at its \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/audio/valero-rail-project-fuels-tar-sands-speculation-in-bay-area/\">refinery in Benicia\u003c/a>. The city is working on an \u003ca href=\"http://www.ci.benicia.ca.us/index.asp?SEC=%7BC45EA667-8D39-4B30-87EB-9110A2F9CE13%7D\">environmental impact report\u003c/a> on the project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Pittsburg, an energy company called WesPac is trying to open an \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/audio/bay-area-residents-resist-crude-by-rail-as-accidents-rise/\">oil terminal\u003c/a> that would bring crude in by rail, pipeline and ship. The city recently reopened that \u003ca href=\"http://www.ci.pittsburg.ca.us/index.aspx?page=700\">environmental impact report\u003c/a>, to do more research on the project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And on the Central Coast, the Phillips 66 refinery in San Luis Obispo County has applied to build a rail terminal. The \u003ca href=\"http://www.slocounty.ca.gov/planning/environmental/EnvironmentalNotices/railproject.htm\">comment period\u003c/a> on that project has also just been reopened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>There has been some progress on making transporting crude oil by train safer.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The National Transportation Safety Board \u003ca href=\"https://www.ntsb.gov/news/2014/140123.html\">has been asking for safety upgrades\u003c/a> to the tank cars used to transport oil. Those would need to go through the U.S. Department of Transportation; the NTSB can make recommendations, but not regulations. That’s been a slow process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, the Association of American Railroads has announced \u003ca href=\"https://www.aar.org/newsandevents/Press-Releases/Pages/Freight-Railroads-Join-U-S-Transportation-Secretary-Foxx-in-Announcing-Industry-Crude-By-Rail-Safety-Initiative.aspx#.UzYLfYUXJfQ\">voluntary safety improvements\u003c/a> for crude-by-rail, including more inspections on rail lines, decreased speeds in urban areas and updated brake systems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"margin: 12px auto 6px auto;font-family: Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif;font-style: normal;font-variant: normal;font-weight: normal;font-size: 14px;line-height: normal\">\u003ca style=\"text-decoration: underline\" title=\"View Crude-By-Rail Lawsuit on Scribd\" href=\"http://www.scribd.com/doc/215141448/Crude-By-Rail-Lawsuit\">Crude-By-Rail Lawsuit\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"doc_75730\" src=\"//www.scribd.com/embeds/215141448/content?start_page=1&view_mode=scroll&show_recommendations=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"600\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/141950402&color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_artwork=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"166\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Woolly Mammoth Fossils Raise Red Flags on the Road to Extinction",
"headTitle": "Woolly Mammoth Fossils Raise Red Flags on the Road to Extinction | KQED",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_15785\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/03/Wooly_Mammoths-e1395702786857.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-15785\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/03/Wooly_Mammoths-e1395702786857.jpg\" alt=\"Woolly mammoths near the Somme River, AMNH mural. (Charles R. Knight/AMNH)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Woolly mammoths near the Somme River, AMNH mural. Click image to enlarge. (\u003ca class=\"nofancybox\" href=\"http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AWooly_Mammoths.jpg\">Charles R. Knight/Public Domain\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Aside from the days of the dinosaur, few eras capture our imagination like the last ice age. We showed up about 60 million years too late to catch a glimpse of the building-sized \u003ca href=\"http://ix.cs.uoregon.edu/~kent/paleontology/sauropods/Brachiosaurus/index.html\">Brachiosaurus\u003c/a>, but our ancestors were out in full force during the Late Pleistocene, some 10,000 years ago, when the last of the ice age giants vanished from Earth’s continents. Fossils from the \u003ca href=\"http://www.tarpits.org/la-brea-tar-pits\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">La Brea Tar Pits\u003c/a> in Los Angeles and other parts of California suggest that saber-tooth cats, giant sloths, mammoths and the rest of their charismatic contemporaries disappeared from the state long before that. It was our first brush with mass extinction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What caused the ice age extinctions has sparked controversy ever since Darwin and his colleagues first recognized them in the 19th century. Then as now, climate change and human hunters seemed the most likely suspects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One school of thought holds that a warming planet caused the glaciers to melt, claiming the habitat and food sources the animals needed to survive. But, critics counter, it also cleared a path for early humans to hunt once inaccessible quarry. On this continent, the last of the Pleistocene giants vanished just 1,500 years after the arrival of the first humans, offering \u003ca href=\"http://global.oup.com/academic/product/once-and-future-giants-9780195370126;jsessionid=D258349C4151CC5998D453EDC17519FE?cc=us&lang=en&\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">compelling support\u003c/a> for this “\u003ca href=\"http://www.amnh.org/science/biodiversity/extinction/Day1/overkill/Bit1.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">overkill hypothesis\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Decades of contentious debate over the primary causes of this mass extinction long hobbled efforts to understand its consequences, says Jacquelyn Gill, a paleoecologist at the University of Maine’s School of Biology & Ecology and the Climate Change Institute. But a new consensus seems to be emerging. It’s clear that climate change influences animals’ diet and behavior and that extinction rarely results from a single factor, Gill says. “But there’s increasing evidence that while animals might have been stressed by the changes we see at the end of the last ice age, in the absence of humans, it becomes really difficult to explain the extinction.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Finding Flaws in Fossils\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Paleontologists typically study fossils to identify new species and understand how new traits evolved and different species adapted to changing environments. But in a \u003ca href=\"https://peerj.com/articles/318\">new study\u003c/a>, Frietson Galis and her Dutch colleagues Jelle Reumer and Clara ten Broek took what they call an evolutionary developmental approach — looking for signs of birth defects in fossils — based on a surprising discovery in Europe’s North Sea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before the glaciers retreated, the North Sea was a vast tundra teeming with herds of woolly mammoths and their outsized contemporaries. Trawlers often find their bones among the fish jumping in their nets, and dredging projects routinely pull up ancient remains from the sandy seafloor. So when workers dredging the Rotterdam Harbor off the coast of the Netherlands recovered two woolly mammoth neck bones a few years ago, no one was surprised. But when Galis and her colleagues examined the fossils, which had been donated to Rotterdam’s Natural History Museum, they found something they didn’t expect. Two of the neck bones had a skeletal defect — a joint to hold a rib — that usually accompanies life-threatening deformities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Almost all mammals, from mice to humans and even giraffes, have seven neck bones, or cervical vertebrae, except for \u003ca href=\"http://www.evodevojournal.com/content/2/1/11\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">manatees and sloths\u003c/a>, whose slow-paced lifestyle seems to help them survive skeletal abnormalities. That all mammals have seven, no more or less, suggests that variations on the number or form of these bones compromise fitness, meaning that few survive long enough to reproduce. When neck vertebrae sprout ribs as if they were spinal vertebrae, it’s a sign that something disturbed the intricately coordinated development of the fetus. And when one thing goes wrong, chances are other things do too.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Signs of Trouble\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Neck ribs themselves don’t typically cause serious problems, but usually arise with other defects that do. When neck ribs occur in humans, \u003ca href=\"http://faculty.weber.edu/rmeyers/Galis-Selection%20against%20homeotic.pdf\">90 percent of the afflicted\u003c/a> die before adulthood. Knowing that the neck bones retrieved from the North Sea came from one of the last local mammoth populations, Galis and her colleagues wondered if this defect hastened their demise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We know that changes in highly conserved anatomical traits are usually indicators of medical risks,” Galis says. “Variations of the vertebral column can tell us a lot about the vulnerability of populations.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_15783\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/03/3206888858_c4b6a4b895_b-e1395702408964.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-15783\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/03/3206888858_c4b6a4b895_b-e1395702408964.jpg\" alt=\"Skeleton of a Columbian mammoth at the Utah Museum of Natural History. (Brett Neilson / Flickr)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Skeleton of a Columbian mammoth at the Utah Museum of Natural History. (Brett Neilson / \u003ca href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/brettneilson/3206888858/in/photostream/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Flickr\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>To see what stories those variations might tell, Galis and her colleagues looked for the developmental defect in other Late Pleistocene mammoth fossils stored at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Lieden, the Netherlands. Then they compared their fossils (just nine were suitable for analysis) to specimens of African elephants and Asian elephants, the mammoth’s closest living relatives. They found that a third of the mammoth neck vertebrae had ribs but just a tiny fraction — 1 out of 29 —of those from the elephants did.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the local populations declined, inbreeding was more likely, Galis says. And both inbreeding and famine or other harsh conditions could disturb early pregnancy. “It seems plausible that both caused cervical ribs and vulnerability in mammoths.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The neck ribs could be a sign of inbreeding, much like the Florida panther’s trademark kinked tail. It’s not the tail that worries biologists, but the associated traits, like undescended testicles and susceptibility to parasites, that threaten the big cat’s ability to reproduce. As mammoth populations dwindled, the appearance of these misplaced ribs may have coincided with other genetic defects that made mammoths more vulnerable to stress — shifting climates, overzealous hunters or factors yet to be uncovered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The preliminary evidence from these vertebrae suggests that these animals were stressed by something in their environment,” says Gill. The stress could have come from a change in their diet because of climate change, in their behavior because or hunting or even in who they were reproducing with because of hunting, she explains. Evidence from kill sites shows that early humans were targeting adult males — like trophy hunters do today — rather than the young as carnivores do, compromising females’ chances of reproductive success.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”e78550e1fb32c408f5416918dbe3736a”]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The study generates some interesting ideas to test, Gill adds, and supports the hypothesis that these animals were very stressed out during the final moments before their extinction. “Whether that’s from environmental stressors or humans or the ‘\u003ca href=\"http://www.sciencemag.org/content/306/5693/70.full?sid=b8bd569f-901d-4482-9c25-304a1dc6e538\">one-two punch\u003c/a>‘ of climate change plus hunting is where we need to look at other data to complement the fossil evidence.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Andrew Farke, a dinosaur expert who edited the paper (published in the \u003ca href=\"https://peerj.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">open access journal PeerJ\u003c/a>), allows that the sample size analyzed was small. But he thinks it’s not just coincidence that so many of the fossils had the defect. And though most of the samples were found from dredging rather than rock layers that can be precisely dated, Farke thinks the evidence is compelling enough to inspire others to explore links between fossil anomalies and potential developmental flaws that might contribute to extinction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s really cool to be able to make this connection between something that might be just a curiosity in a museum collection but a little deeper work shows that there might be something going on with it,” he says. He’d also like to see someone examine older fossils to see if the defect disappears further back in time, when the populations were presumably healthier.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>A Tool for Today\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Though scientists may debate the Pleistocene overkill hypothesis for years to come, there’s no doubt that we’re to blame for the catastrophic decline of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/mammal/mesaxonia/elephantidae.php\">mammoth’s living cousins\u003c/a>. Poaching of African elephants for the ivory in their tusks remains the number one \u003ca href=\"https://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/african_elephant_summit_background_document_2013_en.pdf\">threat to their survival.\u003c/a> An unfathomable 62 percent of African forest elephants were killed between 2002 and 2011, a\u003ca href=\"http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0059469\"> team of researchers reported\u003c/a> last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If neck ribs did portend the beginning of the end for the mammoth, might the same defect start to appear more frequently in elephants under intense hunting pressure? Elephants are keenly intelligent animals that \u003ca href=\"http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/02/140221-elephants-poaching-empathy-grief-extinction-science/\">grieve for fallen kin\u003c/a> — a stress that may well affect developing young. Assuming that neck ribs do signal genetic or developmental stress, Farke says, using portable x-rays to screen for the defect could be a good way to gauge the health of not just elephants but any at-risk vertebrate population.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He hopes more paleontologists will start to study fossils for the developmental pathologies they reveal — not just to understand what happened to the mythic megafauna we lost long ago, but to save those still in our midst.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From time to time, the great beasts send us reminders that they once walked the streets of San Francisco, then savannah grasslands, replete with large-mammal menageries now found only in Africa. Just last September, a crane operator at the \u003ca href=\"http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Mammoth-tooth-found-at-Transbay-dig-3861381.php\">Transbay Transit Center\u003c/a> construction site unearthed the tooth of a Columbian mammoth, the species common in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the Pleistocene, the large-bodied mammals took the biggest hit. Today, we’re losing species across all classes at an unprecedented rate, and no one disputes that the hand of humans — in climate change and hunting — is driving the crisis. The biggest question now is what we’re going to do about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "A surprising discovery in woolly mammoth fossils recovered from the North Sea off the coast of the Netherlands suggests that inbreeding and harsh conditions plagued the ice age giants near the end of their reign on Earth.",
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"description": "A surprising discovery in woolly mammoth fossils recovered from the North Sea off the coast of the Netherlands suggests that inbreeding and harsh conditions plagued the ice age giants near the end of their reign on Earth.",
"title": "Woolly Mammoth Fossils Raise Red Flags on the Road to Extinction | KQED",
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"headline": "Woolly Mammoth Fossils Raise Red Flags on the Road to Extinction",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_15785\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/03/Wooly_Mammoths-e1395702786857.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-15785\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/03/Wooly_Mammoths-e1395702786857.jpg\" alt=\"Woolly mammoths near the Somme River, AMNH mural. (Charles R. Knight/AMNH)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Woolly mammoths near the Somme River, AMNH mural. Click image to enlarge. (\u003ca class=\"nofancybox\" href=\"http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AWooly_Mammoths.jpg\">Charles R. Knight/Public Domain\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Aside from the days of the dinosaur, few eras capture our imagination like the last ice age. We showed up about 60 million years too late to catch a glimpse of the building-sized \u003ca href=\"http://ix.cs.uoregon.edu/~kent/paleontology/sauropods/Brachiosaurus/index.html\">Brachiosaurus\u003c/a>, but our ancestors were out in full force during the Late Pleistocene, some 10,000 years ago, when the last of the ice age giants vanished from Earth’s continents. Fossils from the \u003ca href=\"http://www.tarpits.org/la-brea-tar-pits\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">La Brea Tar Pits\u003c/a> in Los Angeles and other parts of California suggest that saber-tooth cats, giant sloths, mammoths and the rest of their charismatic contemporaries disappeared from the state long before that. It was our first brush with mass extinction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What caused the ice age extinctions has sparked controversy ever since Darwin and his colleagues first recognized them in the 19th century. Then as now, climate change and human hunters seemed the most likely suspects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One school of thought holds that a warming planet caused the glaciers to melt, claiming the habitat and food sources the animals needed to survive. But, critics counter, it also cleared a path for early humans to hunt once inaccessible quarry. On this continent, the last of the Pleistocene giants vanished just 1,500 years after the arrival of the first humans, offering \u003ca href=\"http://global.oup.com/academic/product/once-and-future-giants-9780195370126;jsessionid=D258349C4151CC5998D453EDC17519FE?cc=us&lang=en&\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">compelling support\u003c/a> for this “\u003ca href=\"http://www.amnh.org/science/biodiversity/extinction/Day1/overkill/Bit1.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">overkill hypothesis\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Decades of contentious debate over the primary causes of this mass extinction long hobbled efforts to understand its consequences, says Jacquelyn Gill, a paleoecologist at the University of Maine’s School of Biology & Ecology and the Climate Change Institute. But a new consensus seems to be emerging. It’s clear that climate change influences animals’ diet and behavior and that extinction rarely results from a single factor, Gill says. “But there’s increasing evidence that while animals might have been stressed by the changes we see at the end of the last ice age, in the absence of humans, it becomes really difficult to explain the extinction.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Finding Flaws in Fossils\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Paleontologists typically study fossils to identify new species and understand how new traits evolved and different species adapted to changing environments. But in a \u003ca href=\"https://peerj.com/articles/318\">new study\u003c/a>, Frietson Galis and her Dutch colleagues Jelle Reumer and Clara ten Broek took what they call an evolutionary developmental approach — looking for signs of birth defects in fossils — based on a surprising discovery in Europe’s North Sea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before the glaciers retreated, the North Sea was a vast tundra teeming with herds of woolly mammoths and their outsized contemporaries. Trawlers often find their bones among the fish jumping in their nets, and dredging projects routinely pull up ancient remains from the sandy seafloor. So when workers dredging the Rotterdam Harbor off the coast of the Netherlands recovered two woolly mammoth neck bones a few years ago, no one was surprised. But when Galis and her colleagues examined the fossils, which had been donated to Rotterdam’s Natural History Museum, they found something they didn’t expect. Two of the neck bones had a skeletal defect — a joint to hold a rib — that usually accompanies life-threatening deformities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Almost all mammals, from mice to humans and even giraffes, have seven neck bones, or cervical vertebrae, except for \u003ca href=\"http://www.evodevojournal.com/content/2/1/11\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">manatees and sloths\u003c/a>, whose slow-paced lifestyle seems to help them survive skeletal abnormalities. That all mammals have seven, no more or less, suggests that variations on the number or form of these bones compromise fitness, meaning that few survive long enough to reproduce. When neck vertebrae sprout ribs as if they were spinal vertebrae, it’s a sign that something disturbed the intricately coordinated development of the fetus. And when one thing goes wrong, chances are other things do too.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Signs of Trouble\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Neck ribs themselves don’t typically cause serious problems, but usually arise with other defects that do. When neck ribs occur in humans, \u003ca href=\"http://faculty.weber.edu/rmeyers/Galis-Selection%20against%20homeotic.pdf\">90 percent of the afflicted\u003c/a> die before adulthood. Knowing that the neck bones retrieved from the North Sea came from one of the last local mammoth populations, Galis and her colleagues wondered if this defect hastened their demise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We know that changes in highly conserved anatomical traits are usually indicators of medical risks,” Galis says. “Variations of the vertebral column can tell us a lot about the vulnerability of populations.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_15783\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/03/3206888858_c4b6a4b895_b-e1395702408964.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-15783\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/03/3206888858_c4b6a4b895_b-e1395702408964.jpg\" alt=\"Skeleton of a Columbian mammoth at the Utah Museum of Natural History. (Brett Neilson / Flickr)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Skeleton of a Columbian mammoth at the Utah Museum of Natural History. (Brett Neilson / \u003ca href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/brettneilson/3206888858/in/photostream/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Flickr\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>To see what stories those variations might tell, Galis and her colleagues looked for the developmental defect in other Late Pleistocene mammoth fossils stored at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Lieden, the Netherlands. Then they compared their fossils (just nine were suitable for analysis) to specimens of African elephants and Asian elephants, the mammoth’s closest living relatives. They found that a third of the mammoth neck vertebrae had ribs but just a tiny fraction — 1 out of 29 —of those from the elephants did.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the local populations declined, inbreeding was more likely, Galis says. And both inbreeding and famine or other harsh conditions could disturb early pregnancy. “It seems plausible that both caused cervical ribs and vulnerability in mammoths.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The neck ribs could be a sign of inbreeding, much like the Florida panther’s trademark kinked tail. It’s not the tail that worries biologists, but the associated traits, like undescended testicles and susceptibility to parasites, that threaten the big cat’s ability to reproduce. As mammoth populations dwindled, the appearance of these misplaced ribs may have coincided with other genetic defects that made mammoths more vulnerable to stress — shifting climates, overzealous hunters or factors yet to be uncovered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The preliminary evidence from these vertebrae suggests that these animals were stressed by something in their environment,” says Gill. The stress could have come from a change in their diet because of climate change, in their behavior because or hunting or even in who they were reproducing with because of hunting, she explains. Evidence from kill sites shows that early humans were targeting adult males — like trophy hunters do today — rather than the young as carnivores do, compromising females’ chances of reproductive success.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The study generates some interesting ideas to test, Gill adds, and supports the hypothesis that these animals were very stressed out during the final moments before their extinction. “Whether that’s from environmental stressors or humans or the ‘\u003ca href=\"http://www.sciencemag.org/content/306/5693/70.full?sid=b8bd569f-901d-4482-9c25-304a1dc6e538\">one-two punch\u003c/a>‘ of climate change plus hunting is where we need to look at other data to complement the fossil evidence.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Andrew Farke, a dinosaur expert who edited the paper (published in the \u003ca href=\"https://peerj.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">open access journal PeerJ\u003c/a>), allows that the sample size analyzed was small. But he thinks it’s not just coincidence that so many of the fossils had the defect. And though most of the samples were found from dredging rather than rock layers that can be precisely dated, Farke thinks the evidence is compelling enough to inspire others to explore links between fossil anomalies and potential developmental flaws that might contribute to extinction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s really cool to be able to make this connection between something that might be just a curiosity in a museum collection but a little deeper work shows that there might be something going on with it,” he says. He’d also like to see someone examine older fossils to see if the defect disappears further back in time, when the populations were presumably healthier.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>A Tool for Today\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Though scientists may debate the Pleistocene overkill hypothesis for years to come, there’s no doubt that we’re to blame for the catastrophic decline of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/mammal/mesaxonia/elephantidae.php\">mammoth’s living cousins\u003c/a>. Poaching of African elephants for the ivory in their tusks remains the number one \u003ca href=\"https://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/african_elephant_summit_background_document_2013_en.pdf\">threat to their survival.\u003c/a> An unfathomable 62 percent of African forest elephants were killed between 2002 and 2011, a\u003ca href=\"http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0059469\"> team of researchers reported\u003c/a> last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If neck ribs did portend the beginning of the end for the mammoth, might the same defect start to appear more frequently in elephants under intense hunting pressure? Elephants are keenly intelligent animals that \u003ca href=\"http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/02/140221-elephants-poaching-empathy-grief-extinction-science/\">grieve for fallen kin\u003c/a> — a stress that may well affect developing young. Assuming that neck ribs do signal genetic or developmental stress, Farke says, using portable x-rays to screen for the defect could be a good way to gauge the health of not just elephants but any at-risk vertebrate population.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He hopes more paleontologists will start to study fossils for the developmental pathologies they reveal — not just to understand what happened to the mythic megafauna we lost long ago, but to save those still in our midst.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From time to time, the great beasts send us reminders that they once walked the streets of San Francisco, then savannah grasslands, replete with large-mammal menageries now found only in Africa. Just last September, a crane operator at the \u003ca href=\"http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Mammoth-tooth-found-at-Transbay-dig-3861381.php\">Transbay Transit Center\u003c/a> construction site unearthed the tooth of a Columbian mammoth, the species common in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the Pleistocene, the large-bodied mammals took the biggest hit. Today, we’re losing species across all classes at an unprecedented rate, and no one disputes that the hand of humans — in climate change and hunting — is driving the crisis. The biggest question now is what we’re going to do about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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},
"closealltabs": {
"id": "closealltabs",
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"order": 1
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"title": "Code Switch / Life Kit",
"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Commonwealth-Club-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5jb21tb253ZWFsdGhjbHViLm9yZy9hdWRpby9wb2RjYXN0L3dlZWtseS54bWw",
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"id": "forum",
"title": "Forum",
"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Forum with Mina Kim and Alexis Madrigal",
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"order": 9
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"id": "freakonomics-radio",
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"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WNYC"
},
"link": "/radio/program/freakonomics-radio",
"subscribe": {
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/freakonomics-radio/id354668519",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/WNYC-Podcasts/Freakonomics-Radio-p272293/",
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},
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"id": "fresh-air",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=214089682&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
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"hidden-brain": {
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"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "NPR"
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"how-i-built-this": {
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"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
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"link": "/radio/program/how-i-built-this",
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"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
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"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Hyphenacion_FinalAssets_PodcastTile.png",
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"order": 15
},
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"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Political-Mind-of-Jerry-Brown-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
"meta": {
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"order": 18
},
"link": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
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},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
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"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
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},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
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"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"meta": {
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"source": "WaitWhat"
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"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"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>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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}
},
"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
"title": "Morning Edition",
"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3am-9am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Morning-Edition-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/morning-edition/",
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"link": "/radio/program/morning-edition"
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"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/On-Our-Watch-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 11
},
"link": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"subscribe": {
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5ucHIub3JnLzUxMDM2MC9wb2RjYXN0LnhtbD9zYz1nb29nbGVwb2RjYXN0cw",
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},
"on-the-media": {
"id": "on-the-media",
"title": "On The Media",
"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",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm-3pm, MON 12am-1am",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/onTheMedia.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.wnycstudios.org/shows/otm",
"meta": {
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"source": "wnyc"
},
"link": "/radio/program/on-the-media",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/on-the-media/id73330715?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/On-the-Media-p69/",
"rss": "http://feeds.wnyc.org/onthemedia"
}
},
"pbs-newshour": {
"id": "pbs-newshour",
"title": "PBS NewsHour",
"info": "Analysis, background reports and updates from the PBS NewsHour putting today's news in context.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/PBS-News-Hour-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/pbs-newshour",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/pbs-newshour-full-show/id394432287?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/PBS-NewsHour---Full-Show-p425698/",
"rss": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/feeds/rss/podcasts/show"
}
},
"perspectives": {
"id": "perspectives",
"title": "Perspectives",
"tagline": "KQED's series of daily listener commentaries since 1991",
"info": "KQED's series of daily listener commentaries since 1991.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Perspectives_Tile_Final.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/perspectives/",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 14
},
"link": "/perspectives",
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"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/432309616/perspectives",
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},
"planet-money": {
"id": "planet-money",
"title": "Planet Money",
"info": "The economy explained. Imagine you could call up a friend and say, Meet me at the bar and tell me what's going on with the economy. Now imagine that's actually a fun evening.",
"airtime": "SUN 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/planetmoney.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/sections/money/",
"meta": {
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"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/planet-money",
"subscribe": {
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