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"title": "New Clinics in California Seek to Stop Schizophrenia Before it Starts",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"audio-wrap\">\n\u003ch2>Listen:\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>http://www.kqed.org/.stream/anon/radio/science/2014/07/20140728science.mp3\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_19747\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/Unknown-1-e1406323367960.jpeg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/Unknown-1-e1406323367960.jpeg\" alt=\"Reagan was 19 when she started having hallucinations. (Marvi Lacar/KQED)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19747\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Reagan was 19 when she started having hallucinations. (Marvi Lacar/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The important thing is that Reagan knew something was wrong.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I met her, she was 23, a smart, wry young woman living with her mother and stepdad in Simi Valley, about an hour east of Ventura.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Reagan” had just started a program that would train her to be a respiratory therapist. Concerned about future job prospects, she asked me not to use her real name.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Five years ago, Reagan’s prospects weren’t nearly so bright. At 19, she had been severely depressed, on and off, for years. During the bad times, she’d hide out in her room making thin, neat cuts with a razor on her upper arm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I didn’t do much of anything,” Reagan recalls. “It required too much brain power.”\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">\nIn schizophrenia, the loss of insight signals a psychotic break, the formal commencement of the disease itself.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>“Her depression just sucked the life out of you,” Kathy, Reagan’s mother, recalls. “I had no idea what to do or where to go with it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One night in 2010, Reagan’s mental state took an ominous new turn. Driving home from her job at McDonald’s, she found herself fascinated by the headlights of an oncoming car.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I had the weird thought of, you know, I’ve never noticed this, but their headlights really look like eyes.” To Reagan, the car seemed malicious. It wanted to hurt her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kathy tried to reason with her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m like ‘honey you know it’s a car, right? You know those are headlights, right?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘So you understand that this makes no sense.’ ‘I know, but this is what I see, and it’s scaring me.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In other words, Reagan had insight, defined in psychiatry as the ability to understand that one’s experiences are attributable to a mental illness. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What Reagan saw did not fit with what she believed. She knew she was hallucinating.\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/schizophreniasliders.html\" width=\"640\" height=\"680\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A Disease That Unfolds Over Time\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In schizophrenia, the loss of insight signals a psychotic break, the formal commencement of the disease itself. Typically, a first psychotic break occurs in a person’s late teens or early 20s. In men, the range is 15-24; in women, 25-34.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Often, says Rachel Loewy, an associate professor of psychiatry at UCSF, the onset coincides with an abrupt change in a young person’s life, such as leaving home for the first time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Every November we get a huge influx of people who went off to college, into a stressful environment, heading into finals. That’s when we see a lot of first psychotic episodes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"alignright\">\u003cstrong>Schizophrenia: New Thinking, New Treatments\u003c/strong>This is the first story in a \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/schizophrenia-new-thinking-new-treatments/\">three-part series\u003c/a> looking at the changing science of schizophrenia and emerging treatments.\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Part Two: \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/audio/what-is-schizophrenia-scientists-call-for-new-thinking/\">What Is Schizophrenia? Scientists Call for New Thinking\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Part Three: \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/audio/schizophrenia-what-its-like-to-hear-voices/\">Schizophrenia: What It’s Like to Hear Voices\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Loewy, who has helped develop several \u003ca href=\"http://prepwellness.org/prep-san-francisco/\">early-intervention programs\u003c/a> in San Francisco and elsewhere, says schizophrenia’s timeline –- hitting a young person at what should be the brink of independence — can make the disease devastating for parents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The [young person] drops out of college, goes home, doesn’t get a job. He or she never transitions to adulthood,” Loewy says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That first psychotic break can precede a cavalcade of disasters: social isolation, hospitalization, medications with sometimes disabling side effects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, what if you could intervene earlier, before any of that? Could you stop the process from snowballing?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At 19, Reagan hadn’t had a psychotic break. She still had insight. That made her eligible for a new type of program taking shape in California that aims to prevent schizophrenia before it officially begins.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The programs draw on research suggesting that schizophrenia unfolds much more slowly than might be obvious, even to families.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A genetic predisposition, perhaps triggered by environmental factors, the thinking goes, sets the course of a process that can play out over months, even years.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">New research suggests schizophrenia unfolds much more slowly than might be obvious, even to families.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>“You start to see a decline in their functioning,” says Daniel Mathalon, who studies brain development in the early stages of psychosis at UCSF.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They were doing better in school, now they’re doing worse,” he says. “Maybe they had friends but they’re starting to be more isolated.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eventually, these subtle behavioral shifts may take on a surreal quality. A young person may hear faint whispers or hissing, or see flashes of light or shadows on the periphery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They lack delusional conviction,” explains Mathalon. “They’re experiencing these things; maybe they’re suspicious. But they’re not sure.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists have a word for that state of uncertainty: prodromal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>‘We Can Stop the Progression of the Disease.’\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reagan took a \u003ca href=\"http://www.schizophrenia.com/sztest/SIPS.details.htm\">screening test\u003c/a> developed at Yale University that identified her as, possibly, within the prodromal stage of psychosis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She was referred to a clinic in an office park about an hour from her house called \u003ca href=\"http://www.telecarecorp.com/programs/124\">Ventura Early Intervention Prevention Services\u003c/a>, or VIPS, operated by Alameda-based \u003ca href=\"http://www.telecarecorp.com/\">Telecare Corporation\u003c/a> and run by an affable former football player with a doctorate in psychology named Barry Boatman.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we can slow or stop the progression of that thing as it’s beginning,” Boatman says, “not only are we changing that person’s life, forever, and those who love them, we can save the system millions of dollars.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are about ten clinics like this one in California. (Schizophrenia.com offers a \u003ca href=\"http://www.schizophrenia.com/earlypsychosis.htm\">resource guide\u003c/a> to early-intervention clinics across the U.S. and internationally.) VIPS, which has a $600,000 annual budget, is one of several run by for-profit companies that contract with counties to provide mental services. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Others partner with non-profit providers or research institutions like UCSF or UCLA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In California, participants pay nothing. The programs are funded out of the state’s Mental Health Services Act, a one percent income tax on millionaires that voters passed in 2004.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That money buys what’s essentially a two-year, full-court press on kids like Reagan, whose symptoms could be early signs of schizophrenia: family therapy, individual therapy, homework help, job counseling, exercise, often medications. Clients can be as young as ten years old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_19749\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/20140618_Schizo_1440-e1406326398447.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/20140618_Schizo_1440-e1406326398447.jpg\" alt=\"Ashley Wood, an occupational therapist at Kickstart in San Diego, took Tony, 13, out to an arcade as a reward for participating in family therapy sessions. (Marvi Lacar/KQED) \" width=\"640\" height=\"651\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19749\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ashley Wood, an occupational therapist at Kickstart in San Diego, took Tony, 13, out to an arcade as a reward for participating in family therapy sessions. (Marvi Lacar/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>After meeting Reagan, I went to San Diego to meet Ashley Wood and a 13-year-old named Tony at John’s Incredible Pizza Company, an arcade and all-you-can-eat buffet in a mall just south of town. They were playing Whack-a-Mole.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wood is an occupational therapist for another prodrome-intervention program called \u003ca href=\"http://www.kickstartsd.org/\">Kickstart\u003c/a>, based in San Diego. Tony is one of her clients. He has spiky black hair and wears cargo shorts and a plastic rosary around his neck.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before he started with Kickstart, Tony had been getting in fights. He was angry at his mom, angry in school. And there was something else.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I used to see and hear stuff,” he tells me, “like weird objects.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I press him for more details, he turns the questions on me. “Are you a reporter?” he asks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wood laughs, looking at Tony. “Too many questions, eh?” He smiles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wood’s job is to help Tony with basic life skills, such as asking for things he needs without getting frustrated. When the pizza parlor’s ice cream machine sputters, she coaches him on how to ask an attendant for help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When he’s frustrated at school or at home, instead of immediately responding,” Wood says, she’s helping him “find a way to communicate.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re trying to work on the impulse control as well. He’s come a long way, I think.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_19750\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/20140618_Schizo_1609-e1406326575325.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/20140618_Schizo_1609-e1406326575325.jpg\" alt=\"Wood is teaching Tony to control his anger and communicate better with his family. (Marvi Lacar/KQED) \" width=\"640\" height=\"640\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19750\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Wood is teaching Tony to control his anger and communicate better with his family. (Marvi Lacar/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>An Experiment Before Its Time?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Impulsive, unruly, prone to angry outbursts, Tony sounds like a lot of 13-year-old kids. And that’s what makes this type of program controversial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year, the American Psychiatric Association \u003ca href=\"http://www.nature.com/news/psychosis-risk-syndrome-excluded-from-dsm-5-1.10610\">opted to exclude\u003c/a> the idea of “psychosis risk syndrome” from its DSM-5 manual of mental disorders, largely because the screening test is generally considered to be only 30 percent accurate. Of three kids who seem to fit the prodrome, only one will actually go on to develop psychosis, or schizophrenia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2011, a \u003ca href=\"http://summaries.cochrane.org/CD004718/SCHIZ_early-intervention-for-psychosis\">review\u003c/a> of prodrome intervention programs called the idea of intervention in pre-schizophrenia “inconclusive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the most \u003ca href=\"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/allen-frances/psychosis-risk_b_1289022.html\">vocal critics\u003c/a> of prodrome intervention is Allen Frances, a former professor of psychiatry at Duke University.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is an experiment far before its time,” says Frances. “We need to be doing this as research before we spread this across the country and risk the harm to the individuals and risk the misallocation of resources in a society.”\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘We’re running up against the limits of what we can do for patients with chronic schizophrenia.’ \u003ccite>— Daniel Mathalon, UCSF\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Bill McFarlane, a Maine psychiatrist whose PIER Training Institute helped establish several prodrome clinics in California, says he’s seen clear benefits — including \u003ca href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24632857\">reduced hospitalization rates\u003c/a> — in Portland, Maine, where the Portland Identification and Early Referral Program he established served psychosis risk clients for over a decade. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He and other proponents say schizophrenia’s early window may be too precious to miss.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re running up against the limits of what we can do for patients who develop schizophrenia, once it goes to chronic stages,” UCSF’s Mathalon says. “I think this is a direction we have to go in, but we have to do it carefully.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course when you’re the parent of a kid in trouble you aren’t asking those questions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before she started the program, Reagan’s mom and step-father, Charlie, say they saw very little future for their daughter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I thought we were going to have to take care of her for the rest of her life,” says Kathy. “I thought she’d forever be marginal, forever be medicated. I thought we’d just have to get used to it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today Reagan is off all her medications. She’s animated, playing board games with her family, excited about going back to school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her family credits the VIPS program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We were blessed to have this for her,” Charlie says. “We really were. It saved her life.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reagan’s family will never know whether the program prevented her from developing schizophrenia. But even if the diagnosis didn’t fit, they say, the treatment did.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/div>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_19747\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/Unknown-1-e1406323367960.jpeg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/Unknown-1-e1406323367960.jpeg\" alt=\"Reagan was 19 when she started having hallucinations. (Marvi Lacar/KQED)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19747\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Reagan was 19 when she started having hallucinations. (Marvi Lacar/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The important thing is that Reagan knew something was wrong.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I met her, she was 23, a smart, wry young woman living with her mother and stepdad in Simi Valley, about an hour east of Ventura.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Reagan” had just started a program that would train her to be a respiratory therapist. Concerned about future job prospects, she asked me not to use her real name.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Five years ago, Reagan’s prospects weren’t nearly so bright. At 19, she had been severely depressed, on and off, for years. During the bad times, she’d hide out in her room making thin, neat cuts with a razor on her upper arm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I didn’t do much of anything,” Reagan recalls. “It required too much brain power.”\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">\nIn schizophrenia, the loss of insight signals a psychotic break, the formal commencement of the disease itself.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>“Her depression just sucked the life out of you,” Kathy, Reagan’s mother, recalls. “I had no idea what to do or where to go with it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One night in 2010, Reagan’s mental state took an ominous new turn. Driving home from her job at McDonald’s, she found herself fascinated by the headlights of an oncoming car.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I had the weird thought of, you know, I’ve never noticed this, but their headlights really look like eyes.” To Reagan, the car seemed malicious. It wanted to hurt her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kathy tried to reason with her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m like ‘honey you know it’s a car, right? You know those are headlights, right?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘So you understand that this makes no sense.’ ‘I know, but this is what I see, and it’s scaring me.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In other words, Reagan had insight, defined in psychiatry as the ability to understand that one’s experiences are attributable to a mental illness. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What Reagan saw did not fit with what she believed. She knew she was hallucinating.\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/schizophreniasliders.html\" width=\"640\" height=\"680\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A Disease That Unfolds Over Time\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In schizophrenia, the loss of insight signals a psychotic break, the formal commencement of the disease itself. Typically, a first psychotic break occurs in a person’s late teens or early 20s. In men, the range is 15-24; in women, 25-34.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Often, says Rachel Loewy, an associate professor of psychiatry at UCSF, the onset coincides with an abrupt change in a young person’s life, such as leaving home for the first time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Every November we get a huge influx of people who went off to college, into a stressful environment, heading into finals. That’s when we see a lot of first psychotic episodes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"alignright\">\u003cstrong>Schizophrenia: New Thinking, New Treatments\u003c/strong>This is the first story in a \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/schizophrenia-new-thinking-new-treatments/\">three-part series\u003c/a> looking at the changing science of schizophrenia and emerging treatments.\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Part Two: \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/audio/what-is-schizophrenia-scientists-call-for-new-thinking/\">What Is Schizophrenia? Scientists Call for New Thinking\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Part Three: \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/audio/schizophrenia-what-its-like-to-hear-voices/\">Schizophrenia: What It’s Like to Hear Voices\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Loewy, who has helped develop several \u003ca href=\"http://prepwellness.org/prep-san-francisco/\">early-intervention programs\u003c/a> in San Francisco and elsewhere, says schizophrenia’s timeline –- hitting a young person at what should be the brink of independence — can make the disease devastating for parents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The [young person] drops out of college, goes home, doesn’t get a job. He or she never transitions to adulthood,” Loewy says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That first psychotic break can precede a cavalcade of disasters: social isolation, hospitalization, medications with sometimes disabling side effects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, what if you could intervene earlier, before any of that? Could you stop the process from snowballing?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At 19, Reagan hadn’t had a psychotic break. She still had insight. That made her eligible for a new type of program taking shape in California that aims to prevent schizophrenia before it officially begins.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The programs draw on research suggesting that schizophrenia unfolds much more slowly than might be obvious, even to families.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A genetic predisposition, perhaps triggered by environmental factors, the thinking goes, sets the course of a process that can play out over months, even years.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">New research suggests schizophrenia unfolds much more slowly than might be obvious, even to families.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>“You start to see a decline in their functioning,” says Daniel Mathalon, who studies brain development in the early stages of psychosis at UCSF.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They were doing better in school, now they’re doing worse,” he says. “Maybe they had friends but they’re starting to be more isolated.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eventually, these subtle behavioral shifts may take on a surreal quality. A young person may hear faint whispers or hissing, or see flashes of light or shadows on the periphery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They lack delusional conviction,” explains Mathalon. “They’re experiencing these things; maybe they’re suspicious. But they’re not sure.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists have a word for that state of uncertainty: prodromal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>‘We Can Stop the Progression of the Disease.’\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reagan took a \u003ca href=\"http://www.schizophrenia.com/sztest/SIPS.details.htm\">screening test\u003c/a> developed at Yale University that identified her as, possibly, within the prodromal stage of psychosis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She was referred to a clinic in an office park about an hour from her house called \u003ca href=\"http://www.telecarecorp.com/programs/124\">Ventura Early Intervention Prevention Services\u003c/a>, or VIPS, operated by Alameda-based \u003ca href=\"http://www.telecarecorp.com/\">Telecare Corporation\u003c/a> and run by an affable former football player with a doctorate in psychology named Barry Boatman.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we can slow or stop the progression of that thing as it’s beginning,” Boatman says, “not only are we changing that person’s life, forever, and those who love them, we can save the system millions of dollars.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are about ten clinics like this one in California. (Schizophrenia.com offers a \u003ca href=\"http://www.schizophrenia.com/earlypsychosis.htm\">resource guide\u003c/a> to early-intervention clinics across the U.S. and internationally.) VIPS, which has a $600,000 annual budget, is one of several run by for-profit companies that contract with counties to provide mental services. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Others partner with non-profit providers or research institutions like UCSF or UCLA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In California, participants pay nothing. The programs are funded out of the state’s Mental Health Services Act, a one percent income tax on millionaires that voters passed in 2004.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That money buys what’s essentially a two-year, full-court press on kids like Reagan, whose symptoms could be early signs of schizophrenia: family therapy, individual therapy, homework help, job counseling, exercise, often medications. Clients can be as young as ten years old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_19749\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/20140618_Schizo_1440-e1406326398447.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/20140618_Schizo_1440-e1406326398447.jpg\" alt=\"Ashley Wood, an occupational therapist at Kickstart in San Diego, took Tony, 13, out to an arcade as a reward for participating in family therapy sessions. (Marvi Lacar/KQED) \" width=\"640\" height=\"651\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19749\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ashley Wood, an occupational therapist at Kickstart in San Diego, took Tony, 13, out to an arcade as a reward for participating in family therapy sessions. (Marvi Lacar/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>After meeting Reagan, I went to San Diego to meet Ashley Wood and a 13-year-old named Tony at John’s Incredible Pizza Company, an arcade and all-you-can-eat buffet in a mall just south of town. They were playing Whack-a-Mole.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wood is an occupational therapist for another prodrome-intervention program called \u003ca href=\"http://www.kickstartsd.org/\">Kickstart\u003c/a>, based in San Diego. Tony is one of her clients. He has spiky black hair and wears cargo shorts and a plastic rosary around his neck.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before he started with Kickstart, Tony had been getting in fights. He was angry at his mom, angry in school. And there was something else.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I used to see and hear stuff,” he tells me, “like weird objects.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I press him for more details, he turns the questions on me. “Are you a reporter?” he asks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wood laughs, looking at Tony. “Too many questions, eh?” He smiles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wood’s job is to help Tony with basic life skills, such as asking for things he needs without getting frustrated. When the pizza parlor’s ice cream machine sputters, she coaches him on how to ask an attendant for help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When he’s frustrated at school or at home, instead of immediately responding,” Wood says, she’s helping him “find a way to communicate.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re trying to work on the impulse control as well. He’s come a long way, I think.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_19750\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/20140618_Schizo_1609-e1406326575325.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/20140618_Schizo_1609-e1406326575325.jpg\" alt=\"Wood is teaching Tony to control his anger and communicate better with his family. (Marvi Lacar/KQED) \" width=\"640\" height=\"640\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19750\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Wood is teaching Tony to control his anger and communicate better with his family. (Marvi Lacar/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>An Experiment Before Its Time?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Impulsive, unruly, prone to angry outbursts, Tony sounds like a lot of 13-year-old kids. And that’s what makes this type of program controversial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year, the American Psychiatric Association \u003ca href=\"http://www.nature.com/news/psychosis-risk-syndrome-excluded-from-dsm-5-1.10610\">opted to exclude\u003c/a> the idea of “psychosis risk syndrome” from its DSM-5 manual of mental disorders, largely because the screening test is generally considered to be only 30 percent accurate. Of three kids who seem to fit the prodrome, only one will actually go on to develop psychosis, or schizophrenia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2011, a \u003ca href=\"http://summaries.cochrane.org/CD004718/SCHIZ_early-intervention-for-psychosis\">review\u003c/a> of prodrome intervention programs called the idea of intervention in pre-schizophrenia “inconclusive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the most \u003ca href=\"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/allen-frances/psychosis-risk_b_1289022.html\">vocal critics\u003c/a> of prodrome intervention is Allen Frances, a former professor of psychiatry at Duke University.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is an experiment far before its time,” says Frances. “We need to be doing this as research before we spread this across the country and risk the harm to the individuals and risk the misallocation of resources in a society.”\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘We’re running up against the limits of what we can do for patients with chronic schizophrenia.’ \u003ccite>— Daniel Mathalon, UCSF\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Bill McFarlane, a Maine psychiatrist whose PIER Training Institute helped establish several prodrome clinics in California, says he’s seen clear benefits — including \u003ca href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24632857\">reduced hospitalization rates\u003c/a> — in Portland, Maine, where the Portland Identification and Early Referral Program he established served psychosis risk clients for over a decade. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He and other proponents say schizophrenia’s early window may be too precious to miss.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re running up against the limits of what we can do for patients who develop schizophrenia, once it goes to chronic stages,” UCSF’s Mathalon says. “I think this is a direction we have to go in, but we have to do it carefully.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course when you’re the parent of a kid in trouble you aren’t asking those questions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before she started the program, Reagan’s mom and step-father, Charlie, say they saw very little future for their daughter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I thought we were going to have to take care of her for the rest of her life,” says Kathy. “I thought she’d forever be marginal, forever be medicated. I thought we’d just have to get used to it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today Reagan is off all her medications. She’s animated, playing board games with her family, excited about going back to school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her family credits the VIPS program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We were blessed to have this for her,” Charlie says. “We really were. It saved her life.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reagan’s family will never know whether the program prevented her from developing schizophrenia. But even if the diagnosis didn’t fit, they say, the treatment did.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "A Quest for Vegan Cheese That Actually Tastes Like Cheese",
"headTitle": "A Quest for Vegan Cheese That Actually Tastes Like Cheese | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>The problem with a lot of vegan cheese is that it’s just not very cheesy. You know: gooey, melty, bubbly. Vegan cheese, with a few notable exceptions (Kite Hill, for example) tends toward rubbery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Well, now a team of a dozen Bay Area scientists is working to biohack a vegan cheese that can be made into a wide variety of flavors and textures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The team, composed of people from \u003ca href=\"http://biocurious.org/\">BioCurious\u003c/a> in Sunnyvale and\u003ca href=\"https://counterculturelabs.org/\"> Counter Culture Labs\u003c/a> in Oakland, is engineering baker’s yeast to produce what they call \u003ca href=\"https://realvegancheese.org/\">Real Vegan Cheese\u003c/a>. Unlike other vegan cheeses, which are usually made from vegetable products, Real Vegan Cheese would be exactly the same as milk-based cheese on a molecular level. The idea is to engineer baker’s yeast to produce protein molecules that are identical to the protein molecules from milk. \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_19867\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 718px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/marc_in_lab.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-19867\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/marc_in_lab.jpg\" alt=\"marc_in_lab\" width=\"718\" height=\"404\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Marc Juul, a biohacker with a background in synthetic biology, came up with the idea for Real Vegan Cheese. (Courtesy of Real Vegan Cheese)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Cheese starts off when you increase the acidity of milk by adding acids or bacteria. Then add the enzyme rennet to the sour milk, and the milk will form curds and release the liquid as whey. The curds are made into cheese after being pressed into shapes, aged, and processed in a variety of different ways. This is where the art of cheese making comes into play.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The method for making Real Vegan Cheese would be almost identical. The proteins usually found in milk would be produced synthetically using baker’s yeast, and then combined with water, sugars and vegetable fats to come up with a substitute milk. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You would be able to make all the same kinds of cheeses that you can make with regular milk,” says Patrik D’haeseleer, a mentor for the team.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>D’haeseleer says modifying baker’s yeast to create milk protein is a straightforward scientific process. And it won’t involve any animals, or even any milk. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The team gets synthetic genes that are replicas of the genes responsible for making milk proteins. Then it’s a genetic engineering job that involves injecting those synthetic genes into the cells of baker’s yeast. The yeast will then make that same protein normally made in milk.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘We have some vegetarians who wish they could be vegan if there was better cheese around.’\u003ccite>— Patrik D’haeseleer, team mentor\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>“If we do our job well we could make something that’s chemically indistinguishable from actual cheese,” D’haeseleer says. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That could be of interest to people who are unable to eat cheese; some genetically predisposed individuals lack the enzyme lactase that is responsible for breaking down the lactose in dairy products.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As long as there is no lactose in it,” says UC Davis nutritionist Francene Steinberg, “it may very well be a very good alternative for those who are lactose intolerant.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The end product will also be GMO-free. The baker’s yeast itself will be modified to host the genes that grow the proteins, but the protein product of those genes will be pure — the same protein product, the same molecules, that the genes produce in milk. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>D’heaseleer notes a very similar process is already used to produce the enzyme rennet artificially — rennet is found naturally in calves’ stomachs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_19870\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 286px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/craig_first_cloning.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-19870\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/craig_first_cloning.jpg\" alt=\"craig_first_cloning\" width=\"286\" height=\"384\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Team member Craig Rouskey is a molecular biologist, immunologist and biohacker. (Real Vegan Cheese)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>D’haeseleer says he was surprised at first that the project received strong support from the vegan community. “You tend to think of vegans, organic, anti-GMO in the same sentence” he said, “but I think this community simply has a much higher fraction of people who are used to thinking about what they eat in a very rational and scientific way.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not to mention people who think about what they eat in terms of taste. “We have some vegetarians who wish they could be vegan if there was better cheese around,” D’haeseleer says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The project is a contribution to \u003ca href=\"http://igem.org/Main_Page\">iGEM\u003c/a>, an international synthetic biology competition traditionally held for undergraduate teams. This year, the competition was opened to community teams without an academic affiliation, and the Real Vegan Cheese team decided to use the competition as motivation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Currently the project is funded by donations through Indiegogo. After it gets past the first stages, the team will need to find a way to produce artificial proteins on a large scale, D’haeseleer says. “Once we show that we can actually make these proteins in the lab we will have to do a lot of work scaling up that project and making it economically feasible.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Especially if, as is their hope, Real Vegan Cheese is to be on grocery store shelves in 2016.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The problem with a lot of vegan cheese is that it’s just not very cheesy. You know: gooey, melty, bubbly. Vegan cheese, with a few notable exceptions (Kite Hill, for example) tends toward rubbery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Well, now a team of a dozen Bay Area scientists is working to biohack a vegan cheese that can be made into a wide variety of flavors and textures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The team, composed of people from \u003ca href=\"http://biocurious.org/\">BioCurious\u003c/a> in Sunnyvale and\u003ca href=\"https://counterculturelabs.org/\"> Counter Culture Labs\u003c/a> in Oakland, is engineering baker’s yeast to produce what they call \u003ca href=\"https://realvegancheese.org/\">Real Vegan Cheese\u003c/a>. Unlike other vegan cheeses, which are usually made from vegetable products, Real Vegan Cheese would be exactly the same as milk-based cheese on a molecular level. The idea is to engineer baker’s yeast to produce protein molecules that are identical to the protein molecules from milk. \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_19867\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 718px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/marc_in_lab.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-19867\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/marc_in_lab.jpg\" alt=\"marc_in_lab\" width=\"718\" height=\"404\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Marc Juul, a biohacker with a background in synthetic biology, came up with the idea for Real Vegan Cheese. (Courtesy of Real Vegan Cheese)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Cheese starts off when you increase the acidity of milk by adding acids or bacteria. Then add the enzyme rennet to the sour milk, and the milk will form curds and release the liquid as whey. The curds are made into cheese after being pressed into shapes, aged, and processed in a variety of different ways. This is where the art of cheese making comes into play.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The method for making Real Vegan Cheese would be almost identical. The proteins usually found in milk would be produced synthetically using baker’s yeast, and then combined with water, sugars and vegetable fats to come up with a substitute milk. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You would be able to make all the same kinds of cheeses that you can make with regular milk,” says Patrik D’haeseleer, a mentor for the team.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>D’haeseleer says modifying baker’s yeast to create milk protein is a straightforward scientific process. And it won’t involve any animals, or even any milk. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The team gets synthetic genes that are replicas of the genes responsible for making milk proteins. Then it’s a genetic engineering job that involves injecting those synthetic genes into the cells of baker’s yeast. The yeast will then make that same protein normally made in milk.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘We have some vegetarians who wish they could be vegan if there was better cheese around.’\u003ccite>— Patrik D’haeseleer, team mentor\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>“If we do our job well we could make something that’s chemically indistinguishable from actual cheese,” D’haeseleer says. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That could be of interest to people who are unable to eat cheese; some genetically predisposed individuals lack the enzyme lactase that is responsible for breaking down the lactose in dairy products.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As long as there is no lactose in it,” says UC Davis nutritionist Francene Steinberg, “it may very well be a very good alternative for those who are lactose intolerant.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The end product will also be GMO-free. The baker’s yeast itself will be modified to host the genes that grow the proteins, but the protein product of those genes will be pure — the same protein product, the same molecules, that the genes produce in milk. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>D’heaseleer notes a very similar process is already used to produce the enzyme rennet artificially — rennet is found naturally in calves’ stomachs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_19870\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 286px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/craig_first_cloning.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-19870\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/craig_first_cloning.jpg\" alt=\"craig_first_cloning\" width=\"286\" height=\"384\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Team member Craig Rouskey is a molecular biologist, immunologist and biohacker. (Real Vegan Cheese)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>D’haeseleer says he was surprised at first that the project received strong support from the vegan community. “You tend to think of vegans, organic, anti-GMO in the same sentence” he said, “but I think this community simply has a much higher fraction of people who are used to thinking about what they eat in a very rational and scientific way.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not to mention people who think about what they eat in terms of taste. “We have some vegetarians who wish they could be vegan if there was better cheese around,” D’haeseleer says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The project is a contribution to \u003ca href=\"http://igem.org/Main_Page\">iGEM\u003c/a>, an international synthetic biology competition traditionally held for undergraduate teams. This year, the competition was opened to community teams without an academic affiliation, and the Real Vegan Cheese team decided to use the competition as motivation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Currently the project is funded by donations through Indiegogo. After it gets past the first stages, the team will need to find a way to produce artificial proteins on a large scale, D’haeseleer says. “Once we show that we can actually make these proteins in the lab we will have to do a lot of work scaling up that project and making it economically feasible.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Especially if, as is their hope, Real Vegan Cheese is to be on grocery store shelves in 2016.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "California's Wandering Wolf Now Has Puppies in Oregon",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cstrong>By Associated Press\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_19846\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 320px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/14547399159_a7f6b6fe9d_z.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-19846\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/14547399159_a7f6b6fe9d_z.jpg\" alt=\"USFWS/Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwspacific/14547399159/in/photostream/\" width=\"320\" height=\"298\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">One of OR-7’s wolf pups in southwestern Oregon. (\u003ca href=\"https://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwspacific/14547399159/in/photostream/\">USFWS/Flickr\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>New photos show that Oregon’s famous wandering wolf, OR-7, has at least three pups that he and a mate are raising in the Cascade Range of southern Oregon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist John Stephenson said Friday that the \u003ca href=\"https://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwspacific/\">photos taken July 12\u003c/a> by an automatic camera in a remote section of the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest show two gray pups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Combined with one black pup Stephenson observed outside the pack’s den back in June, that makes at least three.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>OR-7 set off in search of a mate in September 2011, covering thousands of miles from his birthplace in northeastern Oregon to Northern California before settling in southwest Oregon. The wolf gained worldwide fame as his GPS tracking collar showed his wanderings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>By Associated Press\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_19846\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 320px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/14547399159_a7f6b6fe9d_z.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-19846\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/14547399159_a7f6b6fe9d_z.jpg\" alt=\"USFWS/Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwspacific/14547399159/in/photostream/\" width=\"320\" height=\"298\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">One of OR-7’s wolf pups in southwestern Oregon. (\u003ca href=\"https://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwspacific/14547399159/in/photostream/\">USFWS/Flickr\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>New photos show that Oregon’s famous wandering wolf, OR-7, has at least three pups that he and a mate are raising in the Cascade Range of southern Oregon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist John Stephenson said Friday that the \u003ca href=\"https://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwspacific/\">photos taken July 12\u003c/a> by an automatic camera in a remote section of the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest show two gray pups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Combined with one black pup Stephenson observed outside the pack’s den back in June, that makes at least three.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>OR-7 set off in search of a mate in September 2011, covering thousands of miles from his birthplace in northeastern Oregon to Northern California before settling in southwest Oregon. The wolf gained worldwide fame as his GPS tracking collar showed his wanderings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "California Leans Heavily on Thousands of Inmate Firefighters",
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"content": "\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"http://cdfdata.fire.ca.gov/incidents/incidents_details_info?incident_id=1001\">Bully Fire\u003c/a>, which has burned more than 12,600 acres in Shasta County, is nearly contained. In the two weeks since it ignited, about 2,000 firefighters have battled the blaze. Nearly half of them — 900 — are \u003ca href=\"http://www.cdcr.ca.gov/Conservation_Camps/\">inmates with the California Department of Corrections\u003c/a>. These “low-level offenders” making just $2 an hour are a crucial component in how the state battles wildfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://vimeo.com/101666018\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“First day we was out here it was like 111 or 115 and that’s not including the fire,” says Emir Dunn. His orange fire suit swamps his slender body, but don’t be fooled by his size. Like most inmate firefighters he lugs more than 100 pounds of gear with him: an axe, food, water, fuel for the chainsaw.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The air tastes like a charcoal briquette. The wind picks up, and a mix of dirt and ash swirl from the ground. Dunn scours the scorched area looking for embers that could reignite. He sees smoke billowing from the ground. He readies the hose and he and a crewmate blast the smoking mound with water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_19786\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/RS11253_deng_face-sfi.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19786\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/RS11253_deng_face-sfi.jpg\" alt=\"Emir Dunn at work on the Bully Fire in Shasta County. (Adam Grossberg/KQED)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Emir Dunn at work on the Bully Fire in Shasta County. (Adam Grossberg/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Dunn and 15 others will stay here for a 24-hour shift. They might catch some sleep, but very little. They hiked up here and they’ll hike back to the pick-up point, a slog that’s likely to be several miles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Each crew has one professional firefighter, a captain, and the rest are men convicted of crimes including drug offenses and armed robbery.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘It’s just like working with any other group of guys. You kind of get to know their personalities and what they’re capable of.’\u003ccite>— Josh Kitchens, Cal Fire\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Captain Josh Kitchens looks like he came straight out of central casting: tall with a chiseled jaw and the stare of someone who doesn’t play around. He runs Dunn’s crew. He’s pretty much alone with inmates wielding axes and chainsaws in the middle of a forest that happens to be on fire. But he shrugs it off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s just like working with any other group of guys,” he says. “You kind of get to know their personalities and what they’re capable of and you put them in positions most suited for them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before he was the captain of this crew Kitchens was a more traditional firefighter, but he says he signed up to oversee an inmate crew five months ago to expand his experience. And he’s impressed with their work ethic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These guys are some workhorses,” he says. “When it’s time to do some grunt labor, that’s what we’re good at. Get a lot of stuff done with 16 bodies.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has prisoners and Cal Fire needs firefighters. Across the state there are more than 4,000 inmate firefighters. Their labor saves the state more than $100 million a year, according to CDCR.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_19788\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/RS11248_sleeping-hpf.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19788\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/RS11248_sleeping-hpf.jpg\" alt=\"An inmate firefighter crew sleeps at a base camp in Redding after a 24-hour shift. (Adam Grossberg/KQED)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An inmate firefighter crew rests at a base camp in Redding after a 24-hour shift. (Adam Grossberg/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As far as whether the program affects recidivism, corrections officials say they don’t have hard numbers. Anecdotally though, they say they see fewer of these guys back behind bars than those in other programs or straight out of a prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Down the mountain from the Bully Fire, at base camp, inmate Cory Sills is resting after a 24-hour shift. He says he thinks the camps are a success because they’re completely different from prisons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s an assembly where we have a formation in the mornings and it was like my second or third day and the lieutenant comes out and he goes, ‘Look, we’ll treat you like men first, firefighters second and prisoners if we have to,'” Sills recalls. “That right there, that stuck in my head for two years now because now I have a chance to be treated like a man.”\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘It’s not just the walls you get rid of.’\u003ccite>— Michael Dignan, Inmate Firefighter\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>There are guards at the base camp, but you won’t see guns, truncheons or barbed wire. On-site warehouses and large white makeshift tents, cooled with fans and air conditioners, are sleeping quarters. There’s a medical tent used by both professional firefighters and inmates. Most here are being treated for poison oak.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then there’s the food: it’s hearty, to keep the inmates fueled for the rough work. Base camps and fire camps like these are where the inmates will do nearly all of their time. When they aren’t fighting fires they do community work, like building a flood barrier or setting up a park for an ice cream social. Once they’re in the program they never spend a night in a prison facility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s not just the walls you get rid of,” says Michael Dignan, who’s been an inmate firefighter for four years. “You learn a lot about yourself. You learn that there is stuff you can put yourself through that you never thought you would have been able to do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_19790\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/RS11251_crew-from-distance-hpf.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19790\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/RS11251_crew-from-distance-hpf.jpg\" alt=\"Two inmate firefighters at work on the Bully Fire. (Adam Grossberg/KQED)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Two inmate firefighters at work on the Bully Fire. (Adam Grossberg/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“When you think you’re done, you’re just not. When you see that last hill you have to climb and you tell yourself you can’t make it, you end up at the top of it,” Dignan says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dignan will need that kind of perseverance. He’s scheduled to be released in less than 30 days. He says he’ll go back home to Ohio and back to tree trimming; that’s what he did before being locked up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A few other men say they might try firefighting when they’re released, but most, citing the hot, hard work and long hours, say, “No way.”\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/160165075&color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false\" width=\"100%\" height=\"166\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>“First day we was out here it was like 111 or 115 and that’s not including the fire,” says Emir Dunn. His orange fire suit swamps his slender body, but don’t be fooled by his size. Like most inmate firefighters he lugs more than 100 pounds of gear with him: an axe, food, water, fuel for the chainsaw.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The air tastes like a charcoal briquette. The wind picks up, and a mix of dirt and ash swirl from the ground. Dunn scours the scorched area looking for embers that could reignite. He sees smoke billowing from the ground. He readies the hose and he and a crewmate blast the smoking mound with water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_19786\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/RS11253_deng_face-sfi.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19786\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/RS11253_deng_face-sfi.jpg\" alt=\"Emir Dunn at work on the Bully Fire in Shasta County. (Adam Grossberg/KQED)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Emir Dunn at work on the Bully Fire in Shasta County. (Adam Grossberg/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Dunn and 15 others will stay here for a 24-hour shift. They might catch some sleep, but very little. They hiked up here and they’ll hike back to the pick-up point, a slog that’s likely to be several miles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Each crew has one professional firefighter, a captain, and the rest are men convicted of crimes including drug offenses and armed robbery.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘It’s just like working with any other group of guys. You kind of get to know their personalities and what they’re capable of.’\u003ccite>— Josh Kitchens, Cal Fire\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Captain Josh Kitchens looks like he came straight out of central casting: tall with a chiseled jaw and the stare of someone who doesn’t play around. He runs Dunn’s crew. He’s pretty much alone with inmates wielding axes and chainsaws in the middle of a forest that happens to be on fire. But he shrugs it off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s just like working with any other group of guys,” he says. “You kind of get to know their personalities and what they’re capable of and you put them in positions most suited for them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before he was the captain of this crew Kitchens was a more traditional firefighter, but he says he signed up to oversee an inmate crew five months ago to expand his experience. And he’s impressed with their work ethic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These guys are some workhorses,” he says. “When it’s time to do some grunt labor, that’s what we’re good at. Get a lot of stuff done with 16 bodies.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has prisoners and Cal Fire needs firefighters. Across the state there are more than 4,000 inmate firefighters. Their labor saves the state more than $100 million a year, according to CDCR.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_19788\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/RS11248_sleeping-hpf.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19788\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/RS11248_sleeping-hpf.jpg\" alt=\"An inmate firefighter crew sleeps at a base camp in Redding after a 24-hour shift. (Adam Grossberg/KQED)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An inmate firefighter crew rests at a base camp in Redding after a 24-hour shift. (Adam Grossberg/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As far as whether the program affects recidivism, corrections officials say they don’t have hard numbers. Anecdotally though, they say they see fewer of these guys back behind bars than those in other programs or straight out of a prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Down the mountain from the Bully Fire, at base camp, inmate Cory Sills is resting after a 24-hour shift. He says he thinks the camps are a success because they’re completely different from prisons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s an assembly where we have a formation in the mornings and it was like my second or third day and the lieutenant comes out and he goes, ‘Look, we’ll treat you like men first, firefighters second and prisoners if we have to,'” Sills recalls. “That right there, that stuck in my head for two years now because now I have a chance to be treated like a man.”\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘It’s not just the walls you get rid of.’\u003ccite>— Michael Dignan, Inmate Firefighter\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>There are guards at the base camp, but you won’t see guns, truncheons or barbed wire. On-site warehouses and large white makeshift tents, cooled with fans and air conditioners, are sleeping quarters. There’s a medical tent used by both professional firefighters and inmates. Most here are being treated for poison oak.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then there’s the food: it’s hearty, to keep the inmates fueled for the rough work. Base camps and fire camps like these are where the inmates will do nearly all of their time. When they aren’t fighting fires they do community work, like building a flood barrier or setting up a park for an ice cream social. Once they’re in the program they never spend a night in a prison facility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s not just the walls you get rid of,” says Michael Dignan, who’s been an inmate firefighter for four years. “You learn a lot about yourself. You learn that there is stuff you can put yourself through that you never thought you would have been able to do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_19790\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/RS11251_crew-from-distance-hpf.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19790\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/RS11251_crew-from-distance-hpf.jpg\" alt=\"Two inmate firefighters at work on the Bully Fire. (Adam Grossberg/KQED)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Two inmate firefighters at work on the Bully Fire. (Adam Grossberg/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“When you think you’re done, you’re just not. When you see that last hill you have to climb and you tell yourself you can’t make it, you end up at the top of it,” Dignan says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dignan will need that kind of perseverance. He’s scheduled to be released in less than 30 days. He says he’ll go back home to Ohio and back to tree trimming; that’s what he did before being locked up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A few other men say they might try firefighting when they’re released, but most, citing the hot, hard work and long hours, say, “No way.”\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/160165075&color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false\" 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": "Drought Becomes Top Environmental Priority for Californians",
"headTitle": "Drought Becomes Top Environmental Priority for Californians | KQED",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_19721\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/Sprinklers_RS11169_53298936-hpf.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19721\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/Sprinklers_RS11169_53298936-hpf.jpg\" alt=\"Poll: Californians favor mandatory water restrictions by a 3-to-1 margin. (David McNew/Getty Images)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Poll: Californians favor mandatory water restrictions by a 3-to-1 margin. (David McNew/Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Drought has moved to the top of the list in the latest survey of Californians’ environmental worries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statewide poll conducted during the second week of July, more than a third of respondents (35 percent) cited water supply and drought as “the most important environmental issue facing California today.” That more than doubled the second most popular response, which was air pollution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s the first time since the annual survey was launched in 2000 that Californians have cited water supply as their top concern, according to Mark Baldassare at the \u003ca title=\"PPIC - main\" href=\"http://www.ppic.org/main/home.asp\">Public Policy Institute of California\u003c/a>, which conducts the annual “Californians and Their Environment” poll. Even when asked the question in the drought year of 2009, only 18 percent pinpointed water supply as their biggest concern.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No other environmental concern, such as climate change, water pollution or traffic even cracked double digits in the latest survey. Only 2 percent \u003ca title=\"Q-Sci - post\" href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/07/14/anti-fracking-activists-in-california-take-fight-to-county-ballots/\">cited fracking\u003c/a> — or \u003ca title=\"Lowdown - fracking\" href=\"http://blogs.kqed.org/lowdown/2013/09/27/animated-explainer-whats-all-the-fuss-about-fracking-in-california/\">hydraulic fracturing\u003c/a> — to recover oil and gas as their top concern.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than half the respondents (54 percent) said they considered water supply to be a “big problem” in their part of the state. About one in four considered it “somewhat of a problem.”\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘People recognize that we’re in a serious situation.’\u003ccite>— Mark Baldassare, PPIC\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>And most indicated at least some willingness to do their part in conserving water. An impressive 3 out of 4 in the PPIC survey favored “mandatory” requirements to reduce water use. Only 23 percent were opposed to the idea, though many urban water agencies have been slow to put mandatory conservation in place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Because they favor mandatory reductions doesn’t mean it won’t be controversial when they’re asked to do so,” said Baldassare, who heads the annual survey. “But people recognize that we’re in a serious situation today and something’s gotta give.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Support for Water Bond\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All this fretting about the drought may be driving support for a big \u003ca title=\"SacBee - post\" href=\"http://www.sacbee.com/2014/07/05/6536142/california-water-bond-the-burning.html\">water bond\u003c/a> that may appear on November’s ballot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than half of self-described likely voters (51 percent) said they would vote today for $11.1 billion of borrowing to fund projects to make the state more drought-resilient, such as new reservoirs. The poll found even stronger support “if it was a lower amount.” Indications are that if the water bond makes it to the the statewide ballot, it will likely be valued at something less than $10 billion. Governor Jerry Brown has said he’d like to keep it down to something in the $6 billion range.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Climate Connection\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When asked about potential impacts from the changing climate, drought once again floated to the top of people’s worry list. Sixty-four percent said they were “very concerned.” Respondents showed considerably more concern for extended droughts and more severe wildfires as a consequence of climate change, than they did for other projected impacts such as heat waves (44 percent “very concerned”) and rising seas (32 percent).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But when asked to cite the main reason for the state’s current drought, only 38 percent pinned it on global warming. More than half (51 percent) said they thought it was more the result of “natural weather patterns,” an indication that many still see the direct impacts of climate change as a problem for the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The PPIC poll has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 3.7 percent.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_19721\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/Sprinklers_RS11169_53298936-hpf.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19721\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/Sprinklers_RS11169_53298936-hpf.jpg\" alt=\"Poll: Californians favor mandatory water restrictions by a 3-to-1 margin. (David McNew/Getty Images)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Poll: Californians favor mandatory water restrictions by a 3-to-1 margin. (David McNew/Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Drought has moved to the top of the list in the latest survey of Californians’ environmental worries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statewide poll conducted during the second week of July, more than a third of respondents (35 percent) cited water supply and drought as “the most important environmental issue facing California today.” That more than doubled the second most popular response, which was air pollution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s the first time since the annual survey was launched in 2000 that Californians have cited water supply as their top concern, according to Mark Baldassare at the \u003ca title=\"PPIC - main\" href=\"http://www.ppic.org/main/home.asp\">Public Policy Institute of California\u003c/a>, which conducts the annual “Californians and Their Environment” poll. Even when asked the question in the drought year of 2009, only 18 percent pinpointed water supply as their biggest concern.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No other environmental concern, such as climate change, water pollution or traffic even cracked double digits in the latest survey. Only 2 percent \u003ca title=\"Q-Sci - post\" href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/07/14/anti-fracking-activists-in-california-take-fight-to-county-ballots/\">cited fracking\u003c/a> — or \u003ca title=\"Lowdown - fracking\" href=\"http://blogs.kqed.org/lowdown/2013/09/27/animated-explainer-whats-all-the-fuss-about-fracking-in-california/\">hydraulic fracturing\u003c/a> — to recover oil and gas as their top concern.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than half the respondents (54 percent) said they considered water supply to be a “big problem” in their part of the state. About one in four considered it “somewhat of a problem.”\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘People recognize that we’re in a serious situation.’\u003ccite>— Mark Baldassare, PPIC\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>And most indicated at least some willingness to do their part in conserving water. An impressive 3 out of 4 in the PPIC survey favored “mandatory” requirements to reduce water use. Only 23 percent were opposed to the idea, though many urban water agencies have been slow to put mandatory conservation in place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Because they favor mandatory reductions doesn’t mean it won’t be controversial when they’re asked to do so,” said Baldassare, who heads the annual survey. “But people recognize that we’re in a serious situation today and something’s gotta give.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Support for Water Bond\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All this fretting about the drought may be driving support for a big \u003ca title=\"SacBee - post\" href=\"http://www.sacbee.com/2014/07/05/6536142/california-water-bond-the-burning.html\">water bond\u003c/a> that may appear on November’s ballot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than half of self-described likely voters (51 percent) said they would vote today for $11.1 billion of borrowing to fund projects to make the state more drought-resilient, such as new reservoirs. The poll found even stronger support “if it was a lower amount.” Indications are that if the water bond makes it to the the statewide ballot, it will likely be valued at something less than $10 billion. Governor Jerry Brown has said he’d like to keep it down to something in the $6 billion range.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Climate Connection\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When asked about potential impacts from the changing climate, drought once again floated to the top of people’s worry list. Sixty-four percent said they were “very concerned.” Respondents showed considerably more concern for extended droughts and more severe wildfires as a consequence of climate change, than they did for other projected impacts such as heat waves (44 percent “very concerned”) and rising seas (32 percent).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But when asked to cite the main reason for the state’s current drought, only 38 percent pinned it on global warming. More than half (51 percent) said they thought it was more the result of “natural weather patterns,” an indication that many still see the direct impacts of climate change as a problem for the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The PPIC poll has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 3.7 percent.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Feds Propose New Safety Rules for Oil Trains",
"headTitle": "Feds Propose New Safety Rules for Oil Trains | KQED",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_19737\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/10880scr_fab34f3151f07aa-e1406166428720.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19737\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/10880scr_fab34f3151f07aa-e1406166428720.jpg\" alt=\"Tank cars lined up in a rail yard in Richmond. (Craig Miller/KQED)\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tank cars lined up in a rail yard in Richmond. (Craig Miller/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The U.S. Department of Transportation is \u003ca href=\"http://www.phmsa.dot.gov/pv_obj_cache/pv_obj_id_75F600DC57D81471F96C328EB5DF9177527E1000/filename/Proposed_Rulemaking_Enhanced_Tank_Car_Standards_and_Operational_Controls_for_High_Hazard_Flammable_Trains_PHMSA_2012_0082_%28HM_251%29_RIN_2137_AE91.pdf\">proposing regulations\u003c/a> that would make trains carrying oil safer. There have been several fiery oil train derailments in other parts of the country in the past year, and last July, a train carrying crude oil from North Dakota’s Bakken formation exploded in the town of \u003cspan class=\"st\">Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, killing 47 people\u003c/span>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new rules include lower speed limits, better brakes and safer rail cars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re pleased to see that these recommendations were made,” said Kelly Huston, a deputy director at California’s Office of Emergency Services. State regulators have been \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/audio/california-has-little-say-over-oil-train-safety/\">pushing for tighter federal regulations\u003c/a> on oil trains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Currently, one train a week carries a minimum of one million gallons of Bakken from North Dakota to a rail yard in Richmond.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Along with the proposed rules, the D.O.T. also \u003ca href=\"http://www.phmsa.dot.gov/pv_obj_cache/pv_obj_id_10B6171B1F17B07B32E437ADB3AC37F61DD70400/filename/07_21_14_Operation_Safe_Delivery_Report.pdf\">issued a report\u003c/a> finding that crude from the Bakken is more volatile than crude from other parts of the U.S., and that “there is an increased risk of a significant incident involving this material due to the significant volume that is transported, the routes and the extremely long distances it is moving by rail.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s no doubt we’re going to have better tank cars,” said Patti Goldman, an attorney with Earthjustice. She welcomes the rules, but says she doesn’t like the timeline, which doesn’t require the unsafe rail cars to be phased out until October, 2017. “It’s just going to happen too slowly and for too small a part of the hazardous shipments that we have on the rails.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last week, Earthjustice \u003ca href=\"http://earthjustice.org/sites/default/files/files/PetitionforEmergencyOrderReBakkenCrudeRailCars.pdf\">filed a petition\u003c/a> asking for older rail cars to be phased out immediately. \u003ca href=\"http://www.caloes.ca.gov/HazardousMaterials/Pages/Oil-By-Rail.aspx\">According to California officials\u003c/a>, as much as 82 percent of crude oil shipped in the U.S. — including the Bakken crude — is carried in old tank cars that cannot protect against explosions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trains delivered more than six million barrels of oil to California \u003ca href=\"http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/petroleum/statistics/2013_crude_by_rail.html\">last year\u003c/a>, from North Dakota, Alberta, Wyoming and other western states. State officials project that by 2016, the amount of crude traveling into California by train could surpass 100 million barrels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Huston said the regulations are just one piece of improving crude-by-rail safety.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We also have to provide better training for our first responders,” he said. “We should expand our hazardous materials response capability in the state, and we should look at regulating and inspecting the railroads more closely.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California recently hired more rail safety inspectors. Huston said the OES is now evaluating what training the hazardous materials response teams need, and whether the teams are located in the best places to respond if there were an oil train accident.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Association of American Railroads, an industry group, said in a \u003ca href=\"https://www.aar.org/newsandevents/Press-Releases/Pages/AAR-Responds-to-US-DOT-Proposed-Rule-on-Safety-of-Moving-Flammable-Liquids-by-Rail.aspx#.U8_7C7GU58E\">statement\u003c/a> it’s reviewing the D.O.T.’s proposals. A spokesman for the Western States Petroleum Association, which represents oil refiners, said they needed more time to review the regulations before commenting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The D.O.T. is now \u003ca href=\"http://www.dot.gov/briefing-room/us-dot-announces-comprehensive-proposed-rulemaking-safe-transportation-crude-oil\">accepting public comment\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "There have been several fiery oil train derailments in other parts of the country in the past year. The new rules include lower speed limits, better brakes and safer rail cars. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_19737\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/10880scr_fab34f3151f07aa-e1406166428720.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19737\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/10880scr_fab34f3151f07aa-e1406166428720.jpg\" alt=\"Tank cars lined up in a rail yard in Richmond. (Craig Miller/KQED)\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tank cars lined up in a rail yard in Richmond. (Craig Miller/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The U.S. Department of Transportation is \u003ca href=\"http://www.phmsa.dot.gov/pv_obj_cache/pv_obj_id_75F600DC57D81471F96C328EB5DF9177527E1000/filename/Proposed_Rulemaking_Enhanced_Tank_Car_Standards_and_Operational_Controls_for_High_Hazard_Flammable_Trains_PHMSA_2012_0082_%28HM_251%29_RIN_2137_AE91.pdf\">proposing regulations\u003c/a> that would make trains carrying oil safer. There have been several fiery oil train derailments in other parts of the country in the past year, and last July, a train carrying crude oil from North Dakota’s Bakken formation exploded in the town of \u003cspan class=\"st\">Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, killing 47 people\u003c/span>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new rules include lower speed limits, better brakes and safer rail cars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re pleased to see that these recommendations were made,” said Kelly Huston, a deputy director at California’s Office of Emergency Services. State regulators have been \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/audio/california-has-little-say-over-oil-train-safety/\">pushing for tighter federal regulations\u003c/a> on oil trains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Currently, one train a week carries a minimum of one million gallons of Bakken from North Dakota to a rail yard in Richmond.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Along with the proposed rules, the D.O.T. also \u003ca href=\"http://www.phmsa.dot.gov/pv_obj_cache/pv_obj_id_10B6171B1F17B07B32E437ADB3AC37F61DD70400/filename/07_21_14_Operation_Safe_Delivery_Report.pdf\">issued a report\u003c/a> finding that crude from the Bakken is more volatile than crude from other parts of the U.S., and that “there is an increased risk of a significant incident involving this material due to the significant volume that is transported, the routes and the extremely long distances it is moving by rail.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s no doubt we’re going to have better tank cars,” said Patti Goldman, an attorney with Earthjustice. She welcomes the rules, but says she doesn’t like the timeline, which doesn’t require the unsafe rail cars to be phased out until October, 2017. “It’s just going to happen too slowly and for too small a part of the hazardous shipments that we have on the rails.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last week, Earthjustice \u003ca href=\"http://earthjustice.org/sites/default/files/files/PetitionforEmergencyOrderReBakkenCrudeRailCars.pdf\">filed a petition\u003c/a> asking for older rail cars to be phased out immediately. \u003ca href=\"http://www.caloes.ca.gov/HazardousMaterials/Pages/Oil-By-Rail.aspx\">According to California officials\u003c/a>, as much as 82 percent of crude oil shipped in the U.S. — including the Bakken crude — is carried in old tank cars that cannot protect against explosions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trains delivered more than six million barrels of oil to California \u003ca href=\"http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/petroleum/statistics/2013_crude_by_rail.html\">last year\u003c/a>, from North Dakota, Alberta, Wyoming and other western states. State officials project that by 2016, the amount of crude traveling into California by train could surpass 100 million barrels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Huston said the regulations are just one piece of improving crude-by-rail safety.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We also have to provide better training for our first responders,” he said. “We should expand our hazardous materials response capability in the state, and we should look at regulating and inspecting the railroads more closely.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California recently hired more rail safety inspectors. Huston said the OES is now evaluating what training the hazardous materials response teams need, and whether the teams are located in the best places to respond if there were an oil train accident.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Association of American Railroads, an industry group, said in a \u003ca href=\"https://www.aar.org/newsandevents/Press-Releases/Pages/AAR-Responds-to-US-DOT-Proposed-Rule-on-Safety-of-Moving-Flammable-Liquids-by-Rail.aspx#.U8_7C7GU58E\">statement\u003c/a> it’s reviewing the D.O.T.’s proposals. A spokesman for the Western States Petroleum Association, which represents oil refiners, said they needed more time to review the regulations before commenting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The D.O.T. is now \u003ca href=\"http://www.dot.gov/briefing-room/us-dot-announces-comprehensive-proposed-rulemaking-safe-transportation-crude-oil\">accepting public comment\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Richmond Nearly Ready to Approve Chevron Refinery Project",
"headTitle": "Richmond Nearly Ready to Approve Chevron Refinery Project | KQED",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_19710\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 639px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/chevron-e1406149837331.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19710\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/chevron-e1406149837331.jpg\" alt=\"The Chevron Refinery in Richmond is looking to increase its capacity to process crude oil with higher sulfur content.\" width=\"639\" height=\"361\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Chevron Refinery in Richmond is looking to increase its capacity to process crude oil with higher sulfur content. (Deborah Svoboda/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>By Sara Hossaini and Molly Samuel\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Richmond City Council is slated to decide in one week whether to give final approval to \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/audio/chevron-tries-again-with-richmond-refinery-revamp/\">Chevron’s plans for a $1 billion project\u003c/a> at its refinery there. The council is now considering what conditions to place on the project, if it’s approved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A hearing Tuesday night drew about 500 people; nearly 200 signed up to speak during the public comment period, both for and against the project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They come to us with plans to modernize only a part of their operation that will allow much dirtier sources of crude oil to be processed,” said Richmond resident Robert Bishop, “and to make millions and millions of dollars more profit each year by doing so.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the goals of the project is to allow Chevron to refine crude with a higher sulfur content. The industry calls this “sour” crude; environmental groups call it “dirty” crude. Bishop said the project shouldn’t get the green light unless the council imposes the stricter conditions recommended by the city’s Planning Commission.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Environmental groups suggested those conditions and Chevron is appealing them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The oil company has, however, agreed to a plan submitted by Attorney General Kamala Harris, and included in the EIR as Alternative 11. That alternative, unlike Chevron’s original proposal, would reduce how much sulfur the refinery could process, and would not increase greenhouse gas emissions. Chevron’s preferred plan would have allowed an increase in greenhouse gas emissions to be offset by carbon credits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company has also agreed to double community investment dollars over the next decade, to $60 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That would benefit all Richmond residents, said Chevron employee Suzanne Jackson. “A cleaner, newer, safer refinery will continue to support the bridge of the gap between social and economic change here in Richmond,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Planning Commission Approval\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this month, Richmond’s planning commission \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2014/07/11/round-2-of-richmond-hearing-on-chevron-refinery-plan/\">approved the environmental impact report\u003c/a> for the project, recommending the city council approve Alternative 11.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This was a good project before, it’s a really great project now, so we’re very hopeful,” said Chevron spokeswoman Melissa Ritchie. “Greenhouse gas emissions will not increase as result of project, they will actually decrease.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The planning commission also set forth a series of conditions proposed by environmental groups, and Chevron has appealed all of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One condition would require stricter pollution emission standards, the second would require a more thorough upgrade of parts of the refinery that handle highly corrosive high-sulfur crude oil, and the third would require the company to participate in “climate justice mitigation,” reportedly including a clean-energy jobs program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Staff for the city council \u003ca href=\"http://chevronmodernization.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/0.ARF-and-FINAL-REPORT-CVRN-CC-7-22-2014.pdf\">oppose those conditions\u003c/a>, saying they are outside the scope of the EIR, or outside the jurisdiction of the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Another Lawsuit?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Without those additional conditions, Andrés Soto from CBE says he’s concerned Chevron’s lower emissions goals would be unenforceable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It just doesn’t have any teeth in it,” Soto said, of the possibility of adopting the lower-emissions scheme without the additional conditions. “We think not only would it be the wrong decision, we think it would be legally challengeable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If so, this would not be the first time Chevron’s refinery project went to the courts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The project, called a modernization by the company and an expansion by its detractors, is a scaled-down version of an earlier proposal. That one was approved both by the Richmond planning commission and the city council in 2008, before environmental groups including Communities for a Better Environment successfully sued to stop it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city council plans to decide on the fate of the project at a meeting next week.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "The Richmond City Council is considering Chevron's plans for a $1 billion project at its refinery there. If it's approved, this is one of the last steps before construction on the project would actually begin.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_19710\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 639px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/chevron-e1406149837331.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19710\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/chevron-e1406149837331.jpg\" alt=\"The Chevron Refinery in Richmond is looking to increase its capacity to process crude oil with higher sulfur content.\" width=\"639\" height=\"361\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Chevron Refinery in Richmond is looking to increase its capacity to process crude oil with higher sulfur content. (Deborah Svoboda/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>By Sara Hossaini and Molly Samuel\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Richmond City Council is slated to decide in one week whether to give final approval to \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/audio/chevron-tries-again-with-richmond-refinery-revamp/\">Chevron’s plans for a $1 billion project\u003c/a> at its refinery there. The council is now considering what conditions to place on the project, if it’s approved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A hearing Tuesday night drew about 500 people; nearly 200 signed up to speak during the public comment period, both for and against the project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They come to us with plans to modernize only a part of their operation that will allow much dirtier sources of crude oil to be processed,” said Richmond resident Robert Bishop, “and to make millions and millions of dollars more profit each year by doing so.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the goals of the project is to allow Chevron to refine crude with a higher sulfur content. The industry calls this “sour” crude; environmental groups call it “dirty” crude. Bishop said the project shouldn’t get the green light unless the council imposes the stricter conditions recommended by the city’s Planning Commission.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Environmental groups suggested those conditions and Chevron is appealing them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The oil company has, however, agreed to a plan submitted by Attorney General Kamala Harris, and included in the EIR as Alternative 11. That alternative, unlike Chevron’s original proposal, would reduce how much sulfur the refinery could process, and would not increase greenhouse gas emissions. Chevron’s preferred plan would have allowed an increase in greenhouse gas emissions to be offset by carbon credits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company has also agreed to double community investment dollars over the next decade, to $60 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That would benefit all Richmond residents, said Chevron employee Suzanne Jackson. “A cleaner, newer, safer refinery will continue to support the bridge of the gap between social and economic change here in Richmond,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Planning Commission Approval\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this month, Richmond’s planning commission \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2014/07/11/round-2-of-richmond-hearing-on-chevron-refinery-plan/\">approved the environmental impact report\u003c/a> for the project, recommending the city council approve Alternative 11.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This was a good project before, it’s a really great project now, so we’re very hopeful,” said Chevron spokeswoman Melissa Ritchie. “Greenhouse gas emissions will not increase as result of project, they will actually decrease.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The planning commission also set forth a series of conditions proposed by environmental groups, and Chevron has appealed all of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One condition would require stricter pollution emission standards, the second would require a more thorough upgrade of parts of the refinery that handle highly corrosive high-sulfur crude oil, and the third would require the company to participate in “climate justice mitigation,” reportedly including a clean-energy jobs program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Staff for the city council \u003ca href=\"http://chevronmodernization.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/0.ARF-and-FINAL-REPORT-CVRN-CC-7-22-2014.pdf\">oppose those conditions\u003c/a>, saying they are outside the scope of the EIR, or outside the jurisdiction of the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Another Lawsuit?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Without those additional conditions, Andrés Soto from CBE says he’s concerned Chevron’s lower emissions goals would be unenforceable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It just doesn’t have any teeth in it,” Soto said, of the possibility of adopting the lower-emissions scheme without the additional conditions. “We think not only would it be the wrong decision, we think it would be legally challengeable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If so, this would not be the first time Chevron’s refinery project went to the courts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The project, called a modernization by the company and an expansion by its detractors, is a scaled-down version of an earlier proposal. That one was approved both by the Richmond planning commission and the city council in 2008, before environmental groups including Communities for a Better Environment successfully sued to stop it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city council plans to decide on the fate of the project at a meeting next week.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cstrong>By Alex Helmick and Molly Samuel\u003cbr>\nKQED News\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_19582\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/2614143760_4919fd38ae_z.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19582\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/2614143760_4919fd38ae_z.jpg\" alt=\"rskoon/Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/68137880@N00/2614143760/in/photolist-4Z1aS9-5hvihF-5hzFJG-5hzDqN-5hzDiG-5hzDBh-51gREX\" width=\"640\" height=\"428\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">In 2008, lightning ignited more than 2,000 fires in California, including this one near Big Sur. (\u003ca href=\"https://www.flickr.com/photos/68137880@N00/2614143760/in/photolist-4Z1aS9-5hvihF-5hzFJG-5hzDqN-5hzDiG-5hzDBh-51gREX\">rskoon/Flickr\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Weather experts say the next couple of weeks could be some of the worst in state history for wildfires caused by lightning strikes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Three years of drought have caused the state to become incredibly dry, with significantly more wildfires than last year.[contextly_sidebar id=”i0sI5ymLYhFb41Y0TeOjViymp8Z9M5Vu”]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“From here on in as we finish July and go into August, it’s just going to get considerably worse,” said Basil Newmerzhycky, a fire weather meteorologist at the Northern California Geographic Area Coordination Center, a wildfire-fighting center in Redding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newmerzhycky says over the coming weeks we could see 500-1,000 lightning strikes across the state. (Update: In fact, check out the graphic below from the National Weather Service; there were 6,000 lightning strikes detected in California just yesterday.) Last week, thunderstorms in the Sierra brought plenty of lightning, and a \u003ca href=\"http://www.fresnobee.com/2014/07/20/4032809/flash-flood-warning-for-rim-fire.html?sp=/99/406/\">few fires started in Yosemite\u003c/a>. According to the Fresno Bee, those were extinguished, and since the lightning was accompanied by rain, it didn’t do as much damage as it would have had it been dry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nonetheless, Newmerzhycky expects that wet patch to be short, with a return to dry conditions and a \u003ca href=\"http://psgeodata.fs.fed.us/7day/action/forecast/10\">high risk of fire\u003c/a> later this week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“With a normal lightning pattern, we will probably see an above-normal fire occurrence,” he said, chalking it up to the extremely dry vegetation. “If we happen to not get as many lightning events, though, that could be our saving grace.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2008, dry lightning ignited \u003ca href=\"http://baynature.org/articles/forged-by-fire/\">more than 2,000 fires\u003c/a> in California in a span of a few days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_19600\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/lightning.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/lightning.png\" alt=\"(National Weather Service)\" width=\"600\" height=\"597\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19600\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">(National Weather Service)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/159675922″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>By Alex Helmick and Molly Samuel\u003cbr>\nKQED News\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_19582\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/2614143760_4919fd38ae_z.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19582\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/2614143760_4919fd38ae_z.jpg\" alt=\"rskoon/Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/68137880@N00/2614143760/in/photolist-4Z1aS9-5hvihF-5hzFJG-5hzDqN-5hzDiG-5hzDBh-51gREX\" width=\"640\" height=\"428\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">In 2008, lightning ignited more than 2,000 fires in California, including this one near Big Sur. (\u003ca href=\"https://www.flickr.com/photos/68137880@N00/2614143760/in/photolist-4Z1aS9-5hvihF-5hzFJG-5hzDqN-5hzDiG-5hzDBh-51gREX\">rskoon/Flickr\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Weather experts say the next couple of weeks could be some of the worst in state history for wildfires caused by lightning strikes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Three years of drought have caused the state to become incredibly dry, with significantly more wildfires than last year.\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“From here on in as we finish July and go into August, it’s just going to get considerably worse,” said Basil Newmerzhycky, a fire weather meteorologist at the Northern California Geographic Area Coordination Center, a wildfire-fighting center in Redding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newmerzhycky says over the coming weeks we could see 500-1,000 lightning strikes across the state. (Update: In fact, check out the graphic below from the National Weather Service; there were 6,000 lightning strikes detected in California just yesterday.) Last week, thunderstorms in the Sierra brought plenty of lightning, and a \u003ca href=\"http://www.fresnobee.com/2014/07/20/4032809/flash-flood-warning-for-rim-fire.html?sp=/99/406/\">few fires started in Yosemite\u003c/a>. According to the Fresno Bee, those were extinguished, and since the lightning was accompanied by rain, it didn’t do as much damage as it would have had it been dry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nonetheless, Newmerzhycky expects that wet patch to be short, with a return to dry conditions and a \u003ca href=\"http://psgeodata.fs.fed.us/7day/action/forecast/10\">high risk of fire\u003c/a> later this week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“With a normal lightning pattern, we will probably see an above-normal fire occurrence,” he said, chalking it up to the extremely dry vegetation. “If we happen to not get as many lightning events, though, that could be our saving grace.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2008, dry lightning ignited \u003ca href=\"http://baynature.org/articles/forged-by-fire/\">more than 2,000 fires\u003c/a> in California in a span of a few days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_19600\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/lightning.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/lightning.png\" alt=\"(National Weather Service)\" width=\"600\" height=\"597\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19600\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">(National Weather Service)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cdiv class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__shortcodes__shortcodeWrapper'>\n \u003ciframe width='”100%”' height='”166″'\n scrolling='no' frameborder='no'\n src='https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/159675922″&visual=true&”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false”'\n title='”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/159675922″'>\n \u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/div>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "California Has Little Say Over Oil Train Safety",
"headTitle": "California Has Little Say Over Oil Train Safety | KQED",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"audio-wrap\">\n\u003ch2>Listen:\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>http://www.kqed.org/.stream/anon/radio/science/2014/07/20140721science.mp3\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_19557\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/Miille_Bakken1.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19557\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/Miille_Bakken1.jpg\" alt=\"A BNSF train with tank cars crosses a trestle in the Feather River Canyon in Northern California. (Courtesy of Jake Miille)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A BNSF train with tank cars crosses a trestle in the Feather River Canyon in Northern California. (\u003ca href=\"http://jakemiillephotography.com/\">Jake Miille/Jake Miille Photography\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Update, Friday, July 25:\u003c/strong> On Wednesday, the federal Department of Transportation \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/07/23/feds-propose-new-safety-rules-for-oil-trains/\">proposed new regulations\u003c/a> aimed at improving the safety of trains carrying oil. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Original story (Monday, July 21):\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nThe number of trains carrying crude oil across California is increasing rapidly, and two official reports say the state is not ready. Regulators are preparing, with funds for disaster response and more track inspectors, but they’re limited in how much they can do to make rail transport safer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My view is it’s pretty undeniably bringing in extra risks to the state,” said Paul King, deputy director for rail safety at the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These trains explode,” King said. “If that were to happen in a town, there’s no telling the damage. And of course we know what happened in little Lac-Mégantic.” That’s the town in Quebec where a train carrying crude from North Dakota’s Bakken formation derailed last July. The explosion killed 47 people.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘These trains explode.’\u003ccite>— Paul King, California Public Utilities Commission\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Bakken crude is volatile. In the past year, trains transporting crude from the Bakken have also exploded in North Dakota, Virginia and Alabama.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trains carrying Bakken crude traverse California, too, bringing the oil to refineries here. And while the CPUC regulates rail in California, the state can’t actually do much when it comes telling the railroads how they can operate. Almost all of those rules are up to the federal government.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>‘Our Hands in California Are Tied’\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state can’t set speed limits on crude oil trains. It can’t tell railroads to choose less hazardous routes. It can’t tell oil companies not to bring trains carrying the volatile crude through cities. It can’t tell oil companies to ship that crude in stronger tank cars. It can’t require upgraded braking systems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Neither can local governments, though the cities of Davis, Richmond and Berkeley have all passed resolutions expressing their opposition to the transport of crude oil by rail.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I almost feel like our hands in California are tied, yet all these trains are going through our communities,” State Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson, a democrat from Santa Barbara, said at a hearing last month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trains carried nearly 6.3 million barrels of oil into California in 2013. That’s more than five times more than in 2012. According to the California Energy Commission, by 2016 that number could balloon to more than 100 million barrels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s because there’s an oil boom in the middle part of the continent, and to get that crude from Alberta and North Dakota to California, oil companies have to use trains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_19558\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/lacmegantic.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19558\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/lacmegantic.jpg\" alt=\"Firefighters douse blazes after in Lac-Megantic on July 6, 2013. (François Laplante-Delagrave/AFP/Getty Images)\" width=\"640\" height=\"428\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Firefighters douse blazes in Lac-Megantic on July 6, 2013. (François Laplante-Delagrave/AFP/Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steps Towards Safer Shipping\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are ways to make the trains safer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of the tank cars used to transport crude oil, including the volatile Bakken crude, are old, and can’t protect against explosions. After the disaster in Lac-Mégantic, \u003ca href=\"https://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/railsafety/tsb-2014-962.html\">Canada required\u003c/a> that the most dangerous of the cars — the same tank cars that carry as much as 82 percent of crude oil in the U.S. — be removed from service, and that the rest be retrofitted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The U.S. is considering stricter tank car standards. Last week, the advocacy group Earthjustice sent a \u003ca href=\"http://earthjustice.org/sites/default/files/files/PetitionforEmergencyOrderReBakkenCrudeRailCars.pdf\">letter to the U.S. Department of Transportation\u003c/a>, urging the agency to move faster by issuing an emergency order immediately banning the use of the unsafe cars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But California can’t require any of this. The CPUC intends to urge the DOT to “move expeditiously” to update its tank car regulations. That, and other recommendations, are laid out in a \u003ca href=\"http://www.caloes.ca.gov/HazardousMaterials/Pages/Oil-By-Rail.aspx\">recent report on crude-by-rail\u003c/a> safety in the state. The state wants the feds to require that there be newer braking technology on oil trains and a GPS-based system that prevents accidents on oil train routes. According to King, the CPUC will submit those recommendations to the Federal Railroad Administration soon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The railroads have already adopted some \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#.U8huG7GU58E\">voluntary safety measures\u003c/a>, including lower speed limits and increased track inspections. And Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway, the company that is currently transporting large amounts of Bakken crude in California, is asking railcar manufacturers to submit bids to build 5,000 safer cars. (The railroads typically don’t own the cars used to ship material; the oil companies themselves either own or lease them.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The CPUC has done one of the main things it can: hire more railroad safety inspectors. The CPUC keeps a list of the most hazardous sections of track, and according to \u003ca href=\"http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/NR/rdonlyres/06621650-B00C-42F5-ABA2-AE617FF39392/0/RailroadLocalSafetyHazardAnnualReportfor2013Final7114.pdf\">a recent report\u003c/a>, the most frequent cause of derailments at those sites are track problems. The new state budget adds seven positions, bringing the CPUC’s inspection staff to 38. CPUC staff checks all the tracks in California once a year and, going forward, will check the tracks on Bakken oil train routes twice a year.[contextly_sidebar id=”sRuVMXrfcyA2EbJyn8ugfGCUznnKPsll”]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A Past Disaster\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California once tried to introduce stricter railroad regulations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In July, 1991, a train derailed in Northern California at a bend in the track where it crosses the Upper Sacramento River, near the town of Dunsmuir. It spilled 19,000 gallons of a pesticide called metam sodium into the river.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It killed everything down to the bacteria,” said Mark Stopher, who was hired by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to assess the damage to the river.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The poison killed more than a million fish, and every insect and plant in the river for 40 miles. “Nobody’s ever seen anything like that before,” he said. In \u003ca href=\"http://youtu.be/k4UucmnSXSo\">video\u003c/a> from the time, you can see fish struggling to escape the river and get into tributaries. Stopher said they all died.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was kind of a blow to the heart to lose the river,” said Phil Dietrich, executive director of a conservation group called River Exchange.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Upper Sacramento had been a popular fishing destination. So when the fish were gone, the tourists, and their money, disappeared too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it was a pulse of poison; metam sodium doesn’t linger. A few years later, the fish were back. The tourists are back, too. It could have been worse, if what spilled had been a substance that lasts in the environment for a longer time. Oil, for instance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the accident, the CPUC tried to require stronger track at Cantara Loop, to keep it from happening again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We were trying to adopt regulations where there were none,” said King. But they couldn’t. The railroad sued the CPUC, and eventually the court sided with the railroad, reinforcing the Federal Railroad Administration’s jurisdiction. There is a large rail in place on the bridge now, to help keep trains from derailing into the river. According to the CPUC, there have been four derailments in the area since 2009.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our role is limited,” King said. “Our role is to ensure that the regulations that the federal government has in place are followed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Beefing Up Clean-Up \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even if the the state can’t do all it wants to keep an accident from happening, it can prepare to respond to one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In June, dozens of fire fighters, public health experts and Red Cross volunteers gathered near Cantara Loop to run a drill. The scenario was that an oil train had collided with an illegal marijuana grower’s truck at the site of the ’91 spill. The truck wrecked, and the train derailed and spilled oil into the river. \u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Firefighters pulled the casualties (volunteers marked with paint) away from the scene, a helicopter brought tools to treat people who’d been doused in dangerous chemicals and a team deployed a drone to get a view of the (largely imaginary) disaster scene from above.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want to make sure California’s prepared to respond,” said Alexia Rettalack of California’s Office of Spill Prevention and Response (OSPR). “Spills happen. When product moves, things happen.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>OSPR got more money in this year’s budget, so that it can prepare for inland oil spills. Until now, the agency focused only on marine accidents. The state Office of Emergency Services is also looking for ways to better prepare emergency responders, many of whom are volunteers, for an oil train explosion. And state lawmakers are considering a couple of crude-by-rail bills that would improve emergency responses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dietrich emphasizes that what happened in Dunsmuir in 1991 was a rare event, and yet, the memory lingers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It comes down to we care about our river and about our towns,” he said. “And we hope that the agencies and the railroad are on top of it.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/div>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_19557\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/Miille_Bakken1.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19557\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/Miille_Bakken1.jpg\" alt=\"A BNSF train with tank cars crosses a trestle in the Feather River Canyon in Northern California. (Courtesy of Jake Miille)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A BNSF train with tank cars crosses a trestle in the Feather River Canyon in Northern California. (\u003ca href=\"http://jakemiillephotography.com/\">Jake Miille/Jake Miille Photography\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Update, Friday, July 25:\u003c/strong> On Wednesday, the federal Department of Transportation \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/07/23/feds-propose-new-safety-rules-for-oil-trains/\">proposed new regulations\u003c/a> aimed at improving the safety of trains carrying oil. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Original story (Monday, July 21):\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nThe number of trains carrying crude oil across California is increasing rapidly, and two official reports say the state is not ready. Regulators are preparing, with funds for disaster response and more track inspectors, but they’re limited in how much they can do to make rail transport safer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My view is it’s pretty undeniably bringing in extra risks to the state,” said Paul King, deputy director for rail safety at the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These trains explode,” King said. “If that were to happen in a town, there’s no telling the damage. And of course we know what happened in little Lac-Mégantic.” That’s the town in Quebec where a train carrying crude from North Dakota’s Bakken formation derailed last July. The explosion killed 47 people.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘These trains explode.’\u003ccite>— Paul King, California Public Utilities Commission\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Bakken crude is volatile. In the past year, trains transporting crude from the Bakken have also exploded in North Dakota, Virginia and Alabama.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trains carrying Bakken crude traverse California, too, bringing the oil to refineries here. And while the CPUC regulates rail in California, the state can’t actually do much when it comes telling the railroads how they can operate. Almost all of those rules are up to the federal government.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>‘Our Hands in California Are Tied’\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state can’t set speed limits on crude oil trains. It can’t tell railroads to choose less hazardous routes. It can’t tell oil companies not to bring trains carrying the volatile crude through cities. It can’t tell oil companies to ship that crude in stronger tank cars. It can’t require upgraded braking systems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Neither can local governments, though the cities of Davis, Richmond and Berkeley have all passed resolutions expressing their opposition to the transport of crude oil by rail.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I almost feel like our hands in California are tied, yet all these trains are going through our communities,” State Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson, a democrat from Santa Barbara, said at a hearing last month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trains carried nearly 6.3 million barrels of oil into California in 2013. That’s more than five times more than in 2012. According to the California Energy Commission, by 2016 that number could balloon to more than 100 million barrels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s because there’s an oil boom in the middle part of the continent, and to get that crude from Alberta and North Dakota to California, oil companies have to use trains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_19558\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/lacmegantic.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19558\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/lacmegantic.jpg\" alt=\"Firefighters douse blazes after in Lac-Megantic on July 6, 2013. (François Laplante-Delagrave/AFP/Getty Images)\" width=\"640\" height=\"428\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Firefighters douse blazes in Lac-Megantic on July 6, 2013. (François Laplante-Delagrave/AFP/Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steps Towards Safer Shipping\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are ways to make the trains safer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of the tank cars used to transport crude oil, including the volatile Bakken crude, are old, and can’t protect against explosions. After the disaster in Lac-Mégantic, \u003ca href=\"https://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/railsafety/tsb-2014-962.html\">Canada required\u003c/a> that the most dangerous of the cars — the same tank cars that carry as much as 82 percent of crude oil in the U.S. — be removed from service, and that the rest be retrofitted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The U.S. is considering stricter tank car standards. Last week, the advocacy group Earthjustice sent a \u003ca href=\"http://earthjustice.org/sites/default/files/files/PetitionforEmergencyOrderReBakkenCrudeRailCars.pdf\">letter to the U.S. Department of Transportation\u003c/a>, urging the agency to move faster by issuing an emergency order immediately banning the use of the unsafe cars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But California can’t require any of this. The CPUC intends to urge the DOT to “move expeditiously” to update its tank car regulations. That, and other recommendations, are laid out in a \u003ca href=\"http://www.caloes.ca.gov/HazardousMaterials/Pages/Oil-By-Rail.aspx\">recent report on crude-by-rail\u003c/a> safety in the state. The state wants the feds to require that there be newer braking technology on oil trains and a GPS-based system that prevents accidents on oil train routes. According to King, the CPUC will submit those recommendations to the Federal Railroad Administration soon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The railroads have already adopted some \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#.U8huG7GU58E\">voluntary safety measures\u003c/a>, including lower speed limits and increased track inspections. And Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway, the company that is currently transporting large amounts of Bakken crude in California, is asking railcar manufacturers to submit bids to build 5,000 safer cars. (The railroads typically don’t own the cars used to ship material; the oil companies themselves either own or lease them.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The CPUC has done one of the main things it can: hire more railroad safety inspectors. The CPUC keeps a list of the most hazardous sections of track, and according to \u003ca href=\"http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/NR/rdonlyres/06621650-B00C-42F5-ABA2-AE617FF39392/0/RailroadLocalSafetyHazardAnnualReportfor2013Final7114.pdf\">a recent report\u003c/a>, the most frequent cause of derailments at those sites are track problems. The new state budget adds seven positions, bringing the CPUC’s inspection staff to 38. CPUC staff checks all the tracks in California once a year and, going forward, will check the tracks on Bakken oil train routes twice a year.\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A Past Disaster\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California once tried to introduce stricter railroad regulations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In July, 1991, a train derailed in Northern California at a bend in the track where it crosses the Upper Sacramento River, near the town of Dunsmuir. It spilled 19,000 gallons of a pesticide called metam sodium into the river.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It killed everything down to the bacteria,” said Mark Stopher, who was hired by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to assess the damage to the river.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The poison killed more than a million fish, and every insect and plant in the river for 40 miles. “Nobody’s ever seen anything like that before,” he said. In \u003ca href=\"http://youtu.be/k4UucmnSXSo\">video\u003c/a> from the time, you can see fish struggling to escape the river and get into tributaries. Stopher said they all died.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was kind of a blow to the heart to lose the river,” said Phil Dietrich, executive director of a conservation group called River Exchange.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Upper Sacramento had been a popular fishing destination. So when the fish were gone, the tourists, and their money, disappeared too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it was a pulse of poison; metam sodium doesn’t linger. A few years later, the fish were back. The tourists are back, too. It could have been worse, if what spilled had been a substance that lasts in the environment for a longer time. Oil, for instance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the accident, the CPUC tried to require stronger track at Cantara Loop, to keep it from happening again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We were trying to adopt regulations where there were none,” said King. But they couldn’t. The railroad sued the CPUC, and eventually the court sided with the railroad, reinforcing the Federal Railroad Administration’s jurisdiction. There is a large rail in place on the bridge now, to help keep trains from derailing into the river. According to the CPUC, there have been four derailments in the area since 2009.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our role is limited,” King said. “Our role is to ensure that the regulations that the federal government has in place are followed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Beefing Up Clean-Up \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even if the the state can’t do all it wants to keep an accident from happening, it can prepare to respond to one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In June, dozens of fire fighters, public health experts and Red Cross volunteers gathered near Cantara Loop to run a drill. The scenario was that an oil train had collided with an illegal marijuana grower’s truck at the site of the ’91 spill. The truck wrecked, and the train derailed and spilled oil into the river. \u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Firefighters pulled the casualties (volunteers marked with paint) away from the scene, a helicopter brought tools to treat people who’d been doused in dangerous chemicals and a team deployed a drone to get a view of the (largely imaginary) disaster scene from above.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want to make sure California’s prepared to respond,” said Alexia Rettalack of California’s Office of Spill Prevention and Response (OSPR). “Spills happen. When product moves, things happen.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>OSPR got more money in this year’s budget, so that it can prepare for inland oil spills. Until now, the agency focused only on marine accidents. The state Office of Emergency Services is also looking for ways to better prepare emergency responders, many of whom are volunteers, for an oil train explosion. And state lawmakers are considering a couple of crude-by-rail bills that would improve emergency responses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dietrich emphasizes that what happened in Dunsmuir in 1991 was a rare event, and yet, the memory lingers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It comes down to we care about our river and about our towns,” he said. “And we hope that the agencies and the railroad are on top of it.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "California Water Districts Face Suit for Ignoring Conservation Law",
"headTitle": "California Water Districts Face Suit for Ignoring Conservation Law | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003cstrong>By Katharine Mieszkowski\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>\u003ca title=\"CIR - main\" href=\"http://cironline.org/\">The Center for Investigative Reporting\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_19481\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/RS10794_3329-hpf.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19481\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/RS10794_3329-hpf.jpg\" alt=\"Crops being watered near Tule Lake in northern California. The Tulelake Irrigation District is one threatened with legal action by environmentalists. (Craig Miller/KQED)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Crops being watered near Tulelake in northern California. The Tulelake Irrigation District was once threatened with legal action by environmentalists. (Craig Miller/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>After largely ignoring a conservation law passed during the last drought, some of California’s largest agricultural water districts are facing a lawsuit that would force them to measure how much water farmers use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 2009 law was designed to push the state’s biggest water users to conserve by closely monitoring their use. Then, the state’s agricultural water districts are supposed to charge the farmers, at least in part, based on that use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the state doesn’t actually know how many agricultural water districts are meeting the new requirements or even inching toward doing so, because \u003ca href=\"http://www.water.ca.gov/wateruseefficiency/sb7/docs/2014/7714%20AWMP_AgencyListLocation_Color.pdf\">more than 20 of them\u003c/a> have failed to turn in what’s called a water management plan. The plans were due more than 18 months ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Environmental Law Foundation, an Oakland nonprofit, \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1217473-environmental-law-foundation-letters-to-districts.html\">sent letters\u003c/a> Friday to the management of nearly two dozen districts that the state listed as not following the law. With the state facing a historic drought, the nonprofit is threatening legal action before the end of the month if districts don’t prove they’re complying.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Especially in this time of drought, everybody needs to pull their weight,” said James Wheaton, the foundation’s board president and legal director. “The Legislature five years ago ordered agricultural water districts to take the most fundamental, simple conservation measures, which are make a plan, measure how much water and price it accordingly.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The economic theory behind the 2009 law is that if you aren’t paying for how much water you actually use, you have little incentive to use less. Most residents of California, whose water use is metered, have long seen their actual water consumption reflected in their bills. With agriculture, which accounts for 80 percent of the water that humans use in the state, it is a different story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Environmental Law Foundation decided to file suit after The Center of Investigative Reporting \u003ca title=\"TCR - story\" href=\"http://www.californiareport.org/archive/R201405280850/b\">revealed in May\u003c/a> that agricultural districts were \u003ca href=\"http://cironline.org/reports/amid-drought-laws-track-californias-biggest-water-users-ignored-6390\">widely ignoring two water laws\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Water managers at the agricultural districts in question say they’re already using water efficiently and the drought is forcing them to be even more careful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We comply with the vast majority of what the law requires. We just haven’t filed some paperwork to document it,” said Robert Kunde, engineer-manager for the Wheeler Ridge-Maricopa Water Storage District in Bakersfield.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The district is investing its time and money in coping with the drought, he said. It provides water to more than 72,000 acres of farmland at the southern end of the San JoaquinValley, where Kunde says water prices have tripled because of the drought. “If that’s not an economic driver for conserving water, there isn’t any one available.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other districts simply decided not to bother.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While districts that have not turned in their water management plans have lost access to $472 million in state grants, there is little else the state can do to force them to comply. But under the law, a third party, like the Environmental Law Foundation, can sue districts that fail to do so.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘We’ll respond. I just don’t know how yet.’ \u003ccite>— Mark Mulkay, Western Canal Water Dist.\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Some districts say they’re already following the law while others say they’re getting there. Nine of the 22 districts targeted by the nonprofit have provided documentation to the group that they’re following the law and will not be sued.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ted Trimble, general manager of the Western Canal Water District in Oroville, said his district is working on creating a regional plan with other water districts in the area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mark Mulkay, general manager of the Kern Delta Water District in Bakersfield, said his district has been measuring water deliveries and charging customers on that basis since the district was created in 1965. But he’s not sure whether the district’s water management planning meets the state requirements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ll respond,” he said. “I just don’t know how yet.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was edited by Andrew Donohue and Robert Salladay. It was copy edited by Nikki Frick and Christine Lee.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was produced by \u003ca title=\"CIR - main\" href=\"http://www.cironline.org\">The Center for Investigative Reporting\u003c/a>, an independent, nonprofit newsroom based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Mieszkowski can be reached at \u003ca href=\"mailto:kmieszkowski@cironline.org\">kmieszkowski@cironline.org\u003c/a>. Follow her on Twitter: \u003c/em>\u003cem>@kmieszkowski.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>By Katharine Mieszkowski\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>\u003ca title=\"CIR - main\" href=\"http://cironline.org/\">The Center for Investigative Reporting\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_19481\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/RS10794_3329-hpf.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19481\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/RS10794_3329-hpf.jpg\" alt=\"Crops being watered near Tule Lake in northern California. The Tulelake Irrigation District is one threatened with legal action by environmentalists. (Craig Miller/KQED)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Crops being watered near Tulelake in northern California. The Tulelake Irrigation District was once threatened with legal action by environmentalists. (Craig Miller/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>After largely ignoring a conservation law passed during the last drought, some of California’s largest agricultural water districts are facing a lawsuit that would force them to measure how much water farmers use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 2009 law was designed to push the state’s biggest water users to conserve by closely monitoring their use. Then, the state’s agricultural water districts are supposed to charge the farmers, at least in part, based on that use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the state doesn’t actually know how many agricultural water districts are meeting the new requirements or even inching toward doing so, because \u003ca href=\"http://www.water.ca.gov/wateruseefficiency/sb7/docs/2014/7714%20AWMP_AgencyListLocation_Color.pdf\">more than 20 of them\u003c/a> have failed to turn in what’s called a water management plan. The plans were due more than 18 months ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Environmental Law Foundation, an Oakland nonprofit, \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1217473-environmental-law-foundation-letters-to-districts.html\">sent letters\u003c/a> Friday to the management of nearly two dozen districts that the state listed as not following the law. With the state facing a historic drought, the nonprofit is threatening legal action before the end of the month if districts don’t prove they’re complying.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Especially in this time of drought, everybody needs to pull their weight,” said James Wheaton, the foundation’s board president and legal director. “The Legislature five years ago ordered agricultural water districts to take the most fundamental, simple conservation measures, which are make a plan, measure how much water and price it accordingly.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The economic theory behind the 2009 law is that if you aren’t paying for how much water you actually use, you have little incentive to use less. Most residents of California, whose water use is metered, have long seen their actual water consumption reflected in their bills. With agriculture, which accounts for 80 percent of the water that humans use in the state, it is a different story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Environmental Law Foundation decided to file suit after The Center of Investigative Reporting \u003ca title=\"TCR - story\" href=\"http://www.californiareport.org/archive/R201405280850/b\">revealed in May\u003c/a> that agricultural districts were \u003ca href=\"http://cironline.org/reports/amid-drought-laws-track-californias-biggest-water-users-ignored-6390\">widely ignoring two water laws\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Water managers at the agricultural districts in question say they’re already using water efficiently and the drought is forcing them to be even more careful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We comply with the vast majority of what the law requires. We just haven’t filed some paperwork to document it,” said Robert Kunde, engineer-manager for the Wheeler Ridge-Maricopa Water Storage District in Bakersfield.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The district is investing its time and money in coping with the drought, he said. It provides water to more than 72,000 acres of farmland at the southern end of the San JoaquinValley, where Kunde says water prices have tripled because of the drought. “If that’s not an economic driver for conserving water, there isn’t any one available.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other districts simply decided not to bother.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While districts that have not turned in their water management plans have lost access to $472 million in state grants, there is little else the state can do to force them to comply. But under the law, a third party, like the Environmental Law Foundation, can sue districts that fail to do so.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘We’ll respond. I just don’t know how yet.’ \u003ccite>— Mark Mulkay, Western Canal Water Dist.\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Some districts say they’re already following the law while others say they’re getting there. Nine of the 22 districts targeted by the nonprofit have provided documentation to the group that they’re following the law and will not be sued.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ted Trimble, general manager of the Western Canal Water District in Oroville, said his district is working on creating a regional plan with other water districts in the area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mark Mulkay, general manager of the Kern Delta Water District in Bakersfield, said his district has been measuring water deliveries and charging customers on that basis since the district was created in 1965. But he’s not sure whether the district’s water management planning meets the state requirements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ll respond,” he said. “I just don’t know how yet.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was edited by Andrew Donohue and Robert Salladay. It was copy edited by Nikki Frick and Christine Lee.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was produced by \u003ca title=\"CIR - main\" href=\"http://www.cironline.org\">The Center for Investigative Reporting\u003c/a>, an independent, nonprofit newsroom based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Mieszkowski can be reached at \u003ca href=\"mailto:kmieszkowski@cironline.org\">kmieszkowski@cironline.org\u003c/a>. Follow her on Twitter: \u003c/em>\u003cem>@kmieszkowski.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_19450\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/181586432-1024x685.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-19450 size-large\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/181586432-1024x685.jpg\" alt=\" \" width=\"1024\" height=\"685\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Over-watering lawns could now come with a cost.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Watering your lawn or washing your car may become a lot more expensive. State regulators have approved new fines aimed at water wasters, hoping the penalties will lead to a reduction in water use amid one of the severest droughts in California history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.swrcb.ca.gov/board_info/agendas/2014/jul/071514_10_staffpres.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">New data shows \u003c/a>that even though Gov. Jerry Brown has asked Californians to cut back on water use by 20 percent earlier this year, overall water consumption actually edged up in May 2014 compared to the previous three Mays.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”ypoWGe7fEoicLUBXqphT4JCcapHONj4J”]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The State Water Resources Control Board is now authorizing fines of up to $500 for excessive water use, like washing down sidewalks or too much lawn watering. It’s the first time these types of restrictions have been imposed on a statewide level. But a lot of questions remain about how they’ll play out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re not creating a giant regulatory scheme where we do a lot of ‘mother may I?’ said board chair Felicia Marcus. “We’re trying to set the bar, raise the floor, to make clear to people that we are in a very serious drought and everybody should be helping out.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Marcus said the state isn’t telling local governments how to police the new regulations, or how much to fine violators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of the people who spoke at the board’s Sacramento session backed the fines. Dan Cosgrove of Contra Costa County had concerns, though. He runs a pressure washing company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our slogan is, ‘our dirt is your gold,’” he said. “We literally clean sidewalks, we clean walls. We clean roofs. We clean hard surfaces. And they’re saying, no, you can’t clean hard surfaces.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The board apparently took Cosgrove’s concerns into consideration. Amended language clarified that fines are focused on sidewalk and driveway cleaning, not industrial washing operations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The restrictions do make it clear that cleaning tied to public health or safety is still OK.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The regulations will go into effect early next month.\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/158979821&color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false\" width=\"100%\" height=\"166\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Marcus said the state isn’t telling local governments how to police the new regulations, or how much to fine violators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of the people who spoke at the board’s Sacramento session backed the fines. Dan Cosgrove of Contra Costa County had concerns, though. He runs a pressure washing company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our slogan is, ‘our dirt is your gold,’” he said. “We literally clean sidewalks, we clean walls. We clean roofs. We clean hard surfaces. And they’re saying, no, you can’t clean hard surfaces.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The board apparently took Cosgrove’s concerns into consideration. Amended language clarified that fines are focused on sidewalk and driveway cleaning, not industrial washing operations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The restrictions do make it clear that cleaning tied to public health or safety is still OK.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The regulations will go into effect early next month.\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/158979821&color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false\" 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": "California's Drought is Hurting Farmers More Than Food Consumers",
"headTitle": "California’s Drought is Hurting Farmers More Than Food Consumers | KQED",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_19423\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/DixonHay_4603.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19423\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/DixonHay_4603.jpg\" alt=\"A hayfield being mowed in the Sacramento Valley. (Craig Miller/KQED)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A hayfield being mowed in the Sacramento Valley. The drought has pushed up prices for alfalfa hay in California by about 20 percent, but most food prices have remained more stable. (Craig Miller/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Economists estimate that the California drought will inflict about $2.2 billion of losses on the state’s farm economy this year, including the loss of more than 17,000 jobs. \u003ca title=\"UCD - ag drought rpt\" href=\"http://bit.ly/U7vqFy\">The analysis\u003c/a>, produced by UC Davis and the consulting firm ERA Economics, projects that about 430,000 farm acres will go unplanted for lack of water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In May, the same Davis study team was already projecting that the current drought would take about 410,000 acres of Central Valley farm land out of production — nearly twice the area fallowed during the 2009 drought, about doubling the agricultural job losses as well. Karen Ross, who heads California’s Department of Food and Agriculture, which commissioned the study, says this is the first time the state has attempted a thorough assessment of the socioeconomic impacts of a California drought.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_19437\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 474px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-19437 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/DroughtImpactsChart_UCD.jpg\" alt=\"(UCD/ERA Economics)\" width=\"474\" height=\"348\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">(UCD/ERA Economics)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>While the overall impact is a relatively small fraction of California’s $42 billion farm economy, economist Richard Howitt, one of the study’s co-authors, says the drought will produce “pockets of extreme deprivation,” especially in the San Joaquin Valley and the arid corner of the Valley’s farm belt known as the Tulare Basin. Ross says it’s already evident from lines forming at food banks in the San Joaquin Valley.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘Don’t count on El Niño for anything.’ \u003ccite>— Jay Lund, UC Davis\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>But Howitt says that the drought is so far having a lesser affect on food prices and is unlikely to produce shortages in supermarkets — at least not yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“With a drought, you’re never really sure when it’s gonna end,” cautions Jay Lund, co-founder of the Center for Watershed Studies at UC Davis. His calculations \u003ca title=\"Q-Sci - post\" href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/06/15/oddsmaking-on-a-fourth-drought-year-for-california/\">favor the odds of a fourth dry year\u003c/a>, with the chance of a “critically dry” year — like this one — about one in three. That’s despite talk of possible El Niño conditions forming in the Pacific, often seen mistakenly as a harbinger of rain. “Don’t count on El Niño for anything,” says Lund.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Groundwater at Risk\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A fourth year of drought would change the game dramatically. A major reason for that is the aggressive pumping of groundwater that farmers have turned to in the absence of normal deliveries from reservoirs and canals. The Davis team estimates that increased pumping from aquifers could offset three-quarters of the surface water shortfall. But that can’t go on forever.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s quite clear that the underground groundwater is the reserve bank account,” says Howitt. “We’re like somebody who is so rich, they don’t have to balance their checkbook,” he told reporters in a briefing at the National Press Club, “because we still think we’re in a groundwater-rich era. Every other Western state has started to measure its groundwater and we don’t even measure our groundwater.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This may well be the year that changes. California \u003ca title=\"Q-Sci - post\" href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/04/22/california-edging-closer-to-regulating-groundwater-for-the-first-time/\">may be closer than ever\u003c/a> to some political consensus toward tracking and regulating groundwater pumping. By next year at this time, farmers may not have as much leeway to pump, with or without state regulation. The price of pumping is rising steadily as shrinking aquifers require deeper wells. And the Davis team estimates that in some areas, as many as 15 percent of shallower wells could run dry within a year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Asked about the drought relief bill under consideration in Congress, Ross said it appears to be “on pause” currently and gave it a 50-50 chance of eventual passage. Ross, Lund and Howitt are in Washington D.C. to meet with lawmakers about the drought.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a cruel paradox, federal climate watchers reported that overall, the contiguous U.S. just had its sixth wettest June on record, though drought persists throughout much of the southwest.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Economists estimate that the drought will cost the state's farm economy about $2.2 billion this year, including the loss of more than 17,000 jobs.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_19423\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/DixonHay_4603.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19423\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/DixonHay_4603.jpg\" alt=\"A hayfield being mowed in the Sacramento Valley. (Craig Miller/KQED)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A hayfield being mowed in the Sacramento Valley. The drought has pushed up prices for alfalfa hay in California by about 20 percent, but most food prices have remained more stable. (Craig Miller/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Economists estimate that the California drought will inflict about $2.2 billion of losses on the state’s farm economy this year, including the loss of more than 17,000 jobs. \u003ca title=\"UCD - ag drought rpt\" href=\"http://bit.ly/U7vqFy\">The analysis\u003c/a>, produced by UC Davis and the consulting firm ERA Economics, projects that about 430,000 farm acres will go unplanted for lack of water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In May, the same Davis study team was already projecting that the current drought would take about 410,000 acres of Central Valley farm land out of production — nearly twice the area fallowed during the 2009 drought, about doubling the agricultural job losses as well. Karen Ross, who heads California’s Department of Food and Agriculture, which commissioned the study, says this is the first time the state has attempted a thorough assessment of the socioeconomic impacts of a California drought.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_19437\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 474px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-19437 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/DroughtImpactsChart_UCD.jpg\" alt=\"(UCD/ERA Economics)\" width=\"474\" height=\"348\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">(UCD/ERA Economics)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>While the overall impact is a relatively small fraction of California’s $42 billion farm economy, economist Richard Howitt, one of the study’s co-authors, says the drought will produce “pockets of extreme deprivation,” especially in the San Joaquin Valley and the arid corner of the Valley’s farm belt known as the Tulare Basin. Ross says it’s already evident from lines forming at food banks in the San Joaquin Valley.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘Don’t count on El Niño for anything.’ \u003ccite>— Jay Lund, UC Davis\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>But Howitt says that the drought is so far having a lesser affect on food prices and is unlikely to produce shortages in supermarkets — at least not yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“With a drought, you’re never really sure when it’s gonna end,” cautions Jay Lund, co-founder of the Center for Watershed Studies at UC Davis. His calculations \u003ca title=\"Q-Sci - post\" href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/06/15/oddsmaking-on-a-fourth-drought-year-for-california/\">favor the odds of a fourth dry year\u003c/a>, with the chance of a “critically dry” year — like this one — about one in three. That’s despite talk of possible El Niño conditions forming in the Pacific, often seen mistakenly as a harbinger of rain. “Don’t count on El Niño for anything,” says Lund.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Groundwater at Risk\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A fourth year of drought would change the game dramatically. A major reason for that is the aggressive pumping of groundwater that farmers have turned to in the absence of normal deliveries from reservoirs and canals. The Davis team estimates that increased pumping from aquifers could offset three-quarters of the surface water shortfall. But that can’t go on forever.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s quite clear that the underground groundwater is the reserve bank account,” says Howitt. “We’re like somebody who is so rich, they don’t have to balance their checkbook,” he told reporters in a briefing at the National Press Club, “because we still think we’re in a groundwater-rich era. Every other Western state has started to measure its groundwater and we don’t even measure our groundwater.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This may well be the year that changes. California \u003ca title=\"Q-Sci - post\" href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/04/22/california-edging-closer-to-regulating-groundwater-for-the-first-time/\">may be closer than ever\u003c/a> to some political consensus toward tracking and regulating groundwater pumping. By next year at this time, farmers may not have as much leeway to pump, with or without state regulation. The price of pumping is rising steadily as shrinking aquifers require deeper wells. And the Davis team estimates that in some areas, as many as 15 percent of shallower wells could run dry within a year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Asked about the drought relief bill under consideration in Congress, Ross said it appears to be “on pause” currently and gave it a 50-50 chance of eventual passage. Ross, Lund and Howitt are in Washington D.C. to meet with lawmakers about the drought.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a cruel paradox, federal climate watchers reported that overall, the contiguous U.S. just had its sixth wettest June on record, though drought persists throughout much of the southwest.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
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"tagline": "Art is where you find it",
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"soldout": {
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