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"content": "\u003cp>The photo of the Dixie Fire captured by Cal Fire’s Santa Clara unit last month is composed like a Renaissance religious painting. Rocks frame the subject — in this case, a towering smoke plume — pine trees point to the sky, while small human figures stand in awe. But the cloud is a product of an earthly inferno, not heaven sent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The pyrocumulus cloud rose above the Dixie Fire on the afternoon of July 19, nearly growing into pyrocumulonimbus — a wildfire-driven thunderhead. Meteorologists call these massive smoke columns “pyroCbs” for short (pronounced “pie-roh-cee-bee”).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/calfireSCU/status/1417566553206181890?s=20\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists are seeing more of them around the world, as fires burn bigger, fiercer and more frequently.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This week, the Dixie fire erupted again with high heat, low humidity, and blustery conditions. The fire ran parallel to a canyon that served as a chimney, stoking the fire and sending up an enormous columns of smoke, the Associated Press \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/fires-environment-and-nature-weather-b963da1ea3e742a6d06cf67dcb2f30cb\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reported\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These pyro clouds present a danger to firefighters and have the potential to spread flames faster.[pullquote align='right' citation=' Neil Lareau, University of Nevada-Reno']‘We’re witnessing emergent trends right now, in fire severity, fire size, in these extremes of fire weather. My basic prediction would just be more, more of that in the years to come.’[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Julia Ruthford is an incident meteorologist with the National Weather Service. She was assigned to the Dixie Fire last month, entrusted with tracking weather around the fire to spot the potential for dangerous smoke columns and communicate the potential risk to fire officials and crews. She described seeing the July 19 event coming — in the forecast, on radar, satellite imagery, on fire alert cameras, and towering above her right outside the incident command center — as the column of smoke climbed higher and higher into the sky all afternoon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was very sudden that it reached that tipping point,” she said. “It was right about up to 30,000 feet, with the potential to grow quite a bit taller with ice clouds on top.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hot air, smoke, and ash from fires like this one cool as they rise into the atmosphere. Water vapor condenses into liquid, which forms a cloud and creates precipitation. Because of the fire, it’s too hot for the rain to reach the ground. But the downward rush of air sends flames outward in all directions, ripping through forests and endangering firefighters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976161\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1976161\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/KQED_NASA_TERRA_MODIS_210805-800x1422.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"1422\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/KQED_NASA_TERRA_MODIS_210805-800x1422.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/KQED_NASA_TERRA_MODIS_210805-1020x1813.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/KQED_NASA_TERRA_MODIS_210805-160x284.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/KQED_NASA_TERRA_MODIS_210805-768x1365.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/KQED_NASA_TERRA_MODIS_210805-864x1536.jpg 864w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/KQED_NASA_TERRA_MODIS_210805.jpg 1080w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">August 5, 2021. \u003ccite>(NOAA GOES-West.)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Think of it as a giant chimney sitting over that fire,” said David Peterson, a scientist at the Naval Research Laboratory in Monterey. The smoke is funneled up into a massive thundercloud that can reach above the cruising altitude of jet aircraft.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This summer, ever since a heat wave baked the West in late June, North America has seen “a nearly continuous wave of pyroCb activity,” Peterson said, at least one per week, including an “outbreak” of 10 separate pyro clouds in Canada on June 30.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Massive pyrocumulonimbus clouds grew on the Bootleg Fire in Southern Oregon every afternoon for a week, and the Tamarack fire in Northern California created them, too. “The cloud actually takes on a life of its own,” said Neil Lareau, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Nevada-Reno.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Smoke columns this large create their own weather and present two different dangers: cloud-to-ground lightning that can ignite new fires and downdrafts that can shift the wind so quickly that fire crews on the ground can’t get out of the way fast enough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You get downdrafts, a strong outflow that can cause really sudden wind shifts.” Ruthford said. “If crews are working near the fire, they’re used to in-drafts into the fire. And that can all of a sudden reverse to the opposite direction — a sudden, rapid change and then [the downdraft] blows the fire in a completely different direction.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/nplareau/status/1417351236542636034?s=20\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The field of research looking at this type of fire behavior is new. But meteorologists say wildfires are producing more of them in recent years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The more fire on the landscape, the longer the fire season, the more opportunities you have for extreme fire behavior and things like pyroCbs,” Peterson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The conditions have to be right to produce these particularly explosive plumes — moist air with a fire that’s hot and dry enough to support very active behavior. They’re especially likely with monsoonal fronts. Like the one that blew through on July 19 and several times since, adding moisture and destabilizing the upper atmosphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s really this kind of Goldilocks thing,” Lareau said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>‘That Afternoon, It Looked Like All of The Elements Lined Up’\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Ruthford is assigned to a fire, she works in a trailer at the incident command headquarters where she monitors multiple screens, working with other specialists to anticipate dangerous fire behavior. She communicates with the top firefighter brass on the incident. There’s a lot of back-and-forth discussion between her and the other fire officials as the cloud grows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/AlertWildfire/status/1417305186565910528?s=20\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That afternoon, it looked like all of the elements lined up,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On July 19, monsoonal moisture was blowing on the Dixie Fire, prompting an early warning from Ruthford during the daily firefighter briefing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The conditions were ripe for a thundercloud to grow and collapse, creating lightning and howling winds. When the weather conditions shifted dangerously, she warned firefighters over the radio, an emergency step that can hinder the firefight by pulling crews off the fireline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She sent out two warnings over the radio that day, for two separate pyro clouds, on two different parts of the fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/NWSSacramento/status/1417266260505632791?s=20\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Firefighters are savvy to this and sometimes even ahead of the science, just through their anecdotal experience,” Lareau said. “They know that to watch out for that kind of situation because it can lead to all these potentially erratic and extreme fire behaviors.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists are learning too, sending weather balloons up into these giant clouds. The equipment is often never seen again, after sending readings to researchers on the ground. They also fly research aircrafts straight through the dark, gray columns. One research group flew NASA’s DC-8 over a wildfire in western Washington in 2019. The specialized radar, lidar, and sensors on the \u003ca href=\"https://csl.noaa.gov/projects/firex-aq/\">flying laboratories\u003c/a> revealed an \u003ca href=\"https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145446/flying-through-a-fire-cloud\">extreme environment:\u003c/a> winds inside the fire clouds blowing as strong as 130 miles per hour, rivaling the strongest thunderstorms on Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Once fires get to the point where they’re producing their own weather, that’s when we get all these feedbacks and a vicious cycle between what the fire is doing and what it’s forcing the atmosphere to do. And then what the atmosphere is making the fire do. That can lead to these kind of explosive growth phases in the fire,” Lareau said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>‘We’re Witnessing Emergent Trends Right Now’\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Warming temperatures are roasting forests, drying out soil and vegetation and priming them to burn. If climate change means the future will have more fire, Lareau says there will be more pyro clouds rising above California fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re witnessing emergent trends right now, in fire severity, fire size, in these extremes of fire weather,” he said. “My basic prediction would just be more, more of that in the years to come.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Peterson, the Navy researcher, studies the impact of pyrocumulonimbus clouds on the global atmospheric composition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There will be a smoke plume left over, usually up at the level of the jetstream winds. When you push smoke up high, it can be transported long distances rapidly,” he said. “Sometimes these fires are so intense that they penetrate into the next level of the atmosphere above the weather, the stratosphere. An aerosol plume at that level tends to stay there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Over the past four, five years, we have definitely seen some of the largest known pyroCb outbreaks across the globe,” Peterson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The task now is to predict them better, especially the atmospheric conditions that create that characteristic uplift around a fire. Scientists are also trying to model and forecast the movements of aerosol particles around the globe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What we do know is that these plumes can rival volcanic plumes in terms of their size and magnitude. But the chemistry is different — it’s smoke, not volcanic material,” he said. “Just imagine this blob of smoke sitting at like 60,000 feet. 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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Julia Ruthford is an incident meteorologist with the National Weather Service. She was assigned to the Dixie Fire last month, entrusted with tracking weather around the fire to spot the potential for dangerous smoke columns and communicate the potential risk to fire officials and crews. She described seeing the July 19 event coming — in the forecast, on radar, satellite imagery, on fire alert cameras, and towering above her right outside the incident command center — as the column of smoke climbed higher and higher into the sky all afternoon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was very sudden that it reached that tipping point,” she said. “It was right about up to 30,000 feet, with the potential to grow quite a bit taller with ice clouds on top.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hot air, smoke, and ash from fires like this one cool as they rise into the atmosphere. Water vapor condenses into liquid, which forms a cloud and creates precipitation. Because of the fire, it’s too hot for the rain to reach the ground. But the downward rush of air sends flames outward in all directions, ripping through forests and endangering firefighters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976161\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1976161\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/KQED_NASA_TERRA_MODIS_210805-800x1422.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"1422\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/KQED_NASA_TERRA_MODIS_210805-800x1422.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/KQED_NASA_TERRA_MODIS_210805-1020x1813.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/KQED_NASA_TERRA_MODIS_210805-160x284.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/KQED_NASA_TERRA_MODIS_210805-768x1365.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/KQED_NASA_TERRA_MODIS_210805-864x1536.jpg 864w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/KQED_NASA_TERRA_MODIS_210805.jpg 1080w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">August 5, 2021. \u003ccite>(NOAA GOES-West.)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Think of it as a giant chimney sitting over that fire,” said David Peterson, a scientist at the Naval Research Laboratory in Monterey. The smoke is funneled up into a massive thundercloud that can reach above the cruising altitude of jet aircraft.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This summer, ever since a heat wave baked the West in late June, North America has seen “a nearly continuous wave of pyroCb activity,” Peterson said, at least one per week, including an “outbreak” of 10 separate pyro clouds in Canada on June 30.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Massive pyrocumulonimbus clouds grew on the Bootleg Fire in Southern Oregon every afternoon for a week, and the Tamarack fire in Northern California created them, too. “The cloud actually takes on a life of its own,” said Neil Lareau, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Nevada-Reno.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Smoke columns this large create their own weather and present two different dangers: cloud-to-ground lightning that can ignite new fires and downdrafts that can shift the wind so quickly that fire crews on the ground can’t get out of the way fast enough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You get downdrafts, a strong outflow that can cause really sudden wind shifts.” Ruthford said. “If crews are working near the fire, they’re used to in-drafts into the fire. And that can all of a sudden reverse to the opposite direction — a sudden, rapid change and then [the downdraft] blows the fire in a completely different direction.”\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>The field of research looking at this type of fire behavior is new. But meteorologists say wildfires are producing more of them in recent years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The more fire on the landscape, the longer the fire season, the more opportunities you have for extreme fire behavior and things like pyroCbs,” Peterson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The conditions have to be right to produce these particularly explosive plumes — moist air with a fire that’s hot and dry enough to support very active behavior. They’re especially likely with monsoonal fronts. Like the one that blew through on July 19 and several times since, adding moisture and destabilizing the upper atmosphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s really this kind of Goldilocks thing,” Lareau said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>‘That Afternoon, It Looked Like All of The Elements Lined Up’\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Ruthford is assigned to a fire, she works in a trailer at the incident command headquarters where she monitors multiple screens, working with other specialists to anticipate dangerous fire behavior. She communicates with the top firefighter brass on the incident. There’s a lot of back-and-forth discussion between her and the other fire officials as the cloud grows.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>“That afternoon, it looked like all of the elements lined up,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On July 19, monsoonal moisture was blowing on the Dixie Fire, prompting an early warning from Ruthford during the daily firefighter briefing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The conditions were ripe for a thundercloud to grow and collapse, creating lightning and howling winds. When the weather conditions shifted dangerously, she warned firefighters over the radio, an emergency step that can hinder the firefight by pulling crews off the fireline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She sent out two warnings over the radio that day, for two separate pyro clouds, on two different parts of the fire.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>“Firefighters are savvy to this and sometimes even ahead of the science, just through their anecdotal experience,” Lareau said. “They know that to watch out for that kind of situation because it can lead to all these potentially erratic and extreme fire behaviors.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists are learning too, sending weather balloons up into these giant clouds. The equipment is often never seen again, after sending readings to researchers on the ground. They also fly research aircrafts straight through the dark, gray columns. One research group flew NASA’s DC-8 over a wildfire in western Washington in 2019. The specialized radar, lidar, and sensors on the \u003ca href=\"https://csl.noaa.gov/projects/firex-aq/\">flying laboratories\u003c/a> revealed an \u003ca href=\"https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145446/flying-through-a-fire-cloud\">extreme environment:\u003c/a> winds inside the fire clouds blowing as strong as 130 miles per hour, rivaling the strongest thunderstorms on Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Once fires get to the point where they’re producing their own weather, that’s when we get all these feedbacks and a vicious cycle between what the fire is doing and what it’s forcing the atmosphere to do. And then what the atmosphere is making the fire do. That can lead to these kind of explosive growth phases in the fire,” Lareau said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>‘We’re Witnessing Emergent Trends Right Now’\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Warming temperatures are roasting forests, drying out soil and vegetation and priming them to burn. If climate change means the future will have more fire, Lareau says there will be more pyro clouds rising above California fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re witnessing emergent trends right now, in fire severity, fire size, in these extremes of fire weather,” he said. “My basic prediction would just be more, more of that in the years to come.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Peterson, the Navy researcher, studies the impact of pyrocumulonimbus clouds on the global atmospheric composition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There will be a smoke plume left over, usually up at the level of the jetstream winds. When you push smoke up high, it can be transported long distances rapidly,” he said. “Sometimes these fires are so intense that they penetrate into the next level of the atmosphere above the weather, the stratosphere. An aerosol plume at that level tends to stay there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Over the past four, five years, we have definitely seen some of the largest known pyroCb outbreaks across the globe,” Peterson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The task now is to predict them better, especially the atmospheric conditions that create that characteristic uplift around a fire. Scientists are also trying to model and forecast the movements of aerosol particles around the globe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What we do know is that these plumes can rival volcanic plumes in terms of their size and magnitude. But the chemistry is different — it’s smoke, not volcanic material,” he said. “Just imagine this blob of smoke sitting at like 60,000 feet. The smoke is an aerosol particle that will absorb solar radiation and heat the layer that it’s in, which can affect the stratospheric weather.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The way to study this is to gather more direct measurements usually from planes equipped with specialized radar.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Scientists Are on a Mission to Save These 24-Armed, Bike-Wheel-Sized Sea Creatures",
"headTitle": "Scientists Are on a Mission to Save These 24-Armed, Bike-Wheel-Sized Sea Creatures | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://staff.washington.edu/hodin/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jason Hodin\u003c/a> hauls up a rope that’s hanging from a dock in the waters off San Juan Island in the Pacific Northwest. At the end is a square, sandwich-size Tupperware container, with mesh-covered holes in the sides to let water flow through. Hodin pulls off the lid and peers inside at some crushed bits of shell. He points to some reddish-orange dots.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“See that? That little dot right there in front of my finger?” Hodin says. “That’s a juvenile sea star that’s about a month old.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s only the size of a poppy seed. But when this baby is all grown up, it could be as big as a manhole cover. That’s because this is \u003cem>Pycnopodia helianthoides\u003c/em>, aka the \u003ca href=\"https://nc.iucnredlist.org/redlist/amazing-species/pycnopodia-helianthoides/pdfs/original/pycnopodia-helianthoides.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">sunflower sea star\u003c/a>. It’s one of the biggest sea stars in the world, with an arm span that can be more than 3 feet across, and it used to be a common sight in the waters off the West Coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, though, it’s critically endangered and is being driven toward extinction by a mysterious, devastating disease.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is why Hodin and his colleagues at the University of Washington’s Friday Harbor Laboratories have spent the last two years figuring out how to raise this species in captivity. It’s an act of desperation born out of the hope that someday, lab-grown sunflower sea stars could be reintroduced into places where this species has disappeared.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976130\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1976130\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/research-lab-3_custom-96fc615a2325fa5450d6855bcebaf0250b7d8137-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/research-lab-3_custom-96fc615a2325fa5450d6855bcebaf0250b7d8137-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/research-lab-3_custom-96fc615a2325fa5450d6855bcebaf0250b7d8137-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/research-lab-3_custom-96fc615a2325fa5450d6855bcebaf0250b7d8137-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/research-lab-3_custom-96fc615a2325fa5450d6855bcebaf0250b7d8137-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/research-lab-3_custom-96fc615a2325fa5450d6855bcebaf0250b7d8137-1536x1023.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/research-lab-3_custom-96fc615a2325fa5450d6855bcebaf0250b7d8137-1920x1279.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/research-lab-3_custom-96fc615a2325fa5450d6855bcebaf0250b7d8137.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jason Hodin, research scientist at the University of Washington’s Friday Harbor Laboratories, works in the sea star captive rearing lab. The sunflower sea star breeding program is a partnership between the university and the Nature Conservancy. \u003ccite>(Dennis Wise/University of Washington)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This voracious predator used to prowl the waters across a nearly 2,000-mile range, from Alaska to Baja California. Their brightly colored bodies — which come in vivid shades of orange, pink, blue and green — would move along the seafloor on as many as 24 arms, gobbling up mussels and scallops and sea urchins. Their consumption of sea urchins, in particular, helped to protect vital forests of kelp, which are home to numerous marine species.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In recent years, however, populations of the sunflower sea star \u003ca href=\"https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/1/eaau7042\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">have declined\u003c/a> by 80% to 100%. In California, “sunflower sea stars are more than 95% gone,” Hodin says. “Some people think that they are entirely extinct in the wild down there. I’ve heard scattered reports of people maybe seeing a few.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This species seems particularly susceptible to a wasting disease that’s hit more than 20 sea star species since 2013. Hodin says the sick sea stars are horrible to behold. “I witnessed it, and it’s not pretty,” he says. “They really do kind of like dissolve into a pile of goo.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2019, Hodin says, the Nature Conservancy approached him about the possibility of setting up a program to breed sunflower sea stars. He’d already been interested in the basic science of sea stars because of the way they are able to transform themselves from bilaterally symmetrical larvae to juveniles with five-sided symmetry. He agreed to try raising large numbers of sunflower sea stars to adulthood, even though no one had tried to do anything like this before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976131\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1976131\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-feeding-4_custom-1a2ab2ba952bbd281e56f8bb0fc852e36a901d2e-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-feeding-4_custom-1a2ab2ba952bbd281e56f8bb0fc852e36a901d2e-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-feeding-4_custom-1a2ab2ba952bbd281e56f8bb0fc852e36a901d2e-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-feeding-4_custom-1a2ab2ba952bbd281e56f8bb0fc852e36a901d2e-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-feeding-4_custom-1a2ab2ba952bbd281e56f8bb0fc852e36a901d2e-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-feeding-4_custom-1a2ab2ba952bbd281e56f8bb0fc852e36a901d2e-1536x1023.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-feeding-4_custom-1a2ab2ba952bbd281e56f8bb0fc852e36a901d2e-1920x1279.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-feeding-4_custom-1a2ab2ba952bbd281e56f8bb0fc852e36a901d2e.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Adult sunflower sea stars feed on mussels at the Friday Harbor Laboratories. Shells from earlier meals collect at the bottom of the tank. The sea star on the bottom, called Charlotte, is the mother of the lab’s 1-year-old juvenile stars. \u003ccite>(Dennis Wise/University of Washington)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“For this species in particular, there were very few published efforts to raise them at all, even through embryo or larval stages,” Hodin says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He didn’t know the answer to some of the most basic questions, such as what did this species eat early on? And how fast could it grow?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nobody knows how to age a sea star, so you see something in the wild and you have no idea how old it is,” Hodin says. “It could be 2 years old. It could be 50. It could be 100.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His team started by taking some sunflower sea stars from the wild. About 30 of these giants now live outside the lab in large, burbling tanks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I didn’t really anticipate how exuberant their behaviors are,” Hodin says. “You get to know them, and you get to know them individually. We noticed early on that we could tell them apart by their color patterns. And we gave them names.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A lot of their names are linked to their colors. Prince, for example, has arms with tips that are purple.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976132\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1976132\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-2_custom-9418999650d5ec9060a3ae1cdd9866eaf3953bcf-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-2_custom-9418999650d5ec9060a3ae1cdd9866eaf3953bcf-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-2_custom-9418999650d5ec9060a3ae1cdd9866eaf3953bcf-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-2_custom-9418999650d5ec9060a3ae1cdd9866eaf3953bcf-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-2_custom-9418999650d5ec9060a3ae1cdd9866eaf3953bcf-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-2_custom-9418999650d5ec9060a3ae1cdd9866eaf3953bcf-1536x1023.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-2_custom-9418999650d5ec9060a3ae1cdd9866eaf3953bcf-1920x1279.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-2_custom-9418999650d5ec9060a3ae1cdd9866eaf3953bcf.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An arm of an adult sunflower sea star has numerous orange and white tube feet that it uses for walking, breathing and sensing. \u003ccite>(Dennis Wise/University of Washington)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“This here’s Deep Blue, and she’s our biggest,” researcher \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/fleur__flower?lang=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Fleur Anteau\u003c/a> says as she feeds the sea stars by gently tucking mussels under their arms. “Some of them, when I open the cage, will basically really start moving their arms to the surface, like Olga here. Some of them are a little shyer.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even the shy ones suddenly come to life once they clutch a mussel. They hunch over the prey so they can swallow it whole. “When food comes, then you really see the predator come out,” Anteau notes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pointing to the red eye spot at the end of each arm, she adds, “They’re looking at you. They don’t have eyes like us, but they can see a light-and-dark kind of vision.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This lab has figured out how to get sperm and eggs from the wild-caught adults and grow up their offspring. The oldest sea stars they’ve produced are now nearly a year and a half, and they are about 3 inches across.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lab only has about a dozen young sea stars that have reached this stage. But considering how little was known at the start — and the fact that they had to work out their techniques during a pandemic that restricted who could go to the lab — Hodin says he feels lucky to have gotten that many.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re assuming that by next year, they might be reproductive, based on ones that we’ve seen in the field,” Hodin says. “It’s good news that they can grow relatively quickly.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976133\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1976133\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/starfish_diptych_custom-7cdd2cdc72a88ff42af021707c3b6e4c62d731fb-800x266.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"266\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/starfish_diptych_custom-7cdd2cdc72a88ff42af021707c3b6e4c62d731fb-800x266.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/starfish_diptych_custom-7cdd2cdc72a88ff42af021707c3b6e4c62d731fb-1020x339.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/starfish_diptych_custom-7cdd2cdc72a88ff42af021707c3b6e4c62d731fb-160x53.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/starfish_diptych_custom-7cdd2cdc72a88ff42af021707c3b6e4c62d731fb-768x255.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/starfish_diptych_custom-7cdd2cdc72a88ff42af021707c3b6e4c62d731fb-1536x510.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/starfish_diptych_custom-7cdd2cdc72a88ff42af021707c3b6e4c62d731fb-1920x638.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/starfish_diptych_custom-7cdd2cdc72a88ff42af021707c3b6e4c62d731fb.jpg 2005w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Left: Hodin, the research scientist who is leading the captive rearing program, prepares to view sea star larvae under a microscope. Right: Sunflower sea star larvae, born in mid-January, are seen under a microscope. The dark oval shapes are stomachs. \u003ccite>(Dennis Wise/University of Washington)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Having learned the tricks needed to raise these sea stars, the research team’s new goal is to produce up to 1,000 more young stars. The lab is full of glass pickle jars that contain larvae, and food containers that hold the poppy seed-size juveniles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hodin says that first, lab-grown sea stars could be put into the local waters, where their parents came from, to test how well they fare in the wild. If that goes well, it might be possible in the coming years to try to restore populations off the California coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the danger of sea star wasting disease could still be out there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I would say at the outset that it’s critical to understand more about what’s killing them before trying to put them back,” says \u003ca href=\"http://www.eeb.cornell.edu/harvell/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Drew Harvell\u003c/a>, a professor emeritus with Cornell University who is also a researcher at the Friday Harbor Laboratories.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Currently, she says, scientists disagree on the nature of the killer. Some blame an infectious agent, such as a virus, while others point to \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/01/30/690003678/massive-starfish-die-off-is-tied-to-global-warming\">warming oceans\u003c/a> or other environmental changes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s extremely controversial,” says Harvell, author of a book called \u003cem>Ocean Outbreak: Confronting the Rising Tide of Marine Disease\u003c/em>. She believes there’s a lot of evidence that sea star wasting disease is infectious.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This month, she and her colleagues are starting new lab experiments to test that idea. In a fish pathogen lab, extracts from sick sea stars will be injected into seemingly healthy ones. She’ll be using sunflower sea stars since they are so susceptible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These are difficult experiments to get to run consistently, and so if you try to do them with a species that is somewhat resistant, sometimes just nothing happens,” Harvell says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even if scientists never are able to figure out what causes this illness, she says, eventually it could still be worth trying some kind of reintroduction of captive-bred sea stars to the wild.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At some point we would just have to probably go forward,” Harvell says, “even though scientifically that wouldn’t be the very best plan.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hodin wishes he knew whether the sea stars his lab is raising are susceptible to the disease. He’s constantly on the lookout for any signs that his beloved animals are falling ill. “We hope they don’t get it obviously,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He uses a pair of tweezers to tenderly feed a tiny mussel to one of the young sea stars. It curls its arm around the treat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Their adult-like behaviors are starting to emerge at these small sizes, and that’s been really fascinating to watch,” says Hodin, who adds he feels a deep attachment to all of the animals that he’s raised. “I think of myself as their foster parent. I’m caring for them and trying to optimize their growth and watching them grow.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He says he even dreams about them. Just the night before, he’d dreamed of being surrounded by water in a house-size version of one of their tanks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=To+Save+A+Huge%2C+24-Armed+Sea+Creature%2C+Scientists+Become+Loving+Foster+Parents&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "A mysterious disease is killing off the West Coast's enormous sunflower sea star, so researchers have launched an ambitious effort to breed this species in captivity.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://staff.washington.edu/hodin/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jason Hodin\u003c/a> hauls up a rope that’s hanging from a dock in the waters off San Juan Island in the Pacific Northwest. At the end is a square, sandwich-size Tupperware container, with mesh-covered holes in the sides to let water flow through. Hodin pulls off the lid and peers inside at some crushed bits of shell. He points to some reddish-orange dots.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“See that? That little dot right there in front of my finger?” Hodin says. “That’s a juvenile sea star that’s about a month old.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s only the size of a poppy seed. But when this baby is all grown up, it could be as big as a manhole cover. That’s because this is \u003cem>Pycnopodia helianthoides\u003c/em>, aka the \u003ca href=\"https://nc.iucnredlist.org/redlist/amazing-species/pycnopodia-helianthoides/pdfs/original/pycnopodia-helianthoides.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">sunflower sea star\u003c/a>. It’s one of the biggest sea stars in the world, with an arm span that can be more than 3 feet across, and it used to be a common sight in the waters off the West Coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, though, it’s critically endangered and is being driven toward extinction by a mysterious, devastating disease.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is why Hodin and his colleagues at the University of Washington’s Friday Harbor Laboratories have spent the last two years figuring out how to raise this species in captivity. It’s an act of desperation born out of the hope that someday, lab-grown sunflower sea stars could be reintroduced into places where this species has disappeared.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976130\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1976130\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/research-lab-3_custom-96fc615a2325fa5450d6855bcebaf0250b7d8137-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/research-lab-3_custom-96fc615a2325fa5450d6855bcebaf0250b7d8137-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/research-lab-3_custom-96fc615a2325fa5450d6855bcebaf0250b7d8137-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/research-lab-3_custom-96fc615a2325fa5450d6855bcebaf0250b7d8137-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/research-lab-3_custom-96fc615a2325fa5450d6855bcebaf0250b7d8137-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/research-lab-3_custom-96fc615a2325fa5450d6855bcebaf0250b7d8137-1536x1023.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/research-lab-3_custom-96fc615a2325fa5450d6855bcebaf0250b7d8137-1920x1279.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/research-lab-3_custom-96fc615a2325fa5450d6855bcebaf0250b7d8137.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jason Hodin, research scientist at the University of Washington’s Friday Harbor Laboratories, works in the sea star captive rearing lab. The sunflower sea star breeding program is a partnership between the university and the Nature Conservancy. \u003ccite>(Dennis Wise/University of Washington)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This voracious predator used to prowl the waters across a nearly 2,000-mile range, from Alaska to Baja California. Their brightly colored bodies — which come in vivid shades of orange, pink, blue and green — would move along the seafloor on as many as 24 arms, gobbling up mussels and scallops and sea urchins. Their consumption of sea urchins, in particular, helped to protect vital forests of kelp, which are home to numerous marine species.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In recent years, however, populations of the sunflower sea star \u003ca href=\"https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/1/eaau7042\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">have declined\u003c/a> by 80% to 100%. In California, “sunflower sea stars are more than 95% gone,” Hodin says. “Some people think that they are entirely extinct in the wild down there. I’ve heard scattered reports of people maybe seeing a few.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This species seems particularly susceptible to a wasting disease that’s hit more than 20 sea star species since 2013. Hodin says the sick sea stars are horrible to behold. “I witnessed it, and it’s not pretty,” he says. “They really do kind of like dissolve into a pile of goo.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2019, Hodin says, the Nature Conservancy approached him about the possibility of setting up a program to breed sunflower sea stars. He’d already been interested in the basic science of sea stars because of the way they are able to transform themselves from bilaterally symmetrical larvae to juveniles with five-sided symmetry. He agreed to try raising large numbers of sunflower sea stars to adulthood, even though no one had tried to do anything like this before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976131\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1976131\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-feeding-4_custom-1a2ab2ba952bbd281e56f8bb0fc852e36a901d2e-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-feeding-4_custom-1a2ab2ba952bbd281e56f8bb0fc852e36a901d2e-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-feeding-4_custom-1a2ab2ba952bbd281e56f8bb0fc852e36a901d2e-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-feeding-4_custom-1a2ab2ba952bbd281e56f8bb0fc852e36a901d2e-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-feeding-4_custom-1a2ab2ba952bbd281e56f8bb0fc852e36a901d2e-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-feeding-4_custom-1a2ab2ba952bbd281e56f8bb0fc852e36a901d2e-1536x1023.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-feeding-4_custom-1a2ab2ba952bbd281e56f8bb0fc852e36a901d2e-1920x1279.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-feeding-4_custom-1a2ab2ba952bbd281e56f8bb0fc852e36a901d2e.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Adult sunflower sea stars feed on mussels at the Friday Harbor Laboratories. Shells from earlier meals collect at the bottom of the tank. The sea star on the bottom, called Charlotte, is the mother of the lab’s 1-year-old juvenile stars. \u003ccite>(Dennis Wise/University of Washington)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“For this species in particular, there were very few published efforts to raise them at all, even through embryo or larval stages,” Hodin says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He didn’t know the answer to some of the most basic questions, such as what did this species eat early on? And how fast could it grow?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nobody knows how to age a sea star, so you see something in the wild and you have no idea how old it is,” Hodin says. “It could be 2 years old. It could be 50. It could be 100.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His team started by taking some sunflower sea stars from the wild. About 30 of these giants now live outside the lab in large, burbling tanks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I didn’t really anticipate how exuberant their behaviors are,” Hodin says. “You get to know them, and you get to know them individually. We noticed early on that we could tell them apart by their color patterns. And we gave them names.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A lot of their names are linked to their colors. Prince, for example, has arms with tips that are purple.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976132\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1976132\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-2_custom-9418999650d5ec9060a3ae1cdd9866eaf3953bcf-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-2_custom-9418999650d5ec9060a3ae1cdd9866eaf3953bcf-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-2_custom-9418999650d5ec9060a3ae1cdd9866eaf3953bcf-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-2_custom-9418999650d5ec9060a3ae1cdd9866eaf3953bcf-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-2_custom-9418999650d5ec9060a3ae1cdd9866eaf3953bcf-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-2_custom-9418999650d5ec9060a3ae1cdd9866eaf3953bcf-1536x1023.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-2_custom-9418999650d5ec9060a3ae1cdd9866eaf3953bcf-1920x1279.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/adult-2_custom-9418999650d5ec9060a3ae1cdd9866eaf3953bcf.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An arm of an adult sunflower sea star has numerous orange and white tube feet that it uses for walking, breathing and sensing. \u003ccite>(Dennis Wise/University of Washington)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“This here’s Deep Blue, and she’s our biggest,” researcher \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/fleur__flower?lang=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Fleur Anteau\u003c/a> says as she feeds the sea stars by gently tucking mussels under their arms. “Some of them, when I open the cage, will basically really start moving their arms to the surface, like Olga here. Some of them are a little shyer.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even the shy ones suddenly come to life once they clutch a mussel. They hunch over the prey so they can swallow it whole. “When food comes, then you really see the predator come out,” Anteau notes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pointing to the red eye spot at the end of each arm, she adds, “They’re looking at you. They don’t have eyes like us, but they can see a light-and-dark kind of vision.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This lab has figured out how to get sperm and eggs from the wild-caught adults and grow up their offspring. The oldest sea stars they’ve produced are now nearly a year and a half, and they are about 3 inches across.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lab only has about a dozen young sea stars that have reached this stage. But considering how little was known at the start — and the fact that they had to work out their techniques during a pandemic that restricted who could go to the lab — Hodin says he feels lucky to have gotten that many.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re assuming that by next year, they might be reproductive, based on ones that we’ve seen in the field,” Hodin says. “It’s good news that they can grow relatively quickly.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976133\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1976133\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/starfish_diptych_custom-7cdd2cdc72a88ff42af021707c3b6e4c62d731fb-800x266.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"266\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/starfish_diptych_custom-7cdd2cdc72a88ff42af021707c3b6e4c62d731fb-800x266.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/starfish_diptych_custom-7cdd2cdc72a88ff42af021707c3b6e4c62d731fb-1020x339.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/starfish_diptych_custom-7cdd2cdc72a88ff42af021707c3b6e4c62d731fb-160x53.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/starfish_diptych_custom-7cdd2cdc72a88ff42af021707c3b6e4c62d731fb-768x255.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/starfish_diptych_custom-7cdd2cdc72a88ff42af021707c3b6e4c62d731fb-1536x510.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/starfish_diptych_custom-7cdd2cdc72a88ff42af021707c3b6e4c62d731fb-1920x638.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/08/starfish_diptych_custom-7cdd2cdc72a88ff42af021707c3b6e4c62d731fb.jpg 2005w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Left: Hodin, the research scientist who is leading the captive rearing program, prepares to view sea star larvae under a microscope. Right: Sunflower sea star larvae, born in mid-January, are seen under a microscope. The dark oval shapes are stomachs. \u003ccite>(Dennis Wise/University of Washington)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Having learned the tricks needed to raise these sea stars, the research team’s new goal is to produce up to 1,000 more young stars. The lab is full of glass pickle jars that contain larvae, and food containers that hold the poppy seed-size juveniles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hodin says that first, lab-grown sea stars could be put into the local waters, where their parents came from, to test how well they fare in the wild. If that goes well, it might be possible in the coming years to try to restore populations off the California coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the danger of sea star wasting disease could still be out there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I would say at the outset that it’s critical to understand more about what’s killing them before trying to put them back,” says \u003ca href=\"http://www.eeb.cornell.edu/harvell/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Drew Harvell\u003c/a>, a professor emeritus with Cornell University who is also a researcher at the Friday Harbor Laboratories.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Currently, she says, scientists disagree on the nature of the killer. Some blame an infectious agent, such as a virus, while others point to \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/01/30/690003678/massive-starfish-die-off-is-tied-to-global-warming\">warming oceans\u003c/a> or other environmental changes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s extremely controversial,” says Harvell, author of a book called \u003cem>Ocean Outbreak: Confronting the Rising Tide of Marine Disease\u003c/em>. She believes there’s a lot of evidence that sea star wasting disease is infectious.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This month, she and her colleagues are starting new lab experiments to test that idea. In a fish pathogen lab, extracts from sick sea stars will be injected into seemingly healthy ones. She’ll be using sunflower sea stars since they are so susceptible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These are difficult experiments to get to run consistently, and so if you try to do them with a species that is somewhat resistant, sometimes just nothing happens,” Harvell says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even if scientists never are able to figure out what causes this illness, she says, eventually it could still be worth trying some kind of reintroduction of captive-bred sea stars to the wild.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At some point we would just have to probably go forward,” Harvell says, “even though scientifically that wouldn’t be the very best plan.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hodin wishes he knew whether the sea stars his lab is raising are susceptible to the disease. He’s constantly on the lookout for any signs that his beloved animals are falling ill. “We hope they don’t get it obviously,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He uses a pair of tweezers to tenderly feed a tiny mussel to one of the young sea stars. It curls its arm around the treat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Their adult-like behaviors are starting to emerge at these small sizes, and that’s been really fascinating to watch,” says Hodin, who adds he feels a deep attachment to all of the animals that he’s raised. “I think of myself as their foster parent. I’m caring for them and trying to optimize their growth and watching them grow.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He says he even dreams about them. Just the night before, he’d dreamed of being surrounded by water in a house-size version of one of their tanks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=To+Save+A+Huge%2C+24-Armed+Sea+Creature%2C+Scientists+Become+Loving+Foster+Parents&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>It’s been nearly a decade since the United Nations released its last climate change assessment. That dire \u003ca href=\"https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">report\u003c/a>, which was published in 2014, described in detail how the burning of fossil fuels is altering the climate, leading to increasingly severe drought, worsening wildfires, and mass die-offs of coral reefs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last week, hundreds of the world’s top scientists hashed out final details of the next U.N. report, as much of the world is tested, again, by scorching heat waves, destructive floods, and megafires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Lara Kueppers, climate scientist at Berkeley Lab\"]‘This is our best and most comprehensive update on the state of international climate science, and it provides a foundation for international policy development as we move forward.’[/pullquote]The next iteration of the assessment could be published on Aug. 9, pending approval by the researchers convened by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It will be the sixth edition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This latest report aims to guide government decisions on addressing global warming and adapting to its impacts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NPR\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1975970/climate-scientists-meet-as-dangerous-fires-floods-and-droughts-test-the-world\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> reported\u003c/a> that the new IPCC study will include a set of five hypothetical policy scenarios, “a collection of imaginary worlds in which countries pursue different sets of climate policies.” These scenarios will take into account carbon emissions reductions, population growth, economic development, and technological change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is our best and most comprehensive update on the state of international climate science, and it provides a foundation for international policy development as we move forward,” Lara Kueppers, a UC Berkeley professor and climate scientist at Berkeley Lab, told KQED’s Brian Watt last week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But given the breakneck pace at which climate science is evolving, and the escalating destruction from warming-driven environmental disasters, Kueppers thinks it’s time for faster, locally focused assessments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve really left it up to the IPCC, but it’s clear that scientific support for local planning and decision-making is necessary — and the need for this is only growing,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kueppers interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How do the IPCC assessments get used?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At best, this document will spur more concerted policy action on climate. At worst it will be a virtual doorstop. The printed and bound versions of these past assessments are quite weighty. Unfortunately, current climate commitments, including the pledges by the Biden administration and other nations, are still insufficient to meet the Paris Agreement’s goal to limit warming to one-and-a-half degrees globally, according to the \u003ca href=\"https://climateactiontracker.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Climate Action Tracker,\u003c/a> which follows all of these commitments closely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]My hope is really that all that we’ve learned [since the last assessment published], from the warming that we’ve seen in the ocean, to the rapid changes that we’ve seen in the cryosphere, to even the more finely resolved images of future impacts on human health and livelihoods, spurs the needed policy progress that nations around the world hope to see.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Can you describe the pace at which climate science is evolving?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Climate research and the effects of human economic activity on the climate really have a long history. And the scope and the depth of the science has really advanced quite rapidly in recent decades. But at the same time, the fundamentals have really remained the same for a century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back at the end of the 1800s, a Swedish scientist named \u003ca href=\"https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/1903/arrhenius/biographical/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Svante Arrhenius\u003c/a> provided the first \u003ca href=\"https://www.rsc.org/images/Arrhenius1896_tcm18-173546.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">estimate \u003c/a> of how increasing global CO2 from burning coal would push up temperatures around the globe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This was a grainy black and white photograph of future climate. But the subsequent research has really added important color and resolution to that photograph. And I would say now the state of climate science has provided a high-definition image of what we can expect as the climate continues to evolve. And these recent events, even just the last year, are a trailer of our climate future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Our governor says California is experiencing climate change fast forward. The impacts are here now and happening fast. Sounds like you agree with him? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label=\"related coverage\" tag=\"climate-change\"]I absolutely agree. California, like everywhere else on the planet, is experiencing the changing climate right now. We know that episodic droughts are natural occurrences in the state, but coupled with higher temperatures, this really puts incredible stress on agriculture and on our natural ecosystems. The warmer temperatures are drying vegetation faster and leading to longer fire seasons. And our firefighters really recognize this as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the same time, the warmer winters are allowing populations of tree-damaging insects to multiply faster, and they’re putting drought-stressed forests at greater risk. We are well on the path to a new climate normal. And that path is going to be pretty rocky in nearly every part of the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Given all of that, do we need these big U.N. reports to come faster?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I think so. In the past decades, we’ve really been content to leave the climate change policy to international diplomats, our federal, and even state representatives. The science input that they get, we’ve left up to the IPCC. But it’s clear that scientific support for local planning and decision-making is necessary — and the need for this is only growing. An influx of information every seven years is not quite adequate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even the U.N. has asked the IPCC for more specific, policy-directed interim reports. We need to address these needs. And to do that, we require new kinds of partnerships between scientists and communities and new organizational infrastructure as well. This is a pretty tall order, but I know it’s one that many climate researchers are willing to support. And I expect that there are communities around the state who would be very grateful to have more regular input and a clearer vision for what their communities can expect as they make decisions about issues like land-use planning or public safety.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>It’s been nearly a decade since the United Nations released its last climate change assessment. That dire \u003ca href=\"https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">report\u003c/a>, which was published in 2014, described in detail how the burning of fossil fuels is altering the climate, leading to increasingly severe drought, worsening wildfires, and mass die-offs of coral reefs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last week, hundreds of the world’s top scientists hashed out final details of the next U.N. report, as much of the world is tested, again, by scorching heat waves, destructive floods, and megafires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The next iteration of the assessment could be published on Aug. 9, pending approval by the researchers convened by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It will be the sixth edition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This latest report aims to guide government decisions on addressing global warming and adapting to its impacts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NPR\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1975970/climate-scientists-meet-as-dangerous-fires-floods-and-droughts-test-the-world\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> reported\u003c/a> that the new IPCC study will include a set of five hypothetical policy scenarios, “a collection of imaginary worlds in which countries pursue different sets of climate policies.” These scenarios will take into account carbon emissions reductions, population growth, economic development, and technological change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is our best and most comprehensive update on the state of international climate science, and it provides a foundation for international policy development as we move forward,” Lara Kueppers, a UC Berkeley professor and climate scientist at Berkeley Lab, told KQED’s Brian Watt last week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But given the breakneck pace at which climate science is evolving, and the escalating destruction from warming-driven environmental disasters, Kueppers thinks it’s time for faster, locally focused assessments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve really left it up to the IPCC, but it’s clear that scientific support for local planning and decision-making is necessary — and the need for this is only growing,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kueppers interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How do the IPCC assessments get used?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At best, this document will spur more concerted policy action on climate. At worst it will be a virtual doorstop. The printed and bound versions of these past assessments are quite weighty. Unfortunately, current climate commitments, including the pledges by the Biden administration and other nations, are still insufficient to meet the Paris Agreement’s goal to limit warming to one-and-a-half degrees globally, according to the \u003ca href=\"https://climateactiontracker.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Climate Action Tracker,\u003c/a> which follows all of these commitments closely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>My hope is really that all that we’ve learned [since the last assessment published], from the warming that we’ve seen in the ocean, to the rapid changes that we’ve seen in the cryosphere, to even the more finely resolved images of future impacts on human health and livelihoods, spurs the needed policy progress that nations around the world hope to see.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Can you describe the pace at which climate science is evolving?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Climate research and the effects of human economic activity on the climate really have a long history. And the scope and the depth of the science has really advanced quite rapidly in recent decades. But at the same time, the fundamentals have really remained the same for a century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back at the end of the 1800s, a Swedish scientist named \u003ca href=\"https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/1903/arrhenius/biographical/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Svante Arrhenius\u003c/a> provided the first \u003ca href=\"https://www.rsc.org/images/Arrhenius1896_tcm18-173546.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">estimate \u003c/a> of how increasing global CO2 from burning coal would push up temperatures around the globe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This was a grainy black and white photograph of future climate. But the subsequent research has really added important color and resolution to that photograph. And I would say now the state of climate science has provided a high-definition image of what we can expect as the climate continues to evolve. And these recent events, even just the last year, are a trailer of our climate future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Our governor says California is experiencing climate change fast forward. The impacts are here now and happening fast. Sounds like you agree with him? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>I absolutely agree. California, like everywhere else on the planet, is experiencing the changing climate right now. We know that episodic droughts are natural occurrences in the state, but coupled with higher temperatures, this really puts incredible stress on agriculture and on our natural ecosystems. The warmer temperatures are drying vegetation faster and leading to longer fire seasons. And our firefighters really recognize this as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the same time, the warmer winters are allowing populations of tree-damaging insects to multiply faster, and they’re putting drought-stressed forests at greater risk. We are well on the path to a new climate normal. And that path is going to be pretty rocky in nearly every part of the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Given all of that, do we need these big U.N. reports to come faster?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I think so. In the past decades, we’ve really been content to leave the climate change policy to international diplomats, our federal, and even state representatives. The science input that they get, we’ve left up to the IPCC. But it’s clear that scientific support for local planning and decision-making is necessary — and the need for this is only growing. An influx of information every seven years is not quite adequate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even the U.N. has asked the IPCC for more specific, policy-directed interim reports. We need to address these needs. And to do that, we require new kinds of partnerships between scientists and communities and new organizational infrastructure as well. This is a pretty tall order, but I know it’s one that many climate researchers are willing to support. And I expect that there are communities around the state who would be very grateful to have more regular input and a clearer vision for what their communities can expect as they make decisions about issues like land-use planning or public safety.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "NOAA Expedition Discovers SpongeBob, Patrick Look Alikes A Mile Under The Ocean's Surface",
"headTitle": "NOAA Expedition Discovers SpongeBob, Patrick Look Alikes A Mile Under The Ocean’s Surface | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>An ocean expedition exploring more than a mile under the surface of the Atlantic captured a startlingly silly sight this week: a sponge that looked very much like \u003ca href=\"https://www.nick.com/shows/spongebob-squarepants\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">SpongeBob SquarePants\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And right next to it, a pink sea star — a doppelganger for Patrick, SpongeBob’s dim-witted best friend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"jw_embed\" src=\"https://www.npr.org/embedded-video?storyId=1022837166&mediaId=1022929038&jwMediaType=null\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" width=\"100%\" height=\"500\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>NOAA’s Okeanos Explorer captured video of a notable sponge and sea star this week. In real life, the two aren’t such good friends.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://naturalhistory.si.edu/staff/christopher-mah\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Christopher Mah\u003c/a> was one of the scientists watching \u003ca href=\"https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/livestreams/welcome.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a live feed\u003c/a> from a submersible launched off the NOAA ship \u003cem>Okeanos Explorer\u003c/em>. He’s a research associate at the National Museum of Natural History who frequently collaborates with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He’s also an \u003ca href=\"http://echinoblog.blogspot.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">expert on starfish\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mah immediately noticed the underwater creatures’ resemblance to the animated buddies. “They’re just a dead ringer for the cartoon characters,” Mah tells NPR.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So he \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/echinoblog/status/1420069675036147713\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">tweeted\u003c/a> an image of the two noting the resemblance, delighting lots of folks. Someone helpfully \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/mwhdeere/status/1420957021927616513\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">added\u003c/a> faces and legs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/echinoblog/status/1420069961104433154?s=20\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Bad News: Sponges and Sea Stars Aren’t Actually Pals\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rather than chilling together under the sea, Mah suspects a different reason for the creatures’ closeness: Sea stars like to feed on sponges.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In all likelihood, the reason that starfish is right next to that sponge is because that sponge is just about to be devoured, at least in part,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Or maybe not. The sponge might be bright yellow because of its chemical defenses, Mah says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Either way, he says, “The reality is a little crueler than perhaps a cartoon would suggest.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In scientific terms, a sponge is \u003cem>Hertwigia\u003c/em>, while a starfish is a \u003cem>Chondraster\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mah says the starfish spotted by the expedition was probably a species called a \u003cem>Chondraster grandis\u003c/em> — the pink starfish that was likely the inspiration for the Patrick character.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976094\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1976094\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/gettyimages-823139156-44d60c135247036e32f8fd9fc63e6bb4294c3796-800x599.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"599\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/gettyimages-823139156-44d60c135247036e32f8fd9fc63e6bb4294c3796-800x599.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/gettyimages-823139156-44d60c135247036e32f8fd9fc63e6bb4294c3796-1020x764.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/gettyimages-823139156-44d60c135247036e32f8fd9fc63e6bb4294c3796-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/gettyimages-823139156-44d60c135247036e32f8fd9fc63e6bb4294c3796-768x575.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/gettyimages-823139156-44d60c135247036e32f8fd9fc63e6bb4294c3796-1536x1150.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/gettyimages-823139156-44d60c135247036e32f8fd9fc63e6bb4294c3796-2048x1533.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/gettyimages-823139156-44d60c135247036e32f8fd9fc63e6bb4294c3796-1920x1438.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Patrick and Spongebob take part in the Worldwide Day of Play on July 26, 2017 in Washington, DC. \u003ccite>(Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images for Nickelodeon)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>While the real-life sponge is as yellow as the Nickelodeon character, SpongeBob’s shape is far from what’s found in nature.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“SpongeBob is obviously shaped like a plastic cleaning sponge — he’s rectangular,” Mah says. But actual deep-sea sponges? “They’re almost surreal. They’re bizarre, crazy shapes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Patrick’s anatomy is not exactly faithful to that of a real starfish, either.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Expedition Was Exploring the Depths of the Atlantic\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The expedition was more than 200 miles off the Atlantic coast when the now-famous sponge and starfish were sighted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The find was part of NOAA’s \u003ca href=\"https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/okeanos/explorations/ex2104/features/plan/welcome.html\">North Atlantic Stepping Stones\u003c/a>, a monthlong expedition on the \u003cem>Okeanos Explorer \u003c/em>to collect information about unknown and poorly understood deep-water areas off the eastern U.S. coast and high seas. The expedition involved mapping the seafloor and explorations of deep-sea coral sponge communities, fish habitats and the ecosystems of seamounts, which are underwater mountains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976093\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1976093\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/ex2104_img_20210727t171014z_rovhd-5241c12808cbb51db135619d07d4c114c0874c11-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/ex2104_img_20210727t171014z_rovhd-5241c12808cbb51db135619d07d4c114c0874c11-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/ex2104_img_20210727t171014z_rovhd-5241c12808cbb51db135619d07d4c114c0874c11-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/ex2104_img_20210727t171014z_rovhd-5241c12808cbb51db135619d07d4c114c0874c11-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/ex2104_img_20210727t171014z_rovhd-5241c12808cbb51db135619d07d4c114c0874c11.jpg 894w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">More than a mile underwater, the cartoon doppelgangers were found side by side. \u003ccite>(NOAA Ocean Exploration)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deep-Sea Life is Poorly Understood\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Is the fuss over a real sponge that looks like an animated sponge a bit silly?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Absolutely, says Mah. But he welcomes the attention if it means that people think about the life that is dwelling in the world’s oceans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These are literally animals that the public might not have ever even seen before. They live at almost a 2,000-meter depth,” he notes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He hopes the hubbub brings awareness not only to sponges and starfish but also to their habitat, which is under threat from forces including mining and fishing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The positive response from folks on Twitter has been nice, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re like, ‘Oh, my God, this is perfect. This is great. I can’t believe this is true,’ ” Mah says. “So if we can bring positivity and we can make people happy by showing them nature — well, that’s what nature has always done for us before.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=A+Research+Vessel+Found+SpongeBob+Look-Alikes+A+Mile+Under+The+Ocean%27s+Surface&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>An ocean expedition exploring more than a mile under the surface of the Atlantic captured a startlingly silly sight this week: a sponge that looked very much like \u003ca href=\"https://www.nick.com/shows/spongebob-squarepants\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">SpongeBob SquarePants\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And right next to it, a pink sea star — a doppelganger for Patrick, SpongeBob’s dim-witted best friend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"jw_embed\" src=\"https://www.npr.org/embedded-video?storyId=1022837166&mediaId=1022929038&jwMediaType=null\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" width=\"100%\" height=\"500\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>NOAA’s Okeanos Explorer captured video of a notable sponge and sea star this week. In real life, the two aren’t such good friends.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://naturalhistory.si.edu/staff/christopher-mah\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Christopher Mah\u003c/a> was one of the scientists watching \u003ca href=\"https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/livestreams/welcome.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a live feed\u003c/a> from a submersible launched off the NOAA ship \u003cem>Okeanos Explorer\u003c/em>. He’s a research associate at the National Museum of Natural History who frequently collaborates with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He’s also an \u003ca href=\"http://echinoblog.blogspot.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">expert on starfish\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mah immediately noticed the underwater creatures’ resemblance to the animated buddies. “They’re just a dead ringer for the cartoon characters,” Mah tells NPR.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So he \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/echinoblog/status/1420069675036147713\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">tweeted\u003c/a> an image of the two noting the resemblance, delighting lots of folks. Someone helpfully \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/mwhdeere/status/1420957021927616513\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">added\u003c/a> faces and legs.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Bad News: Sponges and Sea Stars Aren’t Actually Pals\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rather than chilling together under the sea, Mah suspects a different reason for the creatures’ closeness: Sea stars like to feed on sponges.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In all likelihood, the reason that starfish is right next to that sponge is because that sponge is just about to be devoured, at least in part,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Or maybe not. The sponge might be bright yellow because of its chemical defenses, Mah says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Either way, he says, “The reality is a little crueler than perhaps a cartoon would suggest.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In scientific terms, a sponge is \u003cem>Hertwigia\u003c/em>, while a starfish is a \u003cem>Chondraster\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mah says the starfish spotted by the expedition was probably a species called a \u003cem>Chondraster grandis\u003c/em> — the pink starfish that was likely the inspiration for the Patrick character.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976094\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1976094\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/gettyimages-823139156-44d60c135247036e32f8fd9fc63e6bb4294c3796-800x599.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"599\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/gettyimages-823139156-44d60c135247036e32f8fd9fc63e6bb4294c3796-800x599.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/gettyimages-823139156-44d60c135247036e32f8fd9fc63e6bb4294c3796-1020x764.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/gettyimages-823139156-44d60c135247036e32f8fd9fc63e6bb4294c3796-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/gettyimages-823139156-44d60c135247036e32f8fd9fc63e6bb4294c3796-768x575.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/gettyimages-823139156-44d60c135247036e32f8fd9fc63e6bb4294c3796-1536x1150.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/gettyimages-823139156-44d60c135247036e32f8fd9fc63e6bb4294c3796-2048x1533.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/gettyimages-823139156-44d60c135247036e32f8fd9fc63e6bb4294c3796-1920x1438.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Patrick and Spongebob take part in the Worldwide Day of Play on July 26, 2017 in Washington, DC. \u003ccite>(Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images for Nickelodeon)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>While the real-life sponge is as yellow as the Nickelodeon character, SpongeBob’s shape is far from what’s found in nature.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“SpongeBob is obviously shaped like a plastic cleaning sponge — he’s rectangular,” Mah says. But actual deep-sea sponges? “They’re almost surreal. They’re bizarre, crazy shapes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Patrick’s anatomy is not exactly faithful to that of a real starfish, either.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Expedition Was Exploring the Depths of the Atlantic\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The expedition was more than 200 miles off the Atlantic coast when the now-famous sponge and starfish were sighted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The find was part of NOAA’s \u003ca href=\"https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/okeanos/explorations/ex2104/features/plan/welcome.html\">North Atlantic Stepping Stones\u003c/a>, a monthlong expedition on the \u003cem>Okeanos Explorer \u003c/em>to collect information about unknown and poorly understood deep-water areas off the eastern U.S. coast and high seas. The expedition involved mapping the seafloor and explorations of deep-sea coral sponge communities, fish habitats and the ecosystems of seamounts, which are underwater mountains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1976093\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1976093\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/ex2104_img_20210727t171014z_rovhd-5241c12808cbb51db135619d07d4c114c0874c11-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/ex2104_img_20210727t171014z_rovhd-5241c12808cbb51db135619d07d4c114c0874c11-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/ex2104_img_20210727t171014z_rovhd-5241c12808cbb51db135619d07d4c114c0874c11-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/ex2104_img_20210727t171014z_rovhd-5241c12808cbb51db135619d07d4c114c0874c11-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/ex2104_img_20210727t171014z_rovhd-5241c12808cbb51db135619d07d4c114c0874c11.jpg 894w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">More than a mile underwater, the cartoon doppelgangers were found side by side. \u003ccite>(NOAA Ocean Exploration)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deep-Sea Life is Poorly Understood\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Is the fuss over a real sponge that looks like an animated sponge a bit silly?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Absolutely, says Mah. But he welcomes the attention if it means that people think about the life that is dwelling in the world’s oceans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These are literally animals that the public might not have ever even seen before. They live at almost a 2,000-meter depth,” he notes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He hopes the hubbub brings awareness not only to sponges and starfish but also to their habitat, which is under threat from forces including mining and fishing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The positive response from folks on Twitter has been nice, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re like, ‘Oh, my God, this is perfect. This is great. I can’t believe this is true,’ ” Mah says. “So if we can bring positivity and we can make people happy by showing them nature — well, that’s what nature has always done for us before.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=A+Research+Vessel+Found+SpongeBob+Look-Alikes+A+Mile+Under+The+Ocean%27s+Surface&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "gripped-by-drought-marin-considers-desalination-water-pipeline-over-the-richmond-bridge",
"title": "Gripped by Drought, Marin Considers Desalination, Water Pipeline Over the Richmond Bridge",
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"headTitle": "Gripped by Drought, Marin Considers Desalination, Water Pipeline Over the Richmond Bridge | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>As the drought deepens across the West, coastal cities are considering whether or not to filter ocean water as a solution to their water woes. In the Bay Area, \u003ca href=\"https://www.marinwater.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Marin Water\u003c/a> is mulling plans to draw its drinking water from the San Francisco Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reservoir levels in Marin County are at historic lows this year, and water leaders are calling for a 40% reduction. So far the county has reached a 23% reduction, says \u003ca href=\"https://www.marinwater.org/board-contact\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Cynthia Koehler\u003c/a>, president of the agency’s board of directors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need to do more,” she said. “We’re expecting another relatively low rainfall year. So, we’re preparing not just for right now, but really for 2022.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The harrowing prospect of another dry winter has the district toying, once again, with the idea of desalination, a process — removing salt and minerals from the sea for clean drinking water — that is simple in principle, maddeningly complicated in practice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s how it works: Salty water is pumped in from the ocean, filtered, chemically treated and then forced with high pressure through hole-lined pipes, which are tightly bound by a special polymer membrane — basically a microscopic strainer. Salt, bacteria and viruses can’t get through the membrane. Fresh water escapes, brine remains in the tubes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Marin Water looked at desalination twice in three decades. It shelved a desalination project in 2010 after water use declined, following a couple of dry years. One reason the agency ditched the idea? Cost concerns, which — at the time — could have been as much as $173 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The cost was disproportionately high,” Koehler said, who joined the district 15 years ago “It’s not a light switch, you can’t turn it on or off, you’ve got to run it all the time. And so it would have been our most expensive source of supply.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A shoreline project the district is now considering would cost in the ballpark of $37 million, and could clean enough water to fulfill about a third of the county’s drinking water needs. The agency could lease some facilities, keeping the costs down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Agency staff are considering a floating facility on a barge, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They say the boat is likely more expensive and does “not appear feasible for a number of reasons” Koehler said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The terrestrial plant, while cheaper than the floating barge and “technically feasible” still has “fairly high costs associated with it,” she noted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A third option — not desalination, a pipeline over the bridge from Richmond to San Rafael to pump water from the East Bay — is likely to win out, Koehler said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency could buy water from farmers in the Central Valley and elsewhere. Koehler said it is still somewhat up in the air about where the water would come from, but staff is meeting with neighbor agencies like the East Bay Municipal Utility District and others much further away in Amador, Placer and Yuba counties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But if the drought worsens other areas of the state could be more in need and the water may go to them instead. If the 6-mile pipeline is successful it could provide for all essential homes, businesses, and other indoor water use, and it would cost between $66 million and $88 million — which is more expensive than the desalination option, but would cover a large percentage of the county’s water needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The preliminary information is that there would be water on the market in California, if we were able to get that infrastructure in place,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But these options are not quick fixes to the current water shortage and wouldn’t be ready until at least June 2022.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A decision could come by the end of the year, but Koehler says the best current option is water conservation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want a community that is beautiful and that has landscaping, but native landscaping, low-water landscaping, Earthscape, all of these are options that don’t require that level of investment,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Marin isn’t the only Bay Area community considering desalination. The city of Antioch is \u003ca href=\"http://www.antiochbrackishdesal.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">building a plant to clean brackish water from the San Joaquin River\u003c/a>. It’s supposed to be completed in 2023. When the $100 million project is finished it will allow water to be used from the river year-round instead of purchasing costly water from other agencies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Environmental factors essentially forced the city’s hand, says\u003ca href=\"https://eesa.lbl.gov/profiles/peter-sewell-fiske/\"> Peter Fiske\u003c/a>, director for the National Alliance for Water Innovation at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Because of climate change and the drought the salinity of that river is getting worse and worse,” he said “They got to the point where they were like, ‘Oh, my God, I guess we’re going to have to desalinate.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Desalination doesn’t make sense for every city, because of the high cost and harm it can cause to marine ecosystems. Fiske says other options should be adopted first, like cleaning wastewater.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Across the Bay Area, we generate a lot of wastewater,” he said. “We are essentially throwing it back into the bay and much of that wastewater could be reprocessed and reused.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/AdrianCovert?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Adrian Covert\u003c/a>, senior vice president of public policy at the Bay Area Council, a business and industry group, \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">recently \u003ca href=\"https://adriancovert.substack.com/p/how-much-would-it-cost-to-drought\">evaluated desalination regionally\u003c/a> and found that recycling water could have a large impact. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Every year, the Bay Area pumps about 500,000 acre feet of highly treated wastewater into the bay,” he said. “It’s more than enough to meet the Bay Area’s water demand through 2040. And because wastewater is cleaner than ocean water, treating it to potable standards is also about 20% cheaper than desalinating water.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Agencies like Santa Clara Valley Water, which provides water to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1975989/san-jose-relies-on-water-from-the-sierra-nevada-climate-change-is-challenging-that-system\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2 million people in the San Jose area\u003c/a>, are planning on doubling recycling water efforts. But that still only equals about 10% of their water supply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://innovation.luskin.ucla.edu/team/gregory-pierce/\">Gregory Pierce \u003c/a>agrees that recycling water or fixing infrastructure is a faster solution than constructing a desalination plant. In a \u003ca href=\"https://innovation.luskin.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Analyzing_Southern_CA_Supply_Investments_from_a_Human_Right_to_Water_Perspective.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2019 study,\u003c/a> he examined the impact desalination could have on low-income or marginalized communities as the co-director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pierce says people need “an even higher ethic of water conservation” because saving water is about preserving life for all Californians, not just the wealthy, with sprawling green lawns.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In California, I think desalination can be part of the answer. But it’s not the best answer right now or in the near term,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pierce says desalination can hurt the environment and water agencies often push the high cost onto ratepayers. Desalination doesn’t encourage people to use less water and could lead to agencies delaying upgrades to aging, leaky water systems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a concept, desalination sounds good, he says, but it’s not usually delivered equitably. If water is truly a human right, it should be affordable to everyone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/AndreaLeon?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Andrea León-Grossmann\u003c/a>, director of climate action for the ocean conservation group Azul, advocates against desalination because the high costs are shouldered by ratepayers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Proponents claim it will be a few dollars a month,” she said. “For them, it might be a few dollars a month, but for someone who’s struggling to put food on the table that is a struggle.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She says there are better options for dealing with water shortages, like recycling water and fixing leaky pipes that waste water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we were to plug all those pipes and invest in maintaining our infrastructure that could provide a lot more water than building desalination plants,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Desalination isn’t just expensive, it’s hard on ocean life, says \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/DanielOceanPhys\">Daniel Ellis\u003c/a>, a senior scientist with the state water board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You’re not just killing the phytoplankton, you’re also killing the food source for the broader food web,” he said. “The second part of the environmental impact is you take in ocean water, you take out the freshwater and you’re left with a lot of salt.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ellis says the brine byproduct can be twice as salty, and when it’s pumped back into the ocean, can be toxic for some aquatic life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even though desalination is theoretically becoming more popular — there are, at least, \u003ca href=\"https://adriancovert.substack.com/p/how-much-would-it-cost-to-drought\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">11 active seawater desalination plants statewide\u003c/a> — he says there are only a few new pending projects in the state, like those in \u003ca href=\"https://www.poseidonwater.com/huntington-beach-desalination-plant.html#:~:text=The%20Huntington%20Beach%20Desalination%20Plant,to%20be%20operational%20by%202023.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Huntington Beach\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://scwd.org/depts/engineering/projects/water_supply_projects/oceandesal3/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Laguna Beach\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Correction: A previous version of the story mislabeled the San Joaquin River. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"title": "Gripped by Drought, Marin Considers Desalination, Water Pipeline Over the Richmond Bridge | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>As the drought deepens across the West, coastal cities are considering whether or not to filter ocean water as a solution to their water woes. In the Bay Area, \u003ca href=\"https://www.marinwater.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Marin Water\u003c/a> is mulling plans to draw its drinking water from the San Francisco Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reservoir levels in Marin County are at historic lows this year, and water leaders are calling for a 40% reduction. So far the county has reached a 23% reduction, says \u003ca href=\"https://www.marinwater.org/board-contact\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Cynthia Koehler\u003c/a>, president of the agency’s board of directors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need to do more,” she said. “We’re expecting another relatively low rainfall year. So, we’re preparing not just for right now, but really for 2022.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The harrowing prospect of another dry winter has the district toying, once again, with the idea of desalination, a process — removing salt and minerals from the sea for clean drinking water — that is simple in principle, maddeningly complicated in practice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s how it works: Salty water is pumped in from the ocean, filtered, chemically treated and then forced with high pressure through hole-lined pipes, which are tightly bound by a special polymer membrane — basically a microscopic strainer. Salt, bacteria and viruses can’t get through the membrane. Fresh water escapes, brine remains in the tubes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Marin Water looked at desalination twice in three decades. It shelved a desalination project in 2010 after water use declined, following a couple of dry years. One reason the agency ditched the idea? Cost concerns, which — at the time — could have been as much as $173 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The cost was disproportionately high,” Koehler said, who joined the district 15 years ago “It’s not a light switch, you can’t turn it on or off, you’ve got to run it all the time. And so it would have been our most expensive source of supply.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A shoreline project the district is now considering would cost in the ballpark of $37 million, and could clean enough water to fulfill about a third of the county’s drinking water needs. The agency could lease some facilities, keeping the costs down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Agency staff are considering a floating facility on a barge, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They say the boat is likely more expensive and does “not appear feasible for a number of reasons” Koehler said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The terrestrial plant, while cheaper than the floating barge and “technically feasible” still has “fairly high costs associated with it,” she noted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A third option — not desalination, a pipeline over the bridge from Richmond to San Rafael to pump water from the East Bay — is likely to win out, Koehler said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency could buy water from farmers in the Central Valley and elsewhere. Koehler said it is still somewhat up in the air about where the water would come from, but staff is meeting with neighbor agencies like the East Bay Municipal Utility District and others much further away in Amador, Placer and Yuba counties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But if the drought worsens other areas of the state could be more in need and the water may go to them instead. If the 6-mile pipeline is successful it could provide for all essential homes, businesses, and other indoor water use, and it would cost between $66 million and $88 million — which is more expensive than the desalination option, but would cover a large percentage of the county’s water needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The preliminary information is that there would be water on the market in California, if we were able to get that infrastructure in place,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But these options are not quick fixes to the current water shortage and wouldn’t be ready until at least June 2022.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A decision could come by the end of the year, but Koehler says the best current option is water conservation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want a community that is beautiful and that has landscaping, but native landscaping, low-water landscaping, Earthscape, all of these are options that don’t require that level of investment,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Marin isn’t the only Bay Area community considering desalination. The city of Antioch is \u003ca href=\"http://www.antiochbrackishdesal.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">building a plant to clean brackish water from the San Joaquin River\u003c/a>. It’s supposed to be completed in 2023. When the $100 million project is finished it will allow water to be used from the river year-round instead of purchasing costly water from other agencies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Environmental factors essentially forced the city’s hand, says\u003ca href=\"https://eesa.lbl.gov/profiles/peter-sewell-fiske/\"> Peter Fiske\u003c/a>, director for the National Alliance for Water Innovation at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Because of climate change and the drought the salinity of that river is getting worse and worse,” he said “They got to the point where they were like, ‘Oh, my God, I guess we’re going to have to desalinate.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Desalination doesn’t make sense for every city, because of the high cost and harm it can cause to marine ecosystems. Fiske says other options should be adopted first, like cleaning wastewater.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Across the Bay Area, we generate a lot of wastewater,” he said. “We are essentially throwing it back into the bay and much of that wastewater could be reprocessed and reused.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/AdrianCovert?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Adrian Covert\u003c/a>, senior vice president of public policy at the Bay Area Council, a business and industry group, \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">recently \u003ca href=\"https://adriancovert.substack.com/p/how-much-would-it-cost-to-drought\">evaluated desalination regionally\u003c/a> and found that recycling water could have a large impact. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Every year, the Bay Area pumps about 500,000 acre feet of highly treated wastewater into the bay,” he said. “It’s more than enough to meet the Bay Area’s water demand through 2040. And because wastewater is cleaner than ocean water, treating it to potable standards is also about 20% cheaper than desalinating water.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Agencies like Santa Clara Valley Water, which provides water to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1975989/san-jose-relies-on-water-from-the-sierra-nevada-climate-change-is-challenging-that-system\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2 million people in the San Jose area\u003c/a>, are planning on doubling recycling water efforts. But that still only equals about 10% of their water supply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://innovation.luskin.ucla.edu/team/gregory-pierce/\">Gregory Pierce \u003c/a>agrees that recycling water or fixing infrastructure is a faster solution than constructing a desalination plant. In a \u003ca href=\"https://innovation.luskin.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Analyzing_Southern_CA_Supply_Investments_from_a_Human_Right_to_Water_Perspective.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2019 study,\u003c/a> he examined the impact desalination could have on low-income or marginalized communities as the co-director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pierce says people need “an even higher ethic of water conservation” because saving water is about preserving life for all Californians, not just the wealthy, with sprawling green lawns.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In California, I think desalination can be part of the answer. But it’s not the best answer right now or in the near term,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pierce says desalination can hurt the environment and water agencies often push the high cost onto ratepayers. Desalination doesn’t encourage people to use less water and could lead to agencies delaying upgrades to aging, leaky water systems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a concept, desalination sounds good, he says, but it’s not usually delivered equitably. If water is truly a human right, it should be affordable to everyone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/AndreaLeon?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Andrea León-Grossmann\u003c/a>, director of climate action for the ocean conservation group Azul, advocates against desalination because the high costs are shouldered by ratepayers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Proponents claim it will be a few dollars a month,” she said. “For them, it might be a few dollars a month, but for someone who’s struggling to put food on the table that is a struggle.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She says there are better options for dealing with water shortages, like recycling water and fixing leaky pipes that waste water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we were to plug all those pipes and invest in maintaining our infrastructure that could provide a lot more water than building desalination plants,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Desalination isn’t just expensive, it’s hard on ocean life, says \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/DanielOceanPhys\">Daniel Ellis\u003c/a>, a senior scientist with the state water board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You’re not just killing the phytoplankton, you’re also killing the food source for the broader food web,” he said. “The second part of the environmental impact is you take in ocean water, you take out the freshwater and you’re left with a lot of salt.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ellis says the brine byproduct can be twice as salty, and when it’s pumped back into the ocean, can be toxic for some aquatic life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even though desalination is theoretically becoming more popular — there are, at least, \u003ca href=\"https://adriancovert.substack.com/p/how-much-would-it-cost-to-drought\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">11 active seawater desalination plants statewide\u003c/a> — he says there are only a few new pending projects in the state, like those in \u003ca href=\"https://www.poseidonwater.com/huntington-beach-desalination-plant.html#:~:text=The%20Huntington%20Beach%20Desalination%20Plant,to%20be%20operational%20by%202023.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Huntington Beach\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://scwd.org/depts/engineering/projects/water_supply_projects/oceandesal3/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Laguna Beach\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Correction: A previous version of the story mislabeled the San Joaquin River. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Y ahora...la temporada de incendios. Aquí tiene cómo prepararse.",
"headTitle": "Y ahora…la temporada de incendios. Aquí tiene cómo prepararse. | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1965575/and-now-fire-season-heres-how-to-prepare\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Read in English.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Actualizado: 6 de mayo de 2021, 5:02 p.m.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tras otro invierno de escasas precipitaciones, el norte de California enfrenta un panorama de incendios forestales más apremiante que lo normal, ya que la mayoría de los condados del estado están enfrentando una situación de sequía grave o extrema.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Por desgracia, todos los indicios apuntan a una temporada de incendios especialmente grave, una vez más, en la mayor parte de California. Y es una temporada de incendios temprana también”, dijo Daniel Swain, científico del clima de la Universidad de California en Los Ángeles (conocido como UCLA por sus siglas en inglés). “Las condiciones son actualmente más secas de lo que fueron, en cualquier momento, durante la última sequía, lo que es algo impactante, porque las cosas se pusieron bastante mal en aquel entonces. En la medida en que eso se relaciona con la salud del ecosistema, los bosques, la mortalidad, el riesgo de incendios forestales, es una señal muy alarmante”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ahora es el momento para que usted y su familia se preparen para el inevitable peligro de los incendios forestales.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>El jefe del Batallón de Comunicaciones de Cal Fire, Issac Sánchez, dice que una vez termina la temporada de lluvias, la agencia suele empezar a ver más incendios de vegetación.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“La preparación es aún más importante este año, particularmente debido a la falta de lluvia”, dijo. “Se tienen que tomar medidas de preparación ahora. De ese modo, cuando se produzca un incendio en su comunidad, estará preparado para reaccionar de inmediato.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sánchez dice que los californianos no deben esperar a que se declare oficialmente el inicio de la temporada de incendios para actuar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“El público necesita mantener un estado de preparación constante”, dijo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"CAL FIRE Ready Set Go 30sec\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/kKuwfnOXHO4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen>\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Sólo disponible en inglés.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>En cualquier desastre, no hay suficiente personal de emergencia para ayudar a todo el mundo. Así que el personal de primeros auxilios depende de que la mayoría de la gente esté preparada y sea capaz de cuidarse a sí misma y ayudar a sus vecinos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Una de las principales cosas que hay que hacer, dice Sánchez, es una autoevaluación de los árboles, la maleza y el resto de la vegetación de su propiedad y sus alrededores. Aprenda los pasos necesarios para proteger su casa de los incendios forestales, comience a despejar la maleza, además de realizar otras tareas clave ya.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Este año, al igual que el anterior, los administradores de emergencias y personal de primeros auxilios no sólo tendrán que afrontar la ya difícil tarea de combatir los incendios forestales que han ardido cada vez más fuera de control debido al cambio climático, sino que también lo harán mientras el estado sigue en medio de la pandemia por coronavirus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>El sitio web y la aplicación Ready for Wildfire de Cal Fire desglosan los pasos que todos pueden seguir para estar preparados. Sánchez también aconseja a las personas que se registren para recibir alertas de emergencia (sólo en inglés) y avisos de evacuación de las agencias de servicios de emergencia de su condado.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Prepararse para un incendio forestal u otra catástrofe puede resultar desalentador. Por ello, la Campaña de Preparación para Emergencias de Listos California ofrece un plan de preparación de cinco pasos que le envía recordatorios por mensaje de texto.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Estas son algunas pautas que le ayudarán a estar preparado.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Prepare el exterior de su casa\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Si vive en una zona propensa a los incendios, a veces llamada “interconexión urbano-forestal”, limpiar la maleza y las ramas de los árboles cerca de su propiedad es una manera importante de frenar la propagación de los incendios, aumentando las posibilidades de que su casa sobreviva al siniestro. Esta zona de baja vegetación se denomina “espacio defendible”, y puede considerarse como una zona de amortiguación, libre de todo lo que pueda quemarse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Prepare for Wildfire. Harden Your Home. (Spanish)\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/asvHQnBEqcw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen>\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Sólo disponible en inglés.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cal Fire pide a los propietarios que tomen en cuenta \u003ca href=\"https://www.readyforwildfire.org/espanol/espacio-defendible/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">dos zonas de espacio defendible\u003c/a>. La primera se extiende 30 pies desde las casas, dependencias y cubiertas:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Elimine las ramas colgantes y muertas. Todas las ramas deben estar a un mínimo de 10 pies de distancia de su chimenea y otros árboles.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Retire toda la vegetación muerta.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Retire las hojas secas y las agujas de pino del patio, el tejado y las canaletas.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Mueva los montones de madera a la zona 2.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>La Zona 2 se extiende desde el final de la Zona 1 hasta 100 pies fuera de su casa, estructuras y cubierta:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Aquí, corte las hierbas anuales a 10 centímetros o menos, y cree espacios horizontales y verticales entre la vegetación.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>No deje que las hojas caídas, las agujas, las ramas, la corteza, los conos y las ramas pequeñas se acumulen a más de 5 cm de altura.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Encuentre instrucciones detalladas en \u003ca href=\"https://www.readyforwildfire.org/prepare-for-wildfire/get-ready/defensible-space/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">readyforwildfire.org\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1975947\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/Def-Space-Zones-SPAN.png\" alt=\"Espacio Defensible\" width=\"820\" height=\"569\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/Def-Space-Zones-SPAN.png 820w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/Def-Space-Zones-SPAN-800x555.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/Def-Space-Zones-SPAN-160x111.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/Def-Space-Zones-SPAN-768x533.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Algo en lo que la gente no piensa mucho es en asegurarse de que el domicilio de su casa sea claramente visible. Debería hacerlo por si pide ayuda de emergencia, lo podrán encontrar los socorristas.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>‘Amurallar’ su casa contra los incendios forestales\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Muchas de las casas que arden en un incendio forestal no se encuentran en la trayectoria de las llamas, sino que se incendian a causa de las brasas que vuelan y los restos de fuego que pueden acumularse en los aleros o introducirse en las rejillas de ventilación. Reforzar las casas contra el fuego puede ser tan barato como instalar rejillas de ventilación o tan costoso como instalar nuevos revestimientos, techado o ventanas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Encuentre información detallada aquí, incluyendo una lista de adaptaciones de bajo costo.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Tenga preparada una bolsa de viaje\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Hay tres razones por las que la gente tiende a postergar la preparación para un desastre, dice Karen Baker, copresidenta de Listos California. “O bien les da miedo, les resulta caro, o les lleva mucho tiempo”, dice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Listos intenta superar esos reparos con una sencilla guía en \u003ca href=\"https://www.valleyvision.org/wp-content/uploads/Disaster-Ready-Guide-Digital-SelfPrint-Eng.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">inglés\u003c/a> y \u003ca href=\"https://www.valleyvision.org/wp-content/uploads/Disaster-Ready-Guide-Digital-SelfPrint-Spa.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">español \u003c/a>de preparación. Inscríbase para recibir \u003ca href=\"https://listos.arist.co/courses/5f0898b34456264206dbc956\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">los mensajes de texto de preparación\u003c/a> (sólo en inglés).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>La organización recomienda empacar algunos artículos por adelantado para poder salir rápidamente de la casa si es necesario. Si el costo es una preocupación, usted puede preparar los kits poco a poco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Artículos recomendados para empacar de antemano:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Documentos: copias del seguro, identificación y otros papeles y fotos importantes\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Dinero en efectivo: lo mejor son los billetes de $1 y $5 dólares\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Mapa: con las diferentes rutas de salida de su vecindario marcadas\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Lista de medicamentos: Incluya todas las recetas y otra información médica importante.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Radio portátil\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Linterna\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1975946\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 423px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1975946 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/medidas-desastres.png\" alt=\"La Campaña de Preparación para Emergencias de California The Listos trabaja con organizaciones comunitarias para animar a los residentes del estado a prepararse para las catástrofes. \" width=\"423\" height=\"789\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/medidas-desastres.png 423w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/medidas-desastres-160x298.png 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 423px) 100vw, 423px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">La Campaña de Preparación para Emergencias de California The Listos trabaja con organizaciones comunitarias para animar a los residentes del estado a prepararse para las catástrofes. \u003ccite>(Listoscalifornia.org)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Para agarrar al salir por la puerta:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Cartera, bolsa, llaves\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Teléfono y cargador\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Medicamento\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Computadora portátil/laptop\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Material de primeros auxilios, mascarillas N95, desinfectante de manos, toallitas húmedas\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Un cambio de ropa\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Cualquier otra cosa que necesiten las personas o animales de su hogar\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Genere un plan para su hogar en caso de una emergencia por incendio forestal. (Consulte la \u003ca href=\"https://plan.readyforwildfire.org/es/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">lista de verificación del plan de acción\u003c/a> contra incendios forestales de Cal Fire). Y asegúrese de estar inscrito para recibir alertas de emergencia para su área. \u003ca href=\"http://calalerts.org/signup.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Puede inscribirse aquí\u003c/a> (sólo en inglés).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cal Fire también recomienda trazar la ruta de escape de su hogar en caso de incendio y realizar sus propios simulacros de incendio.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Espere días llenos de humo\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Con los incendios forestales llega el humo. Este año es especialmente preocupante, ya que debido al COVID-19, la contaminación del aire se ha asociado a un mayor riesgo de muerte.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Puede obtener avisos de humo, previsiones y condiciones actuales de los incendios a través del \u003ca href=\"https://www.airnow.gov/fires/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">sitio web AirNow\u003c/a> del gobierno federal.[aside postID='science_1968711']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cómo protegerse del humo de los incendios forestales:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Mantenga las ventanas y las puertas cerradas.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Utilice ventiladores, aparatos de aire acondicionado, bolsas de hielo o un pañuelo congelado para mantenerse fresco.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Sepa cómo funciona el sistema de ventilación de su casa y cierre la compuerta de aire exterior, si existe.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Evite empeorar la contaminación del aire interior fumando cigarrillos, rociando aerosoles, friendo alimentos o quemando velas o incienso.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Compre un limpiador de aire (también llamado purificador de aire) que no produzca ozono y tenga un filtro HEPA. Designe una “habitación de aire limpio” en su casa para los días de humo. (La Agencia de Protección del Medio Ambiente \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2018-07/documents/guide_to_air_cleaners_in_the_home_2nd_edition.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">tiene una guía\u003c/a>, sólo en inglés, para los purificadores de aire en el hogar).\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Los purificadores de aire pueden costar desde cien dólares en adelante y pueden ser difíciles de conseguir durante los incendios graves, así que piense en comprar uno antes de la temporada de incendios. En California, existen pocos recursos para ayudar a las personas con bajos ingresos a costear estos dispositivos; un programa de intervención contra el asma en Fresno proporciona purificadores de aire a los inscritos durante un año. En años anteriores, algunos condados han establecido “refugios de aire limpio” durante los días de humo, y este año éstos deben tener en cuenta el distanciamiento social.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Los Centros para el Control y la Prevención de Enfermedades han publicado \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/es/disasters/hurricanes/covid-19/public-disaster-shelter-during-covid.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">una guía para los refugios de aire limpio\u003c/a> teniendo en cuenta la prevención de la transmisión del COVID-19, pero puede que le resulte más fácil refugiarse en casa.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>El poder de la gente\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Un tema que repiten los funcionarios de bomberos y emergencias en sus consejos es: Su red social es una de las herramientas de seguridad más importantes. En realidad, cuando se trata de un suceso “sin previo aviso”, como un incendio forestal que se extiende rápidamente por el vecindario, se trata realmente de que el vecino ayude al vecino”, dijo el ex-jefe de Bomberos de Santa Rosa, Tony Gossner.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"alignright\">\n\u003ch3>Sitios web de recursos de emergencia\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://211CA.org\">211CA.org\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\nMarque el 211 para conocer las rutas de evacuación y los refugios.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://CalAlerts.org\">CalAlerts.org\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\nInscríbase para recibir las alertas de su condado.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://Earthquake.ca.gov\">Earthquake.ca.gov\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\nObtenga la aplicación de alerta de terremotos MyShake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://Response.ca.gov\">Response.ca.gov\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\nNoticias sobre incendios forestales y refugios en tiempo real.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://Ready.gov\">Ready.gov\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\nRecursos para prepararse para cualquier desastre.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Eso significa que es hora de pensar en quiénes de su vecindario podrían necesitar ayuda para prepararse para la temporada de incendios. Tal vez sean personas mayores y necesiten ayuda para recortar la vegetación. Durante una orden de evacuación, ¿a quién va apoyar y quién lo va a apoyar? Anote sus nombres e información de contacto, guarde la lista en su bolsa de viaje y compártala con otras personas para que le ayuden. Al menos una persona de la lista debe vivir fuera de su zona para asegurarse de que no depende de alguien que también pueda verse afectado por el incendio.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Incluso si esto le parece abrumador o le da miedo, el momento de hacerlo es ahora. Cada paso que pueda dar para estar preparado asegurará un poco más a usted, a su familia y a su comunidad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Este artículo fue traducido por la periodista, \u003ca href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariaespinosapena\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">María Peña\u003c/a> y editado por el periodista, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/ccabreralomeli\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Carlos Cabrera-Lomelí\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"title": "Y ahora...la temporada de incendios. Aquí tiene cómo prepararse. | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1965575/and-now-fire-season-heres-how-to-prepare\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Read in English.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Actualizado: 6 de mayo de 2021, 5:02 p.m.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tras otro invierno de escasas precipitaciones, el norte de California enfrenta un panorama de incendios forestales más apremiante que lo normal, ya que la mayoría de los condados del estado están enfrentando una situación de sequía grave o extrema.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Por desgracia, todos los indicios apuntan a una temporada de incendios especialmente grave, una vez más, en la mayor parte de California. Y es una temporada de incendios temprana también”, dijo Daniel Swain, científico del clima de la Universidad de California en Los Ángeles (conocido como UCLA por sus siglas en inglés). “Las condiciones son actualmente más secas de lo que fueron, en cualquier momento, durante la última sequía, lo que es algo impactante, porque las cosas se pusieron bastante mal en aquel entonces. En la medida en que eso se relaciona con la salud del ecosistema, los bosques, la mortalidad, el riesgo de incendios forestales, es una señal muy alarmante”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ahora es el momento para que usted y su familia se preparen para el inevitable peligro de los incendios forestales.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>El jefe del Batallón de Comunicaciones de Cal Fire, Issac Sánchez, dice que una vez termina la temporada de lluvias, la agencia suele empezar a ver más incendios de vegetación.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“La preparación es aún más importante este año, particularmente debido a la falta de lluvia”, dijo. “Se tienen que tomar medidas de preparación ahora. De ese modo, cuando se produzca un incendio en su comunidad, estará preparado para reaccionar de inmediato.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sánchez dice que los californianos no deben esperar a que se declare oficialmente el inicio de la temporada de incendios para actuar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“El público necesita mantener un estado de preparación constante”, dijo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"CAL FIRE Ready Set Go 30sec\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/kKuwfnOXHO4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen>\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Sólo disponible en inglés.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>En cualquier desastre, no hay suficiente personal de emergencia para ayudar a todo el mundo. Así que el personal de primeros auxilios depende de que la mayoría de la gente esté preparada y sea capaz de cuidarse a sí misma y ayudar a sus vecinos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Una de las principales cosas que hay que hacer, dice Sánchez, es una autoevaluación de los árboles, la maleza y el resto de la vegetación de su propiedad y sus alrededores. Aprenda los pasos necesarios para proteger su casa de los incendios forestales, comience a despejar la maleza, además de realizar otras tareas clave ya.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Este año, al igual que el anterior, los administradores de emergencias y personal de primeros auxilios no sólo tendrán que afrontar la ya difícil tarea de combatir los incendios forestales que han ardido cada vez más fuera de control debido al cambio climático, sino que también lo harán mientras el estado sigue en medio de la pandemia por coronavirus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>El sitio web y la aplicación Ready for Wildfire de Cal Fire desglosan los pasos que todos pueden seguir para estar preparados. Sánchez también aconseja a las personas que se registren para recibir alertas de emergencia (sólo en inglés) y avisos de evacuación de las agencias de servicios de emergencia de su condado.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Prepararse para un incendio forestal u otra catástrofe puede resultar desalentador. Por ello, la Campaña de Preparación para Emergencias de Listos California ofrece un plan de preparación de cinco pasos que le envía recordatorios por mensaje de texto.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Estas son algunas pautas que le ayudarán a estar preparado.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Prepare el exterior de su casa\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Si vive en una zona propensa a los incendios, a veces llamada “interconexión urbano-forestal”, limpiar la maleza y las ramas de los árboles cerca de su propiedad es una manera importante de frenar la propagación de los incendios, aumentando las posibilidades de que su casa sobreviva al siniestro. Esta zona de baja vegetación se denomina “espacio defendible”, y puede considerarse como una zona de amortiguación, libre de todo lo que pueda quemarse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Prepare for Wildfire. Harden Your Home. (Spanish)\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/asvHQnBEqcw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen>\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Sólo disponible en inglés.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cal Fire pide a los propietarios que tomen en cuenta \u003ca href=\"https://www.readyforwildfire.org/espanol/espacio-defendible/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">dos zonas de espacio defendible\u003c/a>. La primera se extiende 30 pies desde las casas, dependencias y cubiertas:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Elimine las ramas colgantes y muertas. Todas las ramas deben estar a un mínimo de 10 pies de distancia de su chimenea y otros árboles.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Retire toda la vegetación muerta.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Retire las hojas secas y las agujas de pino del patio, el tejado y las canaletas.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Mueva los montones de madera a la zona 2.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>La Zona 2 se extiende desde el final de la Zona 1 hasta 100 pies fuera de su casa, estructuras y cubierta:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Aquí, corte las hierbas anuales a 10 centímetros o menos, y cree espacios horizontales y verticales entre la vegetación.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>No deje que las hojas caídas, las agujas, las ramas, la corteza, los conos y las ramas pequeñas se acumulen a más de 5 cm de altura.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Encuentre instrucciones detalladas en \u003ca href=\"https://www.readyforwildfire.org/prepare-for-wildfire/get-ready/defensible-space/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">readyforwildfire.org\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1975947\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/Def-Space-Zones-SPAN.png\" alt=\"Espacio Defensible\" width=\"820\" height=\"569\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/Def-Space-Zones-SPAN.png 820w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/Def-Space-Zones-SPAN-800x555.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/Def-Space-Zones-SPAN-160x111.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/Def-Space-Zones-SPAN-768x533.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Algo en lo que la gente no piensa mucho es en asegurarse de que el domicilio de su casa sea claramente visible. Debería hacerlo por si pide ayuda de emergencia, lo podrán encontrar los socorristas.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>‘Amurallar’ su casa contra los incendios forestales\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Muchas de las casas que arden en un incendio forestal no se encuentran en la trayectoria de las llamas, sino que se incendian a causa de las brasas que vuelan y los restos de fuego que pueden acumularse en los aleros o introducirse en las rejillas de ventilación. Reforzar las casas contra el fuego puede ser tan barato como instalar rejillas de ventilación o tan costoso como instalar nuevos revestimientos, techado o ventanas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Encuentre información detallada aquí, incluyendo una lista de adaptaciones de bajo costo.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Tenga preparada una bolsa de viaje\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Hay tres razones por las que la gente tiende a postergar la preparación para un desastre, dice Karen Baker, copresidenta de Listos California. “O bien les da miedo, les resulta caro, o les lleva mucho tiempo”, dice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Listos intenta superar esos reparos con una sencilla guía en \u003ca href=\"https://www.valleyvision.org/wp-content/uploads/Disaster-Ready-Guide-Digital-SelfPrint-Eng.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">inglés\u003c/a> y \u003ca href=\"https://www.valleyvision.org/wp-content/uploads/Disaster-Ready-Guide-Digital-SelfPrint-Spa.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">español \u003c/a>de preparación. Inscríbase para recibir \u003ca href=\"https://listos.arist.co/courses/5f0898b34456264206dbc956\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">los mensajes de texto de preparación\u003c/a> (sólo en inglés).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>La organización recomienda empacar algunos artículos por adelantado para poder salir rápidamente de la casa si es necesario. Si el costo es una preocupación, usted puede preparar los kits poco a poco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Artículos recomendados para empacar de antemano:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Documentos: copias del seguro, identificación y otros papeles y fotos importantes\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Dinero en efectivo: lo mejor son los billetes de $1 y $5 dólares\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Mapa: con las diferentes rutas de salida de su vecindario marcadas\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Lista de medicamentos: Incluya todas las recetas y otra información médica importante.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Radio portátil\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Linterna\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1975946\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 423px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1975946 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/medidas-desastres.png\" alt=\"La Campaña de Preparación para Emergencias de California The Listos trabaja con organizaciones comunitarias para animar a los residentes del estado a prepararse para las catástrofes. \" width=\"423\" height=\"789\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/medidas-desastres.png 423w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/medidas-desastres-160x298.png 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 423px) 100vw, 423px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">La Campaña de Preparación para Emergencias de California The Listos trabaja con organizaciones comunitarias para animar a los residentes del estado a prepararse para las catástrofes. \u003ccite>(Listoscalifornia.org)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Para agarrar al salir por la puerta:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Cartera, bolsa, llaves\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Teléfono y cargador\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Medicamento\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Computadora portátil/laptop\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Material de primeros auxilios, mascarillas N95, desinfectante de manos, toallitas húmedas\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Un cambio de ropa\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Cualquier otra cosa que necesiten las personas o animales de su hogar\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Genere un plan para su hogar en caso de una emergencia por incendio forestal. (Consulte la \u003ca href=\"https://plan.readyforwildfire.org/es/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">lista de verificación del plan de acción\u003c/a> contra incendios forestales de Cal Fire). Y asegúrese de estar inscrito para recibir alertas de emergencia para su área. \u003ca href=\"http://calalerts.org/signup.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Puede inscribirse aquí\u003c/a> (sólo en inglés).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cal Fire también recomienda trazar la ruta de escape de su hogar en caso de incendio y realizar sus propios simulacros de incendio.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Espere días llenos de humo\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Con los incendios forestales llega el humo. Este año es especialmente preocupante, ya que debido al COVID-19, la contaminación del aire se ha asociado a un mayor riesgo de muerte.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Puede obtener avisos de humo, previsiones y condiciones actuales de los incendios a través del \u003ca href=\"https://www.airnow.gov/fires/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">sitio web AirNow\u003c/a> del gobierno federal.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cómo protegerse del humo de los incendios forestales:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Mantenga las ventanas y las puertas cerradas.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Utilice ventiladores, aparatos de aire acondicionado, bolsas de hielo o un pañuelo congelado para mantenerse fresco.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Sepa cómo funciona el sistema de ventilación de su casa y cierre la compuerta de aire exterior, si existe.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Evite empeorar la contaminación del aire interior fumando cigarrillos, rociando aerosoles, friendo alimentos o quemando velas o incienso.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Compre un limpiador de aire (también llamado purificador de aire) que no produzca ozono y tenga un filtro HEPA. Designe una “habitación de aire limpio” en su casa para los días de humo. (La Agencia de Protección del Medio Ambiente \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2018-07/documents/guide_to_air_cleaners_in_the_home_2nd_edition.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">tiene una guía\u003c/a>, sólo en inglés, para los purificadores de aire en el hogar).\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Los purificadores de aire pueden costar desde cien dólares en adelante y pueden ser difíciles de conseguir durante los incendios graves, así que piense en comprar uno antes de la temporada de incendios. En California, existen pocos recursos para ayudar a las personas con bajos ingresos a costear estos dispositivos; un programa de intervención contra el asma en Fresno proporciona purificadores de aire a los inscritos durante un año. En años anteriores, algunos condados han establecido “refugios de aire limpio” durante los días de humo, y este año éstos deben tener en cuenta el distanciamiento social.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Los Centros para el Control y la Prevención de Enfermedades han publicado \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/es/disasters/hurricanes/covid-19/public-disaster-shelter-during-covid.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">una guía para los refugios de aire limpio\u003c/a> teniendo en cuenta la prevención de la transmisión del COVID-19, pero puede que le resulte más fácil refugiarse en casa.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>El poder de la gente\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Un tema que repiten los funcionarios de bomberos y emergencias en sus consejos es: Su red social es una de las herramientas de seguridad más importantes. En realidad, cuando se trata de un suceso “sin previo aviso”, como un incendio forestal que se extiende rápidamente por el vecindario, se trata realmente de que el vecino ayude al vecino”, dijo el ex-jefe de Bomberos de Santa Rosa, Tony Gossner.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"alignright\">\n\u003ch3>Sitios web de recursos de emergencia\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://211CA.org\">211CA.org\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\nMarque el 211 para conocer las rutas de evacuación y los refugios.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://CalAlerts.org\">CalAlerts.org\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\nInscríbase para recibir las alertas de su condado.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://Earthquake.ca.gov\">Earthquake.ca.gov\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\nObtenga la aplicación de alerta de terremotos MyShake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://Response.ca.gov\">Response.ca.gov\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\nNoticias sobre incendios forestales y refugios en tiempo real.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://Ready.gov\">Ready.gov\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\nRecursos para prepararse para cualquier desastre.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Eso significa que es hora de pensar en quiénes de su vecindario podrían necesitar ayuda para prepararse para la temporada de incendios. Tal vez sean personas mayores y necesiten ayuda para recortar la vegetación. Durante una orden de evacuación, ¿a quién va apoyar y quién lo va a apoyar? Anote sus nombres e información de contacto, guarde la lista en su bolsa de viaje y compártala con otras personas para que le ayuden. Al menos una persona de la lista debe vivir fuera de su zona para asegurarse de que no depende de alguien que también pueda verse afectado por el incendio.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Incluso si esto le parece abrumador o le da miedo, el momento de hacerlo es ahora. Cada paso que pueda dar para estar preparado asegurará un poco más a usted, a su familia y a su comunidad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Este artículo fue traducido por la periodista, \u003ca href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariaespinosapena\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">María Peña\u003c/a> y editado por el periodista, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/ccabreralomeli\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Carlos Cabrera-Lomelí\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "San Jose Relies On Water From the Sierra Nevada. Climate Change Is Challenging That System",
"headTitle": "San Jose Relies On Water From the Sierra Nevada. Climate Change Is Challenging That System | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>In Santa Clara County, lawns are dry, a reservoir is nearly empty, and water restrictions are mandated. After two winters with very little rain — and San Jose’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/07/11/how-bad-is-this-fire-season-in-california-really-going-to-be/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">driest year in 128 years of record keeping\u003c/a> — the county is marked by one of the worst droughts in modern history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Santa Clara County’s experience of drought is set apart from the rest of the state by a myriad of issues — less water from the Sierra Nevada, the effect of human-caused climate change on water supplies, and a case of incredibly bad luck.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a dire emergency caused by the confluence of several horrible things happening all at the same time,” said Gary Kremen, director of \u003ca href=\"https://www.valleywater.org/director-gary-kremen-biography\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Santa Clara Valley Water\u003c/a>. “This isn’t like someone crying wolf.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Valley Water relies heavily on water from the Sierra Nevada snowpack more than 100 miles away. But the agency only received 5% of the water it contracts from the state this year, a quarter of what it sources from the feds, and very little local rainfall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have 2 million people in the county, compared to San Francisco’s 800,000 or Oakland’s 500,000,” he noted. “This is where the people live. We use a lot of water.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kremen likens the drought situation in his water district to someone losing their job without savings to fall back on and no outside help to get them through.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You got no money coming in and none of your relatives want to send you any money because they have their own difficulties,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Santa Clara County is so dry and the water levels so low, that Kremen’s agency now requires a 15% reduction in water use from all people and businesses. That amount may not not sound like a lot, but if it doesn’t rain this winter, places like San Jose could be in deep trouble next spring or summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I do not believe there’s enough water for a third year [of drought],” Kremen said. “It’s gotten horrible very quick.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1975990\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1975990\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50396_IMG_5850_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50396_IMG_5850_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50396_IMG_5850_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50396_IMG_5850_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50396_IMG_5850_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50396_IMG_5850_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50396_IMG_5850_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Anderson Lake is 3% full after it was drained so the dam could undergo a seismic retrofit. \u003ccite>(Ezra David Romero/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Kicker\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The kicker on top of two very dry years in a row? The largest reservoir in Valley Water’s system is virtually empty at 3% full, after it was emptied so that the Anderson Dam near Morgan Hill could undergo seismic retrofitting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When it’s full this is our primary water supply in addition to our aquifer,” said \u003ca href=\"https://www.valleywater.org/director-john-varela-biography\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">John Varela\u003c/a> , a director on the Santa Clara Valley Water District Board of Directors. “But it’s empty, and we’re in a drought, so it’s not a good time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency drained the reservoir because the dam is vulnerable to shaking from a severe earthquake. The state wanted to make sure it could withstand at least a magnitude 7.0 quake, and the federal government mandated the retrofit. The work won’t be finished for about a decade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A Fundamentally Different Climate\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the meantime, Varela says the water district is exploring one possible solution for future water shortages: recycling wastewater. That clean water would then go back into the earth, restoring aquifers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We feel that recycled water is the sustainable water supply of the future,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency currently recycles 5% of its water at a facility in San Jose. Varela says the district is partnering with Palo Alto and Mountain View to build a second facility, and with Morgan Hill and Gilroy for a third. He said preliminary conversations are taking place around creating pipelines throughout the county to share water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The district would like to double the amount of recycled water in the coming years. But warming temperatures are threatening the very system that supplies water to San Jose, and recycling efforts and other measures might not be enough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We now live in a fundamentally different climate,” said climate scientist \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/katerina_gonz\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Katerina Gonzales,\u003c/a> who studies the causes and impacts of extreme precipitation at the University of Minnesota. She recently finished her dissertation at Stanford, where she focused on the West.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1975993\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1975993\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50378_013_SanJose_Drought_07212021-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50378_013_SanJose_Drought_07212021-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50378_013_SanJose_Drought_07212021-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50378_013_SanJose_Drought_07212021-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50378_013_SanJose_Drought_07212021-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50378_013_SanJose_Drought_07212021-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50378_013_SanJose_Drought_07212021-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tall, dry grass grows across from a green yard in the Cambrian neighborhood located in West San Jose on July 21, 2021. (Beth LaBerge/KQED).\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>She says warming has condensed the rainy season and is decreasing the annual snowpack. Both are challenging California’s aging water system, which was designed to gradually collect runoff from snowmelt. Not to capture a winter’s worth of rainfall during a couple big, wet storms, known as atmospheric rivers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Changes in atmospheric rivers affect almost every part of our infrastructure that deals with our relationship to water,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If storms come too early in the rain season, reservoirs fill up, creating a flooding risk. If water managers release water too soon in a drought year, it could mean dry reservoirs down the line.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We can’t rely on this assurance of drought busting atmospheric rivers because of the way that the ingredients in the atmosphere have changed,” Gonzales said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If California’s water system doesn’t evolve to mitigate impacts from climate change, Gonzales says places like San Jose will continue to have water issues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State water officials seem to agree that the system has to change. \u003ca href=\"https://water.ca.gov/Executive-Bios-Director\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Karla Nemeth\u003c/a>, director of the California Department of Water Resources, says the state’s water system needs a major overhaul and Californians will need to save more water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re still working off past hydrology that was feeding a state that had fewer people,” she said. “All that needs to change, and it can change, if we get focused on how we adapt all of our modeling and operations to accommodate more climate extremes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1975995\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1975995\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50394_IMG_5815_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50394_IMG_5815_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50394_IMG_5815_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50394_IMG_5815_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50394_IMG_5815_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50394_IMG_5815_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50394_IMG_5815_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Adam Whyte, 18, spreads mulch around his front yard. The family lawn died in the last drought. \u003ccite>(Ezra David Romero/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What Drought Means For Residents\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For residents in the San Jose region, these water woes translate to mandatory 15% water restrictions. People are cutting back mostly on irrigation, like watering lawns, gardens and parks. Even though people are letting their lawns go, water leaders say that can be avoided.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Your lawn is still going to be nice, it just takes a little bit more time to be judicious about it, reprogramming your irrigation control to the right duration,” said John Tang, vice president of regulatory affairs for \u003ca href=\"https://www.sjwater.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">San Jose Water. \u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tang says people have learned to save water since the last drought in San Jose. Statewide, Californians use 16% less water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s certain homes around here that have really heeded the call for conservation,” he said. “People are ripping out lawns and putting in drought tolerant landscaping.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He says the 15% water reduction is mandatory, but the city is focusing on education and not enforcement. During the last drought, reduction grew to 30%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t have any water cops driving around giving people tickets,” he said. “We see it as more of a cooperative partnership.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In San Jose, brown lawns and drought-tolerant yards are becoming commonplace.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eighteen-year-old Adam Whyte’s family allowed their lawn to die during the last drought. “It was an eyesore compared to everybody else in the neighborhood who had all this perfectly nice grass,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year, his family is mulching the yard with bark from a neighbor. The high school senior is spending part of his summer break with a shovel in hand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re just gonna spread it out, put up some bricks, maybe a little border,” he said. “Clearly, if we want grass that’s just gonna up the water bill. We’re not doing that.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Water officials in Santa Clara County are exploring a possible drought solution: recycling wastewater. ",
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"title": "San Jose Relies On Water From the Sierra Nevada. Climate Change Is Challenging That System | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>In Santa Clara County, lawns are dry, a reservoir is nearly empty, and water restrictions are mandated. After two winters with very little rain — and San Jose’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/07/11/how-bad-is-this-fire-season-in-california-really-going-to-be/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">driest year in 128 years of record keeping\u003c/a> — the county is marked by one of the worst droughts in modern history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Santa Clara County’s experience of drought is set apart from the rest of the state by a myriad of issues — less water from the Sierra Nevada, the effect of human-caused climate change on water supplies, and a case of incredibly bad luck.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a dire emergency caused by the confluence of several horrible things happening all at the same time,” said Gary Kremen, director of \u003ca href=\"https://www.valleywater.org/director-gary-kremen-biography\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Santa Clara Valley Water\u003c/a>. “This isn’t like someone crying wolf.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Valley Water relies heavily on water from the Sierra Nevada snowpack more than 100 miles away. But the agency only received 5% of the water it contracts from the state this year, a quarter of what it sources from the feds, and very little local rainfall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have 2 million people in the county, compared to San Francisco’s 800,000 or Oakland’s 500,000,” he noted. “This is where the people live. We use a lot of water.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kremen likens the drought situation in his water district to someone losing their job without savings to fall back on and no outside help to get them through.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You got no money coming in and none of your relatives want to send you any money because they have their own difficulties,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Santa Clara County is so dry and the water levels so low, that Kremen’s agency now requires a 15% reduction in water use from all people and businesses. That amount may not not sound like a lot, but if it doesn’t rain this winter, places like San Jose could be in deep trouble next spring or summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I do not believe there’s enough water for a third year [of drought],” Kremen said. “It’s gotten horrible very quick.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1975990\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1975990\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50396_IMG_5850_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50396_IMG_5850_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50396_IMG_5850_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50396_IMG_5850_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50396_IMG_5850_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50396_IMG_5850_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50396_IMG_5850_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Anderson Lake is 3% full after it was drained so the dam could undergo a seismic retrofit. \u003ccite>(Ezra David Romero/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Kicker\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The kicker on top of two very dry years in a row? The largest reservoir in Valley Water’s system is virtually empty at 3% full, after it was emptied so that the Anderson Dam near Morgan Hill could undergo seismic retrofitting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When it’s full this is our primary water supply in addition to our aquifer,” said \u003ca href=\"https://www.valleywater.org/director-john-varela-biography\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">John Varela\u003c/a> , a director on the Santa Clara Valley Water District Board of Directors. “But it’s empty, and we’re in a drought, so it’s not a good time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency drained the reservoir because the dam is vulnerable to shaking from a severe earthquake. The state wanted to make sure it could withstand at least a magnitude 7.0 quake, and the federal government mandated the retrofit. The work won’t be finished for about a decade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A Fundamentally Different Climate\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the meantime, Varela says the water district is exploring one possible solution for future water shortages: recycling wastewater. That clean water would then go back into the earth, restoring aquifers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We feel that recycled water is the sustainable water supply of the future,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency currently recycles 5% of its water at a facility in San Jose. Varela says the district is partnering with Palo Alto and Mountain View to build a second facility, and with Morgan Hill and Gilroy for a third. He said preliminary conversations are taking place around creating pipelines throughout the county to share water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The district would like to double the amount of recycled water in the coming years. But warming temperatures are threatening the very system that supplies water to San Jose, and recycling efforts and other measures might not be enough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We now live in a fundamentally different climate,” said climate scientist \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/katerina_gonz\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Katerina Gonzales,\u003c/a> who studies the causes and impacts of extreme precipitation at the University of Minnesota. She recently finished her dissertation at Stanford, where she focused on the West.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1975993\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1975993\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50378_013_SanJose_Drought_07212021-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50378_013_SanJose_Drought_07212021-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50378_013_SanJose_Drought_07212021-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50378_013_SanJose_Drought_07212021-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50378_013_SanJose_Drought_07212021-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50378_013_SanJose_Drought_07212021-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50378_013_SanJose_Drought_07212021-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tall, dry grass grows across from a green yard in the Cambrian neighborhood located in West San Jose on July 21, 2021. (Beth LaBerge/KQED).\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>She says warming has condensed the rainy season and is decreasing the annual snowpack. Both are challenging California’s aging water system, which was designed to gradually collect runoff from snowmelt. Not to capture a winter’s worth of rainfall during a couple big, wet storms, known as atmospheric rivers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Changes in atmospheric rivers affect almost every part of our infrastructure that deals with our relationship to water,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If storms come too early in the rain season, reservoirs fill up, creating a flooding risk. If water managers release water too soon in a drought year, it could mean dry reservoirs down the line.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We can’t rely on this assurance of drought busting atmospheric rivers because of the way that the ingredients in the atmosphere have changed,” Gonzales said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If California’s water system doesn’t evolve to mitigate impacts from climate change, Gonzales says places like San Jose will continue to have water issues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State water officials seem to agree that the system has to change. \u003ca href=\"https://water.ca.gov/Executive-Bios-Director\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Karla Nemeth\u003c/a>, director of the California Department of Water Resources, says the state’s water system needs a major overhaul and Californians will need to save more water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re still working off past hydrology that was feeding a state that had fewer people,” she said. “All that needs to change, and it can change, if we get focused on how we adapt all of our modeling and operations to accommodate more climate extremes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1975995\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1975995\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50394_IMG_5815_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50394_IMG_5815_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50394_IMG_5815_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50394_IMG_5815_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50394_IMG_5815_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50394_IMG_5815_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/RS50394_IMG_5815_Science_EzraRomero_SanJose-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Adam Whyte, 18, spreads mulch around his front yard. The family lawn died in the last drought. \u003ccite>(Ezra David Romero/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What Drought Means For Residents\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For residents in the San Jose region, these water woes translate to mandatory 15% water restrictions. People are cutting back mostly on irrigation, like watering lawns, gardens and parks. Even though people are letting their lawns go, water leaders say that can be avoided.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Your lawn is still going to be nice, it just takes a little bit more time to be judicious about it, reprogramming your irrigation control to the right duration,” said John Tang, vice president of regulatory affairs for \u003ca href=\"https://www.sjwater.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">San Jose Water. \u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tang says people have learned to save water since the last drought in San Jose. Statewide, Californians use 16% less water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s certain homes around here that have really heeded the call for conservation,” he said. “People are ripping out lawns and putting in drought tolerant landscaping.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He says the 15% water reduction is mandatory, but the city is focusing on education and not enforcement. During the last drought, reduction grew to 30%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t have any water cops driving around giving people tickets,” he said. “We see it as more of a cooperative partnership.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In San Jose, brown lawns and drought-tolerant yards are becoming commonplace.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eighteen-year-old Adam Whyte’s family allowed their lawn to die during the last drought. “It was an eyesore compared to everybody else in the neighborhood who had all this perfectly nice grass,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year, his family is mulching the yard with bark from a neighbor. The high school senior is spending part of his summer break with a shovel in hand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re just gonna spread it out, put up some bricks, maybe a little border,” he said. “Clearly, if we want grass that’s just gonna up the water bill. We’re not doing that.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Climate Scientists Meet as Dangerous Fires, Floods, and Droughts Test the World",
"headTitle": "Climate Scientists Meet as Dangerous Fires, Floods, and Droughts Test the World | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>More than 200 of the world’s leading climate scientists will begin meeting today to finalize a \u003ca href=\"https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-working-group-i/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">landmark report\u003c/a> summarizing how Earth’s climate has already changed, and what humans can expect for the rest of the century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report is the sixth edition of an assessment of the latest climate science from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nations body that coordinates research about global warming. The last edition of this report \u003ca href=\"https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">came out in 2013\u003c/a> — an eternity in the world of climate science, where the pace of both warming and research are steadily accelerating.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The urgency of addressing global warming has never been more clear. The two-week virtual meeting of IPCC scientists coincides with a raft of deadly climate-driven disasters unfolding around the world, from flash floods in Europe, North America and Asia, to intense wildfires in Siberia, to widespread persistent heat waves and droughts that threaten to upend food supplies in the U.S., Middle East and much of Africa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new report will be a crucial document for world leaders. It represents the international scientific consensus about human-caused climate change. Governments rely on its predictions as they develop policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, manage forests and fisheries and decide how to protect their citizens from extreme weather. In November, world leaders will meet for the first time since 2019 to discuss promises to cut greenhouse gas emissions — promises that are still insufficient to prevent catastrophic warming this century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It takes years to put together the IPCC report. It has 12 chapters, covering everything from the heat-trapping properties of individual greenhouse gases to extreme weather events to the regional impacts of global warming. Over the next two weeks, the authors of the report will hash out the final draft.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here are three things to watch for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Climate Science Has Come a Long Way in the Last Decade\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new report will be the most comprehensive, detailed and accurate picture of the global climate ever released. The computer models that scientists use to predict how the climate will change in the future are a lot more advanced than they were a decade ago, when the last edition was published. And the data that feeds those models is also more robust, thanks to satellites, buoys and information about the historical climate gathered from \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/03/17/974774461/drawing-a-line-in-the-mud-scientists-debate-when-age-of-humans-began\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">rock, ice and mud\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Together, those advances allow scientists to say with more certainty how quickly the Earth is heating up, and how the extra heat being trapped by greenhouse gases will affect everything from sea levels and hurricanes to droughts and heat waves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For this report, scientists considered all the climate research published \u003ca href=\"https://www.ipcc.ch/2020/05/29/ipcc-extends-working-group-i-literature-cut-off-date-postpones-final-lead-author-meeting/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">before February 2021\u003c/a>. That’s thousands of studies about the Earth’s atmosphere, oceans, forests and weather patterns. The meeting that kicks off today will focus on how to phrase key takeaways, such as how quickly the Earth is barreling toward the 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) warming threshold set by the Paris climate agreement in order to avoid the most catastrophic effects of global warming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>There Are Five Future Scenarios that Scientists Imagine\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A critical goal of the forthcoming report is to help governments make decisions about how to address climate change. The report won’t tell governments what to do, but it is meant to help leaders understand the effects of different policies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, if humans stop burning coal immediately, it will dramatically reduce the rate of global warming. But what if humans stop burning coal in the next five years? Or ten years? Or what if solar panels get really cheap and population growth slows down? How does that affect climate change? The new IPCC report is meant to help answer such questions using a set of 5 hypothetical policy scenarios.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is the first time the IPCC has used these scenarios, which are essentially a collection of imaginary worlds in which countries pursue different sets of climate policies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, in one world countries work together to develop low-cost, low-carbon technologies and put them into use quickly for everyone. In another, some countries or groups of people transition very quickly to wind, solar and other clean energy sources while others move much more slowly. In a third imaginary world, nationalism surges around the world and governments focus on local energy and food security rather than global economic changes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://tntcat.iiasa.ac.at/SspDb/dsd?Action=htmlpage&page=about\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Each of the five scenarios\u003c/a> takes into account population growth, GDP and a host of other demographic, economic and technological possibilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under most of the scenarios, it’s still possible to keep global warming below the 2 degree Celsius threshold set by the Paris agreement, says Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at the University of California, Berkeley. In other words, there are many ways to address climate change, and the new report will help describe those options.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Biden administration has promised to \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/04/16/987667828/how-the-u-s-could-halve-climate-emissions-by-2030\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">cut U.S. emissions in half by 2030\u003c/a>, but has not released a specific plan for how to achieve that goal. A major infrastructure package that would invest in cleaner transportation and electricity is facing an uncertain future in Congress.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Report Will Include Regional Information for the First Time\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is the first time the IPCC will break down its global climate science findings by region. That’s a big deal because the climate is changing in different ways depending on where you live. For example, the Arctic is warming about \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/12/18/943219856/2020-may-be-the-hottest-year-on-record-heres-the-damage-it-did\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">twice as fast\u003c/a> as the rest of the Earth, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/02/16/968461863/encore-why-sea-level-rise-varies-across-the-world\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">sea levels\u003c/a> are rising much more quickly in some areas than in others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But many \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/12/11/782918005/meteorologists-cant-keep-up-with-climate-change-in-mozambique\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">countries don’t have the resources\u003c/a> to systematically study how the climate is changing in their region, or what to expect in the future. That leaves governments in the dark about the rate of local sea level rise, for example, or the likelihood of regional drought or extreme rain. Without localized information, it’s impossible to prioritize infrastructure and housing that’s built for the climate of the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The forthcoming IPCC report includes a chapter on regional climate change. The IPCC is also releasing an interactive, online regional dashboard that allows policymakers to choose their region and see current and future climate conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The U.S. government will not rely on the new regional data from the IPCC. The U.S. already has access to localized data through the \u003ca href=\"https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">National Climate Assessment\u003c/a>, which is produced by the federal government every few years. The next edition is scheduled to be published in 2023.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Climate+Scientists+Meet+As+Floods%2C+Fires%2C+Droughts+And+Heat+Waves+Batter+Countries&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>More than 200 of the world’s leading climate scientists will begin meeting today to finalize a \u003ca href=\"https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-working-group-i/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">landmark report\u003c/a> summarizing how Earth’s climate has already changed, and what humans can expect for the rest of the century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report is the sixth edition of an assessment of the latest climate science from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nations body that coordinates research about global warming. The last edition of this report \u003ca href=\"https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">came out in 2013\u003c/a> — an eternity in the world of climate science, where the pace of both warming and research are steadily accelerating.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The urgency of addressing global warming has never been more clear. The two-week virtual meeting of IPCC scientists coincides with a raft of deadly climate-driven disasters unfolding around the world, from flash floods in Europe, North America and Asia, to intense wildfires in Siberia, to widespread persistent heat waves and droughts that threaten to upend food supplies in the U.S., Middle East and much of Africa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new report will be a crucial document for world leaders. It represents the international scientific consensus about human-caused climate change. Governments rely on its predictions as they develop policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, manage forests and fisheries and decide how to protect their citizens from extreme weather. In November, world leaders will meet for the first time since 2019 to discuss promises to cut greenhouse gas emissions — promises that are still insufficient to prevent catastrophic warming this century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It takes years to put together the IPCC report. It has 12 chapters, covering everything from the heat-trapping properties of individual greenhouse gases to extreme weather events to the regional impacts of global warming. Over the next two weeks, the authors of the report will hash out the final draft.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here are three things to watch for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Climate Science Has Come a Long Way in the Last Decade\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new report will be the most comprehensive, detailed and accurate picture of the global climate ever released. The computer models that scientists use to predict how the climate will change in the future are a lot more advanced than they were a decade ago, when the last edition was published. And the data that feeds those models is also more robust, thanks to satellites, buoys and information about the historical climate gathered from \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/03/17/974774461/drawing-a-line-in-the-mud-scientists-debate-when-age-of-humans-began\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">rock, ice and mud\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Together, those advances allow scientists to say with more certainty how quickly the Earth is heating up, and how the extra heat being trapped by greenhouse gases will affect everything from sea levels and hurricanes to droughts and heat waves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For this report, scientists considered all the climate research published \u003ca href=\"https://www.ipcc.ch/2020/05/29/ipcc-extends-working-group-i-literature-cut-off-date-postpones-final-lead-author-meeting/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">before February 2021\u003c/a>. That’s thousands of studies about the Earth’s atmosphere, oceans, forests and weather patterns. The meeting that kicks off today will focus on how to phrase key takeaways, such as how quickly the Earth is barreling toward the 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) warming threshold set by the Paris climate agreement in order to avoid the most catastrophic effects of global warming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>There Are Five Future Scenarios that Scientists Imagine\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A critical goal of the forthcoming report is to help governments make decisions about how to address climate change. The report won’t tell governments what to do, but it is meant to help leaders understand the effects of different policies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, if humans stop burning coal immediately, it will dramatically reduce the rate of global warming. But what if humans stop burning coal in the next five years? Or ten years? Or what if solar panels get really cheap and population growth slows down? How does that affect climate change? The new IPCC report is meant to help answer such questions using a set of 5 hypothetical policy scenarios.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is the first time the IPCC has used these scenarios, which are essentially a collection of imaginary worlds in which countries pursue different sets of climate policies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, in one world countries work together to develop low-cost, low-carbon technologies and put them into use quickly for everyone. In another, some countries or groups of people transition very quickly to wind, solar and other clean energy sources while others move much more slowly. In a third imaginary world, nationalism surges around the world and governments focus on local energy and food security rather than global economic changes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://tntcat.iiasa.ac.at/SspDb/dsd?Action=htmlpage&page=about\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Each of the five scenarios\u003c/a> takes into account population growth, GDP and a host of other demographic, economic and technological possibilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under most of the scenarios, it’s still possible to keep global warming below the 2 degree Celsius threshold set by the Paris agreement, says Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at the University of California, Berkeley. In other words, there are many ways to address climate change, and the new report will help describe those options.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Biden administration has promised to \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/04/16/987667828/how-the-u-s-could-halve-climate-emissions-by-2030\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">cut U.S. emissions in half by 2030\u003c/a>, but has not released a specific plan for how to achieve that goal. A major infrastructure package that would invest in cleaner transportation and electricity is facing an uncertain future in Congress.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Report Will Include Regional Information for the First Time\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is the first time the IPCC will break down its global climate science findings by region. That’s a big deal because the climate is changing in different ways depending on where you live. For example, the Arctic is warming about \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/12/18/943219856/2020-may-be-the-hottest-year-on-record-heres-the-damage-it-did\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">twice as fast\u003c/a> as the rest of the Earth, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/02/16/968461863/encore-why-sea-level-rise-varies-across-the-world\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">sea levels\u003c/a> are rising much more quickly in some areas than in others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But many \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/12/11/782918005/meteorologists-cant-keep-up-with-climate-change-in-mozambique\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">countries don’t have the resources\u003c/a> to systematically study how the climate is changing in their region, or what to expect in the future. That leaves governments in the dark about the rate of local sea level rise, for example, or the likelihood of regional drought or extreme rain. Without localized information, it’s impossible to prioritize infrastructure and housing that’s built for the climate of the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The forthcoming IPCC report includes a chapter on regional climate change. The IPCC is also releasing an interactive, online regional dashboard that allows policymakers to choose their region and see current and future climate conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The U.S. government will not rely on the new regional data from the IPCC. The U.S. already has access to localized data through the \u003ca href=\"https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">National Climate Assessment\u003c/a>, which is produced by the federal government every few years. The next edition is scheduled to be published in 2023.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Climate+Scientists+Meet+As+Floods%2C+Fires%2C+Droughts+And+Heat+Waves+Batter+Countries&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "The Moon 'Wobble' Isn’t New. What's New is the Impact of Climate Change",
"headTitle": "The Moon ‘Wobble’ Isn’t New. What’s New is the Impact of Climate Change | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>So, about that moon wobble …\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last week, NASA published a \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01077-8\"> new study\u003c/a> in the journal Nature Climate Change that found rising sea levels plus higher tides caused by an oscillation in the moon’s orbit will dramatically increase the number of sunny day floods experienced in U.S. coastal communities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Bay Area is one of the most populous and flood-threatened shorelines of the entire West Coast. Places like San Francisco’s Embarcadero and the exit off Northbound Highway 101 toward Mill Valley already regularly flood during King Tides, along with communities like \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11871855/sea-levels-are-rising-in-the-bay-and-east-palo-alto-is-on-the-front-lines\">East Palo Alto\u003c/a> in the South Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NASA researchers say it could get a lot worse — and sooner than expected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The assessment we made for the tide gauge in San Francisco is that we’d see about a five time increase in the number of high-tide flood days,” said \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/bhamlington?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor\">Ben Hamlington\u003c/a>, who co-authored the study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With that in mind, he says the region’s current sea level rise adaptation plans may not go far enough, and might be moving too slowly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A regular oscillation in the lunar orbit — what researchers have dubbed a “moon wobble” — will temporarily suppress flooding from rising sea levels this decade, only to worsen across the Bay Area in the mid-2030s as the moon sways back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Carbon pollution is trapping heat and warming the planet, even as companies and governments continue to emit planet warming gases with little abatement. The wobble will do nothing to limit the melting of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, which is accelerating and being driven by these rising temperatures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fact that the moon wobbles is not a new discovery. Scientists have known about the lunar sways, which take 18.6 years to complete, for centuries. The first half of the pattern is marked in the U.S. by lower tides and the second — which the moon is currently in — by high tides.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/PeterGleick/status/1417663167409229827?s=20\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s nothing new or dangerous about the wobble; it was first reported in 1728,” NASA’s release \u003ca href=\"https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/study-projects-a-surge-in-coastal-flooding-starting-in-2030s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">said\u003c/a>. “What’s new is how one of the wobble’s effects on the moon’s gravitational pull — the main cause of Earth’s tides — will combine with rising sea levels resulting from the planet’s warming.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists worry that as the tides amplify in the next decade, cities around the Bay will see more flooding. The San Francisco Bay has risen by about eight inches since 1990, the Mercury News \u003ca href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/04/13/san-francisco-bay-protection-from-future-disasters-is-being-thrown-away-scientists-say/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reported\u003c/a>. But by the midcentury that could increase by up to \u003ca href=\"http://www.opc.ca.gov/webmaster/ftp/pdf/docs/rising-seas-in-california-an-update-on-sea-level-rise-science.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">1.9 feet, before accelerating even more towards the end of the century. \u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Phil Thompson, lead author of the study, said cities will likely experience accumulating impacts from what academics call nuisance flooding — water from high tides spilling on streets, into parking lots, parks, and neighborhoods, regularly disrupting life and business. “If it floods 10 or 15 times a month, a business can’t keep operating with its parking lot under water,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The real doozy, Hamlington says, is that a certain level of sea rise is already baked in, and will surge as the temperatures rise and oceans warm. San Francisco could see 31 additional flooding days per year on average during the 2030s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The team examined the impacts under low-medium and medium climate warming emissions scenarios. They forecast that flooding will be experienced at different moments across the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hamlington says natural drivers of flooding like El Niño could also make flooding worse, and the impact of sea level rise will be clearly evident in the next decade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A lot of those flooding days that you see now are going to be that much more severe,” he said. “We are going to see some abrupt transitions. I think it’s important for coastal planners to understand that, in a lot of cases, you need to start preparing now. Some of the adaptation strategies that are being discussed need to be put in place sooner rather than later.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "What researchers have dubbed a “moon wobble” will temporarily suppress Bay Area flooding from rising sea levels this decade, only to worsen in the mid-2030s. ",
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"title": "The Moon 'Wobble' Isn’t New. What's New is the Impact of Climate Change | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>So, about that moon wobble …\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last week, NASA published a \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01077-8\"> new study\u003c/a> in the journal Nature Climate Change that found rising sea levels plus higher tides caused by an oscillation in the moon’s orbit will dramatically increase the number of sunny day floods experienced in U.S. coastal communities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Bay Area is one of the most populous and flood-threatened shorelines of the entire West Coast. Places like San Francisco’s Embarcadero and the exit off Northbound Highway 101 toward Mill Valley already regularly flood during King Tides, along with communities like \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11871855/sea-levels-are-rising-in-the-bay-and-east-palo-alto-is-on-the-front-lines\">East Palo Alto\u003c/a> in the South Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NASA researchers say it could get a lot worse — and sooner than expected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The assessment we made for the tide gauge in San Francisco is that we’d see about a five time increase in the number of high-tide flood days,” said \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/bhamlington?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor\">Ben Hamlington\u003c/a>, who co-authored the study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With that in mind, he says the region’s current sea level rise adaptation plans may not go far enough, and might be moving too slowly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A regular oscillation in the lunar orbit — what researchers have dubbed a “moon wobble” — will temporarily suppress flooding from rising sea levels this decade, only to worsen across the Bay Area in the mid-2030s as the moon sways back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Carbon pollution is trapping heat and warming the planet, even as companies and governments continue to emit planet warming gases with little abatement. The wobble will do nothing to limit the melting of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, which is accelerating and being driven by these rising temperatures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fact that the moon wobbles is not a new discovery. Scientists have known about the lunar sways, which take 18.6 years to complete, for centuries. The first half of the pattern is marked in the U.S. by lower tides and the second — which the moon is currently in — by high tides.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>“There’s nothing new or dangerous about the wobble; it was first reported in 1728,” NASA’s release \u003ca href=\"https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/study-projects-a-surge-in-coastal-flooding-starting-in-2030s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">said\u003c/a>. “What’s new is how one of the wobble’s effects on the moon’s gravitational pull — the main cause of Earth’s tides — will combine with rising sea levels resulting from the planet’s warming.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists worry that as the tides amplify in the next decade, cities around the Bay will see more flooding. The San Francisco Bay has risen by about eight inches since 1990, the Mercury News \u003ca href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/04/13/san-francisco-bay-protection-from-future-disasters-is-being-thrown-away-scientists-say/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reported\u003c/a>. But by the midcentury that could increase by up to \u003ca href=\"http://www.opc.ca.gov/webmaster/ftp/pdf/docs/rising-seas-in-california-an-update-on-sea-level-rise-science.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">1.9 feet, before accelerating even more towards the end of the century. \u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Phil Thompson, lead author of the study, said cities will likely experience accumulating impacts from what academics call nuisance flooding — water from high tides spilling on streets, into parking lots, parks, and neighborhoods, regularly disrupting life and business. “If it floods 10 or 15 times a month, a business can’t keep operating with its parking lot under water,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The real doozy, Hamlington says, is that a certain level of sea rise is already baked in, and will surge as the temperatures rise and oceans warm. San Francisco could see 31 additional flooding days per year on average during the 2030s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The team examined the impacts under low-medium and medium climate warming emissions scenarios. They forecast that flooding will be experienced at different moments across the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hamlington says natural drivers of flooding like El Niño could also make flooding worse, and the impact of sea level rise will be clearly evident in the next decade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A lot of those flooding days that you see now are going to be that much more severe,” he said. “We are going to see some abrupt transitions. I think it’s important for coastal planners to understand that, in a lot of cases, you need to start preparing now. Some of the adaptation strategies that are being discussed need to be put in place sooner rather than later.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Are There Lakes Hiding on Mars? Echoes From the Deep Raise This Tantalizing Question",
"headTitle": "Are There Lakes Hiding on Mars? Echoes From the Deep Raise This Tantalizing Question | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>In 2018, a highly sophisticated instrument probing the surface of Mars called \u003ca href=\"https://science.jpl.nasa.gov/projects/MARSIS/\">MARSIS\u003c/a> (Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding) detected radar echoes from an area deep beneath the dry, frigid surface of the planet’s southern polar region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A group of researchers analyzing that data from the European \u003ca href=\"https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Mars_Express\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003ci>Mars Express\u003c/i>\u003c/a> spacecraft were excited by a tempting possibility: the radar pings could have reflected off a lake of liquid water laying hidden below the surface of the planet, a protected underworld.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1975872\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1975872\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/MarsExpress_Auto98-esa-800x647.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"647\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/MarsExpress_Auto98-esa-800x647.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/MarsExpress_Auto98-esa-1020x825.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/MarsExpress_Auto98-esa-160x129.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/MarsExpress_Auto98-esa-768x621.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/MarsExpress_Auto98-esa-1536x1243.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/MarsExpress_Auto98-esa.jpg 1749w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Illustration of ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft, in orbit around Mars. \u003ccite>(ESA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Later, the researchers identified several more similar reflections nearby. And just last month, two scientists from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory \u003ca href=\"https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/study-looks-more-closely-at-mars-underground-water-signals\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> reported finding \u003c/a> dozens of the unusual formations, deepening the mystery further.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The JPL scientists, examining 15 years of MARSIS observations, found the lake-like, radar-reflecting bodies were actually spread across an area much broader than suggested by the original findings from back in 2018, and at greater range of depths below the planet’s surface. The \u003ca href=\"https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/25997/subsurface-lakes-or-something-else/\">region surrounds Mars’ South Pole.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1975869\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1975869\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/25997_bright-radar-reflections-web-ESA-NASA-JPL-Caltech-800x928.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"928\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/25997_bright-radar-reflections-web-ESA-NASA-JPL-Caltech-800x928.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/25997_bright-radar-reflections-web-ESA-NASA-JPL-Caltech-1020x1183.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/25997_bright-radar-reflections-web-ESA-NASA-JPL-Caltech-160x186.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/25997_bright-radar-reflections-web-ESA-NASA-JPL-Caltech-768x891.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/25997_bright-radar-reflections-web-ESA-NASA-JPL-Caltech.jpg 1155w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Map of Mars’ southern polar region showing the spots where the ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft detected strong radar echoes, initially interpreted as caused by underground lakes. \u003ccite>(ESA/NASA/JPL-Caltech)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>All of this research raises a tantalizing question: Are there lakes hiding on Mars?\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Ghost Lakes, or Something Else?\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>If the MARSIS radar reflections are caused by pools of actual, liquid water, researchers will have found another place in the solar system with the potential to harbor a life-friendly environment; a possible gold mine for astrobiologists searching for life beyond Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, there’s reason to be skeptical.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of the so-called lakes are within a mile of Mars’ polar surface, where temperatures, as low as -63 degrees Celsius, should freeze water solid. Even briney water with a colder freezing point has little chance of remaining liquid under these frigid conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Could heat flowing outward from \u003ca href=\"https://www.seis-insight.eu/en/public-2/martian-science/internal-models-of-mars\"> deep within Mars\u003c/a> keep temperatures near the planet’s surface warm enough to thaw ice? Might there be active \u003ca href=\"https://airandspace.si.edu/exhibitions/exploring-the-planets/online/solar-system/mars/surface/volcanoes/\">volcanism\u003c/a> going on down there?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maybe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers have considered these possibilities, but find them unlikely. The flow of heat from Mars’ interior would need to be double what scientists understand the planet’s internal thermal dynamics are capable of.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And they haven’t identified any strong evidence of current or recent volcanic activity at the South Pole, which throws a brick of frozen ice on that idea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, lakes? Yes or no? At this time, the answer is not certain one way or the other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The dozens of mysterious radar reflections spread around Mars’ South Pole are like a swarm of ghosts: we have sensed their presence, but so far their true nature eludes explanation.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Clues to Mars’ Past?\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Whatever the unusual radar reflections detected by MARSIS turn out to be, their discovery and further investigation may yield more clues to secrets of Mars’ past.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1975871\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1975871\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/mars-south-pole-layers-800x433.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"433\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/mars-south-pole-layers-800x433.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/mars-south-pole-layers-1020x552.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/mars-south-pole-layers-160x87.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/mars-south-pole-layers-768x416.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/mars-south-pole-layers-1536x832.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/mars-south-pole-layers-1920x1039.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/mars-south-pole-layers.jpg 1995w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An illustration of the ice cap at Mars’ South Pole. Layers of water, ice, frozen carbon dioxide, and dust built up over a billion years. \u003ccite>(ESA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Scientists are interested in what Mars’ southern polar region can tell us about the planet’s climate history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the last billion or so years, Mars’ climate shifted between warmer, wetter conditions and cold, dry spells. Layer upon layer of water-ice, frozen carbon dioxide, and dust have built up to form a \u003ca href=\"https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Mars_Express/Water_at_Martian_south_pole\">vast ice cap\u003c/a>. By studying the layers, scientists can learn about the planet’s past, similar to how paleoclimatologists on Earth track ancient climate by studying the growth rings of trees or the surface of granite boulders embedded in glacial moraines.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>The Hunt For Water on Mars\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Mars exploration is all about the search for liquid water, and the possibly life-friendly environments it could nurture. Scientists are thirsty to find Martian water, wherever and whenever it may have existed: flowing down crater walls in seasonal bursts; underground, away from the dry, frigid conditions on the planet’s surface; or deep in Mars’ distant past.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That Mars long ago possessed copious amounts of liquid surface water is an almost indisputable fact, based on many observations and measurements by orbital spacecraft, landers and rovers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1975867\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1975867\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/25695_PIA24485_K4_ZCAM_main_sol004_Delta_Remnant_unannotated-NASA-JPL-Caltech-ASU-MSSS-800x583.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"583\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/25695_PIA24485_K4_ZCAM_main_sol004_Delta_Remnant_unannotated-NASA-JPL-Caltech-ASU-MSSS-800x583.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/25695_PIA24485_K4_ZCAM_main_sol004_Delta_Remnant_unannotated-NASA-JPL-Caltech-ASU-MSSS-1020x743.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/25695_PIA24485_K4_ZCAM_main_sol004_Delta_Remnant_unannotated-NASA-JPL-Caltech-ASU-MSSS-160x117.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/25695_PIA24485_K4_ZCAM_main_sol004_Delta_Remnant_unannotated-NASA-JPL-Caltech-ASU-MSSS-768x559.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/25695_PIA24485_K4_ZCAM_main_sol004_Delta_Remnant_unannotated-NASA-JPL-Caltech-ASU-MSSS-1536x1118.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/25695_PIA24485_K4_ZCAM_main_sol004_Delta_Remnant_unannotated-NASA-JPL-Caltech-ASU-MSSS.jpg 1648w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An image captured by NASA’s Perseverance rover of a tall mound of sediment on the floor of Jezero Crater on Mars. The sediment is believed to have been deposited by a river flowing into the crater when it was filled with water, long ago. \u003ccite>(NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASUMSSS)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/home/\">Curiosity rover\u003c/a> is currently crawling up the slope of a mountain in a 90-mile wide crater that once held a vast lake. The newer \u003ca href=\"https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/\">Perseverance \u003c/a>robot is prospecting the dry lakebed of Jezero Crater, as well as a complex of sediments deposited by a river that once flowed into it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both rovers are probing mineral and geological clues left behind by water now long dried up, piecing together a window into Mars’ past environment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But can the life-giving liquid be found anywhere on Mars today?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Only further exploration can answer this.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>In 2018, a highly sophisticated instrument probing the surface of Mars called \u003ca href=\"https://science.jpl.nasa.gov/projects/MARSIS/\">MARSIS\u003c/a> (Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding) detected radar echoes from an area deep beneath the dry, frigid surface of the planet’s southern polar region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A group of researchers analyzing that data from the European \u003ca href=\"https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Mars_Express\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003ci>Mars Express\u003c/i>\u003c/a> spacecraft were excited by a tempting possibility: the radar pings could have reflected off a lake of liquid water laying hidden below the surface of the planet, a protected underworld.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1975872\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1975872\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/MarsExpress_Auto98-esa-800x647.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"647\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/MarsExpress_Auto98-esa-800x647.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/MarsExpress_Auto98-esa-1020x825.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/MarsExpress_Auto98-esa-160x129.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/MarsExpress_Auto98-esa-768x621.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/MarsExpress_Auto98-esa-1536x1243.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/MarsExpress_Auto98-esa.jpg 1749w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Illustration of ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft, in orbit around Mars. \u003ccite>(ESA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Later, the researchers identified several more similar reflections nearby. And just last month, two scientists from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory \u003ca href=\"https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/study-looks-more-closely-at-mars-underground-water-signals\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> reported finding \u003c/a> dozens of the unusual formations, deepening the mystery further.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The JPL scientists, examining 15 years of MARSIS observations, found the lake-like, radar-reflecting bodies were actually spread across an area much broader than suggested by the original findings from back in 2018, and at greater range of depths below the planet’s surface. The \u003ca href=\"https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/25997/subsurface-lakes-or-something-else/\">region surrounds Mars’ South Pole.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1975869\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1975869\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/25997_bright-radar-reflections-web-ESA-NASA-JPL-Caltech-800x928.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"928\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/25997_bright-radar-reflections-web-ESA-NASA-JPL-Caltech-800x928.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/25997_bright-radar-reflections-web-ESA-NASA-JPL-Caltech-1020x1183.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/25997_bright-radar-reflections-web-ESA-NASA-JPL-Caltech-160x186.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/25997_bright-radar-reflections-web-ESA-NASA-JPL-Caltech-768x891.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/25997_bright-radar-reflections-web-ESA-NASA-JPL-Caltech.jpg 1155w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Map of Mars’ southern polar region showing the spots where the ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft detected strong radar echoes, initially interpreted as caused by underground lakes. \u003ccite>(ESA/NASA/JPL-Caltech)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>All of this research raises a tantalizing question: Are there lakes hiding on Mars?\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Ghost Lakes, or Something Else?\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>If the MARSIS radar reflections are caused by pools of actual, liquid water, researchers will have found another place in the solar system with the potential to harbor a life-friendly environment; a possible gold mine for astrobiologists searching for life beyond Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, there’s reason to be skeptical.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of the so-called lakes are within a mile of Mars’ polar surface, where temperatures, as low as -63 degrees Celsius, should freeze water solid. Even briney water with a colder freezing point has little chance of remaining liquid under these frigid conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Could heat flowing outward from \u003ca href=\"https://www.seis-insight.eu/en/public-2/martian-science/internal-models-of-mars\"> deep within Mars\u003c/a> keep temperatures near the planet’s surface warm enough to thaw ice? Might there be active \u003ca href=\"https://airandspace.si.edu/exhibitions/exploring-the-planets/online/solar-system/mars/surface/volcanoes/\">volcanism\u003c/a> going on down there?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maybe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers have considered these possibilities, but find them unlikely. The flow of heat from Mars’ interior would need to be double what scientists understand the planet’s internal thermal dynamics are capable of.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And they haven’t identified any strong evidence of current or recent volcanic activity at the South Pole, which throws a brick of frozen ice on that idea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, lakes? Yes or no? At this time, the answer is not certain one way or the other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The dozens of mysterious radar reflections spread around Mars’ South Pole are like a swarm of ghosts: we have sensed their presence, but so far their true nature eludes explanation.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Clues to Mars’ Past?\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Whatever the unusual radar reflections detected by MARSIS turn out to be, their discovery and further investigation may yield more clues to secrets of Mars’ past.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1975871\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1975871\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/mars-south-pole-layers-800x433.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"433\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/mars-south-pole-layers-800x433.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/mars-south-pole-layers-1020x552.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/mars-south-pole-layers-160x87.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/mars-south-pole-layers-768x416.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/mars-south-pole-layers-1536x832.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/mars-south-pole-layers-1920x1039.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/mars-south-pole-layers.jpg 1995w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An illustration of the ice cap at Mars’ South Pole. Layers of water, ice, frozen carbon dioxide, and dust built up over a billion years. \u003ccite>(ESA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Scientists are interested in what Mars’ southern polar region can tell us about the planet’s climate history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the last billion or so years, Mars’ climate shifted between warmer, wetter conditions and cold, dry spells. Layer upon layer of water-ice, frozen carbon dioxide, and dust have built up to form a \u003ca href=\"https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Mars_Express/Water_at_Martian_south_pole\">vast ice cap\u003c/a>. By studying the layers, scientists can learn about the planet’s past, similar to how paleoclimatologists on Earth track ancient climate by studying the growth rings of trees or the surface of granite boulders embedded in glacial moraines.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>The Hunt For Water on Mars\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Mars exploration is all about the search for liquid water, and the possibly life-friendly environments it could nurture. Scientists are thirsty to find Martian water, wherever and whenever it may have existed: flowing down crater walls in seasonal bursts; underground, away from the dry, frigid conditions on the planet’s surface; or deep in Mars’ distant past.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That Mars long ago possessed copious amounts of liquid surface water is an almost indisputable fact, based on many observations and measurements by orbital spacecraft, landers and rovers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1975867\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1975867\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/25695_PIA24485_K4_ZCAM_main_sol004_Delta_Remnant_unannotated-NASA-JPL-Caltech-ASU-MSSS-800x583.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"583\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/25695_PIA24485_K4_ZCAM_main_sol004_Delta_Remnant_unannotated-NASA-JPL-Caltech-ASU-MSSS-800x583.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/25695_PIA24485_K4_ZCAM_main_sol004_Delta_Remnant_unannotated-NASA-JPL-Caltech-ASU-MSSS-1020x743.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/25695_PIA24485_K4_ZCAM_main_sol004_Delta_Remnant_unannotated-NASA-JPL-Caltech-ASU-MSSS-160x117.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/25695_PIA24485_K4_ZCAM_main_sol004_Delta_Remnant_unannotated-NASA-JPL-Caltech-ASU-MSSS-768x559.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/25695_PIA24485_K4_ZCAM_main_sol004_Delta_Remnant_unannotated-NASA-JPL-Caltech-ASU-MSSS-1536x1118.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/25695_PIA24485_K4_ZCAM_main_sol004_Delta_Remnant_unannotated-NASA-JPL-Caltech-ASU-MSSS.jpg 1648w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An image captured by NASA’s Perseverance rover of a tall mound of sediment on the floor of Jezero Crater on Mars. The sediment is believed to have been deposited by a river flowing into the crater when it was filled with water, long ago. \u003ccite>(NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASUMSSS)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/home/\">Curiosity rover\u003c/a> is currently crawling up the slope of a mountain in a 90-mile wide crater that once held a vast lake. The newer \u003ca href=\"https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/\">Perseverance \u003c/a>robot is prospecting the dry lakebed of Jezero Crater, as well as a complex of sediments deposited by a river that once flowed into it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both rovers are probing mineral and geological clues left behind by water now long dried up, piecing together a window into Mars’ past environment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But can the life-giving liquid be found anywhere on Mars today?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Only further exploration can answer this.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Life expectancy in the United States declined by a year and a half in 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which says the coronavirus is largely to blame.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>COVID-19 contributed to 74% of the\u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsrr/vsrr015-508.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> decline in life expectancy from 78.8 years in 2019 to 77.3 years in 2020\u003c/a>, according to the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was the largest one-year decline since World War II, when life expectancy dropped by 2.9 years between 1942 and 1943. Hispanic and Black communities saw the biggest declines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For African Americans, life expectancy dropped by 2.9 years from 74.7 years in 2019 to 71.8 in 2020.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>U.S. Hispanics — who have a longer life expectancy than non-Hispanic Blacks or whites saw the largest decline in life expectancy during the pandemic, dropping three years from 81.8 years in 2019 to 78.8 years in 2020. Hispanic males saw the biggest decline, with a drop of 3.7 years. COVID-19 was responsible for 90% of the decline among Hispanics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The increase in drug overdose deaths was also a factor in declining life expectancy. \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/07/14/1016029270/drug-overdoses-killed-a-record-number-of-americans-in-2020-jumping-by-nearly-30\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">More than 93,000 people died from drug overdoses in 2020\u003c/a>. That’s the highest number reported in a single year. Other causes of death contributing to the decline were increases in homicide and deaths from diabetes and chronic liver disease.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just last month a study published in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.bmj.com/content/373/bmj.n1343\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>British Medical Journal\u003c/em>\u003c/a> looked at life expectancy data for the U.S. and compared it with life expectancy data from 16 other high-income countries. The study found the U.S. decrease in life expectancy from 2018 to 2020 was 8.5 times greater than the average decrease in peer countries. And the U.S. declines were most pronounced among minority groups, specifically Black and Hispanic people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Study author \u003ca href=\"https://medschool.vcu.edu/expertise/detail.html?ID=831\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Steven Woolf of the Virginia Commonwealth University\u003c/a> School of Medicine, told NPR’s Allison Aubrey, “We have not seen a decrease like this since World War II. It’s a horrific decrease in life expectancy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is impossible to look at these findings and not see a reflection of the systemic racism in the U.S.,”\u003ca href=\"https://populationhealth.duke.edu/people/lesley-curtis-phd\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> Lesley Curtis, chair of the Department of Population Health Sciences\u003c/a> at Duke University School of Medicine, told NPR.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The range of factors that play into this include income inequality, the social safety net, as well as racial inequality and access to health care,” Curtis said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=U.S.+Life+Expectancy+Fell+By+1.5+Years+In+2020%2C+The+Biggest+Drop+Since+WWII+&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Life expectancy in the United States declined by a year and a half in 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which says the coronavirus is largely to blame.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>COVID-19 contributed to 74% of the\u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsrr/vsrr015-508.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> decline in life expectancy from 78.8 years in 2019 to 77.3 years in 2020\u003c/a>, according to the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was the largest one-year decline since World War II, when life expectancy dropped by 2.9 years between 1942 and 1943. Hispanic and Black communities saw the biggest declines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For African Americans, life expectancy dropped by 2.9 years from 74.7 years in 2019 to 71.8 in 2020.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>U.S. Hispanics — who have a longer life expectancy than non-Hispanic Blacks or whites saw the largest decline in life expectancy during the pandemic, dropping three years from 81.8 years in 2019 to 78.8 years in 2020. Hispanic males saw the biggest decline, with a drop of 3.7 years. COVID-19 was responsible for 90% of the decline among Hispanics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The increase in drug overdose deaths was also a factor in declining life expectancy. \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/07/14/1016029270/drug-overdoses-killed-a-record-number-of-americans-in-2020-jumping-by-nearly-30\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">More than 93,000 people died from drug overdoses in 2020\u003c/a>. That’s the highest number reported in a single year. Other causes of death contributing to the decline were increases in homicide and deaths from diabetes and chronic liver disease.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just last month a study published in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.bmj.com/content/373/bmj.n1343\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>British Medical Journal\u003c/em>\u003c/a> looked at life expectancy data for the U.S. and compared it with life expectancy data from 16 other high-income countries. The study found the U.S. decrease in life expectancy from 2018 to 2020 was 8.5 times greater than the average decrease in peer countries. And the U.S. declines were most pronounced among minority groups, specifically Black and Hispanic people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Study author \u003ca href=\"https://medschool.vcu.edu/expertise/detail.html?ID=831\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Steven Woolf of the Virginia Commonwealth University\u003c/a> School of Medicine, told NPR’s Allison Aubrey, “We have not seen a decrease like this since World War II. It’s a horrific decrease in life expectancy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is impossible to look at these findings and not see a reflection of the systemic racism in the U.S.,”\u003ca href=\"https://populationhealth.duke.edu/people/lesley-curtis-phd\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> Lesley Curtis, chair of the Department of Population Health Sciences\u003c/a> at Duke University School of Medicine, told NPR.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The range of factors that play into this include income inequality, the social safety net, as well as racial inequality and access to health care,” Curtis said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=U.S.+Life+Expectancy+Fell+By+1.5+Years+In+2020%2C+The+Biggest+Drop+Since+WWII+&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Unpaid Utility Bills? California Will Pay Off $2 Billion to Avoid Shutoffs",
"headTitle": "Unpaid Utility Bills? California Will Pay Off $2 Billion to Avoid Shutoffs | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Two years ago the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power shut off electricity at Will Hollman’s home in the San Fernando Valley, forcing the family to rely on a gasoline generator. In late June of this year, the department disconnected the water, too — despite a \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/4.2.20-EO-N-42-20.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">statewide moratorium on water shutoffs\u003c/a> that Gov. Gavin Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/6.11.21-EO-N-08-21-signed.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">recently extended through Sept. 30\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hollman, his 10-year-old son and his 16-year-old stepdaughter endured 11 days of temperatures in the high 90s to low 100s without water or power. For 11 days, they camped out in air-conditioned grocery stores, Starbucks or his truck. They couchsurfed and used friends’ showers. Hollman played it off with the kids as some kind of fun obstacle course.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He called the department’s customer service, and said a representative told him that he must pay off his utility debt of $9,064.13 — largely consisting of charges that Hollman disputes as erroneous — before water or power could be restored.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been demoralizing, humiliating,” Hollman said on the eighth day. “I have a history of paying my bills, working, being a good provider. You… start having feelings of failure as a parent.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ultimately the state’s water agency convinced the LA department to turn on Hollman’s water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those 11 days without water or power are a window into what could happen to millions of Californians in the coming months and years, depending on how swiftly and effectively the state distributes relief.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Official estimates of unpaid water and energy bills accumulated during the pandemic verge on $2.7 billion, affecting a few million Californians — and \u003ca href=\"https://youtu.be/SozYyHYaDUI?t=2096\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">those figures have been growing\u003c/a> rapidly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state has so far prioritized rent relief — keeping people housed — over utilities relief. A spokesperson for the state’s COVID-19 Rent Relief program said that of the $158 million distributed as of July 16, less than $40,000 had gone to utilities relief. Utility debt makes up about 6% of all assistance requested so far.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On July 11, lawmakers revealed a plan to use one-time federal relief money to address the debt. The deal is a patchwork of new programs to forgive $2 billion of utilities debt and old programs to help households chip away at the rest, with a wide range of eligibility criteria and timelines. But it doesn’t extend current shutoff moratoria past Sept. 30.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re laser-focused on getting this assistance out the door as quickly as possible,” Newsom said in a statement about ongoing rent relief and the utilities relief plan. He has signed the \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2021/07/16/governor-newsom-signs-state-budget-legislation-7-16-21/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">energy bills relief into law\u003c/a>, while the water bills relief still awaits his signature.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This will be an important “reboot” to protect Californians and utility companies, said Ellen Hanak, director of the Water Policy Center at the Public Policy Institute of California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You don’t want people to be shut off from basic services,” Hanak said, “But it’s also a hit to the entire community if utilities aren’t able to balance their books, because that can have all sorts of ripple effects on the abilities of water and electrical systems to run well.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When it comes to forgiving California’s utility debt, key questions remain:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Will $2 billion be nearly enough?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Can the money be distributed quickly enough to prevent shutoffs?\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>“For public health and safety, it’s important for people to have roofs over their heads, clean water and power. Those are all pieces of the puzzle,” Hanak said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp id=\"h-a-catch-22-at-la-s-utilities-department\">\u003cstrong>A Catch-22 at \u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>LA’s Utilities Department?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hollman’s utilities troubles began well before the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After opening an account in 2017, he began receiving unusually high electricity charges topping $1,000 — even during months when no one was living in the house because he was staying with his parents — which Hollman attributes to billing errors by the LA utility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under financial stress following a messy separation, Hollman said he let the bills pile up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By early 2019, his unpaid balance had mounted to nearly $9,000. He applied for $2,000 of assistance from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services to keep service on. But the water agency insisted on full payment of his bill, according to correspondence from his social worker reviewed by CalMatters. In March of 2019, the department shut off his power due to non-payment. He bought a generator.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Following the power shutoff, the electricity charges continued, labeled as “unmetered estimated consumption” in bills reviewed by CalMatters, meaning the utility generated them without checking Hollman’s meter. In December 2019, a customer service representative credited his account with several thousand dollars, but, according to Hollman, told him that the department couldn’t stop the continuing energy charges or issue more credits until a technician read his meter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Which required that the power be turned back on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Which couldn’t happen until he paid off the debt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Hollman tells it, he was caught in a Catch-22.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In April 2020, amid the first pandemic surge, the LA utilities department closed Hollman’s account with an unpaid balance of $9,064.13, meaning that he couldn’t open a new account until he paid off the debt, which could affect his credit score or be taken to small claims court. But, Hollman said, a representative promised that water would stay on while the pandemic lasted. For over a year, it did — until a technician arrived unannounced in late June.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The LA utilities department tells a somewhat different story. In a statement, a department spokesperson said that it had disconnected Hollman’s water in October 2017 and power in March 2019 because Hollman had made no payments since opening his account in March 2017. The spokesperson said the department turned off his water twice more after detecting unauthorized use, in April 2019 and again this past June, when it “came to light to LADWP… that water service had illegally been turned back on.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While declining to comment on the high “unmetered estimated consumption” charges or Hollman’s apparent Catch-22, the spokesperson said the department restored water service in early July “in an attempt to work out a payment plan… for the water and power that was consumed since 2017.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hollman disputes that he illegally reconnected the water, saying it never stopped flowing and that he never received notices it would be shut off. He said that a water department representative told him last week that he had to pay a third of his outstanding bill — money that he said he doesn’t have — before he can qualify for a payment plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp id=\"h-mounting-debt-and-shutoffs-despite-protections\">\u003cstrong>Mounting Debt, and Shutoffs Despite Protections\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hollman is not alone. Despite shutoff protections, the California State Water Resources Control Board has received 308 \u003ca href=\"https://watershut-off.covid19.ca.gov/#:~:text=State%20of%20California%20COVID%2D19%20Water%20Shutoff%20Report&text=If%20you%20require%20translation%20assistance,submitting%20a%20water%20shutoff%20report.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reports of water disconnections during the pandemic\u003c/a>. No agency tracks power shutoffs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A spokesperson said the state water board got water restored in each case, including for Hollman.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In February, the state water board estimated that \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2021/01/water-debt-california-households-face-water-shutoffs/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">1.6 million households were late on water bills that totaled over $1 billion across California\u003c/a>, and were growing quickly. The California Municipal Utilities Association estimated \u003ca href=\"https://higherlogicdownload.s3.amazonaws.com/CSDA/b24702e8-8a42-4614-8c45-bc3cba37ea2c/UploadedImages/Advocate/Take_Action/covid19_utility_debt_assistance_coalition_letter.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">unpaid energy bills at publicly owned utilities topped $300 million\u003c/a>, while close to 4 million customers of investor-owned utilities were behind on energy bills, totaling $1.4 billion, as of late June, according to a California Public Utilities Commission spokesperson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many people don’t know that they are still protected from shutoffs. Some no longer are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the state reopened in mid-June, Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/6.11.21-EO-N-08-21-signed.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">quietly extended the moratorium on water shutoffs to Sept. 30.\u003c/a> One water system has already said \u003ca href=\"https://www.padredam.org/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=231\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">that it will resume shutoffs the next day.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The California Public Utilities Commission \u003ca href=\"https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Published/G000/M389/K401/389401945.PDF\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">also extended the power shutoff moratorium to Sept. 30\u003c/a>, days before it was set to expire on June 30. But that only applies to customers of investor-owned utilities, leaving the quarter of Californians served by publicly owned utilities vulnerable, said Mad Stano, an energy equity attorney at the Greenlining Institute, a racial justice nonprofit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LA’s water department is the largest publicly owned utility in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11747148/map-public-power-providers-in-california\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the United States\u003c/a>. During the pandemic, customers’ unpaid bills there increased more than 10-fold, from $37 million accrued during 2019 to $400 million accrued during the first eight months of the pandemic, according to a state Water Board report. \u003ca href=\"https://clkrep.lacity.org/onlinedocs/2021/21-0540_misc_05-19-21.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">More than one in five customers behind on bills had debt over $1,000\u003c/a>. The department has voluntarily chosen to extend its own moratorium on shutoffs for nonpayment, according to a spokesperson, but has not yet announced an end date. It has also not publicized that decision.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2021/01/water-debt-california-households-face-water-shutoffs/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Deborah Bell-Holt\u003c/a> didn’t know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1975857\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 683px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1975857\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/01212021_WaterDebt_SH_03-scaled-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"683\" height=\"1024\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/01212021_WaterDebt_SH_03-scaled-1.jpg 683w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/01212021_WaterDebt_SH_03-scaled-1-160x240.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 683px) 100vw, 683px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Deborah Bell-Holt sits in front of her house in Jefferson Park near Downtown Los Angeles on Jan. 21, 2021, holding her water and power bill. \u003ccite>(Shae Hammond/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Her utilities bill ballooned to $19,308.45 during the pandemic as her South Los Angeles household grew to include 12 children, grandchildren and friends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bell-Holt assumed that disconnections would start June 30, when evictions were set to begin had lawmakers not made \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/2021/06/california-eviction-moratorium-deal/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a last-minute deal.\u003c/a> She scrambled to send the department $500 in late May and $200 on June 25th, hoping a few payments would stave off shutoffs. To afford that, she said she took out a $500 loan with 347% interest, which she’s still paying back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bell-Holt said that if she’d known she wasn’t at risk on June 30, “I wouldn’t put us in a hole like that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state and utilities haven’t done enough to inform Californians about protections, Stano contends. “The state needs to require… communications to people so they don’t make financial decisions that they don’t have to make,” they said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp id=\"h-living-without-water-or-power\">\u003cstrong>Living Without Water or Power\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Hollman’s third day this summer without water or power, it hit 100 degrees outside. Inside the house was even hotter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hollman and his kids are used to life without air conditioning in one of California’s hottest regions. Their generator — which requires $10 of fuel per day, on average — only powers the lights, electronics and refrigerator. Normally, Hollman might cool the house by hosing down the roof and outdoor plants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, the family lingered at McDonald’s. “It becomes very difficult to keep your spirit up, but you have to for your kids,” Hollman said. “You can’t crack.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the fifth day, his son thanked Hollman for the best day ever, after the two spent the afternoon cutting through the heat on skateboards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the ninth morning, Hollman ran out of generator fuel. He reminded his kids not to open the refrigerator, so the food wouldn’t spoil. He knew his car’s radiator was low, but he was out of coolant and bottled water. He crossed his fingers that the old truck wouldn’t overheat on the way to the gas station. It did.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a dance that people shouldn’t have to f—ing do,” Hollman said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1975859\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1975859\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/07172021_Hollman_PU_Sized_03-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/07172021_Hollman_PU_Sized_03-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/07172021_Hollman_PU_Sized_03-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/07172021_Hollman_PU_Sized_03-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/07172021_Hollman_PU_Sized_03-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/07172021_Hollman_PU_Sized_03.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Will Hollman’s day typically begins by filling this container with gas for the generator he’s relied on since electricity was shut off to his San Fernando Valley home. \u003ccite>(Pablo Unzueta/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp id=\"h-relief-on-the-way-for-california-utility-bills\">\u003cstrong>Relief On the Way\u003c/strong> \u003cstrong>for California Utility Bills\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Theoretically, lawmakers’ new deal could prevent more people from that dance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In May, \u003ca href=\"http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/FullBudgetSummary.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Newsom proposed $2 billion to relieve utilities debt\u003c/a>. Legislators agreed to the price tag in June, but continued negotiating the distribution plan in private.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/newsletters/whatmatters/2021/07/california-budget-legislature/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The result is two budget bills\u003c/a> that would create new programs that pay utilities directly to forgive customer debt accrued during the pandemic, prioritizing those at greatest risk of shutoffs. The \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB135\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">California Arrearage Payment Program\u003c/a> would forgive $994 million in energy debt, while the \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB148\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">California Water and Wastewater Arrearage Payment Program\u003c/a> would forgive \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB129\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">$985 million\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In both cases, utilities must opt in. They must also offer all customers with pandemic debt a payment plan that would protect them from shutoffs as long as they enroll and stay current on the plan. Plus, the first forbids energy utilities from disconnecting power to a customer for 90 days after applying forgiveness to their account. Neither bill extends the shutoff moratoria, though the \u003ca href=\"https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Published/G000/M393/K048/393048062.PDF\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Public Utilities Commission has extended a moratorium\u003c/a> on shutoffs for a segment of water utilities, which cover about 16% of customers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The pending legislation also funnels an unspecified amount of federal relief money into two \u003ca href=\"https://www.csd.ca.gov/Pages/LIHEAPProgram.aspx\">existing\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.acf.hhs.gov/ocs/programs/lihwap\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">programs\u003c/a> for which households must be income-eligible and apply for the assistance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s unclear whether Hollman will be eligible for the programs, given that he accrued his debt before the COVID-19 pandemic. He may be at risk of another water shutoff soon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp id=\"h-a-repeat-of-rent-relief-troubles\">\u003cstrong>A Repeat of Rent Relief Troubles?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state has created countless new assistance programs during the pandemic — many mired by \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2020/12/why-few-farmworkers-isolate-in-californias-free-covid-19-hotel-rooms/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">delays\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2020/05/undocumented-immigrants-state-disaster-aid-unreachable/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">bureaucracy\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/2021/01/bank-of-america-lost-hundreds-of-millions-on-california-unemployment-fiasco/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">scandals\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state’s \u003ca href=\"https://housing.ca.gov/covid_rr/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">COVID rent relief program\u003c/a> is one example. As \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/2021/04/california-rent-relief-tenants/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">CalMatters reported\u003c/a>, lengthy online applications available in too few languages initially blocked access to vulnerable renters, while distribution has been painfully slow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The California utility bill debt forgiveness programs proposed last week sidestep some of these problems by requiring utilities, instead of customers, to apply, and by not requiring customers to prove eligibility. Advocates cheered that choice, but worried lawmakers didn’t go far enough to prevent shutoffs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The water program legislation requires the water board to start distributing funds by Nov. 1. But that’s a month after the shutoff moratorium ends, said Jennifer Clary, California state director of nonprofit Clean Water Action. “I’m a little concerned about that gap,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stano of the Greenlining Institute said that the bill language doesn’t prevent publicly owned utilities from shutting off power right now. They said it also doesn’t provide enough guidance to ensure that payment plans are sufficiently accessible and reasonable to keep people safe from shutoffs — especially given that only about two-thirds of the debt is expected to be forgiven.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We will not be celebrating anything until the risk of disconnection is removed,” said Stano, who is pushing for the energy shutoff moratorium to be extended past Sept. 30.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A life-long Democrat, Hollman finds his faith in government assistance tested. He says he’s never relied much on it until his work as a telecommunications salesman for brick-and-mortar businesses came to a sudden halt last March. He applied for unemployment benefits so that he could focus on overseeing his children’s virtual schooling without any electricity coming to the house, but the checks don’t cover rent, food and generator fuel. He borrowed money, sold assets and made partial rent payments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like millions of Californians, Hollman has run into \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-edd-unemployment-crisis-explained/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">unemployment benefits snafus.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The last one happened several nights after the water department turned the water back on. Hollman received his unemployment payment to his Bank of America unemployment benefits account, but said when he tried paying bills the next morning, the money had already been withdrawn. He said he filed reports of identity theft with police and the Employment Development Department.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hollman also said he called his landlord to tell him he wouldn’t be able to make July’s rent — and that he hasn’t heard back about the $5,000 in rent relief he’s applied for from the city of Los Angeles. He said he planned to find work this summer, but has been in crisis mode since the water shutoff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It can’t be understated,” Hollman texted, “how delicate the balance of survival is.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Lawmakers have agreed to pay off $2 billion of Californians’ utilities debt, but haven’t extended the shutoff moratoria past Sept. 30. One family’s experience of surviving a heat wave without water or power reveals what’s at stake.",
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"description": "Lawmakers have agreed to pay off $2 billion of Californians’ utilities debt, but haven’t extended the shutoff moratoria past Sept. 30. One family’s experience of surviving a heat wave without water or power reveals what’s at stake.",
"title": "Unpaid Utility Bills? California Will Pay Off $2 Billion to Avoid Shutoffs | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Two years ago the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power shut off electricity at Will Hollman’s home in the San Fernando Valley, forcing the family to rely on a gasoline generator. In late June of this year, the department disconnected the water, too — despite a \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/4.2.20-EO-N-42-20.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">statewide moratorium on water shutoffs\u003c/a> that Gov. Gavin Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/6.11.21-EO-N-08-21-signed.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">recently extended through Sept. 30\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hollman, his 10-year-old son and his 16-year-old stepdaughter endured 11 days of temperatures in the high 90s to low 100s without water or power. For 11 days, they camped out in air-conditioned grocery stores, Starbucks or his truck. They couchsurfed and used friends’ showers. Hollman played it off with the kids as some kind of fun obstacle course.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He called the department’s customer service, and said a representative told him that he must pay off his utility debt of $9,064.13 — largely consisting of charges that Hollman disputes as erroneous — before water or power could be restored.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been demoralizing, humiliating,” Hollman said on the eighth day. “I have a history of paying my bills, working, being a good provider. You… start having feelings of failure as a parent.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ultimately the state’s water agency convinced the LA department to turn on Hollman’s water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those 11 days without water or power are a window into what could happen to millions of Californians in the coming months and years, depending on how swiftly and effectively the state distributes relief.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Official estimates of unpaid water and energy bills accumulated during the pandemic verge on $2.7 billion, affecting a few million Californians — and \u003ca href=\"https://youtu.be/SozYyHYaDUI?t=2096\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">those figures have been growing\u003c/a> rapidly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state has so far prioritized rent relief — keeping people housed — over utilities relief. A spokesperson for the state’s COVID-19 Rent Relief program said that of the $158 million distributed as of July 16, less than $40,000 had gone to utilities relief. Utility debt makes up about 6% of all assistance requested so far.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On July 11, lawmakers revealed a plan to use one-time federal relief money to address the debt. The deal is a patchwork of new programs to forgive $2 billion of utilities debt and old programs to help households chip away at the rest, with a wide range of eligibility criteria and timelines. But it doesn’t extend current shutoff moratoria past Sept. 30.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re laser-focused on getting this assistance out the door as quickly as possible,” Newsom said in a statement about ongoing rent relief and the utilities relief plan. He has signed the \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2021/07/16/governor-newsom-signs-state-budget-legislation-7-16-21/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">energy bills relief into law\u003c/a>, while the water bills relief still awaits his signature.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This will be an important “reboot” to protect Californians and utility companies, said Ellen Hanak, director of the Water Policy Center at the Public Policy Institute of California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You don’t want people to be shut off from basic services,” Hanak said, “But it’s also a hit to the entire community if utilities aren’t able to balance their books, because that can have all sorts of ripple effects on the abilities of water and electrical systems to run well.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When it comes to forgiving California’s utility debt, key questions remain:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Will $2 billion be nearly enough?\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Can the money be distributed quickly enough to prevent shutoffs?\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>“For public health and safety, it’s important for people to have roofs over their heads, clean water and power. Those are all pieces of the puzzle,” Hanak said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp id=\"h-a-catch-22-at-la-s-utilities-department\">\u003cstrong>A Catch-22 at \u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>LA’s Utilities Department?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hollman’s utilities troubles began well before the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After opening an account in 2017, he began receiving unusually high electricity charges topping $1,000 — even during months when no one was living in the house because he was staying with his parents — which Hollman attributes to billing errors by the LA utility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under financial stress following a messy separation, Hollman said he let the bills pile up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By early 2019, his unpaid balance had mounted to nearly $9,000. He applied for $2,000 of assistance from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services to keep service on. But the water agency insisted on full payment of his bill, according to correspondence from his social worker reviewed by CalMatters. In March of 2019, the department shut off his power due to non-payment. He bought a generator.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Following the power shutoff, the electricity charges continued, labeled as “unmetered estimated consumption” in bills reviewed by CalMatters, meaning the utility generated them without checking Hollman’s meter. In December 2019, a customer service representative credited his account with several thousand dollars, but, according to Hollman, told him that the department couldn’t stop the continuing energy charges or issue more credits until a technician read his meter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Which required that the power be turned back on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Which couldn’t happen until he paid off the debt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Hollman tells it, he was caught in a Catch-22.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In April 2020, amid the first pandemic surge, the LA utilities department closed Hollman’s account with an unpaid balance of $9,064.13, meaning that he couldn’t open a new account until he paid off the debt, which could affect his credit score or be taken to small claims court. But, Hollman said, a representative promised that water would stay on while the pandemic lasted. For over a year, it did — until a technician arrived unannounced in late June.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The LA utilities department tells a somewhat different story. In a statement, a department spokesperson said that it had disconnected Hollman’s water in October 2017 and power in March 2019 because Hollman had made no payments since opening his account in March 2017. The spokesperson said the department turned off his water twice more after detecting unauthorized use, in April 2019 and again this past June, when it “came to light to LADWP… that water service had illegally been turned back on.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While declining to comment on the high “unmetered estimated consumption” charges or Hollman’s apparent Catch-22, the spokesperson said the department restored water service in early July “in an attempt to work out a payment plan… for the water and power that was consumed since 2017.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hollman disputes that he illegally reconnected the water, saying it never stopped flowing and that he never received notices it would be shut off. He said that a water department representative told him last week that he had to pay a third of his outstanding bill — money that he said he doesn’t have — before he can qualify for a payment plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp id=\"h-mounting-debt-and-shutoffs-despite-protections\">\u003cstrong>Mounting Debt, and Shutoffs Despite Protections\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hollman is not alone. Despite shutoff protections, the California State Water Resources Control Board has received 308 \u003ca href=\"https://watershut-off.covid19.ca.gov/#:~:text=State%20of%20California%20COVID%2D19%20Water%20Shutoff%20Report&text=If%20you%20require%20translation%20assistance,submitting%20a%20water%20shutoff%20report.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reports of water disconnections during the pandemic\u003c/a>. No agency tracks power shutoffs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A spokesperson said the state water board got water restored in each case, including for Hollman.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In February, the state water board estimated that \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2021/01/water-debt-california-households-face-water-shutoffs/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">1.6 million households were late on water bills that totaled over $1 billion across California\u003c/a>, and were growing quickly. The California Municipal Utilities Association estimated \u003ca href=\"https://higherlogicdownload.s3.amazonaws.com/CSDA/b24702e8-8a42-4614-8c45-bc3cba37ea2c/UploadedImages/Advocate/Take_Action/covid19_utility_debt_assistance_coalition_letter.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">unpaid energy bills at publicly owned utilities topped $300 million\u003c/a>, while close to 4 million customers of investor-owned utilities were behind on energy bills, totaling $1.4 billion, as of late June, according to a California Public Utilities Commission spokesperson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many people don’t know that they are still protected from shutoffs. Some no longer are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the state reopened in mid-June, Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/6.11.21-EO-N-08-21-signed.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">quietly extended the moratorium on water shutoffs to Sept. 30.\u003c/a> One water system has already said \u003ca href=\"https://www.padredam.org/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=231\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">that it will resume shutoffs the next day.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The California Public Utilities Commission \u003ca href=\"https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Published/G000/M389/K401/389401945.PDF\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">also extended the power shutoff moratorium to Sept. 30\u003c/a>, days before it was set to expire on June 30. But that only applies to customers of investor-owned utilities, leaving the quarter of Californians served by publicly owned utilities vulnerable, said Mad Stano, an energy equity attorney at the Greenlining Institute, a racial justice nonprofit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LA’s water department is the largest publicly owned utility in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11747148/map-public-power-providers-in-california\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the United States\u003c/a>. During the pandemic, customers’ unpaid bills there increased more than 10-fold, from $37 million accrued during 2019 to $400 million accrued during the first eight months of the pandemic, according to a state Water Board report. \u003ca href=\"https://clkrep.lacity.org/onlinedocs/2021/21-0540_misc_05-19-21.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">More than one in five customers behind on bills had debt over $1,000\u003c/a>. The department has voluntarily chosen to extend its own moratorium on shutoffs for nonpayment, according to a spokesperson, but has not yet announced an end date. It has also not publicized that decision.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2021/01/water-debt-california-households-face-water-shutoffs/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Deborah Bell-Holt\u003c/a> didn’t know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1975857\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 683px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1975857\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/01212021_WaterDebt_SH_03-scaled-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"683\" height=\"1024\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/01212021_WaterDebt_SH_03-scaled-1.jpg 683w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/01212021_WaterDebt_SH_03-scaled-1-160x240.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 683px) 100vw, 683px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Deborah Bell-Holt sits in front of her house in Jefferson Park near Downtown Los Angeles on Jan. 21, 2021, holding her water and power bill. \u003ccite>(Shae Hammond/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Her utilities bill ballooned to $19,308.45 during the pandemic as her South Los Angeles household grew to include 12 children, grandchildren and friends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bell-Holt assumed that disconnections would start June 30, when evictions were set to begin had lawmakers not made \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/2021/06/california-eviction-moratorium-deal/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a last-minute deal.\u003c/a> She scrambled to send the department $500 in late May and $200 on June 25th, hoping a few payments would stave off shutoffs. To afford that, she said she took out a $500 loan with 347% interest, which she’s still paying back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bell-Holt said that if she’d known she wasn’t at risk on June 30, “I wouldn’t put us in a hole like that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state and utilities haven’t done enough to inform Californians about protections, Stano contends. “The state needs to require… communications to people so they don’t make financial decisions that they don’t have to make,” they said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp id=\"h-living-without-water-or-power\">\u003cstrong>Living Without Water or Power\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Hollman’s third day this summer without water or power, it hit 100 degrees outside. Inside the house was even hotter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hollman and his kids are used to life without air conditioning in one of California’s hottest regions. Their generator — which requires $10 of fuel per day, on average — only powers the lights, electronics and refrigerator. Normally, Hollman might cool the house by hosing down the roof and outdoor plants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, the family lingered at McDonald’s. “It becomes very difficult to keep your spirit up, but you have to for your kids,” Hollman said. “You can’t crack.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the fifth day, his son thanked Hollman for the best day ever, after the two spent the afternoon cutting through the heat on skateboards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the ninth morning, Hollman ran out of generator fuel. He reminded his kids not to open the refrigerator, so the food wouldn’t spoil. He knew his car’s radiator was low, but he was out of coolant and bottled water. He crossed his fingers that the old truck wouldn’t overheat on the way to the gas station. It did.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a dance that people shouldn’t have to f—ing do,” Hollman said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1975859\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1975859\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/07172021_Hollman_PU_Sized_03-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/07172021_Hollman_PU_Sized_03-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/07172021_Hollman_PU_Sized_03-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/07172021_Hollman_PU_Sized_03-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/07172021_Hollman_PU_Sized_03-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/07172021_Hollman_PU_Sized_03.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Will Hollman’s day typically begins by filling this container with gas for the generator he’s relied on since electricity was shut off to his San Fernando Valley home. \u003ccite>(Pablo Unzueta/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp id=\"h-relief-on-the-way-for-california-utility-bills\">\u003cstrong>Relief On the Way\u003c/strong> \u003cstrong>for California Utility Bills\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Theoretically, lawmakers’ new deal could prevent more people from that dance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In May, \u003ca href=\"http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/FullBudgetSummary.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Newsom proposed $2 billion to relieve utilities debt\u003c/a>. Legislators agreed to the price tag in June, but continued negotiating the distribution plan in private.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/newsletters/whatmatters/2021/07/california-budget-legislature/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The result is two budget bills\u003c/a> that would create new programs that pay utilities directly to forgive customer debt accrued during the pandemic, prioritizing those at greatest risk of shutoffs. The \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB135\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">California Arrearage Payment Program\u003c/a> would forgive $994 million in energy debt, while the \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB148\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">California Water and Wastewater Arrearage Payment Program\u003c/a> would forgive \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB129\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">$985 million\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In both cases, utilities must opt in. They must also offer all customers with pandemic debt a payment plan that would protect them from shutoffs as long as they enroll and stay current on the plan. Plus, the first forbids energy utilities from disconnecting power to a customer for 90 days after applying forgiveness to their account. Neither bill extends the shutoff moratoria, though the \u003ca href=\"https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Published/G000/M393/K048/393048062.PDF\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Public Utilities Commission has extended a moratorium\u003c/a> on shutoffs for a segment of water utilities, which cover about 16% of customers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The pending legislation also funnels an unspecified amount of federal relief money into two \u003ca href=\"https://www.csd.ca.gov/Pages/LIHEAPProgram.aspx\">existing\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.acf.hhs.gov/ocs/programs/lihwap\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">programs\u003c/a> for which households must be income-eligible and apply for the assistance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s unclear whether Hollman will be eligible for the programs, given that he accrued his debt before the COVID-19 pandemic. He may be at risk of another water shutoff soon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp id=\"h-a-repeat-of-rent-relief-troubles\">\u003cstrong>A Repeat of Rent Relief Troubles?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state has created countless new assistance programs during the pandemic — many mired by \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2020/12/why-few-farmworkers-isolate-in-californias-free-covid-19-hotel-rooms/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">delays\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2020/05/undocumented-immigrants-state-disaster-aid-unreachable/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">bureaucracy\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/2021/01/bank-of-america-lost-hundreds-of-millions-on-california-unemployment-fiasco/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">scandals\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state’s \u003ca href=\"https://housing.ca.gov/covid_rr/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">COVID rent relief program\u003c/a> is one example. As \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/2021/04/california-rent-relief-tenants/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">CalMatters reported\u003c/a>, lengthy online applications available in too few languages initially blocked access to vulnerable renters, while distribution has been painfully slow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The California utility bill debt forgiveness programs proposed last week sidestep some of these problems by requiring utilities, instead of customers, to apply, and by not requiring customers to prove eligibility. Advocates cheered that choice, but worried lawmakers didn’t go far enough to prevent shutoffs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The water program legislation requires the water board to start distributing funds by Nov. 1. But that’s a month after the shutoff moratorium ends, said Jennifer Clary, California state director of nonprofit Clean Water Action. “I’m a little concerned about that gap,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stano of the Greenlining Institute said that the bill language doesn’t prevent publicly owned utilities from shutting off power right now. They said it also doesn’t provide enough guidance to ensure that payment plans are sufficiently accessible and reasonable to keep people safe from shutoffs — especially given that only about two-thirds of the debt is expected to be forgiven.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We will not be celebrating anything until the risk of disconnection is removed,” said Stano, who is pushing for the energy shutoff moratorium to be extended past Sept. 30.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A life-long Democrat, Hollman finds his faith in government assistance tested. He says he’s never relied much on it until his work as a telecommunications salesman for brick-and-mortar businesses came to a sudden halt last March. He applied for unemployment benefits so that he could focus on overseeing his children’s virtual schooling without any electricity coming to the house, but the checks don’t cover rent, food and generator fuel. He borrowed money, sold assets and made partial rent payments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like millions of Californians, Hollman has run into \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-edd-unemployment-crisis-explained/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">unemployment benefits snafus.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The last one happened several nights after the water department turned the water back on. Hollman received his unemployment payment to his Bank of America unemployment benefits account, but said when he tried paying bills the next morning, the money had already been withdrawn. He said he filed reports of identity theft with police and the Employment Development Department.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hollman also said he called his landlord to tell him he wouldn’t be able to make July’s rent — and that he hasn’t heard back about the $5,000 in rent relief he’s applied for from the city of Los Angeles. He said he planned to find work this summer, but has been in crisis mode since the water shutoff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It can’t be understated,” Hollman texted, “how delicate the balance of survival is.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"source": "BBC World Service"
},
"link": "/radio/program/bbc-world-service",
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},
"californiareport": {
"id": "californiareport",
"title": "The California Report",
"tagline": "California, day by day",
"info": "KQED’s statewide radio news program providing daily coverage of issues, trends and public policy decisions.",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/californiareport",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 8
},
"link": "/californiareport",
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}
},
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"title": "The California Report Magazine",
"tagline": "Your state, your stories",
"info": "Every week, The California Report Magazine takes you on a road trip for the ears: to visit the places and meet the people who make California unique. The in-depth storytelling podcast from the California Report.",
"airtime": "FRI 4:30pm-5pm, 6:30pm-7pm, 11pm-11:30pm",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/californiareportmagazine",
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"order": 10
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM3NjkwNjk1OTAz",
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},
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"info": "A one-hour radio program to hear celebrated writers, artists and thinkers address contemporary ideas and values, often discussing the creative process. Please note: tapes or transcripts are not available",
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"airtime": "SUN 1pm-2pm, TUE 10pm, WED 1am",
"meta": {
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"source": "City Arts & Lectures"
},
"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
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"rss": "https://www.cityarts.net/feed/"
}
},
"closealltabs": {
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"order": 1
},
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"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Commonwealth-Club-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"meta": {
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"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
"link": "/radio/program/commonwealth-club",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5jb21tb253ZWFsdGhjbHViLm9yZy9hdWRpby9wb2RjYXN0L3dlZWtseS54bWw",
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"title": "Forum",
"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Forum with Mina Kim and Alexis Madrigal",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 9
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM5NTU3MzgxNjMz",
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"freakonomics-radio": {
"id": "freakonomics-radio",
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"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/05/freakonomicsRadio.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://freakonomics.com/",
"airtime": "SUN 1am-2am, SAT 3pm-4pm",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WNYC"
},
"link": "/radio/program/freakonomics-radio",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/freakonomics-radio/id354668519",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/WNYC-Podcasts/Freakonomics-Radio-p272293/",
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},
"fresh-air": {
"id": "fresh-air",
"title": "Fresh Air",
"info": "Hosted by Terry Gross, \u003cem>Fresh Air from WHYY\u003c/em> is the Peabody Award-winning weekday magazine of contemporary arts and issues. One of public radio's most popular programs, Fresh Air features intimate conversations with today's biggest luminaries.",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=214089682&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
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},
"hidden-brain": {
"id": "hidden-brain",
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"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "NPR"
},
"link": "/radio/program/hidden-brain",
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},
"how-i-built-this": {
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"title": "How I Built This with Guy Raz",
"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/how-i-built-this",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-built-this-with-guy-raz/id1150510297?mt=2",
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},
"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
"title": "Hyphenación",
"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Hyphenacion_FinalAssets_PodcastTile.png",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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"order": 15
},
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},
"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Political-Mind-of-Jerry-Brown-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
"meta": {
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"order": 18
},
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}
},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
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"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
}
},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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"rss": "https://feeds.publicradio.org/public_feeds/marketplace-pm/rss/rss"
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},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
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"source": "WaitWhat"
},
"link": "/radio/program/masters-of-scale",
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"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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}
},
"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
"title": "Morning Edition",
"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3am-9am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Morning-Edition-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/morning-edition/",
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"link": "/radio/program/morning-edition"
},
"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/On-Our-Watch-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "On Our Watch from NPR and KQED",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
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"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 11
},
"link": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"subscribe": {
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5ucHIub3JnLzUxMDM2MC9wb2RjYXN0LnhtbD9zYz1nb29nbGVwb2RjYXN0cw",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510360/podcast.xml"
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},
"on-the-media": {
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"title": "On The Media",
"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
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"info": "One of public radio's most dynamic voices, Sam Sanders helped launch The NPR Politics Podcast and hosted NPR's hit show It's Been A Minute. Now, the award-winning host returns with something brand new, The Sam Sanders Show. Every week, Sam Sanders and friends dig into the culture that shapes our lives: what's driving the biggest trends, how artists really think, and even the memes you can't stop scrolling past. Sam is beloved for his way of unpacking the world and bringing you up close to fresh currents and engaging conversations. The Sam Sanders Show is smart, funny and always a good time.",
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