highdesert wrote: Fri Sep 20, 2024 9:48 am Thanks and of course we all worry about dry lightning setting more fires. This looks like it will be another miserable wildfire season for the whole state. The wildfires started late down here, you've had a lot more in Northern California this year.

Corporations Plunder US West’s Water Amid Worst Drought in 1,200 Years

Rural La Paz County, Arizona, positioned on the Colorado River across from California, is at the center of a growing fight over water in the American Southwest. At the heart of the battle is a question: Should water be treated as a human right, to be allocated by governments with the priority of sustaining life? Or is it a commodity to be bought, sold and invested in for the greatest profits?

As the West suffers its worst megadrought in 1,200 years, investors have increasingly eyed water as a valuable asset and a resource to be exploited. For years, investment firms have bought up farmland throughout the Southwest, drilling to new depths for their water-hungry crops and causing nearby wells to run dry. Now, new players have entered the scene: “Water management companies” are purchasing up thousands of acres of farmland, with the intention of selling the water rights at a profit to cities and suburbs elsewhere in the state. Some argue that treating water as a commodity can efficiently get it where it is needed most. But others fear that water markets open the door to profiteering and hoarding, leaving poorer communities in the dust.

In 2013 and 2014, GSC Farm, a subsidiary of a water management company called Greenstone Resource Partners, which is backed by MassMutual, bought nearly 500 acres of farmland in Cibola, a tiny town in Arizona’s La Paz County, for just under $10 million. The farmland comes with the rights to more than 2,000 acre-feet of Colorado River water a year. (An acre-foot is the amount of water it takes to cover one acre with one foot of water.) Then in 2018, Greenstone sold the water rights, in perpetuity, to Queen Creek, a rapidly growing suburb of Phoenix nearly 200 miles away, for $24 million.

The transfer marked the first time a water management company sold Colorado River water rights. La Paz and two other counties sued to block the transfer, arguing that the Bureau of Reclamation, the federal agency that oversees water resource management, had conducted an insufficient environmental review before signing off. The counties’ request for a preliminary injunction was denied in April 2023 by a federal judge, and three months later the water began flowing down the Central Arizona Project, a 336-mile canal. Then, the judge seemingly backtracked in February 2024, ordering a more thorough environmental review.

“In the meantime, they’re still allowing for the water to flow, which we argued should have been stopped completely until the complete environmental studies have been done,” Holly Irwin, a La Paz County supervisor, told Truthout. “It’s really frustrating, not only for myself, but for the other leaders and elected officials in what we refer to as the river communities.”

The ultimate results of the lawsuit could affect how easily water management companies are able to transfer river water rights for profit in the future.

“I’ve had people already contacting me, asking, ‘Hey, look, I’m looking to buy this piece of property. It’s got water rights. Can it be transferred off the Colorado River?’” said Irwin. “Which is what we knew was going to happen. They just opened up Pandora’s box.”

Companies like Greenstone are betting that the price of water will increase. Western states generally allocate water through a “prior appropriation” policy of “first in time, first in right.” In times of shortage, those with the most senior water claims — often farmers and ranchers whose ancestors claimed Native land — are allotted their full share of water first. Now, companies like Greenstone are lining up to buy those increasingly valuable water rights.

Buying or selling bitcoin uses 16,000 litres of clean water for every single transaction, which could exacerbate existing droughts around the world. While the energy consumption and carbon emissions produced by bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have been well studied, this is the first assessment of its water use and wider environmental impact.

Donald Trump’s Crypto Project Details: When, How, And Where To Buy

The team of former President Donald Trump announced the details of a new crypto project as part of a lengthy live event on X this week. The announcement, made on a crypto media outlet called Rug Radio, included participation from Chase Herro, Zachary Folkman, Donald Trump, Jr., and Eric Trump.

The purpose of the Trump crypto initiative, called World Liberty Financial, is still murky; event hosts spoke about the erosion of trust in banks and the need for the U.S. to stay at the forefront of financial innovation, which are typical talking points for bitcoin advocates, but no clear message was conveyed about how World Liberty Financial would approach those problems.

On the other hand, much of the audience, which peaked at over 50,000 listeners, was likely more interested in finding out when, how, and where to invest.

Hurricane Helene roared ashore in a sparsely populated region of Florida as a powerful Category 4 storm, peeling the siding off buildings, trapping residents in rising floodwaters and knocking out power to millions of customers. At least four people were reported dead.

The storm made landfall late Thursday with maximum sustained winds of 140 mph (225 kph) in the rural Big Bend area, home to fishing villages and vacation hideaways where Florida’s Panhandle and peninsula meet.

Video on social media sites showed sheets of rain coming down and siding coming off buildings in Perry, Florida, near where the storm arrived. One local news station showed a home that was overturned. The community and much of surrounding Taylor County were without power.

First responders were out in boats early Friday to rescue people trapped by flooding in Citrus County, some 120 miles (193 kilometers) south of Perry.

“If you are trapped and need help please call for rescuers – DO NOT TRY TO TREAD FLOODWATERS YOURSELF,” the sheriff’s office warned in a Facebook post. Authorities said the water could contain live wires, sewage, sharp objects and other debris.

More than 3 million customers were in the dark across much of the southeastern U.S.

It's A Good Time To Revisit What Project 2025 Would Mean For Hurricane Forecasts
Millions of Americans along the Gulf Coast and throughout the U.S. Southeast are turning to the National Hurricane Center and the National Weather Service for accurate information about Hurricane Helene ahead of its expected landfall late Thursday — just as they have with tropical storms going back decades.

But if pro-Donald Trump conservatives have their way, these lifesaving forecasts could come to a screeching halt next year.

Project 2025 ― the sweeping policy blueprint that GOP operatives, including dozens of former Trump administration officials, compiled to guide a second Trump term ― calls for a future Republican administration to “break up” the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. NOAA is the parent agency of the 154-year-old National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center.

“The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) should be dismantled and many of its functions eliminated, sent to other agencies, privatized, or placed under the control of states and territories,” reads the 920-page manifesto.

The Project 2025 authors’ primary beef with NOAA is that the agency is studying human-caused climate change — a global threat that is supercharging hurricanes and other extreme weather and that Trump and his right-wing allies are hellbent on ignoring.

NOAA and its six main divisions “form a colossal operation that has become one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future U.S. prosperity,” Project 2025 reads. “This industry’s mission emphasis on prediction and management seems designed around the fatal conceit of planning for the unplannable. That is not to say NOAA is useless, but its current organization corrupts its useful functions. It should be broken up and downsized.”

As for NWS, Project 2025 wants to see its forecast operations “fully commercialized” and its data sold to private companies. The document argues that forecasts from private entities, namely AccuWeather, are more accurate than those of NWS. But as AccuWeather’s chief executive Steven R. Smith told the Los Angeles Times in July, the private, for-profit company relies in part on NOAA data for its own forecasting and does not share Project 2025’s vision for commercializing NWS operations.