Six Berkshire County communities currently have drought-induced water restrictions. But some locals 'just don't care about that.' Here's why you should...

Scott Strafford | The Berkshire Eagle

"...The Adams restrictions prohibit lawn and garden watering between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Cars can only be washed at a local car wash, and the refilling of pool is also prohibited. Other widely known suggestions for conserving water include only running the dishwasher if it’s full, turning off the water while brushing teeth, taking shorter showers and fixing any leaky plumbing. Anyone found violating the restrictions may receive a warning, and repeated violations could result in fines. Under current drought conditions, the first violation would result in a verbal warning. The second draws a written warning, and the third a $100 fine. Under more severe drought conditions, fines can go as high as $300 for any violation. Restrictions also went into place this summer in communities across the Berkshires, including Williamstown and Pittsfield, where — according to the National Weather Service — rainfall is four inches below normal for the year. Cheshire, Dalton and Hinsdale have also adopted restrictions. In Adams, despite those restrictions, water usage is at a yearlong high. Daily usage from January through June averaged between 720,000 to 730,000 gallons. In July it grew to 824,000 gallons, according to Barrett. [...] Meanwhile, state guidelines show that during a level 1 mild drought, the town’s goal should be reduction of water usage by 10 to 15 percent. A quick survey by The Eagle with residents at the Adams Hometown Market parking lot found that public awareness of the restrictions was lacking. [...] One of the ways the town of Adams measures dry conditions is by monitoring water flow in the Hoosic River. Figures supplied by Barrett show that water flow in May at the Adams Hoosic River stream gauge was at 147 cubic feet per second. In August, it’s down to between 50 and 20 cubic feet per second. [...] 'Some people just think that they pay for it (water), so they’re going to use it,' [John Barrett, superintendent of the Adams Water Department,] said. 'But this has to be a communitywide effort to protect us and try to maintain our water resources. The more water everybody uses, the less water there is underground, and that goes for the whole state.'" Read More

Wind energy boom and golden eagles collide in the US West

Matthew Brown | AP News

"The rush to build wind farms to combat climate change is colliding with preservation of one of the U.S. West’s most spectacular predators — the golden eagle — as the species teeters on the edge of decline. Ground zero in the conflict is Wyoming, a stronghold for golden eagles that soar on 7-foot (2-meter) wings and a favored location for wind farms. As wind turbines proliferate, scientists say deaths from collisions could drive down golden eagle numbers considered stable at best. Yet climate change looms as a potentially greater threat: Rising temperatures are projected to reduce golden eagle breeding ranges by more than 40% later this century, according to a National Audubon Society analysis. [...] Turbine blades hundreds of feet long are among myriad threats to golden eagles, which are routinely shot, poisoned by lead, hit by vehicles and electrocuted on power lines. [...] Federal officials have tried to curb turbine deaths, while avoiding any slowdown in the growth of wind power as an alternative to carbon-emitting fossil fuels — a key piece of President Joe Biden’s climate agenda. In April, a Florida-based power company pleaded guilty in federal court in Wyoming to criminal violations of wildlife protection laws after its wind turbines killed more than 100 golden eagles in eight states. It was the third conviction of a major wind company for killing eagles in a decade. Despite the deaths, scientists like Bedrosian say more turbines are needed to fight climate change. He and colleague Charles Preston are finding ways wind companies can reduce or offset eagle deaths, such as building in areas less frequented by the birds, improving habitat elsewhere or retrofitting power poles to make them less perilous when eagles land. [...] Illegal shootings are the biggest cause of death, killing about 700 golden eagles annually, according to federal estimates. More than 600 die annually in collisions with cars, wind turbines and power lines; about 500 annually are electrocuted and more than 400 are poisoned. [...] The number of wind turbines nationwide more than doubled over the past decade to almost 72,000, according to U.S. Geological Survey data, with development overlapping prime golden eagle territory in states including Wyoming, Montana, California, Washington and Oregon.

USGS scientists concluded in a recent study that if anticipated growth in wind energy by 2040 occurs, increased turbine-caused deaths could cut golden eagle populations by almost half over 10 years. However, the fact that no population-wide declines have been seen in recent years suggests some uncertainty in the projections. said lead author Jay Diffendorfer. Federal wildlife officials are pushing wind companies to enroll in a permitting program that allows them to kill eagles if the deaths are offset. Companies with permits can pay utilities to retrofit power poles, so lines are spaced far enough that eagles can’t be easily electrocuted. Every 11 poles retrofitted typically means one eagle death avoided annually. Nationwide, 34 permits in place last year authorized companies to 'take' 170 golden eagles — meaning that many birds could be killed by turbines or lost through impacts on nests or habitat. For each loss, companies are responsible for ensuring at least one eagle death is avoided somewhere else. Using conservative estimates that overcount potential deaths could even mean a gain of eagles in the long run, said Brian Millsap, who heads the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s eagle program." Read More

8 Easy Ways to Make Your Lawn More Eco-Friendly

Barbara Moran | WBUR

"Lawns cover about 40 million acres of the United States. Changing them up, even a bit, could have a vast impact. Here are eight easy ways to make your lawn more eco-friendly while saving time and money (including a few bonus tips for you over-achievers). 1. Set your mower blade higher; 2. Leave the lawn clippings; 3. Stop pouring chemicals on your lawn; 4. Water it less often; 5. Don't be that sprinkler guy; 6. Mow less frequently; 7. Don't mow the weird parts; 8. Leave the leaves on the lawn; [...] Here are four next-level ideas: 1. Next time a tree (or shrub, or flower bush) dies, replace it with a native plant; 2. Add some native plants to your turf; 3. Plant some vegetables; 4. Rip out your lawn" Read More

Study: Pennsylvania Children Who Live Near Fracking wells Have Higher Leukemia Risk

Victoria St. Martin | Inside Climate News

"Children in Pennsylvania who grew up within roughly a mile of fracking wells are twice as likely as other young people to develop the most common form of juvenile leukemia, according to a new study by researchers at the Yale School of Public Health. The study, published Wednesday in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, also found that children born to pregnant women who lived near fracking wells were nearly three times as likely as other newborns to be diagnosed with leukemia. The research, part of a registry-based study which drew on such information as patient health histories and geographic data, was based on a review of records for about 2,500 children, roughly 400 of whom were being treated for acute lymphoblastic leukemia, the most widely diagnosed form of childhood leukemia also known as ALL." Read More

California's giant sequoias are burning up. Will logging save them?

Joshua Partlow | The Washington Post

"...The Sugarbowl, an amphitheater of solemn and enormous trees, part of the Redwood Mountain grove, one of the largest collections of giant sequoias on Earth, has become a graveyard. Trees that have lived since the Roman Empire stand as fire-blackened matchsticks, their once bushy green crowns shriveled into charred fists. When the KNP Complex Fire roared through last October, it burned so hot in some places that Caprio expects few seedlings to rise from the ash. [...] Summer wildfires, in the era of climate change, mean something different now for giant sequoias. These trees evolved with fire, and need it to reproduce, but the scale of recent megafires — burning in hotter, drier conditions across far greater areas — have overwhelmed many of the groves tucked high in the California mountains. Six of the seven largest wildfires in California history have occurred in the past two years, and in that period, up to nearly one-fifth of all naturally-occurring large giant sequoias on Earth have been killed. 'What is new and shocking is these large areas, one hundred acres or more, where every single sequoia is killed,' said Nate Stephenson, an emeritus scientist in forest ecology at the U.S. Geological Survey. 'There is no evidence anything like that has happened in the past one thousand years, probably many thousands of years.' [...] Across the parched West, the Biden administration and its public land managers want to dramatically ramp up controlled fires and logging as a way to thin out fuel-packed forests and avoid deadly wildfires. Earlier this year, the Biden administration announced a decade-long, $50 billion plan to use logging and prescribed fire across 50 million acres in 11 Western states to manage wildfire. Late last month, the U.S. Forest Service said it would take emergency action, including setting fires and cutting down trees, to try to protect a dozen sequoia groves over more than 13,000 acres. Legislation proposed in June, called the Save Our Sequoias Act, would fast-track environmental reviews for these types of logging-and-fire efforts in the name of fire prevention. [...] But some environmentalists and residents are wary of escalating forest management, and doubt that human intervention can contain wildfire on the scale and intensity it now rages. They worry about prescribed fires escaping their boundaries and logging projects that offer little resistance to flames fanned by a hotter and drier world. Two prescribed burns set by the U.S. Forest Service that grew out of control earlier this year caused “unfathomable” destruction in New Mexico, as Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) put it, destroying hundreds of homes, displacing thousands, and threatening water supplies in a burn area larger than Los Angeles. [...] A review of the scientific literature on key questions about fire management tools published last year found that thinning, removing fuels and using prescribed fires can be effective at lessening the severity of wildfires under certain conditions, although they’re not appropriate in all types of forests and if done incorrectly can aggravate the problem. [...] When the Washburn Fire broke out on the afternoon of July 7, there were 2,700 people visiting the Mariposa Grove. The grove had always been a draw. It was photographs of these trees — some 500 towering sequoias — that convinced Abraham Lincoln to conserve this land in 1864, establishing protections that helped launch America’s national parks. There was no lightning that day; authorities suspect humans caused the fire. When flames began roaring upslope toward the grove, Yosemite’s firefighters had two urgent tasks: Evacuate tourists, and save the trees. Park staff raced to clear the trail and herd tourists onto shuttle buses to escape out the only road into the grove. [...] The Washburn fire scorched a few sequoias but killed none. Firefighters said they watched as flames that were dozens or hundreds of feet tall drop to a couple of feet when they hit areas recently treated with prescribed fire." Read More