Colorado River states can't agree - so California is poised for more cuts

Dire water conditions, missed deadlines and uncertainty on the Colorado River are complicating critical water decisions in California. No single state, water agency or federal official has shown the power, or the will, to break the deadlock among Colorado River basin states over how to share the dwindling supplies. Years of fraught negotiations have failed to yield consensus even as major reservoir storage plummets to record lows — ratcheting up the tensions, and the stakes, for the states’ negotiators. Now, key agreements for managing the river are expiring at the end of this year. These include agreements reached in 2007 that lasted nearly two decades, which took fewer than three years to craft. This round of talks has already taken longer — and, so far, produced nothing so durable. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the federal steward for the river under the Department of the Interior, last week released a 10-year framework that establishes rough parameters for managing the river, but imposes no specific long-term plan. The federal provisions include cuts of up to 40% to the shared supply of California, Arizona and Nevada in the lower basin. They also allow releases from Lake Powell, which collects flows from the...

calmatters.org

Nearly 1,500 Ships Are Stuck in the Strait of Hormuz—And Something Dangerous Is Growing on Them — Popular Mechanics

Scientists say idled tankers are incubating invaders built to survive anywhere on the planet.

apple.news

Texas halts power grid connections for new data centers

YouTube video by FOX 4 Dallas-Fort Worth

youtu.be

||Zero Fossil Fuel Lobbyists in COP 31 Delegations

Add your name to our letter to COP 31 country delegations and urge them to keep all fossil fuel lobbyists out of COP 31 negotiations.

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Wildfires, low levels on rivers as Europe feels the heat

Albanian emergency services battled a wildfire in the south of the country, while Hungarians cut power consumption as the latest heatwave and drought took their toll on southern and eastern Europe.

rte.ie

Whale Breaching in the Ocean

ALT: Whale Breaching in the Ocean

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Batteries are getting cheaper while gas gets pricier. Here’s why

The battery boom is accelerating Australia’s shift away from gas.

theconversation.com

Humpback Whale Breaching - Onthe12thfloor

ALT: Humpback Whale Breaching - Onthe12thfloor

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These are some of the last pristine ocean ecosystems. Now, they're losing protections

The largest conservation areas in the U.S. are in the Pacific Ocean, where tiny islands are epicenters of biodiversity. The Trump administration is now opening their waters to commercial fishing, spar...

apps.npr.org

Eastern Shore seabed mining proposal threatens 60 years of conservation, environmentalists say

pilotonline.com

Two New Crocodiles Discovered in Mexico Must Be Protected

Discover the two new crocodile species found in Mexico, each with fewer than 1,000 breeding pairs left, now needing urgent protection

wp.me

From Near Extinction to Soaring Numbers: The Saiga Antelope’s Conservation Comeback - Conservation Frontlines

Once near extinction, the saiga antelope has rebounded to 2 million—proof that conservation efforts can bring species back from the brink.

conservationfrontlines.org

Trump administration allows killing of species threatened with extinction

Regulatory changes to reinterpret the Endangered Species Act also demand that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service consider the economic toll of habitat protection.

washingtonpost.com

How will the Supreme Court order impact mining around Ramsar wetland sites? | Explained

The story so far: The Supreme Court has clarified that its February 2024 direction, requiring prior approval before mining can take place within a 10-km radius of the Asan Wetland Conservation Reserve, would, for the sake of parity, apply to wetland conservation reserves across the country. The clarification potentially extends a judicial safeguard that was earlier confined to the Asan Ramsar site in Uttarakhand to similarly notified wetland conservation reserves elsewhere. What prompted the Supreme Court to dwell on this question? The clarification arose while the Supreme Court was hearing an application from the Himachal Pradesh government. The State argued that the February 14, 2024 interim order concerning the Asan Wetland Conservation Reserve in Uttarakhand should not automatically apply to it because the Asan reserve was not located within Himachal Pradesh and, unlike national parks and wildlife sanctuaries, wetland conservation reserves do not have a statutory buffer zone. The Bench, headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, orally clarified that the principle laid down in the Asan case was not confined to Uttarakhand. Justice Joymalya Bagchi observed that wherever there is a community reserve or wetland conservation reserve, the directions issued in the Asan case would apply for the...

thehindu.com