Circle of Blue

KEY POINTS -A natural gas facility and hyperscale data center are the newest neighbors in Wheatfield, Indiana, where coal has been king for decades. -Residents fear the consequences this will have on water availability, unresolved coal ash pollution, and the quality of their air. -In service of the data center, the plants are poised to consume 7 billion gallons of water from the Kankakee River annually. JASPER COUNTY, IND.

The Colorado River, from one viewpoint, is a mess. The iconic waterway, fundamental to the region’s modern existence – its desert metropolises, its high-tech industries, its agriculture, and its recreation economy – is on the verge of crashing. A two-decade drying trend, aided by carbon pollution in the atmosphere and water use that exceeds supply have nearly drained the basin’s liquid savings accounts. Nature is now threatening to overwhelm human interventions.

*The Federal Water Tap will be on summer break starting next week. The weekly briefing will resume on August 17.* U.S. Supreme Court takes up another interstate water dispute, this time between Nebraska and Colorado over the South Platte River. EPA releases a short guidance document for reducing risk of PFAS in biosolids, while also criticizing a Biden-era risk assessment as too focused on high-risk scenarios.

By Annie MacKeigan, The Water Desk Western wildfires start and spread because of a whole host of factors—wind, temperature, drought, forest health. But scientists are finding that the most important indicator of where the next big fire might ignite isn’t held in the trees themselves, but in the soil their roots are buried in. Recent studies demonstrate how soil moisture data can help wildfire experts predict a potential fire’s location and severity.

KEY POINTS - The process began a year ago to delete a 25-year-old safeguard for wild forests. - Allowing new roads could open tens of millions of acres of forest – most of it untouched by industrial society – to development. - President Trump is intent on ruining what has been a stellar American record of wildlands protection. Dawn is most memorable, the awakening hour in Bear Swamp, a 3,915-acre expanse of the Huron-Manistee National Forest in northern Michigan.

A child sits next to an undocumented water well in Delhi. Children are among the most vulnerable to illness and disease related to climate change. Photo J. Carl Ganter/Circle of Blue The “Flamingo Revolution,” a mass protest against a planned hotel resort in the Vjosë River Delta, a protected biosphere, has taken Tirana, Albania by storm. Half of the world’s children are vulnerable to at least three climate risks including heatwaves, flooding, storms, and drought.

Decades ago, before it was much of a concern, water moved through the average U.S. home in enormous quantities. Toilets pulled 3.5 gallons per flush or more. Washing machines filled like tiny swimming pools. Water flowed and flowed. Things have tightened considerably since then. New data shows that U.S. homes are becoming ever more efficient in their water use.

KEYPOINTS: Wildfire risk is elevated through the Upper Midwest, posing threats to remote lakes. Advocates look to controlled burns to mitigate wildfire risk. Indigenous people have used this tool for centuries in Minnesota’s northeast region. Early research suggests that watersheds can quickly recover from small fires. Wildfire risk is predicted to stay elevated through June in the Upper Midwest from drought and high winds.

KEYPOINTS: Wildfires are blazing across Minnesota because of dry conditions. Elevated fire risk is becoming the new norm for the Upper Midwest. Hot fires have dire consequences for the water quality of remote lakes. Wildfire risk is high in the upper Great Lakes, and research shows that large, scorching wildfires spell trouble for lakes in the region’s remote watersheds. The reason: Vegetation burns in the fire.

Just like his presidential predecessors – George Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden – Donald Trump has a thing for ethanol. But why? Inordinately expensive to taxpayers, monstrously polluting, and now linked to mounting cancer incidence in Midwest Corn Belt states, fermenting ethanol from a third of America’s corn crop would appear to sane people as an insane pursuit. Not to corn growers, ethanol refiners and their allies in farm industries, the White House, Congress, and farm state legislatures.