State needs to better fund emergency response to drought, fire and flood, expert group says - Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
A newly created group composed of high-ranking state leaders and water experts said the New Mexico Legislature should anticipate more disastrous fires and floods like the state encountered this year – and find a way to make sure there’s money for hard-hit areas during those emergencies.
Mike Hamman, the New Mexico State Engineer and leader of the task force, told an interim legislative committee on Tuesday that the task force – whose members are known as Water Ambassadors – recommends the Legislature create a special fund for emergencies. Marquita Russell, leader of the New Mexico Finance Authority, said disasters aren’t going away, so the state needs to be proactive.
“We know New Mexico will continue to have emergencies that impact our water. We think that (an emergency fund) needs to be put in place, whether it’s flooding, fires, often both. Make sure that there are some clear strategies for how those dollars get implemented,” she said. “… There just aren’t dollars dedicated to emergencies in the state, yet we have them year after year.”
New Mexico saw the biggest and second-biggest fires in state history this year, followed by destructive fires in both burn scars. The biggest fire, known as the Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire, burned more than 340,000 acres in northern New Mexico. The second-biggest, the Black Fire, burned 325,000 acres in the Gila Wilderness.
A WORK IN PROGRESS
The group is still finishing up a report summarizing recommendations after at least two meetings a month since June. But they offered a few more at the meeting Tuesday, including:
- Create a new state agency to help small communities with water infrastructure
- Help collaboration within regional water systems
- Increase staff to help rural areas with technical water projects
In the aftermath, small and often rural communities seeking funds to repair water structures are hitting roadblocks at both the federal and state levels. Rep. Susan Herrera (D-Embudo) said that lack of emergency money isn’t limited to just this year. She searches high and low to find emergency funds in her northern New Mexico district.
“We’ve all been scrambling around trying to find money, and you can’t find it,” she said. “You cannot find it.”
The task force first met this June to solve the state’s most pressing water challenges, including failing infrastructure, inefficient state spending, how to spend an influx of federal dollars and other issues. The task force includes a who’s who of water experts, including the State Engineer, leaders of state agencies, tribal leaders and others.
The Water Ambassadors hope to provide input on the state’s 50-year water plan and also push legislation during the upcoming 60-day legislative session. They haven’t come up with exact dollar figures for any of their proposals just yet, Hamman said.
Navajo Nation planning to investigate missing tribal members - Associated Press
Navajo Nation officials have issued an executive order to investigate and locate missing tribal members in a manner that is empathetic to victims and their families.
Tribal President Jonathan Nez met Monday with Navajo Nation police, the FBI and prosecutors in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah for the plan's signing ceremony.
The crisis of missing and slain Native Americans has been getting more attention from elected officials and policymakers across the U.S.
In July, the FBI in Albuquerque released a list of more than 170 Native Americans it had verified as missing throughout New Mexico and the Navajo Nation that stretches into Arizona and Utah and covers nearly 27,500 square miles.
FBI officials said many records of missing Indigenous persons were incomplete or outdated because the record was not updated once additional details were made available or when the person was located.
"Multiple jurisdiction systems have historically failed the victims and their families," Nez said in a statement. "Reporting, collecting and sharing missing persons data among various jurisdictions characterizes this problem's true scope. The executive order will set a new tone of hope on this issue that impacts our nation."
Western states propose deal over beleaguered Rio Grande - By Susan Montoya Bryan Associated Press
New Mexico, Texas and Colorado have negotiated a proposed settlement that they say will end a yearslong battle over management of one of the longest rivers in North America, but the federal government and two irrigation districts that depend on the Rio Grande are objecting.
New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas on Tuesday announced that the states had brokered a deal following months of negotiations. While the terms remain confidential, his office called it "a comprehensive resolution of all the claims in the case."
"Extreme drought and erratic climate events necessitate that states must work together to protect the Rio Grande, which is the lifeblood of our New Mexico farmers and communities," Balderas said in a statement. "And I'm very disappointed that the U.S. is exerting federal overreach and standing in the way of the states' historic water agreement."
Attorneys with the U.S. Department of Justice and irrigation districts that serve farmers downstream of Elephant Butte reservoir argued that the proposal would not be a workable solution. The river is managed through a system of federal dams and canals under provisions of a water-sharing agreement that also involves Mexico.
The case has been pending before the U.S. Supreme Court for nearly a decade. Texas has argued that groundwater pumping in southern New Mexico has reduced river flows, limiting how much water makes it across the border. New Mexico argues that it has been shorted on its share of the river.
New Mexico and the other states plan in the coming weeks to submit their motion to move the proposed settlement forward, opening the door for federal officials and the irrigation districts to respond.
Another hearing has been scheduled for January.
The battle over the Rio Grande has become a multimillion-dollar case in a region where water supplies are dwindling due to increased demand along with drought and warmer temperatures brought on by climate change.
So far, New Mexico has spent roughly $21 million on lawyers and scientists over the last nine years.
Last fall, the special master overseeing the case presided over the first phase of trial, which included testimony from farmers, hydrologists, irrigation managers and others. More technical testimony was expected to be part of the next phase, which has now been put off.
Earlier this year, some of the river's stretches in New Mexico marked record low flows, resulting in some farmers voluntarily fallowing fields to help the state meet downstream water-sharing obligations.
In the Elephant Butte Irrigation District, officials recently warned farmers that they can likely expect another late start to the irrigation season in 2023 and that allotments will be low again since the system depends less on summer rains and more on spring runoff from snowmelt in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico.
Mexico scraps daylight savings time except along border – Associated Press
Mexico's Senate approved a bill Wednesday to eliminate daylight saving time, putting an end to the practice of changing clocks twice a year.
Some cities and towns along the U.S. border can retain daylight saving time, presumably because they are so linked to U.S. cities.
The Senate approved the measure on a 59-25 vote, with 12 abstentions. Those who opposed the measure said that less daylight in the afternoon could affect opportunities for children and adults to get exercise.
The bill already passed the lower house of Congress and now goes President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to be signed into law.
The law would go into effect Sunday, when Mexico is scheduled to turn clocks back for the last time.
Previously, Health Secretary Jorge Alcocer had said Mexico should return to "God's clock," or standard time, arguing that setting clocks back or forward damages people's health.
The measure would mean darkness falling an hour earlier on summer afternoons.
Economists argue that, while the energy savings are minimal, going back to standard time might cause trouble for financial markets in Mexico by putting U.S. East Coast markets so far ahead.
And businesses like restaurants that have become accustomed to staying open later may have to close earlier as many crime-wary Mexicans often try to be off the streets after dark.
US sued over lack of protection plan for rare grouse - By Susan Montoya Bryan Associated Press
An environmental group is suing U.S. wildlife managers, saying they have failed to protect a rare grouse found in parts of the Midwest that include one of the country's most prolific areas for oil and gas development.
A lawsuit filed Tuesday by the Center for Biological Diversity says the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is nearly five months late in releasing a final rule outlining protections for the lesser prairie chicken.
Once listed as a threatened species, the prarie chicken's habitat spans parts of New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas -- including a portion of the oil-rich Permian Basin that straddles the New Mexico-Texas state line.
Environmentalists have been pushing to reinstate federal protections for years. They consider the species severely threatened, citing lost and fragmented habitat as the result of oil and gas development, livestock grazing, farming and the building of roads and power lines.
The Fish and Wildlife Service in 2021 proposed listing the southern population in New Mexico and the southern reaches of the Texas Panhandle as endangered and those birds in the northern part of the species' range as threatened. The agency had a deadline of June 1.
"The oil and gas industry has fought for decades against safeguards for the lesser prairie chicken, and the Fish and Wildlife Service is late issuing its final rule," said Michael Robinson, a senior conservation advocate with the environment group. "The agency has slow-walked every step, and these imperiled birds keep losing more habitat."
The Fish and Wildlife Service on Tuesday cited its policy for not commenting on pending litigation.
The species was once thought to number in the millions. Now, surveys show, the five-year average population across the entire range hovers around 30,000 individual birds.
Landowners and the oil and gas industry say they have had success with voluntary conservation programs aimed at protecting habitat and boosting the bird's numbers. The Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, which oversees the conservation effort, has yet to report the results of the 2022 survey done earlier this year.
With a listing under the Endangered Species Act, officials have said that landowners and oil companies already participating in the voluntary conservation programs wouldn't be affected because they already are taking steps to protect habitat. However, a listing would prevent any activities that result in the loss or degradation of existing habitat.
The species' regulatory history dates to an initial petition for protection in 1995.
A little smaller and lighter in color than the greater prairie chicken, the lesser prairie chicken is known for spring courtship rituals that include flamboyant dances by the males and a cacophony of clucking.
NM scientists work to understand 2020’s mass bird die-off and prevent another one - Sara Van Note, Source New Mexico
As summer turned to fall in 2020, people from Taos to Las Cruces reported unusual clusters of dead songbirds. Golden warblers, iridescent swallows, pale flycatchers and others were found scattered on riverbanks, huddled under barn eaves and strewn on playing fields.
The birds perished during their long migration from summer breeding grounds in the U.S. and Canada to wintering grounds in southern New Mexico, Mexico, and Central and South America.
The stakes are high for western birds, which are particularly vulnerable during migration. An October report from science and conservation organizations warns of the “widespread loss” of birds across the U.S., including western forest birds, which declined by almost 20% since 1970.
New Mexico scientists are looking for ways to protect migrating birds from another mass die-off. Scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory researched the factors that led to the unprecedented 2020 event, and released a 2022 study examining drought impacts on birds.
Patricia Cutler is a wildlife biologist at White Sands Missile Range who fielded numerous reports of dead birds from August through October of 2020. She collected over 400 dead birds from the range, and received reports of even more that she was unable to collect.
Though at first they didn’t know what caused the deaths, she knew it was “abnormal.” She and other scientists studied bird carcasses found on the range and elsewhere in southern New Mexico, counting 59 different species. Of the birds they could analyze, nearly all had zero fat.
“Migration is really stressful for birds in the first place,” Cutler said, and it’s a time they lose weight on their arduous journeys. “But to find this many birds with no fat, that was concerning.”
THE LIKELY CULPRIT
Federal labs that examined birds collected in 2020 found evidence they died of starvation and hypothermia, with many birds “severely emaciated.”
Though a storm front and cold snap preceded many of the bird deaths, scientists say the real culprit was climate change. The summer of 2020 saw widespread drought throughout New Mexico, part of a 20-year, region-wide megadrought.
And the Rio Grande, an important migratory corridor, has seen dramatic impacts from climate change in recent decades, with miles-long stretches of the river drying each year.
One outcome of long-term drought is fewer food resources, both seeds and insects, Cutler said. And critical stopover habitat, where birds can rest and refuel, has been lost across the West, she added. Smoke from the record-setting California wildfires in 2020, Cutler said, might have caused birds to migrate early or detour around smoke plumes.
Given the hundreds of birds collected on White Sands Missile Range, Cutler guessed the total number of bird deaths statewide was in the tens of thousands to potentially hundreds of thousands.
And while there have been no documented mortality events since 2020, she notes that a lack of deaths doesn’t mean human activities aren’t impacting birds. “Anytime they’re distracted off of their normal migration pathways,” she said, they use up energy and fat critical for migration.
HELP FROM THE PUBLIC
While scientists gathered bird carcasses to examine, they also turned to the public. Researchers from New Mexico State University set up a project on the online nature identification platform iNaturalist to collect citizen observations of dead birds.
Hundreds of people shared photos and descriptions of the birds they found, contributing to a picture of widespread die-offs across New Mexico and other southwestern states.
Ecologist Neeshia Macanowicz was surveying for plants in the Jornada Basin north of Las Cruces when she started encountering dead birds. In 12 years of fieldwork in the area, she said she’d never seen anything like it — not the number of dead birds nor the variety of species.
She posted the photos to iNaturalist, and asked her coworkers to look for birds. She felt sad at the time but said the discovery ended up raising awareness of the status of birds at her worksite.
Scientists from LANL and other federal agencies analyzed 11 years of data from migrating birds captured and banded in and near Los Alamos, in order to understand the relationship between drought and the health of migrating birds.
Jenna Stanek, lead author, found that in years of more severe drought, birds were more likely to be unhealthy with very low fat reserves, while in wetter years, birds were more likely to have fat to support their migration. She also found that young insectivore birds were least likely to have enough fat, suggesting they’re less resilient to drought.
Stanek said birds are more at risk now due to increased climate variability. “Before, if an extreme weather event happened, they had the fat stores to be able to make it through it.”
OTHER FACTORS
Cutler said she was surprised to collect so many dead birds at White Sands Missile Range and hypothesizes that artificial lighting may have disoriented and drawn in birds. Songbirds migrate at night, using star patterns, landmarks and the Earth’s magnetic field to guide them. So Cutler started a study to determine how birds are affected by lighting on the missile range.
She said there’s no downside to designing lighting to lessen impacts on birds and other wildlife.
“Birds are just getting hit from such a wide variety of impacts,” she said, “that I think anywhere that we can make improvements is important.”
HOW TO HELP
At home, people can reduce threats to birds by keeping cats inside, turning exterior lights off at night, and making windows bird-safe with cords that hang down and break up reflections, Stanek said. Growing native plants and avoiding pesticides is also critical.
Consumer choices like buying shade-grown coffee and avoiding single-use plastics support healthy bird habitat. And Stanek recommends sharing bird observations on websites like eBird and Project FeederWatch, or joining an in-person bird survey like the Christmas Bird Count.
As fall migration peaks this year in New Mexico, warblers, swallows and flycatchers are again winging South. While the other three North American migration flyways receive greater numbers of birds, many Western bird species migrate via the Central Flyway, which includes New Mexico. Stanek said the Rio Grande corridor in particular is an important refuge for birds as well as butterflies and bats migrating through the arid Southwest. “It’s one of New Mexico’s greatest living treasures.”
Identifying important stopover sites and enhancing and protecting them is one critical way to help birds on the move. If steps are taken to help birds, Stanek said, maybe there won’t be another bird die-off.