Archives

PHOENIX – The partial federal government shutdown is affecting Arizona’s painstaking work on an internal drought plan, although not enough to delay a federal deadline set for the end of this month. The Bureau of Reclamation remains open, Phoenix-area manager Leslie Meyers said, noting that the bureau’s funding was appropriated in September. The legal counsel.

COTTONWOOD – Fighting nature with nature seems like a good idea – unless nature doesn’t care about geography. Today, the effects of a federal decision made 20 years ago to use Asian beetles to slow the spread of an invasive shrub across the West are reducing nesting habitat for an endangered songbird – the southwestern.

HERMOSILLO, Mexico – The last stretch to the solar array is a rough dirt road that winds through the desert scrublands east of Hermosillo, Sonora’s state capital. Barbed wire and the occasional cow are the only signs of civilization. After one gate and then another, the panels come into view. Row after row after row.

WASHINGTON – In her decades fighting wildfires, Forest Service Chief Vicki Christiansen says the fires have gotten bigger, the deployments have gotten longer and the situation has just gotten worse overall. But there may be help on the horizon. After years of wrangling, Congress last year passed the “fire funding fix,” which will take effect.

TEMPE – When he first walked into Bike Saviours, Christian Lee Bowers was so awed by the place he was speechless. “The next day, I even wondered if this place was real,” he said. “So I came back and instantly just started working on projects.” The cooperative bike shop not only teaches customers how to.

SANTA MONICA, Calif. – In the past 30 days, nearly half of U.S. college students have gone without enough to eat, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. That includes students in Arizona and California. Gicela Galvez is one of those students – a sophomore studying psychology at Santa Monica College. Like many of.

PHOENIX – Officials at a water treatment plant near a heavily polluted site in Tucson are replacing more than 56 tons of activated carbon to address newly discovered perfluorinated chemical contamination. “The fact that we have a treatment plant there at all is entirely driven by the Superfund site,” said Tim Thomure, director of Tucson.

PHOENIX – In early December, after months (some would say years) of tough negotiations, the Central Arizona Project board approved a framework for the state’s internal Drought Contingency Plan, which outlines how expected reductions in water deliveries would be decided. Pinal County farmers expressed concern, however, because money to help them build groundwater infrastructure was.

CAMP VERDE – Chip Norton has a message to promote the importance of river conservation: “I’ll say it both ways – Save water, drink beer. Drink beer, save water.” Norton, president and principal shareholder of Sinagua Malt, started his malt house in 2016 to help reduce water use from the Verde River. Norton and the.

LOS ANGELES – Behold the prepared meal kit, a box full of tidy pouches and recipe cards that appear each week, as if by magic, on our doorsteps. Touting organic ingredients and “sustainable,” “recyclable,” “earth friendly” and “responsibly sourced” materials, meal prep kits have grown into a billion-dollar industry. Less planning. Better eating. Less waste..

TUCSON – Tree rings, going back 800 years, are giving researchers at the University of Arizona a window into how climate change could expand the planet’s most extreme deserts, including the Sonoran, which extends from the Baja Peninsula, into Southern California and much of southern Arizona. “We see a trend, atmospherically speaking, that the tropical.

BOISE, Idaho – The fire season across the West has been brutal. In California, the Camp Fire and Woolsey Fire together left more than 88 dead and 15,000 structures destroyed, with dozens of people still missing. Huge fires in Nevada have burned hundreds of thousands of acres. Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico have all been affected..

LOS ANGELES – California’s building codes are not keeping up with the severe, wind-driven wildfires that are becoming the norm. Ten years ago, the state passed strict new standards for homes built in high fire-risk areas. But even homes built to those standards were destroyed in the Thomas Fire in December 2017. Homes now are.

PHOENIX – Environmentally speaking, it’s best to reuse your holiday lights for as long as possible, or to donate them. But for the first time, Phoenix is accepting strings of lights for recycling. Residents can drop off lights at one of two transfer stations, starting the day after Christmas. “This is the first year that.

FLAGSTAFF – The Grand Canyon, carved by water over millions of years, is a geologic wonder that has inspired poets to dream and scientists to ponder. Most of us are lucky to visit once or twice in a lifetime. But for several Native American tribes, the Grand Canyon is their home. “Most Americans think Native.

PHOENIX – Sirena Rana Dufault has hiked Mount Lemmon, outside Tucson, more times than she can say. But she still has a sense of wonder, noticing little things, including a dust-colored lizard skittering past. “Oh my gosh!” she said, scooping up the tiny creature. “Look at him! He’s adorable! … He’s like a dinosaur!” Dufault,.

PHOENIX – At 22, Carly Verbeke has been to Europe twice. But until just now, she had never been on a hike. Now, for the first time, her wheelchair is rolling past tall pines on a flat, paved trail, the smell of damp earth heavy in the air. Her chair isn’t even rated to go.

PHOENIX – A few years ago, when Caitlin Stewart announced she was going to hike all 2,200 miles of the Appalachian Trail, people had questions. “Probably four to 10 people said, ‘Are you going to bring a machete?’” she recalled. That would be a no. She wasn’t going to take a gun, either. But the.

PHOENIX – Ask Brian Gootee of the Arizona Geological Survey how the mountains ringing metro Phoenix formed and you’ll get what sounds like a riddle: “When you think about this flat (Salt River) valley, I think you have to kind of start over with what it wasn’t, right before it started to become what it.

PHOENIX – The governors of Arizona, New Mexico and Sonora, Mexico, signed an agreement Wednesday promoting the transport of natural gas from New Mexico to growing markets in Asia. The four-year pact promises to promote the production and transmission of natural gas produced in New Mexico, which is to be piped through Arizona to Sonoran.

WASHINGTON – Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Tucson, may not take over the House Natural Resources Committee for another two weeks, but that doesn’t mean his potential presence as chairman isn’t already being felt. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, long a target of Grijalva, said last week that he will resign before Democrats take control of the House.

PHOENIX – Americans are on pace to eat more meat per person in 2018 than ever before – despite a push to reduce meat production to curb climate change. The average consumer will eat 222 pounds of red meat and poultry by the end of this year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, surpassing.

PHOENIX – Three years after an accidental spill from a gold mine in southwest Colorado, scientists are getting the chance to thoroughly analyze its impact on Lake Powell. They’re looking for traces of toxic metals in wastewater accidentally released by the Gold King Mine near Silverton in 2015. The Utah Department of Environmental Quality, the.

PRESCOTT – After more than a year of studies and loud public opposition, the federal government has given the green light to a pozzolan mine on public land in Skull Valley, southwest of Prescott. Natural pozzolan, which is used to make high quality concrete, is found in deposits of tuff, a glassy, igneous rock formed.

LAS VEGAS – Coming to terms with the limits of the Colorado River is like losing a loved one, Keith Moses said. “It reminds me of the seven stages of grief, because I think we’ve been in denial for a long time,” Moses, vice chairman of the Colorado River Indian Tribes, a group of four.

LAS VEGAS – Water leaders throughout the West now have a hard deadline to finish deals that would keep the Colorado River’s biggest reservoirs from dropping to deadpool levels – the point at which water no longer can be released. The nation’s top water official is giving leaders of the seven states that rely on.

PHOENIX – Climate change could double your beer tab, according to a recent global study, and craft breweries fear they’ll be hurt the most. The study, published in October in the peer-reviewed online journal Nature Plants, suggests that the barley supply could decrease up to 15 percent over the next several decades due to ongoing.

GILBERT – From meat trays to mac-and-cheese cups, single-use plastics pack the grocery-store aisles and usually end up in landfills. Now, an Arizona company is on a mission to replace them with biodegradable and compostable products over the next five years. “We had the vision that the whole world was going to demand alternatives to.

LOS ANGELES – Last month’s Woolsey Fire destroyed 88 percent of public land in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, and experts with the National Park Service already are assessing the damaging and considering ways to restore the land. NPS spokeswoman Kate Kuykendall previously described the park as a moonscape, and photos from the.

WASHINGTON – After months of wrangling, state and tribal officials, industry and agriculture representatives walked out of a meeting at the end of last month with high hopes they were nearing agreement on a complex water-conservation plan. And at the beginning of this month, they found themselves grappling with new demands that threatened to derail.

WICKENBURG – Jerry Tyra started working underground in 1960, drilling ore samples to help mine companies figure out whether to develop a mine site. Since 2007, the 75-year-old has been doing a different kind of exploration: scouring the state for the thousands of abandoned mines some of his former employers may have left scattered throughout.

PHOENIX – After he started hallucinating, John Waddell began to believe he would die. He had fallen 100 feet to the bottom of an abandoned gold mine in western Maricopa County, leaving him with a broken leg and rope-burned hands. “It’s like a black cloud that’s a little stringy, and these figures were coming out.

DENVER – Nearly half the population of the West lives in an area with potential for wildfire danger. And both the risk of fire and the population in harm’s way are rising in this fast-growing part of the nation. Eighty-four percent of the risk area has not yet been developed. “Which means the problem is.

TONTO NATIONAL FOREST – LeRoy Shingoitewa dug his hiking boots into loose gravel and sand, watching the early November morning sunlight slowly spread across shrubby hills and rocky valleys near the proposed site of an enormous copper mine. Resolution Copper plans to develop the mine east of Superior and predicts the mine will meet about.

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – Boats bobbed on a gentle current as Jeff Maassen, a sea-urchin diver for 30 years, filled up his fuel tank at the wharf. He waved to fellow fishermen, then set out for the Channel Islands off Santa Barbara, where he would dive for the next few days. Maassen harvests red sea.

FLAGSTAFF – The Dewey-Humboldt Town Council has passed a resolution condemning animal-killing contests. The Nov. 20 resolution came three weeks before a coyote contest in central Arizona called the Santa Slay Coyote Tournament. Dewey-Humboldt – which is southeast of Prescott and bills itself as “Arizona’s Country Town” – joins Tucson, Pinal County, Albuquerque and California.

LA JOLLA, Calif. – Flu season is underway across the country, and it’s not too late for a flu shot. But rather than get vaccinations to combat influenza, people one day could get protection from llamas. New research suggests llama antibodies – the protective proteins that mobilize to protect the body from viruses – may.

PHOENIX – The pink bollworm has destroyed cotton crops in the United States for a century, but it now has been eradicated from cotton-producing areas in the Lower 48. An undersecretary for the U.S. Department of Agriculture was in Arizona last month to celebrate the demise of the pink bollworm, which first invaded Texas from.

TUCSON – The click of container lids and swoosh of zippers filled the air on a still morning in Saguaro National Park East. Tom Orum and his wife, Nancy Ferguson, pulled measuring equipment from the trunk of their dusty white truck, parked in a flat landscape of majestic saguaros towering over teddy bear cholla, prickly.

FLAGSTAFF – The decision to cut more than 1,300 old-growth trees last summer in an eastern Arizona forest has been criticized for breaking trust with the thinning project’s backers. The rebuke comes at a time when forest management is receiving national attention for its role in preventing catastrophic wildfires, such as those last month in.

PHOENIX – When you’re out hiking, you never know what you might see. You could cross paths with lizards, tarantulas or maybe even something bigger, like a javelina. More likely, you’ll come across the tracks of these critters. But imagine you’re hiking in the Grand Canyon and you happen upon a slab of fallen rock.

WASHINGTON – Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke blasted Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Tucson, on Twitter Friday after the congressman wrote an editorial calling on Zinke to resign “immediately” in the face of multiple, ongoing ethics investigations. Grijalva, long a critic of Zinke’s and of his management of the Interior Department, said in the op-ed in Friday’s USA.

PHOENIX – Negotiations on a drought plan for Arizona took a step forward Thursday when the head of the state water department said Gov. Doug Ducey will ask for $30 million in his upcoming budget proposal to help make the Drought Contingency Plan a reality. The news came as the directors of two big water.

WASHINGTON – Everybody in Washington seems to agree that the Land and Water Conservation Fund should be renewed, but chances of that happening still appear slim as the clock winds down on this Congress. A bipartisan group of House and Senate lawmakers gathered Thursday to push for the decades-old fund, which directs revenues from offshore.

GREELEY, Colo. – The effects of climate change are not far off challenges for future generations. They are existential problems for everyone alive today. That’s one big takeaway from the U.S. federal government’s latest roundup of climate science, the National Climate Assessment, now in its fourth iteration. Released the day after Thanksgiving, the report is.

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court made it harder Tuesday for the government to designate critical habitat for endangered species, in a ruling that business and property rights groups said corrects bureaucratic overreach. But environmental groups criticized the unanimous decision that they said “doesn’t do any damage to the Endangered Species Act” itself, but opens the.

GREELEY, Colo. – Early season snowfall in some parts of the Colorado River Basin have raised hopes of a drought recovery. But that optimism is likely premature. In some parts of Colorado, higher-than-average snowfall in October and early November has allowed ski resorts to open early. That was encouraging, considering last year’s season got off.

SAN FELIPE, Baja California – “Bienvenidos al Nido,” Francisco Iñegas said. “Welcome to El Nido.” He walks across what look like huge, gray connector blocks fitted together into a floating pathway. Then he climbs up into El Nido, an open-sea aquarium just off the small town of San Felipe in Mexico’s Sea of Cortez. “The.

PHOENIX – Citrus production, one of Arizona’s founding “Five Cs,” predates statehood. But today, the industry is stuck – and for lemons, the market no longer can grow, thanks to drought and urbanization. Harold Payne is manager of the 2,000-acre Fort McDowell Tribal Farm, which grows lemon trees on just one-tenth of the land, even.

SOLEDAD, Calif. – There is a calming resonance of nature’s finest and subtlest sounds at Pinnacles National Park. Leaves rustle and birds warble as the wind flows between the rolling mountains. On a good day, park visitors might see endangered California condors circling overhead, riding thermals on wingspans stretching up to 10 feet. The park.

SAN FELIPE, Baja California – Just as the sun peeks over the horizon, casting an orange glow across the water, a group of fishermen takes off from docks at San Felipe. Their small, blue-and-white boats, known as pangas, bounce and rattle over the waves of Mexico’s Sea of Cortez. Ruben Orozco wears a Chicago Bulls.

SAN FELIPE, Baja California – The activist sailors aboard Sea Shepherd’s big, white patrol ship in northern Mexico’s Sea of Cortez come from all over the world. A recent crew included volunteers from Italy, France, Brazil, Mexico and the United States, among other places. They’ve all joined the Los Angeles-based conservation society’s ship on the.

WESTLAKE VILLAGE, Calif. – The cul-de-sac off Blackbird Road looks idyllic, with green trees and inviting homes. Yet, a walk through this neighborhood reveals the scars left from the Woolsey Fire: a front yard blackened by flames, a charred wooden gate, a trampoline ripped at the seams. These are reminders of how lucky Westlake Village.

WASHINGTON – Forest Service Chief Vicki Christiansen came under fire Thursday for her department’s handling of sexual harassment complaints, the same issue that led to the retirement of her predecessor as chief. Christiansen, the former Arizona State Forester, was grilled by members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, who also heard explicit testimony.

PHOENIX – Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey has written an opinion piece outlining some requirements he has for Arizona’s internal deal on drought. It came two days ahead of an important meeting of the board of the agency that runs the Central Arizona Project canal system. The other six Colorado River Basin states and Mexico are.

LOS ANGELES – Arizona officials are sending dozens of fire engines to California to help fight devastating wildfires, one of which has raged for a week. Arizona officials have sent 42 engines and 144 firefighters from across the state to help battle the blazes, back-fill for local fire departments and help with supplies, according to.

FLAGSTAFF – Universities in Arizona are stepping up how they handle food waste and single-use plastic. All three of the state’s universities have robust composting programs to reduce what ends up in landfills. But Northern Arizona University has expanded its efforts to include reusable food containers, and it banned plastic straws this year. Now, Flagstaff.

GREER – On a chilly fall morning in eastern Arizona, families taking part in a youth hunting camp awoke before dawn to hunt elk. Gage Martinez, 14, was one of the last to shoot an elk, but by midmorning, it was skinned and hanging from a tree by its hind legs. “I was so excited,.

PHOENIX – The fight over whether Arizona should get half of its electricity from solar, wind and other renewable sources turned bitter election night when Attorney General Mark Brnovich called out California billionaire Tom Steyer for using California’s energy policies to try to influence Arizona’s policies. “I’ve got a message for Tom Steyer,” Brnovich said.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – We love our rivers, our mountains, our forests, deserts and wildlife in the West. They’re part of our economies, our lifestyles and our identity. But that very connection makes us vulnerable to a growing mental health problem: climate anxiety. Wander around any town center or school campus around Colorado Springs and.

Updated at 10:44 p.m. PHOENIX – Arizona voters rejected Proposition 127, according to the Associated Press. The initiative would have required the state’s regulated utilities to get 50 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2030. Arizona’s current renewable portfolio standard will remain in place. That standard, set by the Arizona Corporation Commission, requires.

TUCSON – Thunder and lightning. Dust and wind. Flash floods. These hallmarks of the North American monsoon are well-known to Arizonans, and new research indicates these impressive storms have been a part of the Southwest’s climate for millions of years. Jessica Tierney, a geologist and associate professor at the University of Arizona, leads a research.

FLAGSTAFF – Arizonans spend time in their cars every day. Stopped. Maybe they’re waiting for a light to change or light rail to pass, to pick up a friend or get food at the drive-thru. Whatever the reason, all those idling engines contribute to air pollution. It’s a national environmental concern. The U.S. Department of Energy.

GRAND CANYON – Arizona’s national parks are feeling their age and need a $531 million makeover on hundreds of roads and buildings that serve millions of annual visitors, park officials said. It’s a problem in national parks around the country, but financial rescue may be edging closer. The Grand Canyon, Petrified National Forest and other.

WASHINGTON – A federal appeals court said Thursday that the Havasupai tribe and environmental advocates can challenge an existing uranium mine on land near the Grand Canyon where mining was recently banned. The decision by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is a partial reversal of its own December decision.

LECHEE CHAPTER HOUSE, Navajo Nation – Just south of Page, three smokestacks pierce the horizon like a pitchfork. They belong to the West’s largest coal-fired power plant, the Navajo Generating Station. Beyond it, red sandstone mesas tower over a glimmering Lake Powell. Jerry Williams has worked at NGS for 38 years. Two weeks ago, he.

PHOENIX – The superintendent of Grand Canyon National Park is “presently out of the office” and under investigation by the Interior Department for undisclosed allegations, a spokeswoman for the National Park Service said Wednesday. Christine Lehnertz, who was hired as park superintendent two years ago to address a pattern of sexual harassment among employees at.

PHOENIX – More than $40 million has been spent to fight for and against a ballot initiative that would change the future of Arizona’s energy mix. Proposition 127 has also been the subject of an Arizona Supreme Court lawsuit and a battle over claims that language from the Attorney General’s Office undermined the initiative. If.

YORBA LINDA, Calif. – It’s a real-estate paradox: The most desirable places to live also are among the most susceptible to wildfires. Mansions in the Santa Monica Mountains, tiny cabins tucked into the Angeles National Forest and homes at the edges of subdivisions all are beautiful because they’re surrounded by undeveloped land. But that land.

VENTURA, Calif. – Arizona is no stranger to gigantic wildfires, such as the Wallow Fire in 2011, which burned more than half a million acres and destroyed dozens of buildings. California has experienced two of the largest fires in its history within the past year. These wildfires are going to become more of the norm.

WASHINGTON – The White House on Friday released a plan that it said would improve water reliability and availability in the West by streamlining regulatory processes and conducting expedited reviews on water projects. Details on the plan were scarce Friday, but environmental groups were immediately skeptical, with one advocate saying she is “sure it’s a.

PHOENIX – There’s a fundamental question over the roundtail chub, a minnow native to Arizona: Is it endangered or not? The Center for Biological Diversity in Tucson in August sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for not protecting it. But the Arizona Game & Fish Department, which works with federal agencies to protect existing.

PHOENIX – First there was Rosa, then came Sergio. Remnants of those downgraded hurricanes helped set rainfall records for Phoenix and made this the wettest October since record keeping began in 1895. Phoenix is 2.55 inches above the year-to-date normal. The steady rains flooded roads, closed schools and briefly shut down the Arizona State Fair,.

FLAGSTAFF – On public land south of Mountainaire, nature lovers can enjoy a vista of thousands of lush ponderosa pines blanketing the base of the San Francisco Peaks. The dense forest is beautiful – and unnatural. It was sparse until humans changed the landscape in the late 19th century. And now, humans are trying to.

LAKE MEAD – Swaths of mineral-stained white rock, more than 100 feet tall, mark Lake Mead’s basin, punctuating decades of drought in the Southwest. At one point, the white rock was underwater. If the lake levels dip too low, Arizona could lose about a seventh of its annual water allotment to the Central Arizona Project,.

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. – The temperature is hovering around 90 degrees as Dale Ryden and I float down the Colorado River near Grand Junction. The turbid water looks inviting, a blessed reprieve from the heat, but if either of us jumped in, we’d be electrocuted. “It can actually probably be lethal to people if you.

MESA – Two representatives of Arizona dairy farmers said a recent U.S. trade agreement benefits dairy producers exporting to Canada, but they worry retaliatory tariffs from Mexico will continue to hamper their industry. In a deal reached Sept. 30, Canada agreed to eliminate a controversial pricing system and open up more of its market to.

PAGE – Years into a record-breaking drought across the Southwest, officials of the seven states along the Colorado River finally forged an agreement in 2007 on how to deal with future water shortages. Then they quietly hoped that wet weather would return. It didn’t. Those states now are back at the negotiating table to hammer.

PHOENIX – You may be familiar with carbon offsets, in which companies or schools try to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in one area to make up for emissions elsewhere. More and more, corporations also are trying to offset the water they use. Intel Corp., for one, announced a water restoration goal last year: restore 100.

PHOENIX – Monica Strauss pulls on a pair of plastic gloves every morning to dig through blue recycling bins set out on curbs in parts of the city. The Phoenix Public Works Department employee is methodical as she approaches each blue bin and sorts through the paper, cardboard boxes, plastic waste and other contents. She.

PHOENIX – Kroger, owner of Fry’s Foods in Arizona, will phase out plastic bags by 2025, becoming the latest company to respond to the backlash against single-use plastics. The grocery chain will transition to reusable bags in all 2,800 stores, starting in the Seattle area. Pam Giannonatti, spokeswoman for the Fry’s Food division of Kroger,.

CORTEZ, Colo. – Dave Huhn usually is off work on Sundays, but when the phone rang one Sunday during the height of irrigation season a few years ago, he picked up. The woman on the other end was frantic, screaming as she watched from the window as a neighbor, age 86, beat her husband, 82,.

SANTA MONICA, Calif. – Bottle caps. Plastic spoons. Paper cups. Volunteers who hit the beaches on Coastal Cleanup Day in September collected 734,000 pounds of this kind of trash and recyclable materials, according to the California Coastal Commission. “It’s good for the volunteers to come out to understand we only have one ocean, only one.

PHOENIX – Scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey scrambled Tuesday and Wednesday to measure flooding in waterways across metro Phoenix, providing data to help the National Weather Service better forecast potential floods and local agencies understand how high water could rise in the future. On Wednesday, a two-man crew was sent to the usually dry.

NOGALES – A transborder pipeline that brings millions of gallons of raw sewage from Mexico to the U.S. faces challenges on two fronts: The pipe is nearly 70 years old and increasingly prone to leaks; and heavy metals in the wastewater are causing problems at the Arizona plant where it’s treated. Every day, 14 million.

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Monday let stand an Obama-era moratorium on new uranium mines on about 1 million acres around the Grand Canyon, declining to hear a challenge by mining groups. The 20-year ban on new mines was imposed in 2012 by then-Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to protect the air and water around.

APACHE JUNCTION – A federal fund that has brought millions of dollars to Arizona over the years for national parks, trail maintenance, even community swimming pools, expired Sept. 30. That could jeopardize future outdoor projects funded through the Land and Water Conservation Fund if Congress doesn’t act. Lost Dutchman State Park, nestled at the base.

PHOENIX – The next time you throw something out your car window – especially a cigarette butt – when you drive down the freeway, think of it as throwing money away. It cost taxpayers more than $4 million in 2017 to keep clean about 400 miles of highway in metro Phoenix, according to the Maricopa.

GRAND CANYON VILLAGE – The Grand Canyon twists through northern Arizona, a deep gash cut by the Colorado River. But the river had help from wind, rain and scorching sun, which also has battered its lodges, roads, and utility structures. On Saturday, Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke visited Grand Canyon’s windswept roadways, sunbaked cabins.

PHOENIX – Heavy street traffic in Phoenix is common. With more than 4.7 million people now calling the metropolitan area home, it is no surprise people seek solace on the hiking, biking and horseback trails across the city. Crowds, however, have become an issue on some of the more than 200 miles of trails that.

WASHINGTON – The investment firm that was interested in buying the Navajo Generating Station broke off its pursuit this week, making the closure of the plant next year and the loss of hundreds of jobs appear more likely. Avenue Capital subsidiary Middle River Project said in a letter to Navajo officials Thursday night that it.

COCHISE COUNTY – In the mountains 20 miles west of Willcox, 15 wind turbines stand 450 feet tall, spinning with the wind. This is the Red Horse II Wind Farm, the only wind farm operating in southern Arizona. The wind farm is being investigated by the U.S. Justice Department’s Environmental and Natural Resources Division in.

WASHINGTON – Sarah Herve’s plan for the dozen volunteers she oversees every season at the Petrified Forest National Park is simple. “My goal is to treat volunteers so well that they don’t want to leave and always want to come back,” said Herve, a park ranger supervisor at the park west of Holbrook, where she.

CAMP VERDE – Zach Hauser, like many farmers in the Verde Valley, takes pride in his land and the crops he grows. Normally this time of year, rows of corn, alfalfa, carrots and watermelon would cover his acreage. But today, two large sections of his property look like a farmer’s worst nightmare: fallow land strewn.

PHOENIX – The city is making strides toward a more pedestrian-friendly downtown in a move to build community and boost business. Phoenix this summer opened a “more walkable” area along First Street just south of Roosevelt Street, where workers widened sidewalks, planted 125 shade trees and narrowed First Street from two lanes each way to.

WASHINGTON – The long-running fight over the Mexican gray wolf moved from southeast Arizona to a paneled Washington conference room this week, where scientists will try to answer the question that could determine the animal’s fate. Is a Mexican gray wolf just another wolf, or is it a distinct – and endangered – breed of.

PHOENIX – A Canadian energy company will add to its helium operation with more than 3,000 acres of newly leased federal land near Petrified Forest National Park in northeastern Arizona. But an environmental group and Arizona U.S. Rep. Tom O’Halleran worry that operations could threaten key water sources and at least two endangered species. Desert.

WASHINGTON – A House committee unanimously approved a surprise, bipartisan plan to save a popular land conservation fund Thursday, just weeks before it was set to expire. Reauthorization of the $900 million Land and Water Conservation Fund had stalled as the Republican chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee and the panel’s senior Democrat locked.

WASHINGTON – The existing partial border wall with Mexico has caused environmental damage, harmed border communities and failed to make the country safer, and a complete border wall would only make things worse, according to a report released Wednesday. The report, “Death, Damage, and Failure: Past, Present, and Future Impacts of Walls on the U.S.-Mexico.

WASHINGTON – Democratic lawmakers said Wednesday that Trump administration efforts to revamp the Endangered Species Act disregard science and ignore the impact that climate change is having on wildlife and their habitats. The House and Senate members were pushing back against plans by Republicans, who say the act is no longer useful and needs to.

PHOENIX – The first in a series of trials looking at water rights for the Hopi Tribe starts on Tuesday, but experts close to the case expect the results to take a while. The case that begins Tuesday in Maricopa County Superior Court involves the tribe’s past and present uses of water in the Little.

NEW YORK – A group of Navajo environmentalists on Monday took their fight against the Navajo Generating Station to Manhattan, where they protested outside the offices of an investment firm that might save the coal-fired plant. Bundled in boots, coats and layers, the group rallied outside Avenue Capital Group for several hours, standing without umbrellas.

LOS ANGELES – About 60,000 people are homeless in Los Angeles, and Mayor Eric Garcetti has declared homelessness a state of emergency. “Housing to me is the prism through which we refract almost every other issue,” Garcetti said. “So if we’re talking about sustaining life in Los Angeles and California, traffic, the air we breathe,.

LOS ANGELES – The danger birds pose to airplanes is no joke. In the past four years just at Los Angeles International Airport, birds and other wildlife hit aircraft more than 500 times, according to Federal Aviation Administration data. At Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, wildlife hit aircraft more than 230 times from August 2014.

PHOENIX – Most of the headlines from the trade war between China and the United States have focused on tariffs on aluminum and steel, but China also has placed a levy on recycled paper pulp. While not as well known, the 25 percent tariff could bankrupt the beleagured recycling industry in the United States. China’s.

FORT COLLINS, Colo. – The Colorado River, which supplies water to croplands and 40 million people in the Southwest, is projected to hit a historic low mark within two years, forcing mandatory cuts to deliveries in Arizona, Nevada and Mexico. Facing exceptional drought conditions this summer, cities throughout the river’s vast watershed imposed mandatory water.

Colorado is called “the mother of rivers” for a reason: It has thousands of miles of waterways. That makes Colorado one of the most popular states for river rafting in the country. But like most of the West, a changing climate, drought and wildfires are taking their toll on this multimillion-dollar industry. Jordan Poythress is.

LOS ANGELES – Can’t leave the house without getting bitten? Legs swollen from scratching? Welcome to the crowd. Because yes, the mosquitoes are worse this year. Why? There’s a new type of mosquito hunting across the southern United States. You might have heard of it – the Aedes mosquito – which first showed up in.

PHOENIX – The SunZia power project faces a new objection, this time from an environmental group that fears the high-voltage transmission lines from New Mexico to Arizona will inflict irreparable damage to wetlands and bird populations. The $2 billion project, proposed in 2008, calls for building two 1,500-megawatt lines running 520 miles from central New.

TEMPE – You smell it before you see it. As Galina Mihaleva opens the door to a former teachers’ lounge at the School of Art at Arizona State University, the pungent, sweet-and-sour aroma of fermenting tea assaults the senses. Inside the lounge is a makeshift lab where dozens of plastic containers, some open and others.

NOGALES – Some residents in Santa Cruz County are warning that the pipeline carrying raw sewage from Mexico into the United States could rupture as it did during last year’s monsoon, spewing millions of gallons of waste into the Nogales Wash over seven days. The wash is a main tributary of the Santa Cruz River,.

WASHINGTON – Deenise Becenti remembers watching this summer as a Navajo woman who had been waiting more than 20 years to get electricity in her home flipped the switch to turn on the lights for the first time. “She had a whole lot of happy tears,” said Becenti, spokeswoman for the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority..

PAGE – The Bureau of Reclamation finished Glen Canyon Dam in 1963, obliterating one of the most spectacular red-rock canyons in the Southwest and altering the flow of the mighty Colorado River. The concrete-arch dam, just south of the Arizona-Utah line, was first proposed in the 1940s to store water and produce electricity for Western.

WASHINGTON – A proposal for a massive open-pit copper mine in the Santa Rita Mountains will be back in court this month as opponents challenge permits for the project, the latest twist in an 11-year battle over the Rosemont Mine. The fight pits supporters – who say the mine has been studied to death and.

PHOENIX – Thirty miles south of Phoenix, green fields of alfalfa and pima cotton stretch toward a triple-digit sun. Hundreds of yellow butterflies dance above the purple flowers that dapple the tops of the young alfalfa stalks – to expert eyes, the flowers signal that the plants are heat-stressed and should be harvested soon. Gila.

WASHINGTON – When the U.S. pulled out of the Paris Accords last summer, five Arizona cities joined hundreds around the country that vowed to live up to the Paris climate standards even if the U.S. wouldn’t. Little has changed in the year since, but the Arizona mayors are sticking to their guns, saying they would.

PHOENIX – The desert swelter weighs down on Jed Nitso as he approaches a small, man-made trough filled with green water that’s swarming with bees. A yardstick measurement confirms what he already knew: The water level is low. With the twist of a lever, hundreds of gallons of water gush out of Nitso’s truck, flow.

CAMP VERDE – The “growth” industry has fueled Arizona’s economy – growth in houses, offices, and places to have fun. Consistent growth is possible, in part, because of prudent water management in the more populated areas of the state. But outside the population hubs, some water rights still are tied up in court, making it.

Arizona is in its 21st year of drought, and climate change is bringing longer, more intense heat waves. Now, scientists at University of California, Irvine, have found that many areas experiencing dry conditions are heating up faster than the rest of the country. The study was published in the journal Science Advances. Anyone with a.

PHOENIX – Can a miniature monsoon-storm machine save a super-small endangered snail? Bradley Poynter sure thinks so. He leads the conservation team at the Phoenix Zoo, which recently faced a problem when trying to get certain diminutive mollusks to mate. “Those land snails come out only when it rains,” he said. “They come out to.

DENVER – Between growing populations and a changing climate, water sources in the West are only expected to get more crunched. Communities in some very dry states have had to get creative about where to get their water, sometimes purifying sewage into drinking water. More Western cities are beginning to get on board, too. But.

WASHINGTON – Tucson mom Linda Robles was in Washington Wednesday to demand that the Environmental Protection Agency ban TCE, the chemical she blames for the death of one daughter and the birth defects of three other children. “Our community is tired of it,” Robles said at a Capitol Hill news conference with other parents whose.

PHOENIX – Phoenix is working with a California company to turn fronds into cattle feed, reducing landfill trash. The partnership with Palm Silage Inc. will divert 34,000 tons of palm trimmings annually from city landfills. The company is leasing 10 acres at a city trash-recycling center in southwest Phoenix, city spokeswoman Brenda Yanez said. The.

TUCSON – This used to be a city of lawns. Patches of Bermuda grass lined residential neighborhoods, kept green — even in blazing summer months — with diligent watering. Over the decades, that has changed. Most Tucson residents eschew lush lawns in favor of landscaping more in tune with the city’s desert setting — although.

LONGMONT, Colorado – Throughout the Western U.S., water conservation is in the toilet. And that’s a good thing. Since the 1990s, a strange phenomenon has emerged in arid urban areas: Populations are booming while overall water use is staying the same or going down. The trend is clear in Denver, Albuquerque, Las Vegas, San Diego.

LAS VEGAS — What we now know as Hoover Dam was one of the most impressive and recognizable feats of engineering of the 20th century. And in the 1930s, the construction of Boulder Dam and Boulder City helped put southern Nevada on the map. But some of the people who helped build the dam and.

LONGMONT, Colorado – About a dozen people crouched in the tall grass of an open field, moving slowly and deliberately through mud that squished underfoot. Some carried huge, serrated knives called hori-hori, a Japanese tool made specifically for weeding. Others wielded gardening shears, saws or chemical sprays as their weapons of choice. Their enemy was.

PHOENIX – Phoenix may be the first U.S. city to build a mill to remanufacture plastic containers. It’s an effort to clean up one part of a global trash problem that’s been mounting for decades and is only getting worse. Curbside is where recycling ends for most of us, but for the city, it’s just.

LOS ANGELES – Mountains. Forests. Starry nights. Smog. Smog? Sadly, yes. The air in two popular national parks in California is as dirty as it is in Los Angeles – the smoggiest city in the country. “When you think of national parks, you think of these as being really pristine areas, almost areas you want.

WASHINGTON – Reps. Raul Grijalva and Rob Bishop agree on almost nothing, but the two came together Wednesday to back a bipartisan bill that could steer billions toward a national parks maintenance backlog that reached $11.6 billion last year. Grijalva, a Tucson Democrat, and Bishop, a Utah Republican, unveiled the Restore Our Parks and Public.

SCOTTSDALE – With the Discovery Channel airing the 30th incarnation of its popular Shark Week television event this week, interest in the predator is high. The shows attract millions of viewers, and their popularity has led to multiple Sharknado movies and shark-themed items in popular video games. Businesses in Arizona are capitalizing on the shark.

WASHINGTON – Trump administration plans to revamp the Endangered Species Act were hailed this week as “long overdue” by industry groups, even as environmentalists called the changes a “a massive attack on imperiled wildlife.” The proposals unveiled Thursday by officials from the departments of Commerce and the Interior come a week after members of the.

PHOENIX – The Environment Arizona & Policy Center released a report on Tuesday that focuses on how well the nation is utilizing renewable energy. Arizona has dramatically increased renewable energy production since 2008, the report said, and ranks high in several categories. Renewable energy is within reach, according to a news release from Environment Arizona..

PHOENIX – Applesnails are a common aquarium pet, but they’ve also become a nuisance in some of the state’s waterways. The Arizona Game & Fish Department wants to eradicate them from the lower Salt River, and it has enlisted the public’s help to clear the South American invaders from certain areas. Erin Raney, the department’s.

LOS ANGELES — Like many accomplished football players, Glenn Love Jr. never worried much about life after the game. When he started playing professionally, however, the uncertainty set in. That changed after a visit to the Turtle Rescue conservation program at the OdySea Aquarium in Scottsdale. “They were like missing some limbs and I was.

WASHINGTON – A group of Western lawmakers unveiled a package of bills Thursday to “modernize” the Endangered Species Act by allowing more local input and encouraging voluntary conservation efforts. “Everybody wants to have endangered species protected, but doing it in the right way, where everyone is included in the process,” said Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Prescott,.

WASHINGTON – The president of the Arizona Farm Bureau told a House panel Thursday that regulations meant to help the environment are actually doing the opposite, in part by harming ranchers who are in the best position to help. In testimony to a House Natural Resources subcommittee, Stefanie Smallhouse said that laws meant to protect.

PHOENIX – Monsoon rains have reduced the danger of wildfires in Arizona, prompting forest officials Wednesday to lift the ban on campfires in the Coconino National Forest and reduce fire restrictions in parts of the Kaibab and Tonto national forests. Other federally controlled forests kept fire restrictions in place because of wildfire risks spurred by.

PHOENIX – As the drought that has gripped Arizona for two decades grinds on, humans increasingly are stepping in to help with food and water. The Arizona Game & Fish Department manages 3,000 watering holes, or catchments, built in remote areas throughout the state since the mid-1940s. They originally were for small game, such as.

WASHINGTON – Arizona Democrats and environmental groups on Thursday welcomed the resignation of Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, who aggressively rolled back agency regulations even as he was dogged by ethical questions. The news was widely cheered by people like Sandy Bahr, director of the Grand Canyon chapter of the Sierra Club, who when.

WILLCOX – It was time to bring the sheep in for a drink. “Go to water, go to water!” shouts Rusty Cocke, who owns about 200 head of sheep that act as living lawn mowers on a solar farm about 20 miles west of Willcox. The sheep have spent the morning munching through mesquite saplings.

PHOENIX – In the land of year-round lawns, gasoline-powered mowers are ubiquitous, and they’re a major source of the ozone and other pollutants that foul our air, experts say. To address the problem, the Maricopa County Air Quality Department has partnered with the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality to persuade homeowners to switch from gasoline.

FLAGSTAFF – Fire restrictions have doused the city’s Independence Day fireworks show, but officials stress there still are plenty of ways to celebrate. The city has imposed stage 3 fire restrictions banning the sale and use of commercial-grade fireworks. This is the highest stage Flagstaff has seen in a few years, and fire officials cite.

NAVAJO RESERVATION – Glenda Seweingyawma plucked quarters from a giant pickle jar and dropped them into the water-station vending machine to fill up a large plastic barrel. It’s a common scene: About 40 percent of Navajos living on the reservation have to haul their drinking water. But this water wasn’t for humans. It was for.

TEMPE – After a detailed – and dire – technical presentation from one of her experts, the commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation on Thursday told an audience of water stakeholders that officials weren’t trying to scare people, only make plain the risks of historically low levels on Lake Mead. Commissioner Brenda Burman and.

In the final episode of season three, we discover new technologies that incorporate sustainability to solve problems. We’ll watch a fashion show that features smart clothing made out of strange materials, visit Saguaro National Park to see why the National Park Service is putting microchips in cacti and play “Happy City,” a city planning game.

CHANDLER – Jose Alvarez, a supervisor at R.H. Dupper Landscaping, stood up from changing a sprinkler nozzle on a large grassy area managed by a homeowner’s association in Chandler. He surveyed the turf, a patchwork of green and brown. “It looks terrible,” he said. “The sprinklers, they don’t have enough pressure, and they spray, like,.

WASHINGTON – Federal officials said they will re-evaluate the threatened species status of the western yellow-billed cuckoo, after petitions from Arizona miners, ranchers and other groups argued that the species is no different from thriving eastern populations of the bird. The notice Wednesday by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service comes in response to a.

WASHINGTON – Navajo officials and residents urged a Senate committee Wednesday to expand coverage of a fund that compensates uranium miners and “downwinders” – people who lived downwind from Cold War nuclear tests. “I had a good job supporting my family,” said Leslie Begay, a uranium miner who said he faces high medical costs from.

PHOENIX – Metro Phoenix was among the Top 5 largest metro areas with the most days of smog in 2016, according to a national study released Wednesday by an Arizona research group. Experts say that’s a serious health concern for the 4.6 million people who live in the area because breathing contaminated air increases the.

YUMA – An E. coli outbreak that sickened people in 35 states and led to a recall of romaine lettuce farmed in Yuma clipped a billion-dollar industry that reaches to Europe, with farmers now working to rebuild consumers’ trust. “After it was announced that Yuma was the source of the lettuce causing the outbreak, it.

FLORENCE – Officer Laura Orscheln sets up her binoculars and tripod and stands on a ridge overlooking the quiet desert near Florence. Scanning the desert for any movement, the Arizona Game & Fish Department wildlife manager spots something dark moving about a mile away. It’s just trash, so she sweeps her binoculars elsewhere. She’s “glassing”.

PHOENIX – Water managers in Arizona again are trying to strike a deal that would help prepare the state for future cuts to its water supply if Lake Mead drops below specific levels, which could come as early as 2020. The renewed effort to forge the Drought Contingency Plan comes after a year of anxiety.

PHOENIX – Problems can’t be managed unless researchers have accurate measurements. For example, would planting a million trees reduce the ambient temperature in Phoenix by a tenth of a degree Fahrenheit or 10 degrees Fahrenheit? Researchers would need valid data to answer that question, said David Sailor, director of Arizona State University’s Urban Climate Research.

WASHINGTON – Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has “no intention to revisit uranium mining” in and around the Grand Canyon, his spokeswoman said, after outdoorsmen’s groups launched a campaign urging him to keep a 20-year mining moratorium in place. Advocates said they were worried the Trump administration was moving toward lifting a 2012 mining ban on.

WASHINGTON – Arizona wildlife groups launched a campaign Monday to block what they fear is a Trump administration effort to reopen 1 million acres around the Grand Canyon to uranium mining, saying the environmental risks are too great. The campaign by Trout Unlimited and the Arizona Wildlife Federation includes billboards along interstate highways in the.

GREELEY, Colo. – Reservoirs along the Colorado River are projected to be less than half full by summer’s end, potentially marking a historic low mark for the river system that supplies water to seven U.S. states and Mexico. Forecasters with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation expect the river’s reservoirs – Lakes Mead and Powell among.

PHOENIX – Some animals at the Phoenix Zoo come from cooler, wetter climates, which is a challenge for zookeepers to keep them cool in the scorching desert heat. Many of the animals have access to air-conditioned indoor spaces, but some, including the Bornean orangutans, prefer to be outside, said Jessica Petershick, a senior keeper of.

PHOENIX – Monsoon season is a time of peril in the Southwest. Summer storms develop quickly and play out furiously, and it’s important to know what to do when conditions turn dangerous. Monsoon storms spawn dust storms (sometimes called haboobs), lightning, torrents of rain and the resulting flash flooding. Stay safe this season with tips.

In the fourth episode of season three, we meet people who are trying to make the urban environment of the Phoenix area more sustainable. We’ll ride along with a bike share company that allows subscribers to leave their bikes anywhere and meet some experts who are trying to find solutions to the brutal summer heat.

PHOENIX – Wildfires have burned through about 75,000 acres in Arizona already this year, but experts say those numbers aren’t bad compared with last year. At this time last year, large fires had burned about 130,000 acres, according to the National Interagency Fire Agencies Southwest Coordination Center. The agency considers “large” fires anything that has.

PHOENIX – The nearly 250 employees who work at Coreslab Structures in Phoenix could have looked up one June morning to see a yellow flag flying on top of their building. It was a signal to the employees, who often work outside, that the air quality that day was acceptable but possibly concerning to those.

WASHINGTON – The Trump administration may have pulled off the unlikely trick this month of uniting liberals and conservatives, energy industry executives and environmentalists. All those groups have come out against a White House plan to keep failing coal and nuclear power plants from closing by forcing electrical grid operators to buy a certain amount.

PHOENIX – Valley cities rely mostly on dams and reservoirs for their water needs, but the snowpack feeding those reservoirs was near record low this year. That means managers are looking to future water supplies underground. Flying in a helicopter over Bartlett Lake in the Tonto National Forest, Salt River Project surface-water manager Charlie Ester.

WASHINGTON – Federal fire officials warned a Senate panel this week that the West should prepare for another “challenging” wildfire season, after a 2017 season that was the most expensive on record in terms of firefighting costs. Officials with the Forest Service and the Interior Department said they think new funding approved by Congress earlier.

FLAGSTAFF – Americans recycle about 66 million tons of material each year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. About one-third of it is sent to China, where for three decades the materials have been used to create new products. But all that is changing, as China is taking drastic measures to clean up its own.

GRAND CANYON – Thousands of years ago, in what’s now Turkey, someone bred a horse with a donkey. The mule was born, and the sturdy hybrids soon were put to work across the globe. Cars and trucks have replaced mules in most places, but the beasts of burden still reign supreme at the Grand Canyon..

PHOENIX – Hungry, thirsty black bears are making their way from the wilderness into the city, and it hasn’t gone well for the animals. In the past week, the Arizona Game & Fish Department has put down three bears that posed threats to public safety. State wildlife officials are patrolling Show Low, Yarnell, Pinetop and.

PHOENIX – A new recycling ban goes into effect June 1 in Flagstaff as the city looks for ways to deal with China’s recent ban on the importation of several kinds of plastic. Flagstaff residents have been able to recycle any type of rigid plastic with recycling-symbol numbers 1 through 7. Now the city only.

In the third episode of season three, we meet residents in Arizona who have made sustainability part of their lives and communities. We’ll meet a woman who owns a local garden with a passion for her community and healthy eating, a couple who write books that teach kids about environmental issues in the desert and.

WASHINGTON – What’s a monsoon season without rain? Trouble, according to experts. With Arizona in the grip of a years-long drought, conditions are ripe for spawning intense wildfires and haboobs from the high winds and lightning that typically form the early part of monsoon season, which begins in two weeks. “As the monsoon season starts,.

PHOENIX – In parts of northern Arizona, golf courses over the past decade have stopped using drinking water to keep their greens vibrant. Instead, they use effluent or recycled water. However, in Phoenix, less than a quarter of the water used on golf courses is reclaimed wastewater. According to a 2014 University of Arizona study,.

NEW RIVER – Residents of New River and Desert Hills should have a new water source by the end of July. It’ll cap a long year of worry. A brief recap: Last summer, Phoenix announced it would cut off sales to companies that truck water to New River and Desert Hills, which are unincorporated. After.

WASHINGTON – Two Arizona cities were among the fastest-growing in the nation in 2017, according to population estimates released Thursday by the Census Bureau. The bureau’s “2017 City/Town Population and Housing Unit Estimates” said Phoenix saw the second-biggest increase among cities in nation, adding 65,852 new residents over the course of the year, or almost.

NEW RIVER – Ron Bentley has lived in New River since 1984. Back then, his was the only house on the hill. “Actually, when we first moved here, the deer would come and eat hay scraps along the fence line,” he recalled on a Sunday in April. “I haven’t seen a deer out here in.

FORT McDOWELL – Leah Vader’s alarm starts ringing at 4 a.m. She’s out of the tent by 4:40 and making coffee. By sunup, she has set up her telescope at “the office,” a hill overlooking the Verde River. Vader waits for an adult eagle to drop prey into the nest, a sure sign there’s a.

PHOENIX – A Trump administration plan calls for auctioning off about 4,200 acres of public land for oil and gas development in northern Arizona, but environmental groups are poised to block the measure in court. It’s been more than five months since the White House rolled back environmental protections for oil and gas leasing on.

CAGUAS, Puerto Rico – Hurricane Maria has reignited a small movement in Puerto Rico aimed at strengthening the local food system so the island can survive and thrive without dependence on the mainland U.S. Before the hurricane struck in September 2017, Puerto Rico imported about 85 percent of its food. And to make matters worse,.

In the second episode of season three, we meet animal conservationists who are taking steps to protect and conserve native species. We’ll ride along to southern Arizona with a wildlife manager who prevents poaching with Arizona Game & Fish, visit a raptor rescue center in Cave Creek that nurses owls and other birds back to.

PHOENIX – Yes, it’s dry. But Arizona’s continued lack of rain and snow doesn’t much bother Charlie Ester of the Salt River Project. “I consider SRP to be a consummate, full time, always thinking about drought. We were formed because of drought, so therefore we always plan for drought,” said Ester, the utility’s surface-water resources.

FLAGSTAFF – While most people might think seeds are free, the craft of seed saving – planting, harvesting and then sharing seeds – is illegal in some states. That’s because some corporations spend millions investing in seed development, and they have patents to protect their investments, according to agricultural giant Monsanto Co. State legislatures have.

TONOPAH — About 50 miles west of downtown Phoenix, three massive concrete domes, spaced side-by-side on a 4,000-acre plot of land, dominate the skyline. The Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station is the nation’s largest power producer, serving 4 million people across the Southwest and providing about 35 percent of Arizona’s electric power, according to the.

TUCSON – Michael Dixon has been interested in music for as long as he can remember. First, it was listening to his parents’ Creedence Clearwater Revival albums. Then, it was performing in bands that “weren’t very good.” Today, the Tucson entrepreneur owns five music-related businesses. Dixon has worked with such popular artists as Justin Timberlake,.

SIERRA VISTA – When the U.S. Army built the Mountain View Officers Club in Fort Huachuca, it was supposed to be temporary. More than 70 years later, the community has tried to ensure it will stand for decades to come. Preservationists call it one of the “most significant examples of a World War II-era military.

PHOENIX – Heather Grimes is a 24-year-old vegan who enjoys painting, making jewelry and playing in a band. She’s also a taxidermist. “I just appreciate animals,” Grimes said. “Especially if they’re already dead.” Grimes isn’t alone in her interest for the art of preserving, posing and mounting dead animals for posterity. Robert Mead, president of.

PHOENIX – A model in a pink bodysuit and a red, high-waisted couture skirt glides gracefully across the runway. But her elegant attire takes fashion beyond the traditional, featuring smart technology designed to ease a woman’s menstrual cramps. The bodysuit, called Empowerment, is one of several cutting-edge garments made this spring by students in Arizona.

The money team brings reports on new business opportunities, trade and funding sources fueling the Arizona economy

Sustainability reporters have stories on plastic bag recycling, bees and more

PINETOP – Forest fires, climate change and the wrath of non-native fish are threatening the survival of the Apache trout, a species found only in Arizona. Apache trout, dubbed the state fish of Arizona, mostly are found mostly near Pinetop, with a significant amount of their territory on Native American reservations. Conservation of the trout.

PHOENIX – It’s not easy to conserve energy use when typical summer days in Phoenix top 100 degrees. But the International Living Future Institute, a nonprofit that challenges communities to build sustainable environments, has certified DPR Construction’s Phoenix headquarters as a net zero energy building, the first building in Arizona to earn the distinction from.

In the first episode of season 3 of In Focus, we take a look at creative solutions people find to be more sustainable. We’ll meet local bee farmers who found a way to address killer bees without extermination, explore textile recycling plants that find new uses for old jeans and talk to a man who.

SUN CITY – Computers lining the rickety plastic shelves in Steve Irwin’s garage make him $450 a day – and eat energy that could power four homes every month. Irwin tinkers with the machines once in a while to monitor their operating temperature but mainly leaves them to do their job of mining for online.

PHOENIX – In Tucson last year, a collision between a pickup truck and tractor trailer spilled nearly 4,500 gallons of gasoline, igniting the tanker and killing the passengers in the pickup. In March 2011, it took three hours and 80,000 gallons of water to contain a fuel tanker fire on a highway shoulder near Parker..

YUMA – Anticipating years of drought, officials built the Yuma Desalting Plant in 1992 to treat agricultural runoff and conserve water in Lake Mead. Over the past 26 years, however, the plant has operated just three times while costing millions of dollars to maintain. And it may need millions more, even to operate at a.

TEMPE – The desert is the last place most people search for water, but a team of scientists has tested a device in Arizona that extracts water from the desert air. Scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California, Berkeley, have created a solar-powered device that can extract water from the.

PHOENIX – If you think it’s hot now, just wait: Some climate researchers predict Arizona’s warming climate will have a substantial effect on water supplies and demand by 2060. Not all climate forecasts are so dire, but experts say Arizonans need to prepare for extreme heat, drought and related events. The problem is not centuries.

GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK — More than 6 million people visited the Grand Canyon last year, but only a tiny fraction were people of color. A 2011 National Park Service report shows visitors to the national parks were mostly white. Just 9 percent were Hispanic, 7 percent were African American, 3 percent Asian and 1.

CAVE CREEK – Great horned owls, one of the most common raptors in the United States, are being threatened by rat poison in their prey. Since 2011, the Arizona Game & Fish Department has identified 50 cases of wildlife poisoning from pest control chemicals. Forty one of those involved anticoagulant rodenticide. From cities in Massachusetts.

ORANGE COUNTY, California – A company that manufactures workbenches and lab furniture is relocating to Goodyear to save money, while creating 30 new jobs in Arizona. Matt McConnell, director of sales and marketing for IAC Industries, said the move will increase the stability and longevity of his business. IAC is located in Brea, California. “The.

PHOENIX – States in the Upper Colorado River Basin are telling downstream neighbor Arizona to get its act together. Members of the Upper Colorado River Commission sent a letter late last week to Arizona water officials, saying the state is threatening the water supply for nearly 40 million people, according to the Nevada Independent. The.

DANVILLE, Calif. – A California nonprofit has collected more than 20 million discarded crayons from across the United States, melted and remolded them, then donated the new crayons to more than 100 children’s hospitals, including two in metro Phoenix. Bryan Ware is founder and president of the Crayon Initiative, which he began in 2011. He.

WASHINGTON – Witnesses and lawmakers called for action Thursday to head off the 2019 closure of the Navajo Generating Station, a move that could mean the loss of thousands of jobs at the plant and the coal mine that fuels it. But while seven of the eight panelists who testified to a House Natural Resources.

LOS ANGELES – Stroll the 21-mile stretch of beaches in Malibu, where $6 million homes hug the shoreline and high-end boutiques line the highway, and you’ll find trash – empty water bottles, candy wrappers and Styrofoam containers. Lots of it. Litter – specifically plastic – has become such a problem, the Malibu City Council voted.

SANTA TERESA, New Mexico – The sign flashes red, day and night, in English and in Spanish: “Be Prepared to Stop,” a warning to the thousands of vehicles and people passing through the Santa Teresa Port of Entry. Here in this stretch of the Chihuahuan Desert, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is expediting the.

KINGMAN – The White Mountain Apache Tribe cleaned up contamination from meth labs in its tribal housing units. A Kearns Canyon school district got rid asbestos in some of its buildings. And South Tucson redeveloped areas once home to blighted hotels and gas stations. All three used federal grant money from the Brownfields Program, run.

GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK – A plaque dedicated to two Arizona icons who have championed the Grand Canyon – Sen. John McCain and the late Rep. Morris Udall – was unveiled in an emotional ceremony Wednesday on the South Rim. The plaque, sponsored by the National Park Service and the Grand Canyon Association, honors McCain.

FOUNTAIN HILLS – When Ted Blank sits in his backyard in Fountain Hills, he uses his own observatory to view the night sky. The skies are dark here, the stars are bright and the McDowell Mountains protect the town from the artificial glow of lights from Phoenix. This is part of the reason Blank and.

WASHINGTON – The number of solar jobs in the U.S. fell last year for the first time since 2010, but Arizona bucked the trend and remained one of the biggest states in the country for solar jobs, a new report says. The Solar Foundation’s annual Solar Census, released Wednesday, said jobs in Arizona grew 15.

WENDEN – Hundreds of boaters and anglers pass through this small rural farming community every year, headed to the Alamo Lake, 3,500 acres of crystal clear water touted as one of the best fishing spots in Arizona. The desert oasis, with a population of about 1,000, thrives on tourism this time of year because of.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story is part of Elemental: Covering Sustainability, a new multimedia collaboration between Cronkite News, Arizona PBS, KJZZ, KPCC, Rocky Mountain PBS and PBS SoCal. PINE – The Salt River Project’s annual water expo this year featured a “snowpack simulator” – a pile of cold, wet, white stuff on a hot, sunny day.

SCOTTSDALE – Baseball fans from around the world descend on metro Phoenix each year for spring training, where they can enjoy the sun and up-close views of their favorite stars. For a group of Arizona State students, however, the six weeks of Cactus League play is a time for hard work and research on a.

LOS ANGELES – Younger generations are substituting their favorite milk products and indulging in what they feel is a healthier alternative to dairy from cows. According to Innova Market Insights, a company that analyzes global developments in food and drinks, in 2018, the milk-alternative industry is expected to top $16 billion in revenue worldwide. Kippy.

NIPTON, Calif. – A Phoenix company is using trash from the 2015 Super Bowl hosted in Phoenix to make durable, energy-absorbing concrete to rebuild a small township in the Mojave Desert. American Green Corp., which builds vending machines for marijuana products, purchased the small township last summer for $5 million. The company is investing in.

MARANA – After a two-hour hike through rocky, cactus-studded terrain west of Marana – with a left knee that no longer bends – 70-year-old Joe Sheehey arrived at Silverbell Peak and spotted an Arizona desert bighorn sheep. The ram stood at the edge of the summit, almost posing, looking straight at Sheehey over a huge.

TUCSON – Microchip IDs similar to those in pets have been embedded in hundreds of cacti at Saguaro National Park near Tucson to guard against theft. Officials said the chips can be used to identify stolen saguaros, but they acknowledge the technology can’t track them. Instead, officials are counting on the devices to deter thieves..

SASABE – Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke – arriving on horseback in full cowboy gear – met last weekend with law enforcement and local officials to tout the progress of President Donald Trump’s proposed wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. “Clearly, we are going to build a wall,” Zinke said. “Clearly, the design is not finished.” During.

GLOBE – The residents of Wind Spirit live on 16 acres surrounded by citrus and olive trees, stony hills and played-out mines. They’ve built their homes from materials ranging from a dirt-straw concrete mix called cob to canvas teepees to buses painted blue, purple and yellow. Outdoor sinks have signs requesting visitors use tree-friendly soap..

CHANDLER – Bonded Logic Inc. is in the business of turning blue things green. The south Chandler textile recycling company collects thousands of pounds of denim jeans, shorts and jackets each year and gives them new life as insulation for homes and office buildings and fiber for bedding. Clients of Bonded Logic, which has about.

FLAGSTAFF – Five dozen Arizona elk recently traveled more than 2,000 miles to West Virginia in an effort to restore the population in a state that hasn’t seen elk since the Civil War. The elk now roam the Tomblin Wildlife Management Area. Officials said they hope the reintroduction will contribute to the state’s tourism industry,.

LOS ANGELES – Several mayors from across the country – including Los Angeles, Phoenix and Mesa – have joined a coalition to find solutions to the lack of affordable housing in their cities. Fourteen mayors and CEOs have joined the Mayors & CEOs for U.S. Housing Investment coalition. Part of their goal is to form.

MARANA – Most people believe bats primarily live in caves, but the concrete crevices under the old Ina Road bridge in Marana have provided thousands of migratory Mexican free-tailed bats with perfect roosting habitat for years. However, the crevices – the bats’ usual winter and summer homes – are gone due to construction and replacement.

SUPAI – The beat of a single drum rang out as Dianna White Dove Uqualla sang a prayer for a group of runners about to climb out of the deep crevasse of the Grand Canyon. “This is a blessing song for all of you,” said Uqualla, who hails from a long line of respected healers.

MESA – With a new mobile app, Arizonans can now help monitor and preserve the state’s lakes, streams and rivers. The Water Watch App allows users to input their observations about wildlife, pollution and water flow, snap a few photos and share the information with the Arizona Department of Water Quality, adding to the department’s.

ALPINE – Ole Alcumbrac has just eight minutes. A wolf sprints across a field of dry grass, a helicopter clattering above. About 30 feet above ground, Alcumbrac – eyes glued to the wolf – leans out of an open door, into the turbulence, raises his dart gun and aims for its rump. The chase is.

PHOENIX – Congressman Ruben Gallego, along with environmental advocates in the Latino community, touted the importance of the EPA’s Clean Power Plan at a round table conference Thursday organized by National Council of La Raza Action Fund. “We need to consistently take positive action towards that, electing officials that are going to be in support.

CHINO VALLEY – Joseph Pravongviengkham slips a hood of red kangaroo leather over the head of his falcon, Sully. He wants to keep his bird calm for the 30-minute drive to an open field filled with quail, jackrabbits and cottontails. When they reach their destination, Pravongviengkham releases Sully from his box, removes the hood and.

PHOENIX – Consumer advocacy groups across the country are fighting to ban certain pesticides they say are rapidly killing the nation’s honeybee population. The U.S. Public Interest Research Group is among the organizations lobbying the Environmental Protection Agency to ban the pesticides, known as neonicotinoids, which are commonly used on crops. When people treat seeds.

PHOENIX – Members of a nonprofit environmental advocacy group on Thursday urged the public to pay closer attention to “regressive” governmental policies they say could damage the solar power industry in Arizona, and they warned against proposed budget cuts that could cripple the Environmental Protection Agency. Tempe-based Defend Our Future, a student engagement group, held.

WASHINGTON – Nogales rancher Dan Bell told lawmakers Thursday that the best way to help the environment at the border might actually be by removing environmental regulations that hinder access by Border Patrol agents. Bell, one of four witnesses at a House Natural Resources subcommittee hearing, said the tons of trash left behind by illegal.

MESA – Those golf balls that land in water hazards? It turns out many are brought back to life. An estimated 300 million golf balls are lost or discarded in the United States every year, according to research by the Danish Golf Union. Because it can take golf balls 100 to 1,000 years to decompose,.

CASA GRANDE – As water supplies in Arizona dwindle due to drought, groundwater pumping and a warming climate, farmers increasingly are facing poorer crop yields and, in some cases, resigning once-fertile farmland to unusable barren ground. “About two-thirds of this farm isn’t being used because of our water limitations,” Travis Hartman said of his family’s.

TUMACACORI-CARMEN – After a 70-year absence, the endangered Gila topminnow has re-emerged in the Santa Cruz River, a sign of health of a historically desiccated river basin. The cleaner water today can be attributed to upgrades in local water-treatment plants, according to ecologists and environmentalists in Tucson, who say they’re confident that improved treated wastewater.

TEMPE – The vinyl banners come in all shapes, sizes and patterns – maroon and gold stripes, camouflage, outlines of soldiers. When a new batch arrives in a workroom tucked into the Arizona State University campus in Tempe, workers from the Center for Habilitation get excited. They will turn these used banners into tote bags.

PHOENIX – Shutting down the Navajo Generating Station near Page not only would displace hundreds of workers, it also could raise rates for consumers, protesters who marched on the state Capitol said Tuesday. “It was built under a bond and paid for by a bond from the federal government. … There’s still a billion dollars.

SCOTTSDALE — Along with more than 600,000 people filtering through TPC Scottsdale for the Waste Management Phoenix Open comes a significant amount of garbage. Yet trash cans are nowhere to be found. Instead, 4,000 compost/recycle bins line the course, one of the reasons the tournament is the largest event to receive the Evergreen Certification from.

PHOENIX – City officials say they’ve made great strides in persuading residents to divert recyclable waste from landfills, but one big problem continues to plague them: plastic bags. Plastic bags routinely jam the machines at the recycling plant. Officials estimate they lose about $1 million a year in lost time because of improper recycling, mostly.

QUEEN CREEK – For the 500 miles of trails in the Maricopa County Park system, increasingly destructive monsoon storms are causing more erosion, more damage and potentially more costly repairs. Researchers predict the summer storms, likely driven by climate change, will become stronger and more intense in Arizona. For parks, storm damage affects everything from.

WASHINGTON – Leaders of five tribes accused lawmakers Tuesday of “cherry-picking” tribal members to support an 85 percent reduction in the Bears Ears monuments, and said proposed tribal management of the new monument would be in name only. The testimony from Navajo, Hopi and other leaders contradicted lawmakers from Utah and some local tribal officials..

LA SIERRA GORDA, Queretaro, Mexico – Martha Isabel “Pati” Ruiz Corzo has spent her life fighting for the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve, a national conservation area that covers one-third of the central Mexican state of Queretaro. “The Sierra Gorda is a national treasure,” says Ruiz, who was the federal director of the reserve for 14.

PHOENIX – Some tap water might smell like chlorine. Or it looks a little cloudy. Or maybe it doesn’t taste quite right. Those are just some of the reasons millions of Americans turn to bottled water. Bottled water has become the No. 1 beverage choice in the U.S., with 12.8 billion gallons sold in 2016,.

NOGALES, AZ —The road turns from a dusty brown to a deep, red clay along the road to Buena Vista Ranch, where cattle rancher Dean Fish raises commercial cattle. Green vegetation dots the desert for miles from Fish’s ranch headquarters to the ranch’s edge on the Arizona-Mexico border. Black Angus cattle dip their heads to.

PHOENIX – After a season marked with catastrophic wildfires in the West, government forestry and conservation leaders in Arizona have accelerated a tree-thinning program in the Coconino National Forest. The partnership between the Nature Conservancy and U.S. Forest Service is supposed to jumpstart thinning under a Future Forest project, launched this fall with a 20,000-acre.

BUCKEYE — Sine Kerr cultivated her love for farming as a girl in rural Buckeye, participating in her local 4-H group and playing at friends’ houses whose families had farms and ranches. “At the age of 18 I became a farmer,” Kerr said, marrying Buckeye dairyman Bill Kerr. About 45 percent of the farmers in.

WASHINGTON – States, federal and Mexican officials hailed a binational agreement this fall that they said could lead to a radical shift in how the region prepares for and responds to drought. But three months later, they appear no closer to a drought contingency plan, as negotiations have pitted states and water districts against one.

BISBEE – Longtime Bisbee resident Renee Reed remembers how the dilapidated home across the street used to look. “It was really cute and quaint, but over the years I’ve had to sit here and watch it just disintegrate,” Reed said. Nearly three decades ago, the home was so beautiful an artist asked Reed if he.

SCOTTSDALE — Ever since Waste Management and the Thunderbirds partnered up for the Phoenix Open, sustainability and conservation have been a priority. Others have noticed. The 2017 Waste Management Phoenix Open was recognized as the first golf tournament in the world to reach GEO Certified Tournament status due to its sustainability efforts, it was announced.

WASHINGTON – Federal regulation of waterways may not be the first issue that comes to mind in a desert state like Arizona, but don’t tell that to Pima County cattle rancher Jim Chilton. Chilton was one of two Arizonans invited to testify Wednesday on the Waters of the United States rule, an Obama administration plan.

WASHINGTON – Environmental groups sued the Forest Service this week to block what they called the “dangerous” Rosemont copper mine, citing concerns ranging from habitat destruction to drinking water contamination at the project southeast of Tucson. The Forest Service said Tuesday it will not comment on pending litigation. But Hudbay Minerals, the Canada-based parent company.

PHOENIX – A lightning strike that set the Pinaleño Mountains in northern Arizona ablaze months ago decimated the population of the endangered Mount Graham red squirrel, leaving few survivors and lending urgency to conservation efforts to save the species from extinction. Arizona Game and Fish Department officials said only about 35 of the red squirrels.

FLAGSTAFF – If it wasn’t for little more than a mile stretch of man-made snow spanning 25 acres atop the Arizona Snowbowl, one might think it was summer in Flagstaff. It’s late November and the snow trail looks bleak among the surrounding greenery. But thanks to snow-making machines and freezing temperatures last weekend, ski and.

MESA – Hunters, conservationists, hikers and campers are being courted by Tonto National Forest to help determine a future that balances preservation and tourism. The U.S. Forest Service asks people to offer views on a preliminary plan on how the forest will be used, preserved and managed, including discussing whether to limit target shooting and restrict.

PHOENIX — Rabbi Bonnie Sharfman described the scene of a beautiful sunset — caused by pollution leading to ugly results like asthma. “We can feel thickness in our throats, and we can feel tightness in our chests,” Sharfman said. “Something is happening to our planet.” Arizona faith leaders, from rabbis to imams, on Tuesday, chastised.

GRAND CANYON – A spring used to rush through a hillside on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, nourishing bats, mule deer and other wildlife — that is, until bison trampled the watering hole into a mud puddle. The herd has proven to be an environmental nuisance, depleting water sources, mowing down once-flourishing meadows.

SECOND MESA – Houses and corn fields dot the Hopi reservation, spread across three mesas in northeastern Arizona and circled by the much larger Navajo Nation. The seemingly barren Hopi land carries a rich, centuries old history and, now, an uncertain economic future. New leadership – tribal members will choose a new chairman and vice.

Every November, volunteers from Copperstate 4 Wheelers spread out across Tonto National Forest on a mission to collect and haul out tons of trash. This year marked the eighth annual cleanup of the forest as trucks were driven into the desert and volunteers worked to maintain Arizona’s natural beauty in the Four Peaks area. They.

Arizona State hockey. Professional soccer. Goat yoga. If ASU administrators have their way, all three will find a home in Sun Devil Stadium soon. “There’s a reason why we beat MIT and Stanford three years in a row, and it’s going to be four and five,” Colleen Jennings-Roggensack said about ASU’s No. 1 ranking in.

WASHINGTON – The Trump administration may reverse a 20-year moratorium on new uranium mining claims on 1 million acres around the Grand Canyon, a move that environmental groups said could lead to long-term harm to water quality and wildlife in the region. The recommendation was one of 15 released Wednesday by the Agriculture Department in.

WASHINGTON – A divided House on Wednesday approved a bill that supporters said would boost wildfire prevention efforts, in part by excluding forests from environmental requirements. Streamlining regulations will allow more logging, which removes the forest undergrowth that can feed wildfires, thus reducing the chances of a catastrophic blaze, supporters said. But critics said the.

PHOENIX — Leaders of environmental, business and faith groups on Tuesday urged Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey to take on climate change by embracing solutions such as renewable energy and battery technology. Sandy Bahr, president of the local chapter of the Sierra Club, said they sent a letter with more than 2,000 signatures asking Ducey to.

WASHINGTON – Bats can rest easy in Arizona. Literally. The state’s climate appears to have helped hold off, for now, a disease that has afflicted bats during hibernation in at least half of the country. Experts say Arizona, with its shorter winters and more dispersed bat populations, could act as a barrier against white-nose syndrome,.

WASHINGTON – Arizona lawmakers and advocates are condemning proposed fee increases at the Grand Canyon and 16 other parks, a move the National Park Service said is badly needed to fund billions in backlogged maintenance projects. The proposal unveiled this week would create a new peak-season entry fee that would at least double fees at.

WASHINGTON – The Bureau of Land Management on Friday recommended closing 53,300 acres of the Sonoran Desert National Monument to recreational shooting, but keeping the remaining 443,000 open to shooters. It is the latest twist in a years-long legal and administrative fight that saw federal officials at one point trying to prohibit shooting over the.

WASHINGTON – The Air Force will begin testing the groundwater at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base for contamination from dangerous chemicals in firefighting foam that was used at the base, according to the U.S. Air Force Civil Engineer Center. The Davis-Monthan inspection follows similar testing at Luke Air Force Base in Glendale and the former Williams.

PAGE –  Ecologist Mark Anderson still sometimes tears up thinking about March 3, 2013, when an adult quagga mussel was discovered — the definitive sign of a possible aquatic apocalypse — clinging to a boat hauled from the waters of Lake Powell. “We had finally lost the long-fought battle,” Anderson said. The adult quagga mussel.

WASHINGTON – Arizona utilities and regulators said they plan to continue working toward the lower carbon emission goals that had been set in the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, even though federal officials said this week that they are scrapping the program. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt said Tuesday that he will revoke the Obama-era.

TUCSON — Target shooting, hunting and fishing could be expanded on public lands under a federal proposal drawing attention in Arizona. United States Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke directed land managers to come up with a plan to expand recreational shooting in areas like Ironwood Forest National Monument in Tucson. Sitting at 129,000 acres,.

DEER VALLEY – Arizona firefighters are helping to battle northern California wildfires that have burned more than 222,000 acres, killed more than 30 people and left hundreds missing, state officials said. “We sent out about 55 engines and 150 firefighters between yesterday and first thing this morning,” Tiffany Davila said, spokeswoman for the Arizona Department.

WASHINGTON – A House committee gave preliminary approval Wednesday to a Republican bill that would sharply curtail the Antiquities Act, which allows presidents to order the creation of national monuments. The House Natural Resources Committee also rejected, by the same party-line vote, a Democratic measure demanding that the Trump administration turn over documents in its.

TEMPE – Denis Hayes, a co-founder of Earth Day in 1970, is working toward a greener future that focuses on developing “living buildings” that rely on nature, the sun and the rain, to operate. Think of them as buildings that regenerate, harnessing solar power and harvesting rainwater for energy and other uses. Essentially, a building.

TUCSON — Tucson and other parched Arizona cities offer rebates for businesses and homes that harvest rainwater, but the practice struggles to gain momentum in the Valley. The ancient method can conserve thousands of gallons of water, reducing reliance on groundwater and other sources. Rebates can motivate people to put in water-collection tanks or landscape.

PHOENIX – Pavement originally built for durability and noise reduction can curb rising temperatures from urban heat islands – meaning the ribbons of freeways threading the Valley may lessen the effect of climate change, according to a new report. Arizona State University professor Kamil Kaloush, who has studied heat islands for decades, and leaders at.

COTTONWOOD – Some wine specialists foresee climate change eventually reducing the amount of wine produced. However, with every new harvesting season, winemakers find different ways to adapt to new weather challenges. As Earth’s climate changes, so is the way winemakers are harvesting their grapes. Well-known wine countries in Western Europe have seen the consequences of.

TEMPE – The volunteers stood in the shade of a bank parking lot, carrying water bottles, waiting for people to send relief to hurricane victims in Florida and Texas. The request for donations was for a much-needed item that may not come easily to mind – diapers. Diapers are needed for hurricane victims and for.

WASHINGTON – Metro Tech High School senior Axel Vargas doesn’t dislike all school buses – just the diesel ones whose emissions he says are hurting the air quality and affecting the health of him and his classmates. That’s why Vargas joined a group of doctors, teachers, parents and students from around the country on Capitol.

PHOENIX – Work is underway to transform the Grand Canal from barren paths to a well-lit, artistic magnet for bicyclists and hikers. Construction in central Phoenix started in early September and will extend into the fall of 2018. The Grand Canal cuts through the center of Phoenix, stretching from Glendale to Tempe. Plans for improvements.

WASHINGTON – Florence Copper officials could break ground on a $24 million “in-situ” copper mining facility by December, after an administrative appeals board last week turned down objections to the project from the Town of Florence and another opponent. The ruling by the Environmental Protection Agency’s EPA Environmental Appeals Board rejected challenges that the in-situ.

WASHINGTON – The 2017 wildfire season is already one of most expensive on record, with a $2.35 billion price tag burning through the Forest Service’s budget, lawmakers and Agriculture Department officials said Tuesday. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and five Western senators, including Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Arizona, called for an end to the ongoing underfunding of.

PHOENIX – Wastewater. We use it to irrigate fields, to flush toilets and to make one of America’s favorite beverages – beer. The inaugural Arizona Pure Water Brew Challenge brought together 26 breweries from across Arizona and tasked them with creating the best-tasting beer using treated wastewater. “We had no idea how many breweries would.

WASHINGTON – The Interior Department’s purchase of a plot of private land will allow public access to 32,600 acres of previously isolated forest land, a move that drew praise from wilderness advocates and hunters alike this week. The deal announced Wednesday opens up two parcels of public land, one in the Coronado National Forest and.

WASHINGTON – Environmentalists and livestock owners are pointing fingers after government agents killed an endangered Mexican gray wolf last month for preying on cattle, the first wolf killed for depredation in 10 years. The wolf was killed in August by the U.S. Department of Agriculture following an investigation into the deaths of four cattle in.

WASHINGTON – It may not be surprising that an “aquatic desert” turtle faces long odds in life, but environmentalists and biologists still welcomed this week’s endangered species designation for the Sonoyta mud turtle. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced the designation Wednesday, citing threats from climate change to loss of habitat for the southern.

WASHINGTON – When overgrown forests clash with energy infrastructure – devastating fire and power outages can follow. But current law puts up bureaucratic hurdles that make it hard for utilities to do the forest clearing that could prevent those fires, and then holds them responsible when fires break out, an Arizona Public Service official told.

CASA GRANDE — Italian pasta chefs are known for crafting dishes that are as much local culture as they are food. What is less well-known is that Arizona’s desert durum wheat is a common ingredient in Italian pasta. Arizona plant geneticists have spent decades developing the desirable durum through seed breeding. By combining two ‘parent’.

WASHINGTON – Plans to reduce the size of a destructive herd of Grand Canyon bison took another step forward this week, when a House panel approved a bill to require culling, just weeks after the National Park Service approved its own plan. Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Prescott, said his bill is needed as a backup to.

WASHINGTON – For Flagstaff, the wake-up call came seven years ago when the town suffered through the Schultz fire, a massive blizzard, floods, tornados and more. Those events spurred city officials to develop a large-scale resilience project that Flagstaff Sustainability Manager Nicole Woodman displayed Monday as an example of how cities can learn from their.

BUCKEYE — Local leaders say salt cedar trees are invading the Gila River, causing flood andfire hazards and choking native vegetation and wildlife habitats. They say it’s time for the trees, planted a century ago to slow erosion, to make their final stand. Buckeye Mayor Jackie Meck said the trees are an invasive species and.

WASHINGTON – The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality got $315 million in funding for specific federal programs over the past five years – funding that could be endangered by proposed cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency budget. That was the finding of an Environmental Defense Fund analysis of the fiscal 2018 EPA budget request being.