Day: May 22, 2023

Arizona, Nevada and California said Monday they’re willing to cut back on their use of the dwindling Colorado River in exchange for money from the federal government — and to avoid forced cuts as drought threatens the key water supply for the U.S. West.

The $1.2 billion plan, a potential breakthrough in a year-long stalemate, would conserve an additional 3 million acre-feet of water through 2026, when current guidelines for how the river is shared expire. About half the cuts would come by the end of 2024.

That’s less than what federal officials said last year would be needed to stave off crisis in the river but still marks a notable step in long and difficult negotiations between the three states.

The 2,334-kilometer river provides water to 40 million people in seven U.S. states, parts of Mexico and more than two dozen Native American tribes. It produces hydropower and supplies water to farms that grow most of the nation’s winter vegetables.

In exchange for temporarily using less water, cities, irrigation districts and Native American tribes in the three states will be paid. The federal government plans to spend $1.2 billion, said Lauren Wodarski, a spokesperson to U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, a Nevada Democrat.

Though adoption of the plan isn’t certain, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Touton called it an “important step forward.” She said the bureau will pull back its proposal from last month that could have resulted in sidestepping the existing water priority system to force cuts while it analyzes the three-state plan. The bureau’s earlier proposal, if adopted, could have led to a messy legal battle.

“At least they’re still talking. But money helps you keep talking,” said Terry Fulp, former regional director of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s Lower Colorado Basin region. He noted the agreement is a “short-term, three-year deal” and that because the Upper Basin states of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming didn’t face immediate cuts, they were not part of the pact.

The three Lower Basin states are entitled to 7.5 million acre-feet of water altogether from the river. An acre-foot of water is roughly enough to serve two to three U.S. households annually.

California gets the most, based on a century-old water rights priority system. Most of that goes to farmers in the Imperial Irrigation District, though some also goes to smaller water districts and cities across Southern California. Arizona and Nevada have already faced cuts in recent years as key reservoir levels dropped based on prior agreements. But California has been spared.

Under the new proposal, California would give up about 1.6 million acre-feet of water through 2026 — a little more than half of the total. That’s roughly the same amount the state first offered six months ago. It wasn’t clear why the other states agreed to a deal now when California didn’t offer further cuts. Leaders in Arizona and Nevada didn’t immediately say how they’d divide the other 1.4 million acre-feet.

The Imperial Irrigation District would account for more than half of California’s cuts. J.B. Hamby, chairman of the Colorado River Board of California, said the district has already taken measures to improve water efficiency and will need to do more. He said the district is working on a pilot summer idling program where farmers would sign up to turn off their water for 60 days for forage crops. During that time of year, yields are already down and more water is required, he said.

Bill Hasencamp, manager of Colorado River resources for the Metropolitan Water District of California, which supplies water to 19 million people in southern California, said the wet winter means the state simply needs less water. His district is planning on leaving 250,000 acre-feet this year in Lake Mead and won’t withdraw it until after 2026.

The district will also turn over to the federal government a program that pays farmers to fallow land that typically nets them about 130,000 acre-feet of water a year, he said.

The Colorado River has been in crisis for years due to a multi-decade drought in the West intensified by climate change, rising demand and overuse. Water levels at key reservoirs dipped to unprecedented lows, though they have rebounded somewhat thanks to heavy precipitation this winter.

In recent years, the federal government has cut some water allocations and offered billions of dollars to pay farmers, cities and others to cut back. But key water officials didn’t see those efforts as enough to prevent the system from collapsing.

Michael Cohen, a senior researcher at the Pacific Institute focused on the Colorado River, called the amount of cuts the three states have proposed a “huge, huge lift” and a significant step forward.

“It does buy us a little additional time,” he said. But if more dry years are ahead, “this agreement will not solve that problem.”
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As the International Day to End Obstetric Fistula approaches Tuesday, scores of women who have been treated for the medical condition are encouraging their peers in northern Cameroon to get help.

Many sufferers of obstetric fistula — characterized by urinary and fecal incontinence — believe the disease is a curse for wrongdoing. Now former patients and aid groups are telling families fistula can be treated.

The network of women who have been successfully operated on for obstetric fistula in Cameroon’s northern region say they are educating communities that it is a disease that can be treated.

Hospital workers say obstetric fistula is a hole between the birth canal and bladder or rectum, caused by prolonged, obstructed labor without access to timely, high-quality medical treatment. The disease leaves women and girls leaking urine, feces or both, and often leads to chronic medical problems, depression, social isolation and deepening poverty, medical staff members say.

Catherine Debong, 31, is the spokesperson for Women in Maroua, a group of women who have been operated on for obstetric fistula. Maroua is a town in Cameroon’s far north that shares a border with Chad and Nigeria. 

Debong said she is urging parents, husbands, clerics, community leaders and traditional rulers to educate others that obstetric fistula is not a curse or divine punishment for wrongdoing. She said she wants communities to encourage women who have gone into hiding due to the disease to seek treatment.

Debong said a Roman Catholic priest took her to the hospital in 2012 after she had lived with fistula for six years. She is now committed to saving the lives of other women with fistula whom she said are dying without medical help. 

Cameroon’s Ministry of Public Health says between 350 and 1,500 new cases of fistula are reported each year. Seventy-five percent of the cases are reported on Cameroon’s northern region, where more than 80% of civilians seek help from African traditional healers and seldom visit hospitals.

Cameroon reports that 60% of patients seeking help in hospitals have lived with obstetric fistula for more than 5 years. Eighty percent of patients have no formal education and 90% were teenagers when they had their first baby.

Many sufferers are accused of witchcraft and abandoned by their relatives.

The Cameron government is trying to end the stigma and discrimination attached to the condition through education programs.

Boyo Maurine is with the Cameroon Baptist Convention Health Services program, a nonprofit group that works with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). The group educates communities about obstetric fistula and encourages women to seek treatment.

“Generally, the individuals perceive that people will not want to associate with them because of the odor that comes from them and from the embarrassment that will come from constantly being wet without any form of control,” Boyo said. “They already feel that they do not belong to society, and this leaves them sometimes with some negative emotions like sadness, depression, anger and aggression, which is as a result of this condition.”

In 2020, the U.N. launched a global commitment to fistula prevention and treatment, including surgical repair and social reintegration. The campaign hopes to end fistula by 2030, while transforming the lives of thousands of women and girls.

The International Day to End Obstetric Fistula draws attention to the condition, which affects tens of thousands of women globally. 
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After an anonymous TikTok user created a song using artificial intelligence that fooled many into thinking it was made by pop stars, experts say the music industry will have to decide how to handle AI music. Deana Mitchell has the story.
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Weather-related disasters have surged over the past 50 years, causing swelling economic damage even as early warning systems have meant dramatically fewer deaths, the United Nations said Monday. 

Extreme weather, climate and water-related events caused 11,778 reported disasters between 1970 and 2021, new figures from the U.N.’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) show. 

Those disasters killed just more than 2 million people and caused $4.3 trillion in economic losses. 

“The most vulnerable communities unfortunately bear the brunt of weather, climate and water-related hazards,” WMO chief Petteri Taalas said in a statement. 

The report found that more than 90% of reported deaths worldwide due to disasters in the 51-year period occurred in developing countries. 

But the agency also said improved early warning systems and coordinated disaster management had significantly reduced the human casualty toll. 

WMO pointed out in a report issued two years ago covering disaster-linked deaths and losses between 1970 and 2019, that at the beginning of the period the world was seeing more than 50,000 such deaths each year. 

By the 2010s, the disaster death toll had dropped below 20,000 annually. 

And in its update of that report, WMO said Monday that 22,608 disaster deaths were recorded globally in 2020 and 2021 combined. 

‘Early warnings save lives’ 

Cyclone Mocha, which wreaked havoc in Myanmar and Bangladesh last week, exemplifies this, Taalas said. 

Mocha “caused widespread devastation … impacting the poorest of the poor,” he said. 

But while Myanmar’s junta has put the death toll from the cyclone at 145, Taalas pointed out that during similar disasters in the past, “both Myanmar and Bangladesh suffered death tolls of tens and even hundreds of thousands of people.” 

“Thanks to early warnings and disaster management, these catastrophic mortality rates are now thankfully history. Early warnings save lives,” he added. 

The U.N. has launched a plan to ensure all nations are covered by disaster early warning systems by the end of 2027. 

Endorsing that plan figures among the top strategic priorities during a meeting of WMO’s decision-making body, the World Meteorological Congress, which opens Monday. 

To date, only half of countries have such systems in place. 

Surging economic losses 

WMO meanwhile warned that while deaths have plunged, the economic losses incurred when weather, climate and water extremes hit have soared. 

The agency previously recorded economic losses that increased sevenfold between 1970 and 2019, rising from $49 million per day during the first decade to $383 million per day in the final one. 

Wealthy countries have been hardest hit by far in monetary terms.  

The United States alone incurred $1.7 trillion in losses, or 39% of the economic losses globally from disasters since 1970. 

But while the dollar figures on losses suffered in poorer nations were not particularly high, they were far higher in relation to the size of their economies, WMO noted. 

Developed nations accounted for more than 60% of losses from weather, climate and water disasters, but in more than four-fifths of cases, the economic losses were equivalent to less than 0.1% of gross domestic product (GDP). 

And no disasters saw reported economic losses greater than 3.5% of the respective GDPs. 

By comparison, in 7% of the disasters that hit the world’s least developed countries, losses equivalent to more than 5% of their GDP were reported, with several disasters causing losses equivalent to nearly a third of GDP. 

And for small island developing states, one-fifth of disasters saw economic losses of more than 5% of GDP, with some causing economic losses of 100 percent. 
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Saudi Arabia’s first astronauts in decades rocketed toward the International Space Station on a chartered multimillion-dollar flight Sunday. 

SpaceX launched the ticket-holding crew, led by a retired NASA astronaut now working for the company that arranged the trip from Kennedy Space Center. Also on board: a U.S. businessman who now owns a sports car racing team. 

The four should reach the space station in their capsule Monday morning; they’ll spend just more than a week there before returning home with a splashdown off the Florida coast. 

Sponsored by the Saudi Arabian government, Rayyanah Barnawi, a stem cell researcher, became the first woman from the kingdom to go to space. She was joined by Ali al-Qarni, a fighter pilot with the Royal Saudi Air Force. 

They’re the first from their country to ride a rocket since a Saudi prince launched aboard shuttle Discovery in 1985. In a quirk of timing, they’ll be greeted at the station by an astronaut from the United Arab Emirates. 

“Hello from outer space! It feels amazing to be viewing Earth from this capsule,” Barnawi said after settling into orbit. 

Added al-Qarni: “As I look outside into space, I can’t help but think this is just the beginning of a great journey for all of us.” 

Rounding out the visiting crew: Knoxville, Tennessee’s John Shoffner, former driver and owner of a sports car racing team that competes in Europe, and chaperone Peggy Whitson, the station’s first female commander who holds the U.S. record for most accumulated time in space: 665 days and counting. 

“It was a phenomenal ride,” Whitson said after reaching orbit. Her crewmates clapped their hands in joy. 

It’s the second private flight to the space station organized by Houston-based Axiom Space. The first was last year by three businessmen, with another retired NASA astronaut. The company plans to start adding its own rooms to the station in another few years, eventually removing them to form a stand-alone outpost available for hire. 

Axiom won’t say how much Shoffner and Saudi Arabia are paying for the planned 10-day mission. The company had previously cited a ticket price of $55 million each. 

NASA’s latest price list shows per-person, per-day charges of $2,000 for food and up to $1,500 for sleeping bags and other gear. Need to get your stuff to the space station in advance? Figure roughly $10,000 per pound ($20,000 per kilogram), the same fee for trashing it afterward. Need your items back intact? Double the price. 

At least the email and video links are free. 

The guests will have access to most of the station as they conduct experiments, photograph Earth and chat with schoolchildren back home, demonstrating how kites fly in space when attached to a fan. 

After decades of shunning space tourism, NASA now embraces it with two private missions planned a year. The Russian Space Agency has been doing it, off and on, for decades. 

“Our job is to expand what we do in low-Earth orbit across the globe,” said NASA’s space station program manager Joel Montalbano. 

SpaceX’s first-stage booster landed back at Cape Canaveral eight minutes after liftoff — a special treat for the launch day crowd, which included about 60 Saudis. 

“It was a very, very exciting day,” said Axiom’s Matt Ondler. 
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