Safe drinking water is a long-standing challenge left unmet all across the United States. As our latest Issue Backgrounder explains, telling the story of drinkable water requires digging beneath complex relationships, understanding the sources of drinking water and much more. Here's help to do it.
The maintenance backlog at the National Park System is nearly $12 billion, and a hot button issue for various constituencies. But don't look for spending to clear it up any time soon, with major budget cuts proposed. This week's TipSheet outlines the issues, and provides resources and perspectives to cover the story.
"SUFFOLK, Va. — People here in coastal Virginia are beginning to see changes: Tides are a little higher, storms bring water into the streets and basements sometimes flood."
"In southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina, the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge has been dramatically altered over the past few centuries by human development, creating an environment more vulnerable to both floods and wildfires. Now, a federal project is trying to restore some of the swamp's natural habitat and other characteristics through a $3 million effort that aims to reverse some of that damage."
"Scientists are turning a cranberry bog back into coastal wetland. The experiment is seen as a path for dormant bogs and another chance for vanishing habitat."
"Native American tribes and environmental groups preparing for a legal battle to stop President Donald Trump from dismantling Utah's new national monument face a tougher challenge than anticipated."
"Desert ranchers in New Mexico are hoping the new GOP administration in Washington will dramatically shrink a recently designated national monument in the south of the state where outlaw Billy the Kid and Apache leader Geronimo once sought refuge."
"Vast amounts of river-borne sediment are trapped behind the world’s large dams, depriving areas downstream of material that is badly needed to build up the marshes and wetlands that act as a buffer against rising seas."
"In September 2011, after 20 years of planning, workers began dismantling the Elwha and Glines dams on the Elwha River in northwestern Washington state. At the time, it was the largest dam removal project in U.S. history, and it took nearly three years for both barriers to be dismantled and for the river to once again flow freely.
Even though big proposed budget cuts may be DOA for the Interior Department, it doesn't mean there aren't a wide range of land and resource-related stories emerging from the debates. The latest TipSheet sets the scene and offers a half-dozen ways to localize the Interior Department funding story.
"The grasslands of U.S. Great Plains have seen one of the sharpest increases in large and dangerous wildfires in the past three decades, with their numbers more than tripling between 1985 and 2014, according to new research."
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