(With expanded coverage of all the Western States)
by Patrick Ruckert
www.californiadroughtupdate.org/20230831-California-Water-and-Infrastructure-Report.pdf
A Note to Readers
I have just a brief report this week. There was little in new developments this past week, and my schedule has been a little tight.
We begin with the U.S. Drought Monitor. Hurricane Hilary hit southern California with drenching rain, so that part of the state has virtually no drought conditions at all as of now. The rest of the state has a few scattered areas that have the lowest measure of drought.
As the discussion from the U.S. Drought Monitor indicates, certain areas, like the Pacific Northwest and Montana, have seen an intensification of drought.
One area that usually gets little media coverage is the large number of trees that die during droughts. During the five year drought ending in 2016, more than 150 million trees died. Last year alone during our last drought, 36 million trees died. The article reporting on this later drought, of course, in addition to blaming drought, also blames climate change. I provide another article which is an antidote to such a mindless repeating of everything that happens now is because of climate change.
This week’s report concludes with a Maui fire update.
Two articles included below.
The first shows that a fire five years ago that occurred under the same conditions as the one on August 8 this year, was the subject of criticism and promises from the county authorities that those problems would be addressed: That included not sounding the alarm, clearing brush and grass, and ensuring that the electricity was shut down at times of high-wind warnings.
The second is the denial by the power company that they did not turn off the power before the fires began.
