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Widlfires + People still flooding into a West that lacks the water to maintain them

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C C Offline
Wildfires Used to Be Helpful. How Did They Get So Hellish?
https://www.wired.com/story/wildfires-us...o-hellish/

EXCERPTS: . . . But before we unpack what went wrong, it helps to understand how wildfires interacted with the landscape before Europeans invaded the western United States and Canada. Historically, fires acted as a kind of ecological reset button. If a lightning storm ignited shrubs and grasses, the fire would spread through a forest’s understory. This was particularly important in dry forests like California’s, where there isn’t as much microbial activity to break down dead vegetation as there is in rain forests.

Getting rid of all that plant litter removed a sort of suffocating blanket over the ground, which would have otherwise nixed growth. It also made room for new plants, which are more nutritious for herbivores. New berries would feed bears, new grasses would feed animals like deer, and new wildflowers would feed pollinating insects. “Species such as most of our ungulates—deer, elk, those kinds of critters that are very mobile—love those big patches out there, burned forest next to unburned forest,” says Dave Peterson, a forest biologist at the University of Washington. “So they have new forage and they also have cover”—the tree canopy provided by the unburned parts of the forest.

The fires were also good for plant ecology; they ensured that none of the species overgrew. Many tree species have adapted to fire, thanks to their thicker bark, which helps them survive to repopulate the forest. But fire also keeps their populations in check; the blaze will wipe out sickened individuals and those too young to have grown a sufficiently thick bark. The seedlings of the remaining trees thrive in the burn scar, where the soil has now been injected with nutrients from all that charred material, and where more light is able to reach the ground.

Plus, if the low-lying vegetation is periodically burned off, it won’t build up into the kind of stockpile that could feed a massive wildfire. “I think it's hard to imagine nowadays just how little fuel that would have been in these dry forests when you had fire every few years,” says Christopher Adlam, a fire specialist at Oregon State University. “Even if you had a hot and dry year, historically that wouldn't necessarily have led to all of a sudden fires exploding everywhere—there just wasn't enough to burn.”

[...] But with Europeans, and later the spread of housing and industry across the western states, came the concept of fire suppression: To protect lives and property, wildfires must be extinguished as quickly as possible. In the dry forests of the American West, without a lot of microbial activity to recycle vegetation, this has led to the dangerous buildup of fuel.

[...] The solution, say fire scientists, is at once simple and daunting: more controlled burns by fire agencies, and lots of them. Indigenous peoples had it right—lots of smaller fires ensure healthy ecosystems and check out-of-control blazes. Shrinking the supply of dead undergrowth will be increasingly critical as the climate warms and droughts grow more intense, speeding up the production of dangerous fuels. “What we're seeing now is probably rather minimal compared to what we might be seeing by the middle century,” says Peterson. “And certainly, beyond that, all bets are off.” (MORE - details)


Booming Colorado town asks, 'Where will water come from?'
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/boo...-come-from

INTRO: “Go West, young man,” Horace Greeley famously urged.

The problem for the northern Colorado town that bears the 19th-century newspaper editor’s name: Too many people have heeded his advice.

By the tens of thousands newcomers have been streaming into Greeley — so much so that the city and surrounding Weld County grew by more than 30% from 2010 to 2020, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, making it one of the fastest-growing regions in the country.

And it’s not just Greeley.

Figures released this month show that population growth continues unabated in the South and West, even as temperatures rise and droughts become more common. That in turn has set off a scramble of growing intensity in places like Greeley to find water for the current population, let alone those expected to arrive in coming years.

“Anything we can do to protect our safe water supply is so important,” said Dick Maxfield, who has lived in Greeley for nearly 60 years and watched the population nearly quadruple to nearly 110,000, as new arrivals attracted to relatively low housing prices flock to the city 55 miles (85 kilometers) north of Denver and its mix of jobs in energy, health care and agriculture, including a major meat-packing plant.

The dual challenges of population growth and water scarcity are made worse by climate change, said Lisa Dilling, an environmental studies professor at the University of Colorado and director of the Western Water Assessment research program.

“Everybody looks at the population growth and says, ‘Where is the water going to come from?'” Dilling said. “We can still have growth, but we have to make sure we’re thinking ahead. We need to manage the water efficiently and mindfully.”

As a climate change-fueled megadrought engulfs the American West, some communities are going to extremes to protect their water supplies.

In Oakley, Utah, about 45 miles (72 kilometers) east of Salt Lake City, officials imposed a construction moratorium on new homes that would connect to the town’s overburdened water system.

Thornton, Colorado, meanwhile, is fighting legal challenges as it builds a 72-mile pipeline to bring water from a river near Fort Collins to the suburb north of Denver. Crews have started work in northern Colorado with no assurance it will ever be finished.

“If anything stops that burgeoning growth, it will be the lack of water. It’s a limited resource,” said Dick Jefferies, leader of a northern Colorado chapter of the conservation group Trout Unlimited... (MORE)
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