Daniel Salzler No. 1267 EnviroInsight.org Six Items August 16, 2024
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- Arizona Reactivates Dormant Program That Supports Rural And Tribal Infrastructure Projects. PHOENIX – State officials have reactivated the Greater Arizona Development Authority (GADA), a dormant state program that supports infrastructure projects in rural and tribal communities.
GADA officially returned to action last week after 10 years of inactivity, Gov. Katie Hobbs announced on Tuesday, August 6th, 2024
“By reinvigorating this tool, we are providing an opportunity to leverage existing funds to invest in essential infrastructure all across Arizona. This will support our focus on priority projects such as transportation, clean energy, water supply and workforce training facilities,” Hobbs said in a press release.
Cities and towns can apply for affordable financing for infrastructure projects, leveraging GADA’s strong bond rating, through Oct. 1.
In addition, GADA can subsidize up to 50% of closing costs and help provide technical support for the projects.
What is the Greater Arizona Development Authority’s history?
Before going dormant, GADA issued $574 million in bonds to support 84 rural infrastructure improvement projects from 1997 to 2014. The projects included the construction of firehouses, community centers, libraries and municipal complexes.
The Arizona Finance Authority (AFA) oversees GADA, which has been self-sustaining and doesn’t require state funds for its investments.
“Investing in our rural and tribal communities is vital to the success of Arizona,” Robin Romano, president of the AFA board of directors, said in the release. “The board looks forward to financing between $50 and $100 million within the next year.” Source: KTAR Aug 7, 2024
2. Been Swimming In Murkey,Polluted Fresh Water Prior To Realizing The Effects Of An Infection? Try An Easy Olympic Sized Fix. Once they had braved the bacteria-laden waters of the Seine last week, Ainsley Thorpe and Nicole van der Kaay met New Zealand’s team doctor at the finish line for some post-triathlon medical advice.
What he had waiting for them would horrify any dentist: two open bottles of It might seem odd that some of the fittest people in the world would reach for a sugary soda after taking a dip in a polluted river. But among open-water swimmers, there’s a popular tip that has been passed down through the generations: The best way to stave off infection from whatever might be living in the water is good, old-fashioned Coke.
“The myth of Coca-Cola is true,” said Moesha Johnson, an Australian competing in the marathon swim on Thursday. “We will often have a Coca-Cola afterwards just to try to flush out anything inside of us.”
There are several theories about Coke’s cleansing prowess, but the most common is that its acidity works as quasi-bleach for the digestive tract. There’s just one problem with that, said Dr. Maria Abreu, the president of the American Gastroenterological Association: A healthy stomach is already more acidic than Coke, meaning it would have no more ability to kill off interloping bacteria than what’s already there.
“These are young, athletic people, right? They’re going to be healthy people whose stomach acid is going to be nice and robust,” said Abreu, a recreational triathlete herself. But guzzling soda isn’t entirely for naught. Coca-Cola’s most redeeming quality for endurance athletes is its high sugar content—a 12-ounce can contains 39 grams of sugar, or nearly 10 teaspoons worth. It’s enough to make a nutritionist cringe and keep a marathon swimmer from collapsing.
3. Canal Cleaners Keep The Water Flowing In The Valley. Algae, trash, and other debris can clog up the canal grates preventing the water from moving across the Valley.
Canals play an important role in moving water across the Valley. Keeping the canals clean is a task that requires constant maintenance, and it’s all possible thanks to the hard work of Salt River Project canal cleaners.
SRP operates seven different canals, helping move water across 131 miles in the Valley, according to SRP. The company is responsible for providing water to more than two million Arizonans.
“[The water] all goes through the water treatment plants,” Todd Asquith, with SRP said. During monsoon season, “trash and debris gets piled up on the grates,” Asquith said.
The grates filter out some of the junk. Particularly during the summer, Algae grows quickly in the canals. Algae can grow virtually anywhere if there’s enough water, sunlight, carbon dioxide and minerals.
“We have a machine here to clean the grates for the water to be able to get through,” Asquith said.
SRP canal cleaners work 24/4, removing debris from the grates every hour. Roughly 75 maintenance works are placed along the canal system to clean the algae, and whatever junk ends up in the water.
“If there’s too much debris, the water will back up and not be able to get through and then the water treatment plants can’t get enough water,” Asquith said. Source: 12News Phoenix August 8, 2024
4. Audubon Southwest Awarded Prestigious WaterSMART Grant to Restore the Lower Gila River. In partnership with the Lower Gila River Collaborative, funds will advance restoration work along the Lower Gila River west of Phoenix to benefit birds and people.
Audubon Southwest, in partnership with the Lower Gila River Collaborative, is excited to announce that we have been awarded a $298,014 grant through the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s (Reclamation) WaterSMART Cooperative Watershed Management Program to improve ecosystem health and water management. This funding is part of the most recent $8.9 million investment from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to protect watershed health and build more resilient water supplies in the western U.S.
Here’s what you need to know about our project:
Who: The Lower Gila River Collaborative (LGRC) is “a voluntary partnership to restore the lower Gila River ecosystem while encouraging stewardship, recreation, and compatible development,” comprising more than 30 state agencies, non-governmental organizations, Tribes, and recreation and agricultural water users. Facilitated by Southwest Decision Resources, LGRC is the western extent of the Rio Reimagined initiative, a regional approach to further the ecological restoration and economic growth on the Salt and Gila Rivers.
Audubon Southwest, the regional office of the National Audubon Society in Arizona and New Mexico, has been an active LGRC member for over 10 years. Our Director of Bird Conservation, Tice Supplee, serves on many committees, including the LGRC Habitat Enhancement Working Group and Coordinating Team. Members of the LGRC Leadership Council include the Gila River Indian Community (GRIC); the cities of Avondale, Buckeye, Goodyear, and Phoenix; Maricopa County Parks and Recreation Department; Flood Control District of Maricopa County; Arizona Department of Game and Fish; Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management; and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Building upon decades of work, the LGRC strives to advance restoration of the Lower Gila River—from the City of Phoenix’s Tres Rios Ecosystem Restoration Area southwest along the river to Gillespie Dam west of Buckeye—by removing salt cedar (also known as tamarisk), planting native vegetation, creating public access points and trails, encouraging nature based economic development, and engaging environmental justice communities along the river.
What: Over three years, Audubon will manage the grant funds to implement the LGRC 2024-2029 Strategic Action Plan. The Strategic Action Plan strives to:
- Expand outreach to include under- and unrepresented voices
- Engage landowners through outreach and workshops to catalyze projects
- Synthesize existing plans, studies, and data to evaluate and prioritize potential projects
- Consolidate hydrologic, ecologic, and social data into an interactive online platform
Where: The project planning area is located in Maricopa County, Arizona, including the cities of Phoenix, Avondale, Goodyear, and Buckeye as well as the GRIC Reservation, approximately 428,000 acres of private farmland, and managed public lands. The project scope spans several subwatersheds of the Salt and lower Gila Rivers with primary focus within the river corridors. These corridors are designated as the Lower Salt and Gila Rivers Ecosystem Important Bird Area (IBA)—a global IBA for Yuma Ridgway’s Rail that also provides habitat for the federally threatened Western Yellow-billed Cuckoo and hundreds of other species.
Why: Significant changes have occurred in the ecosystems of the Lower Gila River subwatersheds due to historic land and water management practices combined with the hotter and drier climate. These changes have contributed to invasive plants (including salt cedar and stinknet) replacing native vegetation. The expansion of salt cedar within the 36-mile lower reach of the Gila River has resulted in the highest risk in the state for wildfires and flooding, increased soil salinity, decreased water quality, reduced recreation access, and created an overall decline in riparian ecological health and resilience. These changes negatively impact birds and people and threaten critical infrastructure and communities.
We look forward to continuing our important work and mission with our local partners, which will be boosted by this opportunity from Reclamation. Stay tuned for updates as we achieve project milestones.
Join Audubon’s Western Water Action Network to receive water news and action alerts about issues affecting birds nationwide.Source: audubon.org
5. Your Microwave Oven Has Its Own Microbiome. Survey of bacteria living inside household and laboratory appliances finds a robust ecosystem.
‘Extremophiles’ are organisms that can survive, and even thrive, in the harshest of environments, including inside scorching hydrothermal vents, sub-zero Antarctic ice and the crushing pressures of Earth’s crust. Now, they’ve been discovered in a more pedestrian setting: microwave ovens.
Although previous studies found distinct communities of microbes in kitchen appliances such as dishwashers1 and coffee machines2, this is the first time that the microwave oven has been investigated for having its own microbiome. The research, published today in Frontiers in Microbiology3, adds to existing work challenging a common misconception: that microwave radiation heats up and completely kills bacteria that cause food-borne illness, such as Escherichia coli and Salmonella.
“We’ve all been taught, from like the 1980s, that if you use a microwave oven, it heats everything up — it kills everything,” says Jason Tetro, a freelance microbiologist, known as ‘The Germ Guy’, in Edmonton, Canada. This study is “important”, he says, because it shines a spotlight on potential pathogens in these appliances, especially shared ones.
All that’s zapped is not killed
Alba Iglesias, a microbiologist at the University of Valencia in Spain, and her colleagues swabbed 30 microwave ovens — including some in households; some shared in large spaces, such as offices; and some used in laboratories to heat specimens and chemical solutions. The team then cultured its samples in Petri dishes and determined the genera of the microbes that grew. They also sequenced the DNA in the material swabbed from the microwave ovens to get a sense of the bacterial diversity inside the appliances.
A total of 101 bacterial strains grew in the cultures. The dominant ones belonged to the Bacillus, Micrococcus and Staphylococcus genera, which commonly live on human skin and surfaces that people frequently touch. Human-skin bacteria were present in all three types of microwave oven, but were more abundant in the household and shared-use appliances. A few bacteria types associated with food-borne illnesses, including Klebsiella and Brevundimonas, also grew in some of the cultures from household microwaves.
Laboratory microwave ovens contained the greatest genetic diversity of bacteria. The researchers found both kitchen-counter bacteria and extremophiles that can withstand the radiation, high temperatures and extreme dryness in these appliances.
“You don’t need to go to very exotic — geographically speaking — places to find diversity of microorganisms,” says co-author Manuel Porcar, a microbiologist also at the University of Valencia in Spain.
The team suggests that the extremophile strains they found in the microwave ovens might have been ‘selected’ evolutionarily by surviving repeated rounds of radiation, and could have biotechnological applications, such as in the bioremediation of toxic waste. Porcar says that the next step is to investigate how microwave usage might affect these bacteria over time.
But for the general public, the implications of the study are simpler. “A microwave is not a pure, pristine place,” Porcar says. It’s also not a pathogenic reservoir to be feared, he says. But he does recommend cleaning your kitchen microwave often — just as often as you would scrub your kitchen surfaces to eliminate potential bacteria. Source:August 8th : https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-02553-9?utm_source=join1440&utm_medium=email&utm_placement=newsletter
6. Contributed By The Upper Agua Fria Watershed Partnership. Solving the dual issues of migration corridors and habitat fragmentation are crucial to protect OUR state’s wildlife too. I think the UAFWP folks will find these articles informative. Easy to read over a morning coffee. Forwarded articles from Tim Flood.
The Candela project will be significantly larger than this one.
Two Articles about deer migration. This is eye-opening.
For these mammals, migration is a means of survival – High Country News (hcn.org)
Deer 255 reaches the end of her journey – High Country News (hcn.org)
The perilous tough journey that Pronghorn face. The situation in Arizona is equally tough.
The perilous journey of Wyoming’s migrating pronghorn – High Country News (hcn.org)
Here are 2 other articles from this month’s HCN.
How do you protect wildlife from sprawl? – High Country News (hcn.org) This is relevant to the efforts of Yavapai County, Planning and Zoning for development guidelines.
Deer 255 reaches the end of her journey – High Country News (hcn.org)
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