WaterWired

Thursday Twofer! CRS Reports: 1) 'Wildfire Statistics'; 2) 'Changes in the Arctic: Background and Issues for Congress'

Here are two CRS reports that are updated frequently. I have not updated (2) in quite a while.

Graphics can be enlarged by clicking on them.

1) Katie Hoover and Laura A. Hanson authored (updated 8 September 2021): 'Wildfire Statistics'.

Download CRS_InFocus_Wildfire_Statistics_8Sept2021

Summary
Wildfires are unplanned and unwanted fires, including lightning-caused fires, unauthorized human-caused fires, and escaped prescribed fire projects. States are responsible for responding to wildfires that begin on nonfederal (state, local, and private) lands, except for lands protected by federal agencies under cooperative agreements. The federal government is responsible for responding to wildfires that begin on federal lands. The Forest Service (FS)—within the U.S. Department of Agriculture—carries out wildfire management and response across the 193 million acres of the National Forest System (NFS). The Department of the Interior (DOI) manages wildfire response for more than 400 million acres of national parks, wildlife refuges and preserves, other public lands, and Indian reservations. 

Wildfire statistics help to illustrate past U.S. wildfire activity. Nationwide data compiled by the National Interagency Coordination Center (NICC) indicate that the number of annual wildfires is variable but has decreased slightly over the last 30 years and the number of acres affected annually, while also variable, generally has increased (see Figure 1). Since 2000, an annual average of 70,600 wildfires has burned an annual average of 7.0 million acres. This figure is more than double the average annual acreage burned in the 1990s (3.3 million acres), although a greater number of fires occurred annually in the 1990s (78,600 average).

Cutting to the chase:

Issues for Congress
Issues for Congress include the strategies and resources used for wildfire prevention, mitigation, and management, and the impact of wildfires on both the quality of life and the economies of communities surrounding wildfire activity. Other issues relate to post-wildfire recovery and site restoration. Congress also considers the total federalcost of wildfire management, including the cost of suppression operations; these costs vary annually and are difficult to predict.

For more information, see
 CRS In Focus IF10732, Federal Assistance for Wildfire
Response and Recovery;

 CRS Insight IN11716, 2021 Wildfire Season: Brief Overview of FEMA Programs and Resources; and

 CRS Report R46583, Federal Wildfire Management: Ten-Year Funding Trends and Issues (FY2011-FY2020).

Next:

2) Ronald O'Rourke (Coordinator), LauraB. Comay, Peter Folger, John Frittelli, Marc Humphries, Jane A. Leggett, JonathanL.Ramseur, and Pervaze A. Sheikh were the authors behind this mammoth (139 pages) report (update 7 September 2021): Changes in the Arctic: Background and Issues for Congress.

Why is this such a big deal? Read on!

Download CRS_Report_Changes_Arctic_Issues_Congress_7Sept2021

Summary
The diminishment of Arctic sea ice has led to increased human activities in the Arctic, and has heightened interest in, and concerns about, the region’s future. The United States, by virtue of Alaska, is an Arctic country and has substantial interests in the region. The seven other Arctic states are Canada, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark (by virtue of Greenland), and Russia.

The Arctic Research and Policy Act (ARPA) of 1984 (Title I of P.L. 98-373 of July 31, 1984) “provide[s] for a comprehensive national policy dealing with national research needs and objectives in the Arctic.” The National Science Foundation (NSF) is the lead federal agency for implementing Arctic research policy. The Arctic Council, created in 1996, is the leading international forum for addressing issues relating to the Arctic. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) sets forth a comprehensive regime of law and order in the world’s oceans, including the Arctic Ocean. The United States is not a party to UNCLOS.

Record low extents of Arctic sea ice over the past decade have focused scientific and policy attention on links to global climate change and projected ice-free seasons in the Arctic within decades. These changes have potential consequences for weather in the United States, access to mineral and biological resources in the Arctic, the economies and cultures of peoples in the region, and national security.

The geopolitical environment for the Arctic has been substantially affected by the renewal of great power competition. Although there continues to be significant international cooperation on Arctic issues, the Arctic is increasingly viewed as an arena for geopolitical competition among the United States, Russia, and China.

The Department of Defense (DOD) and the Coast Guard are devoting increased attention to the Arctic in their planning and operations. Whether DOD and the Coast Guard are devoting sufficient resources to the Arctic and taking sufficient actions for defending U.S. interests in the region has emerged as a topic of congressional oversight. The Coast Guard has two operational polar icebreakers and has received funding for the procurement of two of at least three planned new polar icebreakers.

The diminishment of Arctic ice could lead in coming years to increased commercial shipping on two trans-Arctic sea routes—the Northern Sea Route close to Russia, and the Northwest Passage close to Alaska and through the Canadian archipelago—though the rate of increase in the use of these routes might not be as great as sometimes anticipated in press accounts. International guidelines for ships operating in Arctic waters have been recently updated.

Changes to the Arctic brought about by warming temperatures will likely allow more exploration for oil, gas, and minerals. Warming that causes permafrost to melt could pose challenges to onshore exploration activities. Increased oil and gas exploration and tourism (cruise ships) in the Arctic increase the risk of pollution in the region. Cleaning up oil spills in ice-covered waters will be more difficult than in other areas, primarily because effective strategies for cleaning up oil spills in ice-covered waters have yet to be developed.

Large commercial fisheries exist in the Arctic. The United States is working with other countries regarding the management of Arctic fish stocks. Changes in the Arctic could affect threatened and endangered species, and could result in migration of fish stocks to new waters. Under the Endangered Species Act, the polar bear was listed as threatened on May 15, 2008. Arctic climate change is also expected to affect the economies, health, and cultures of Arctic indigenous peoples.

Issues for Congress

Climate Change and Loss of Arctic Sea Ice
Record low extents of Arctic sea ice in 2012 and 2007 have focused scientific and policy attention on climate changes in the high north, and on the implications of projected ice-free40 seasons in the Arctic within decades. The Arctic has been projected by several scientists to be ice-free in most late summers as soon as the 2030s.41 This opens opportunities for transport through the Northwest Passage and the Northern Sea Route, extraction of potential oil and gas resources, and expanded fishing and tourism (Figure 3).

More broadly, physical changes in the Arctic include warming ocean, soil, and air temperatures; melting permafrost; shifting vegetation and animal abundances; and altered characteristics of Arctic cyclones. All these changes are expected to affect traditional livelihoods and cultures in the region and survival of polar bear and other animal populations, and raise risks of pollution, food supply, safety, cultural losses, and national security. Moreover, linkages (“teleconnections”) between warming Arctic conditions and extreme events in the mid-latitude continents are increasingly evident, identified in such extreme events as the heat waves and fires in Russia in 2010; severe winters in the eastern United States and Europe in 2009/2010 and in Europe in 2011/2012;42 and Indian summer monsoons and droughts. Hence, changing climate in the Arctic suggests important implications both locally and across the Hemisphere.

Lots more reading left!

Enjoy!

"May you live in interesting times." - Unknown

Two from AWWA: 1) Household Affordability in SDWA Rulemaking; and 2) Expert Panel Report

This article by Adam T. Carpenter appeared in Journal AWWA Volume 113, Issue 5, p. 6. He is
Manager, Energy and Environmental Policy at AWWA. 

 

Thanks to G. Tracy Mehan III, Executive Director of Government Affairs for the American Water Works Association (AWWA) for sending me this information.

 

Here we go:

The affordability of water service is a large and growing challenge for the sector. Utilities are facing substantial costs to upgrade infrastructure and to treat for emerging contaminants of concern, but also are grappling with how to fund these efforts without disproportionately impacting customers. So discussions around affordability at the household level are important not only in the strategic planning and day-to-day operation of water systems, but also for state and federal agencies considering new regulations. In these discussions, it's important to recognize that affordability is a complex issue, and household-level affordability and the consequences of policy changes cannot rest on a single metric like median household income.

Many stakeholders, AWWA included, have long advocated for better analysis of rulemaking to identify whether rule requirements are likely to cause affordability problems to low-income customers. Understanding impacts on fiscally challenged households is an important step to determining what can be done to address those challenges while still ensuring access to safe and reliable drinking water supplies.

Under current practice, the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) prepares an extensive economic analysis for new Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) regulations. That analysis includes determining whether—across the nation as a whole—the health benefits of a rule are greater than the costs of implementation. USEPA looks specifically at the household-level cost implications of drinking water regulations only for small systems with the question of whether a small-system variance (i.e., a less expensive but equivalently protective compliance strategy) should be available. And USEPA prepares analyses to address several executive orders, including Executive Order 12898, Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations.

In early 2020, AWWA convened a panel of experts on affordable water service and regulatory processes. The panel was co-chaired by Cary Coglianese from the University of Pennsylvania and John Graham of Indiana University. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the panel met through a series of virtual meetings that allowed the participants to discuss USEPA's existing practice regarding the evaluation of affordability, to brainstorm ideas, to consider practical analytical challenges, and to prepare a summary report. In mid-April, on behalf of the panel, AWWA released Improving the Evaluation of Household-Level Affordability in SDWA Rulemaking: New Approaches, synthesizing the panel's work. This report includes seven key recommendations, and it also includes four new analyses to be conducted:

• Analyze the impacts on customers in the lowest income quintile instead of focusing exclusively on median household income.
• Estimate the number and geographic distribution of systems that have a high potential for affordability challenges based on measures of community fiscal stress (such as percentage of homes with incomes at or below 200% of the poverty level).
• Evaluate the “single rate payer burden” on all rules for which costs are likely to overlap with the implementation of the proposed or final rule.
• Evaluate how the net benefits of a rule are distributed across household incomes, identifying whether low-income customers may pay a disproportionate share or may not receive a proportionate benefit.

The panel emphasized that analyzing impacts on household affordability is not meant to reduce health protections for low-income customers or anyone else. Instead, evaluating the impacts of regulatory options on household-level affordability should provide an opportunity to modify draft rule frameworks and implementation strategies to mitigate impacts on low-income households and consequently alleviate disparate impacts.

The panel's work sets the stage for improving current SDWA decision-making processes, which in turn will help lead to more informed decisions across the sector. Although work remains to fully demonstrate the recommended analyses, they nevertheless pave the way for a more informed future.

Here is a PDF of the aforementioned exper panel report:

Download_Improving_Eval_Household_Level_Affordability_SDWA_Rulemaking_New_Approaches

Enjoy!

"Our recruiting and faculty retention strategies are simple. We are looking for someone good enough to get tenure, but not good enough to get a better job. Welcome to the college equivalent of the Hotel California!" - @ass_deans

CRS Thursday Twofer Reports: 1) 'Wildfire Management Funding - FY2021 Appropriations'; 2) 'Forest Service - FY2021 Appropriations'

1) Katie Hoover penned this 18 February 2021 CRS Report: 'Wildfire ManagementFunding - FY2021Appropriations'

Click on the graphics to display/enlarge them.

Download CRS_Wildfire_Management_FY2021_18Feb2021

 The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service (FS) and the Department of the Interior (DOI) are responsible for wildfire response and management across the federal lands within their respective jurisdictions. Both FS and DOI generally receive annual discretionary appropriations for wildfire management activities through Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies appropriations laws. Wildfire management funding for DOI is provided to the department-level Office of Wildland Fire. 

Wildfire management appropriations fluctuate annually but rose markedly after FY2000 (see Figure 1). A significant portion of the annual fluctuations and overall increase in funding is related to fire suppression costs, which vary considerably and may be high even during years of relatively mild wildfire activity. For more information, see CRS Report R46583, Federal Wildfire Management: Ten-Year Funding Trends and Issues (FY2011-FY2020). 

For FY2020, Congress appropriated a total of $6.105 billion in discretionary appropriations for wildfire purposes for FS and DOI (see Table 1) 

Enjoy!

2) Katie Hoover also penned this 18 February 2021 CRS  Repor: 'Forest Service - FY2021 Appropriations'

Download CRS_Report_Forest_Service_2021Appropriations_18Feb2021

The Forest Service (FS) is responsible for managing 193 million acres of land in the National Forest System (NFS); conducting forestry research; and providing assistance to state, local, private, and international forest owners. FS is an agency within the Department of Agriculture, but it receives discretionary appropriations through the Interior,  Environment, and Related Agencies appropriations bill.

Budget Request
The Trump Administration requested $5.345 billion in FY2021 discretionary appropriations for FS, not including the wildfire adjustment. This would have been a decrease of $138.6 million (-3%) from the regular-enacted appropriations for FY2020 and a decrease of $209.4 million (-4%) from the FY2020 total enacted figure. The Trump Administration also requested an additional $2.040 billion through the wildfire adjustment, for a total request of $7.385 billion. The request reflected increases for some FS accounts and decreases for others, including no funding for one account (see Table 1).

Enjoy!

"Managing is getting paid for home runs someone else hits." - Casey Stengel (former manager - NY Yankees & NY Mets)

CRS InFocus National Park Service Reports: 1) FY2020 Appropriations; 2) FY2021 Appropriations

Good to see some information on the National Park Service. Here are two brief (~ 2 pages) CRS reports is from Laura B. Comay: 'National Park Service: FY2020 Appropriations' and 'National Park Service: FY2021 Appropriations'. 

Click on the graphics ro enlarge them.

1) Download CRS_InFocus_NPS_Appropriations_FY2020

The National Park Service (NPS) administers the National Park System, which includes 421 units valued for their natural, cultural, and recreational importance and covers 85 million acres (81 million acres of federal land and 4 million nonfederal). As an agency in the Department of the Interior, NPS receives funding in annual appropriations laws for Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies. This CRS product discusses NPS’s FY2020 appropriations; for information on FY2021, see CRS In Focus IF11661, National Park Service: FY2021 Appropriations.

P.L. 116-94, the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2020, was enacted on December 20, 2019. The act provided $3.377 billion for NPS, 5% more than the enacted FY2019 regular appropriation of $3.223 billion. It included increases for five NPS accounts and a reduction for one account, as compared with the FY2019 regular appropriation (Table 1).

FY2020 appropriations in P.L. 116-94 were 23% higher than the Trump Administration’s request of $2.742 billion. The enacted discretionary appropriation exceeded the Administration’s request for each NPS budget account.

In addition to discretionary appropriations, NPS reported mandatory appropriations for FY2020 of $0.741 billion, an increase of 1% over NPS mandatory funding for FY2019. These mandatory appropriations come from entrance and recreation fees, concessioner fees, donations, and other sources, and they are used for a variety of specified purposes, including deferred maintenance.

In earlier action, on June 25, 2019, the House had passed H.R. 3055, an FY2020 consolidated appropriations bill with $3.362 billion for NPS (also see H.Rept. 116-100 on H.R. 3052, an earlier stand-alone House Interior bill). On October 31, 2019, the Senate had passed its version of H.R. 3055, with $3.356 billion for NPS (also see S.Rept. 116- 123 on S. 2580, a Senate stand-alone bill). Because FY2020 appropriations were not enacted by the start of the fiscal year, two continuing resolutions, P.L. 116-59 and P.L. 116- 69, provided continuing appropriations at FY2019 levels prior to enactment of P.L. 116-94.

Next - FY2021 report.

2)  Download CRS_InFocus_NPS_Appropriations_FY2021

The National Park Service (NPS) administers the National Park System, which includes 421 units valued for their natural, cultural, and recreational importance. System lands cover 81 million federal acres and 4 million nonfederal acres. As part of the Department of the Interior,NPS receives funding in annual appropriations laws for Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies. Selected issues for Congress include the to tall evel of NPS appropriations, funding to address NPS’s backlog of deferred maintenance (DM), and funds for NPS as assistanceton on federal entities.

The Trump Administration requested $2.793billion in FY2021 discretionary appropriations for NPS.The request was 17% less thanNPS’s FY2020 appropriation of $3.377 billion, enacted in P.L. 116-94. The request included reductions for all NPS accounts as compared with FY2020. NPS’s budget justification also estimated $0.749 billion in mandatory appropriations for NPS for FY2021, an increase of 1% overestimated NPS mandatory funding forFY2020. These mandatory appropriations come fromentrance and recreation fees, concessioner fees, donations, and other sources. In July 2020, the Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA; P.L. 116-152) established additional mandatory spending for NPS, including a fund to address agency DM needs. The GAOA also designated, as mandatory spending, agency funding from the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF; 54 U.S.C. §200301),previously provided through discretionary appropriations.

 Enjoy!

“Done is better than perfect.” – Sheryl Sandberg

Thursday Twofer! The GGG Opines: Groundwater Visibility, Invisibility and More!

So who should email me about yesterday's post? One of my favorites - friend and colleague Sharon B. Megdal, Director of the Arizona Water Resources Research Center. We get along unlike most New Jerseyites (she) and New Yorkers (me) do. 

But GGG? What? Groundwater Governance Goddess/Guru - that's the moniker I gave her a few years ago. We've got two papers from her today.

 

1) Here is a one-pager article she wrote in 2016, The Invisible Water:

Download The Invisible Water

The first two paragraphs:

Water policy discussions around the globe are focusing on groundwater and how to improve its governance and management. Growing water demands and changing climate’s influence on temperature and precipitation patterns have underscored the importance of groundwater – the invisible water.

Groundwater meets about 40 percent of Arizona’s annual water uses. While the Colorado River, which also satisfies about 40 percent of Arizona’s annual needs, is receiving a lot of attention, with the Central Arizona Project’s “Protect Lake Mead” campaign and other efforts to raise awareness of work being done to forestall and maybe even avoid shortage, efforts to manage our groundwater resources wisely deserve at least equal attention. Those of us who work in the water sector in Arizona know how important groundwater is to communities and economic activities throughout the state. We regularly cite the centrality of Arizona’s 1980 Groundwater Management Act, which implemented a strong regulatory framework for groundwater utilization in designated Active Management Areas. But because these provisions do not apply statewide, even here in Arizona, where groundwater management seems second nature, groundwater overdraft continues to be a challenge.

Cutting to the chase...

Finally, I would be remiss if I did not mention the important work on groundwater assessment being carried out along the US-Mexico border. The binational Transboundary Aquifer Assessment Program has produced a report on the San Pedro Aquifer in English and Spanish and is completing a similar report for the binational Santa Cruz Aquifer.

Groundwater is a critically important resource for Arizona and much of the world. People are coming together to emphasize the need to understand this resource and manage it better. At the University of Arizona Water Resources Research Center, we endeavor to contribute to efforts to share best practices for groundwater assessment, governance, and management. Please visit http://wrrc.arizona.edu/programs-research to find out more.

2) She also sent me this excellent open-access paper: Invisible Water: The Importance of Good Groundwater Governance and Management, npj Clean Water, Volume 1, Article number: 15 (2018). It was published in the online journal npj Clean Water. I posted it about 2 years ago. Click on the graphics to enlarge them.

Download Megdal FINAL Invisible Water npj Clean Water

Abstract
This paper summarizes the results of efforts to bring attention to the importance of understanding and improving groundwater governance and management. Discussion of survey work in the United States and global case studies highlights the importance of focusing attention on this invisible water resource before pollution or depletion of it causes severe economic, environmental, and social dislocations. Better governance and management of groundwater are required to move toward sustainable groundwater use.

Introduction
The growing population’s increasing demand for water for food, energy, and other human uses and changing climate’s impacts to both water supplies and demands are resulting in increasing reliance on groundwater. In many places groundwater is being depleted faster than nature replenishes it, and its quality is being compromised. Groundwater “mining” can have negative implications for meeting long-term water needs of people and natural systems. At the same time that groundwater from deeper and saltier aquifers is eyed for meeting future drinking water needs, aquifers are being identified as repositories for waste streams from desalination and energy processes as well as carbon sequestration sites. As dependence on groundwater increases, water managers and policy makers must pay careful attention to both groundwater quality and quantity. This paper focuses on efforts to bring attention to the importance of understanding and improving the governance and management of this invisible and increasingly relied-upon resource. It is essential that water users focus attention on this invisible water resource before pollution or depletion of it causes severe economic, environmental, and social dislocations. Better governance and management of groundwater are required to move toward sustainable groundwater use.

Cutting to the chase...

Concluding Remarks
Groundwater, the invisible water supply, is becoming more visible in dialogues on the challenges of meeting the world’s food, energy and water needs. The governance and management of this resource will often be at the scale of the source aquifers. Many across the globe are working hard to bring greater attention to the importance of good governance and management of this oftentimes non-renewable resource. As the state-level survey work demonstrates, quality considerations are paramount to those responsible for regulating groundwater. Along with other factors, quality considerations will determine groundwater’s usability. The case studies discussed underscore that groundwater is largely a local resource, with its governance and management vital to the livability and productivity of regions around the globe. Water policymakers, users, researchers, and citizens must focus attention on this invisible water resource before pollution or depletion of it results in severe economic, environmental, and social dislocations.

I jokingly refer to Sharon as the Groundwater Governance Goddess (or Guru). But it's no joke; she is! Read more of her work here and here and here. 

Enjoy!

"We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology. " - Carl Sagan