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Archive for May 18th, 2011
Once-rare Mississippi River flooding now ‘more frequent and more severe.’
Posted by Green Wire: Paul Quinlan on May 18th, 2011
Green Wire: When the Mississippi River spilled over its banks late last month in Mark Twain's boyhood home of Hannibal, Mo., it was the sort of flood the Army Corps of Engineers expects to occur once every 10 or 25 years.
If Hannibal could only be so lucky.
The town saw similar floods in 1995, 1996, 1998 and 2001. Worse still was the 200-year flood in 2008. But none of those compared to the devastation in 1993, when river gauges at Hannibal measured floodwaters at levels expected only once in five centuries....
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Canada lynx threatened by rising temperatures in Maine
Posted by Reuters: Zach Howard on May 18th, 2011
Reuters: The rare Canada lynx, whose range has shrunk considerably in recent decades, faces a grave threat from rising temperatures in Maine, federal wildlife experts said on Tuesday.
The shaggy wild feline whose principal eastern U.S. habitat is Maine, preys on snowshoe hare but may lose out to competing hunters if snowfall decreases in coming years as predicted, according to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Lynx, bobcats and fishers stalk the same primary food source.
The historic range of the...
Rural Louisiana has mixed feelings over flooding plan
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 18th, 2011
Voice of America: A member of the Louisiana National Guard talks to a resident who did not want to be identified, as they reinforce the town in preparation for expected flooding from the opening of the Morganza Spillway, in Krotz Springs, Louisiana, May 17, 2011
As diverted water from the swollen Mississippi River flows through Louisiana's Morganza spillway and into the Achafalaya basin on its way to the Gulf of Mexico, thousands of people in the southern state are losing their homes, businesses and crops.
The...
China’s wetlands crisis: Dongting Lake
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 18th, 2011
Guardian: China's wetlands are relied on to store floodwaters, protect shorelines and improve water quality. As lakes, swamps, mangroves and floodplains disappear at an alarming rate, the photographer and videographer Sean Gallagher reports on the changes in Dongting Lake in central China on behalf of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting