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Drought spinoff: Dead orchards may go up in smoke
Posted by Fresno Bee: Mark Grossi on May 9th, 2015
Fresno Bee: In the wake of the drought, many orchards now dead wood • Open-field burning may increase as biomass plants close • AB 590 would keep biomass plants going with millions of state dollars ——— In drought-wounded Terra Bella, Kent Duysen says he has seen the plumes of smoke recently — farm-waste burning linked to both the devastating dry time and a faltering biomass energy industry. The San Joaquin Valley’s tainted air might be getting an extra dose of soot and ozone-forming gases this spring as...
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Firefighters warn of extreme fire danger in central California
Posted by Fresno Bee: Mark Grossi on July 7th, 2013
Fresno Bee: Nineteen of the country's best firefighters died last week in Arizona defending Yarnell, population about 700 -- "where a desert breeze meets the mountain air," as the town's entrance sign reads.
It also is where urban living meets wildlands. Firefighters dig in to protect people and property in places like this all over the arid West. Sometimes, nature suddenly takes their lives.
No one remembers this kind of heartbreak over the last century along Fresno County's Highway 168 up to Shaver Lake,...
Climate change spawns salmon dilemma for San Joaquin River
Posted by Fresno Bee: Mark Grossi on September 1st, 2012
Fresno Bee: Skeptical farmers often ask a big key question about the $2 billion revival of the San Joaquin River and salmon runs: How can cold-water salmon possibly survive here as the climate heats up the river?
Prominent fishery biologist Peter Moyle replies that the San Joaquin will be an ideal place for salmon in the future. It will be a pipeline of chilly snowmelt from the high Sierra.
But for years, nobody has been able to settle that debate with science. Now, using a $1.5 million National Science...