Compiled by Candace Krebs
Data shows earlier snowmelt across West
A new study from the University of Colorado shows an increase in winter snowmelt across the West. The analysis from CU Boulder examined 40 years of data and determined that snowmelt has been increasing in all of the cold season months, from October to March. The study indicated that melt before April 1 has increased by an average of 3.5 percent per decade. This trend is shifting the timing of water entering the system, which affects everything from wildfire seasons to agricultural irrigation needs. The new research was published in Nature Climate Change. It was the first study to compile data from all 1,065 automated stations that continuously record snowpack in western North America, showing that these same winter melting trends are widespread.
Alice Mannette
Pratt Tribune
On Feb. 5, The Kansas Rural Center held a Pollinators on the Plains conference. The virtual event covered a range of pollinator topics, including beekeeping methods and strategies, regional pollinator-based community initiatives, the intersection of pollinators with farming and ranching and the impact of pesticides on pollinators.
Sarah Red-Laird, the executive director of Bee Girl, a nonprofit organization based in Oregon gave the keynote address. Red-Laird, who is also Northwest Farmers Union president spoke of utilizing regenerative practices in her beekeeping operation and the intersection between bees and grazing lands.
Sarah is a beekeeper, university-trained bee researcher and pollinator conservationist. Ever since she was a young girl, she has interacted with bees – calling them the love of her life.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service itself estimates that there is a 96-100-percent probability that the population of western monarch butterflies will collapse within 50 years.
–This week, Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Santa Barbara), Rep. Jimmy Panetta, (D-Carmel Valley), and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) wrote to the Principal Deputy Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service expressing concern with the recent decision to forego listing the monarch butterfly under the Endangered Species Act and urging substantial investments in monarch conservation efforts so this crucial pollinator does not go extinct before protections are in place.
This monarch butterfly faces growing threats from the loss of milkweed and habitat, global climate change, and disease, according to Carbajal’s office. The most recent population count for monarch butterflies shows a 99.9-percent decline in population for monarchs west of the Rocky Mountains, which overwinter in California. Just two decades ago, rou
Preventing food deserts: Group trying to help rural grocers
The Kansan
There is a trend of rural and small-town grocery stores in Kansas closing, and a group called the Rural Grocery Initiative has noticed.
“Over a 10-year period, from 2008 to 2018, we tracked 54 rural grocery store closures,” said David Procter, co-founder of the Rural Grocery Initiative.
One of those was Weaver Grocers in Hesston, which closed its doors in April 2018.
The city council of Hesston has had discussions in the past two years of what to do but to date, no one has stepped forward to fill the void. Grocery shoppers in Hesston now can head to Newton, Buhler, Inman, Moundridge or Goessel.
Tim Carpenter, Kansas Reflector
TOPEKA The privatized system in Kansas for handling child support payments to 140,000 children suffers from Byzantine complexity perplexing to employees and the public, a laissez-faire approach to enforcement of support orders, and a computer network that should be a candidate for the scrap heap but isn’t because of high replacement costs.
The child support program overseen by the Kansas Department for Children and Families and operated by a collection of private contractors hired by the state was placed under the microscope of Midwest Evaluation and Research, an Emporia consulting firm. The independent evaluator was hired by DCF to review accountability and effectiveness of the privatized system in the context of Kansas’ performance on key metrics and with knowledge of persistent complaints about IT and communication shortcomings.