by Jake Bittle, Grist This story was originally published by Grist. You can subscribe to its weekly newsletter here In early 1862, a storm of biblical proportions struck California, dropping more than 120 inches of rain and snow on the state over two months. The entire state flooded, but nowhere was the deluge worse than in…
Andrew Fisher, University of California, Santa Cruz California has seen so much rain over the past few weeks that farm fields are inundated and normally dry creeks and drainage ditches have become torrents of water racing toward the ocean. Yet, most of the state remains in drought. All that runoff in the middle of…
By Randall J. Newsome Of all the lofty promises Rise Gold has churned out over the preceding months, none has been more ballyhooed than the number of jobs the mine would create, and the $94,000 average annual wage they’ll pay. Before anyone runs to get in line for one of these dream jobs, let’s…
By Martin Webb After a careful review by the county-chosen contractor based in Sacramento, the citizens and organizations that make up Nevada County can safely say they have been vindicated by the Draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR) recently released to the public regarding the long-shuttered Idaho-Maryland Mine (IMM). The over-1,000-page document contains research, analysis,…
Nick Bowlin, High Country News Beneath the almond and citrus fields of the San Joaquin Valley lies an enormous system of aquifers that feeds some of the world’s most productive farmland. Hundreds of miles north and east, along the Nevada border, is the Surprise Valley, a remote, high-desert region undergirded by cone-shaped hollows of…