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‘Food forests are everything’: creating edible landscapes helps nature thrive in Afro-descendant lands

Agroforestry systems in Latin America practised by local communities are a boon to biodiversity, according to researchAs a seven-year-old, covered head to toe with only her eyes and nose exposed, Dilmer Briche González used to pick the long, fat fruits from the cacao tree and place them in a big pile. “Imagine a forest where giant mosquitoes abound,” Briche González, now 53, recalls of her childhood on her family’s ancestral farm.Her grandfather, uncle and grandmother would cut each cacao fruit open, and Briche González would join her grandmother in removing the pulp and seeds from the shell, which would then be used as fertiliser.A village in Ecuador where, along with Brazil, Colombia and Suriname, there are formally recognised Afro-descendant lands. Photograph: Conservation International Continue reading...

As a seven-year-old, covered head to toe with only her eyes and nose exposed, Dilmer Briche González used to pick the long, fat fruits from the cacao tree and place them in a big pile. “Imagine a forest where giant mosquitoes abound,” Briche González, now 53, recalls of her childhood on her family’s ancestral farm.Her grandfather, uncle and grandmother would cut each cacao fruit open, and Briche González would join her grandmother in removing the pulp and seeds from the shell, which would then be used as fertiliser.The agricultural landscape where their farm lies, nestled in southern Colombia, had been maintained by Afro-descendant communities since colonial times.Briche González would follow her grandmother around in the forest where her family also grew different trees for timber, medicinal plants, coffee, spices and herbs for cooking. A village in Ecuador where, along with Brazil, Colombia and Suriname, there are formally recognised Afro-descendant lands. Photograph: Conservation International “I just became enchanted with all of that,” she says. Today, Briche González is part of the grassroots organisation Proceso de Comunidades Negras (PCN), which advocates for the rights and recognition of Afro-descendant peoples in southern Colombia.Afro-descendant communities in Latin America have long cultivated “edible landscapes”, which grow in the midst of natural forests and mimic the surrounding flora. Across the region, Afro-descendant peoples manage about 200m hectares (2m sq km or 494m acres) of these agroforestry systems in biodiversity hotspots, of which only 5% are legally recognised as collectively titled territories.For decades, those communities have argued that they play a critical role in protecting biodiversity and therefore need legal protection over their lands. Until recently, there was little scientific data to support their claims.New research changes that. A paper published recently in Nature Communications Earth & Environment is the first peer-reviewed study quantifying the role of Afro-descendant peoples’ contributions to biodiversity, carbon sequestration and the reduction of deforestation, says Martha Cecilia Rosero-Peña, a co-author and environmental sociologist.Researchers analysed formally recognised Afro-descendant lands in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Suriname, covering about 9.9m hectares. They found that more than half of this land (56%) overlaps with the highest 5% of biodiverse areas on Earth. In Ecuador, the figure is striking: 99% of all Afro-descendant land is in biodiversity hotspots, while in Colombia almost 92% of Afro-descendant lands are in the top 5% of areas for biodiversity.The study also found that deforestation rates in Afro-descendant lands were 29% lower than in protected areas, and 55% lower than land on the edge of a protected area.These forests have co-evolved with the communities that inhabit themJohana Herrera Arango, Javeriana UniversityKlaudia Cárdenas Botero, an environmental anthropologist at the Humboldt Institute in Colombia, who was not involved in the study, says: “This means that practices historically classified as ‘subsistence’ are, in fact, conservation strategies that are as effective – or even more effective – than many state policies for protected areas.”To understand why Afro-descendant communities have preserved the forest so well, Rosero-Peña dug into scientific records dating back to the 1500s. What she found was a hidden side-effect of the European plantation model in the Americas.“Science always focuses on the history of plantations and enslaved people,” Rosero-Peña says. “But it rarely tells us what they ate.”Unlike the Europeans, who did not know how to grow food in the tropics, most of the Africans were taken from one tropical region to another. They were in charge of food production on the plantations, and adapted farming systems from Africa, blending local and African plants such as yams, okra, pigeon peas, plantains and millet, Rosero-Peña says.Agricultural knowledge was also a lifeline to freedom: hidden crops would grow along the escape routes enslaved Africans traversed many times, carrying rice seeds hidden in their braids. Escapers had to imitate the forest to stay hidden, which meant planting diverse crops, minimising land clearing, and avoiding fire. West African women adapted rice farming to drought-prone regions by timing it with river tides.“These forests – and this paper shows it clearly – have co-evolved with the communities that inhabit them,” says Johana Herrera Arango, director of the Observatory of Ethnic and Peasant Territories at Bogotá’s Javeriana University, who was not involved in the study. “Biological diversity is also a human creation.”Once slavery ended, many Afro-descendant communities turned to agriculture and some became powerful cacao producers. Unlike plantations, these farms thrived as edible forests.When Briche González was a child, echoes of the cacao boom remained. The farm’s cacao and coffee beans allowed her grandmother to raise nine children and their offspring. And though many Afro-descendant families lost most of their land during forced land reforms in the 1940s, it was the expansion of sugar plantations in the 1960s and 1970s that caused the biggest declines, Briche González says.Harsh pesticides drifted into ancestral farms, reducing productivity. Many families sold or rented their lands to plantation owners. “When my grandmother died, the sugar mills leased our land,” Briche González says. “Now, the house is completely walled in sugarcane.”Only a handful of ancestral farms now remain among 250,000 hectares of sugarcane plantations. But amid them, researchers have found at least 128 plant species still grow in the remaining array of trees, bushes, herbs and animals. Cárdenas Botero, from the Humboldt Institute, found a similarly astonishing number of species in black communities’ farms in northern Colombia: 272 species of plants and 151 insect species.Efforts to keep that legacy alive are under way. Briche González, who is an ecology technician, helped design a university diploma programme in agro-ecology for those tending family farms. The PCN is pressing Colombia’s culture ministry to recognise their farms as part of the national heritage. Other groups are piloting an “Afro-food corridor” spanning 1,640 hectares.Food forests, Briche González says, “are everything. They are life, no matter where they grow.”Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow the biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield in the Guardian app for more nature coverage

Forests
Conservation
Nature

Intelligence agencies should report on foreign interests in ‘activist groups’, Australian coal lobby group argues

Coal Australia also wants government to broaden restrictions on foreign donations to stop money flowing to environmental groupsAn Australian coal industry lobby group wants national intelligence agencies to report on any involvement of foreign interests in unnamed “activist groups” it claims are attempting to undermine the nation’s prosperity.Coal Australia also wants the government to broaden restrictions on foreign donations to stop money being channelled to Australia-based environmental groups and create powers to terminate grants and rescind charity status to organisations who aren’t transparent about funding sources. Continue reading...

An Australian coal industry lobby group wants national intelligence agencies to report on any involvement of foreign interests in unnamed “activist groups” it claims are attempting to undermine the nation’s prosperity.Coal Australia also wants the government to broaden restrictions on foreign donations to stop money being channelled to Australia-based environmental groups and create powers to terminate grants and rescind charity status to organisations who aren’t transparent about funding sources.The wave of demands are outlined in one of almost 150 submissions to a parliamentary inquiry examining the prevalence of climate change-related misinformation and disinformation.The lobby group, whose members include Whitehaven and Yancoal, argue that Australia’s prosperity was being “compromised” by unnamed activist groups backed by foreign donors.It recommended that the federal electoral and intelligence agencies be required to submit a joint report to parliament each year on the supposed threats to Australia’s energy security, including from “malicious” foreign interference and the dissemination of misinformation and disinformation.The submission did not name specific agencies but the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation is responsible for monitoring foreign interference.The first report should include an audit of all funding to the groups, it continued, which are not captured under existing foreign donation rules.“Such reporting would also ensure maximum community awareness and vigilance of manipulative and deceptive campaign tactics,” the chief executive of Coal Australia, Stuart Bocking, wrote.The coal lobby’s push came as the Human Rights Commission and environmental groups warned the inquiry of the corrosive influence of climate changed-related mis- and disinformation.The commission said false narratives about climate change delay urgent action to combat global heating, erode trust in science and institutions and distort the public’s understanding of the challenge.“False claims about climate change, shared either in good faith or deceptively, can result in community polarisation, decreased support for climate-change mitigation policies and obstruction of political action,” the submission read.“This undermines public information and debate, which in turn affects the realisation of the human right to a healthy, clean and sustainable environment.”The commission recommended the Albanese government pursue laws to combat the spread of misinformation and disinformation online after abandoning plans in the last term of parliament due to a lack of political support.However, it said any new laws must have the “upmost regard for free speech”, suggesting the previous attempt failed to strike the right balance.In another submission, the Environment Defenders’ Office called for a blanket national ban on fossil fuel advertising as recommended by the UN special rapporteur on climate change, Elisa Morgera.Morgera lodged her own submission to the inquiry, which summarised other recommendations to governments put forward in other reports. That included the criminalisation of “greenwashing” by fossil fuel companies and amplification of it by media companies.“There is a need for states to reckon with the impacts of climate disinformation tactics and the prolonged six-decade failure to take effective climate action, compounded by widespread misinformation,” she wrote.“In order to support an informed, transparent and participatory process for defossilization, states need to ‘defossilize’ information systems, to protect human rights in the formation of public opinion and debate from the long-standing undue commercial influence of the fossil fuel industry.”The inquiry will hold its first public hearing on 29 September.A final report is due on 4 February.

Activism
Government
Energy

Dodging New York traffic: hundreds of humpback whaless on a collision course with ships

Humpbacks are thriving in the warm waters off the coast of Manhattan but maritime restrictions have not kept paceIt is the beginning of August and a crowd is gathered on the deck of the American Princess cruise boat waiting for one thing – and they are not disappointed. Suddenly, a juvenile humpback whale, known as NYC0318 in local records, bursts through the surface of the water, engulfing thousands of small, oily fish.For those onboard the 29-metre (95ft) vessel, the scene is a thrill to watch, in part because it is taking place not far out at sea but just off the coast of Manhattan, New York. Among the tourists watching is Chris St Lawrence, a naturalist and the communications director of Gotham Whale, a volunteer-run marine research organisation in the city. He is not just looking out for the whales, he is watching for danger around them. Continue reading...

It is the beginning of August and a crowd is gathered on the deck of the American Princess cruise boat waiting for one thing – and they are not disappointed. Suddenly, a juvenile humpback whale, known as NYC0318 in local records, bursts through the surface of the water, engulfing thousands of small, oily fish.For those onboard the 29-metre (95ft) vessel, the scene is a thrill to watch, in part because it is taking place not far out at sea but just off the coast of Manhattan, New York. Among the tourists watching is Chris St Lawrence, a naturalist and the communications director of Gotham Whale, a volunteer-run marine research organisation in the city. He is not just looking out for the whales, he is watching for danger around them.“When they’re feeding, they can get really distracted, and they don’t care about boats,” he says.Chris St Lawrence of Gotham Whale, which tracks whales and other marine mammals off New York and New Jersey. Photograph: Lauren Owens LambertWhen Gotham Whale began tracking humpbacks in 2012, its NYC humpback catalogue contained just five individuals. Today, it includes 470 whales – mostly transient juveniles such as NYC0318 drawn by the rich feeding opportunities of the New York Bight. But with the hunt for such bounty comes a growing problem.What was once a marine highway connecting southern breeding grounds to northern feeding areas has, since 2010, become a regular foraging destination, putting humpbacks on a collision course with maritime traffic.Cargo vessels, tankers, cruise ships, fishing boats and recreational craft all cross humpback feeding grounds in the New York Bight – an area roughly the size of Switzerland, stretching from southern New Jersey to eastern Long Island and offshore to the Hudson Canyon, a deep submarine valley.Danielle Brown, research director at Gotham Whale, says: “I don’t think people realise they are out there, and these shipping companies certainly don’t expect to see them.”Lesley Thorne, a marine scientist at Stony Brook University on Long Island, says several factors are converging dangerously: recovering humpback populations, potential climate-related shifts in their food, and whales venturing into shipping corridors to feed. “It is this perfect storm of events,” she says.Since the end of commercial whaling, humpbacks have become a conservation success story. In 2016, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) delisted the whales in New York waters (considered as part of the West Indies population) under the Endangered Species Act.But that same year, large whale strandings along the US east coast began to rise, prompting Noaa to declare an Unusual Mortality Event in 2017 that remains open today.Where whales once just passed through the waters off New York, they are increasingly venturing into the busy shipping lanes to feed. Photograph: Chris St Lawrence/gothamwhale.orgThorne’s 2024 research found vessel strikes to be the main cause, although fishing gear entanglements played a part.The New York Bight hosts an extraordinary array of endangered whales: blue, fin, sei, sperm and North Atlantic right whales. In 2024, researchers documented critically endangered North Atlantic right whales near Hudson Canyon, close to busy shipping lanes.In May that year, a cruise ship arrived at a New York port with a dead endangered sei whale draped on its bow. The common draw is food, but humpback feeding behaviour compounds the risk.The combination of surface feeding and shallow waters likely makes them more vulnerable to vessel strikesLesley Thorne, Stony Brook University“We see surface aggregations of menhaden [herring-like fish] that are really close to shore, and we have almost exclusively juvenile whales feeding in these really nearshore waters, as shallow as 15ft [5 metres] of water,” says Thorne. “The combination of surface feeding and shallow waters likely makes them more vulnerable to vessel strikes.”Gotham Whale’s research documents the toll, showing whales with vessel strike scars and deep propeller wounds. One case this year involved a healthy humpback observed one day bearing fresh strike injuries only days later in the same area.As one of the world’s fastest-warming ocean regions, changing conditions may be drawing more whales closer to shore to feed.The endangered sei whale that was found dead on the bow of a cruise ship arriving in New York last year. Photograph: Atlantic Marine Conservation SocietyJanet Coit, who was Noaa’s assistant administrator for fisheries under the Biden administration, says: “The scientists out of our Northeast Fisheries Science Center were clear that warming waters are affecting the productivity of the ocean and bringing more whales in closer to shore, which is causing greater interactions with vessels and more vessel strikes.”The remedy – to reroute vessels or slow them down – is clear but not easily achieved. “With three shipping lanes into New York, there is no opportunity to reroute vessels,” says Samantha Rosen, a spokesperson for the New York State environmental conservation department.Studies show that reducing ship speeds to 10 knots (12mph) decreases strike likelihood and lethality. Currently, vessels 20 metres or longer must travel no faster than 10 knots from January to May in seasonal management areas, including around major ports. However, in January 2025, the Noaa withdrew proposed vessel speed rule expansions that would have better protected large whales year-round by expanding protections to larger areas, longer time periods and smaller vessels.The revisions, aimed at reducing risks to right whales, would also have helped other large whales, says Thorne. But resistance from mariners and lawmakers has hindered Noaa’s proposal, says Coit. Meanwhile, voluntary slowdowns triggered when whales are detected have limited effectiveness.The regulatory setback coincides with significant cuts to Noaa’s funding, staffing and climate research programmes since January.When the US enacted wildlife protection laws in the 1970s, Coit says there was a moral ethic around saving whales and conservation. “I’m concerned that this ethic is not underpinning our values any more,” she says.“If people want to save the whales, they are going to have to change their behaviour.”

Water
Climate
Food

New California law could expand energy trading across the West

After years of failed attempts, California lawmakers have cleared the way to create an electricity-trading market that would stretch across the U.S. West. Advocates say that could cut the region’s power costs by billions of dollars and support the growth of renewable energy. But opponents say it may make the state’s…

After years of failed attempts, California lawmakers have cleared the way to create an electricity-trading market that would stretch across the U.S. West. Advocates say that could cut the region’s power costs by billions of dollars and support the growth of renewable energy. But opponents say it may make the state’s climate and clean-energy policies vulnerable to the Trump administration. Those are the fault lines over AB 825, also known as the ​“Pathways Initiative” bill, which was signed into law by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sept. 19 as part of a major climate-and-energy legislative package. The law will grant the California Independent System Operator (CAISO), which runs the transmission grid and energy markets in most of the state, the authority to collaborate with other states and utilities across the West to create a shared day-ahead energy-trading regime. Passage of this bill won’t create that market overnight — that will take years of negotiations. CAISO’s board wouldn’t even be allowed to vote on creating the market until 2028. But for advocates who’ve been working for more than a decade on plans for a West-wide regional energy market, it’s a momentous advance. ​“We’ve shot the starting gun,” said Brian Turner, a director at clean-energy trade group Advanced Energy United, which was outspoken in support of the legislation. Today, utilities across the Western U.S. trade energy via bilateral arrangements — a clunky and inefficient way to take advantage of cheaper or cleaner power available across an interconnected transmission grid. An integrated day-ahead trading regime could drive major savings for all participants — nearly $1.2 billion per year, according to a 2022 study commissioned by CAISO. That integrated market could create opportunities for solar power from California and the Southwest and wind power from the Rocky Mountains and Pacific Northwest to be shared more efficiently, driving down energy costs and increasing reliability during extreme weather. Lower-cost power more readily deliverable to where it’s needed could also reduce consumers’ monthly utility bills — a welcome prospect at a time of soaring electricity rates. The regional energy market plan is backed by a coalition that includes clean-energy trade groups such as Advanced Energy United and the American Clean Power Association; environmental groups including the Sierra Club, Union of Concerned Scientists, and the Natural Resources Defense Council; business groups including the California Chamber of Commerce and the Clean Energy Buyers Association; and the state’s major utilities. It also has the backing of U.S. senators representing California, Oregon, and Washington, all states with strong clean-energy goals. Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris, a Democrat who authored AB 825, said in a statement following its passage that it ​“will protect California’s energy independence while opening the door to new opportunities to build and share renewable power across the West.” But consumer advocates, including The Utility Reform Network, Consumer Watchdog, and Public Citizen, say the bill as passed fails to protect that energy independence. The Center for Biological Diversity and the Environmental Working Group share their concerns. They fear a new trading market will allow fossil fuel–friendly states like Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming to push costly, dirty coal power into California — and give an opening to the Trump administration to use the federal government’s power over regional energy markets to undermine the state’s clean-energy agenda. What a Western energy market could achieve The arguments for a day-ahead energy-trading market can be boiled down to a simple concept, Turner said — bigger is better. Being able to obtain power from across the region could reduce the amount of generation capacity that individual utilities have to build. And tapping into energy supplies spanning from the Pacific Ocean to the Rocky Mountains would allow states undergoing heat waves and winter storms to draw on power from parts of the region that aren’t under the same grid stress, improving resiliency against extreme weather. A Western trading market could also serve as a starting point for even more integrated activity between the dozens of utilities in the region that now plan and build power plants and transmission grids in an uncoordinated way. A 2022 study commissioned by Advanced Energy United found that a regional energy organization could yield $2 billion in annual energy savings, enable up to 4.4 gigawatts of additional clean power, and create hundreds of thousands of permanent jobs. For advocates of a Western market, the chief challenge has been to design a structure that doesn’t give up California’s control over its own energy and climate policies, but allows other states and their utilities a share of decision-making authority over how the market works. Taking a lead on that design work has been the West-Wide Governance Pathways Initiative, a group of utilities, state regulators, and environmental and consumer advocates.

Energy
Business
Government

Government required to create plan to protect greater glider in major legal win for Wilderness Society

Murray Watt agrees recovery plans for greater glider, ghost bat, lungfish and sandhill dunnart were not made by successive governmentsFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastThe federal environment minister, Murray Watt, has conceded that successive governments acted unlawfully when they failed to create mandatory recovery plans for native species threatened with extinction in a major legal win for one of Australia’s largest environmental organisations.The Wilderness Society has been successful in federal court proceedings it launched in March that sought to compel the minister to make recovery plans for species including the greater glider and the ghost bat. Continue reading...

The federal environment minister, Murray Watt, has conceded that successive governments acted unlawfully when they failed to create mandatory recovery plans for native species threatened with extinction in a major legal win for one of Australia’s largest environmental organisations.The Wilderness Society has been successful in federal court proceedings it launched in March that sought to compel the minister to make recovery plans for species including the greater glider and the ghost bat.In a court settlement, reached Friday, the government agreed mandatory recovery plans for four threatened species – the greater glider, the ghost bat, the lungfish and the sandhill dunnart – had not been made and successive ministers had exceeded the timeframe in which the plans were required to be created and put in force.The government also agreed that recovery plans for seven other threatened species – including the baudin’s and carnaby’s black cockatoos – that were previously said to have expired or “sunsetted”, would remain in force.Sign up: AU Breaking News email“Today is a win for threatened wildlife across Australia. After decades of neglect by government after government, we took to the courts to fight for Australia’s pride and joy – its diverse and world-important environment,” the Wilderness Society biodiversity policy and campaign manager, Sam Szoke-Burke, said.“The resolution of this case provides much-needed certainty for Australia’s iconic plants and animals, some of whom have been waiting for over a decade for a legally required recovery roadmap to give them a better chance at surviving extinction.”Recovery plans set out actions needed to bring species back from the brink of extinction and put them on a better trajectory.Under Australia’s national environmental laws, the environment minister decides whether a species requires a recovery plan or not. If the minister decides a species does require one, the plan must usually be made within three years.Once a recovery plan is enacted, the minister must not make decisions that would be considered contrary to its goals and actions.The Wilderness Society’s legal action followed long-held concerns about a backlog of unfinished and undeveloped plans for species including the greater glider, which has required a recovery plan since 2016 but has no plan in place.Years of reporting by Guardian Australia has highlighted the failure by successive governments to make recovery plans within the required time frames. An auditor general’s report in 2022 found only 2% of recovery plans had been completed within their statutory timeframe since 2013.In 2020 the federal environment department told a Senate estimates hearing that 170 plants, animals and habitats were waiting for recovery plans.To reduce the backlog, the previous Coalition government had the threatened species scientific committee reassess whether some species still required a plan and, in 2022, scrapped the requirement for almost 200 plants, animals and habitats.In 2022, freedom of information documents obtained by Guardian Australia revealed concerns within the federal environment department that 372 recovery plans covering 575 species and ecosystems were due to expire by the end of 2023.skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Breaking News AustraliaGet the most important news as it breaksPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionLast week before it reached its settlement with the Wilderness Society, the government updated its recovery plans webpage to state that recovery plans were exempt from sunsetting.Szoke-Burke said the legal victory set an important precedent that showed recovery plans were not optional.“The government now knows that when the law says the minister must do something, that doesn’t mean maybe,” he said.“This outcome should set a new tone for how the government treats Australia’s iconic and unique natural environment. It’s time to prioritise nature, or face legal action and further community outcry.”Ellen Maybery, a lawyer at Environmental Justice Australia which acted for the Wilderness Society in the proceedings, said the win “forces the government to act”.“For decades, successive governments have failed to follow their own laws and deliver these vital recovery plans. The court has now compelled the environment minister to do his job and make the required plans,” she said.Guardian Australia has sought comment from Watt.

Government
Extinction
Nature

USDA Cancels ‘One of a Kind’ Report on Food Insecurity

September 22, 2025 – The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will stop publishing a report on food insecurity that anti-hunger groups say is a gold standard in understanding hunger nationwide. The agency confirmed reports this weekend that it will cease future Household Food Security Reports, calling it “redundant, costly [and] politicized.” In fact, the USDA’s […] The post USDA Cancels ‘One of a Kind’ Report on Food Insecurity appeared first on Civil Eats.

September 22, 2025 – The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will stop publishing a report on food insecurity that anti-hunger groups say is a gold standard in understanding hunger nationwide. The agency confirmed reports this weekend that it will cease future Household Food Security Reports, calling it “redundant, costly [and] politicized.” In fact, the USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS), compiles the report by collating preexisting data. That data comes from hunger-specific questions that are already part of the annual census. Anti-hunger groups rebuked the decision and urged the agency to reverse course. Eric Mitchell, president of the Alliance to End Hunger, said the survey has served as a test on how well national policies and programs are working to lessen food insecurity, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). “With continuing worries about food inflation, as well as significant cuts to America’s largest food assistance program–SNAP–this move is a blow to policymakers and advocates who rely on the data to improve the lives of our food insecure neighbors,” Mitchell said in an email. Gina Plata-Nino, interim SNAP director at the Food, Research and Action Center (FRAC), called the timing of the announcement “suspect,” given rising concern about the impact of tariffs on grocery prices and the passage of Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill. The massive budget bill included historic cuts to SNAP funding and is projected to cut benefits for nearly 3 million Americans. “This just seems to be in line with an administration that doesn’t allow data to show how their bad policies of cutting people off services, increasing tariffs, and making it more difficult to buy food will impact them,” Plata-Nino said. While there are other federal reports that evaluate hunger, none have the same specificity and objectivity as the Household Food Security Report, Plata-Nino said. It asks more detailed questions that help analysts understand how other environmental factors, policy shifts, or major events at the time may have caused a person to experience food insecurity. For example, the report allows analysts to see how the Great Recession led to spikes in food insecurity and how the influx of government assistance during the COVID-19 pandemic prevented these spikes. “This data … is a one of a kind data source,” said Joseph Llobera, director of food assistance at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. While the report began in 1995 under the Clinton administration, Llobera noted it stemmed from a Reagan administration task force on food assistance, which found at the time no concrete way of measuring hunger. The survey model has been incorporated into other federal surveys on hunger, like the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) and National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). Both ask questions about food insecurity, but the data comes in a two-year cycle, and the sample is not large enough for demographic or state level analyses, Llobera said. The USDA report, however, provides information on an annual basis and uses a large enough sample size that analysts can better understand food insecurity at the national and state level, he continued. It also includes some demographic breakdowns to better understand what puts individuals more at risk of food insecurity. “We need to measure what we care about, and if we care about people getting enough to eat … then there’s no other data collection mechanism and report that will help us gauge the best now and into the future,” Llobera said. (Link to this post.) The post USDA Cancels ‘One of a Kind’ Report on Food Insecurity appeared first on Civil Eats.

Food
Agriculture
Health

World, Business Leaders Hope to Keep Momentum in Fight Against Climate Change Despite US

Hundreds of world and business leaders are gathering to keep the fight against climate change alive

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. government is going in the other direction. Temperatures keep rising. More extreme weather is sweeping across the world. Yet hundreds of leaders from government and business are in New York this week to keep the fight against climate change alive. Amid fracture and despair, they are emphasizing progress and hope.More than 110 world leaders will speak at a special U.N. climate summit Wednesday designed to get nations to strengthen their required — but already late — plans to wean themselves from the coal, oil and natural gas that causes climate change. Dozens of business leaders are in the city networking in various conferences aimed at greener and cleaner energy.“We’re here to power on. In the end, we either will have a livable planet or we won’t,” said Helen Clarkson, CEO of The Climate Group, kicking off New York City Climate Week and its more than 1,000 events. “It’s an uphill struggle, but we know we don’t have a choice. It’s up to us to protect what we love.”But on Monday, as leaders talked about stronger national plans and reduction in fossil fuel emissions, Climate Action Tracker, an independent group of scientists who track pledges to fight climate announced that the host nation — the United States — had the biggest backslide in history.“This is the most aggressive, comprehensive and consequential climate policy rollback the CAT has ever analyzed,” said Niklas Höhne, a New Climate Institute scientist who helps run the tracker. In much of the rest of the world, progress But non-U.S. leaders in politics and business highlighted how much of the world has switched to cleaner renewable energy, such as solar and wind, mostly because of price.“The economic case is clear,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the Global Renewables Summit. She said 90% of new renewable projects generate power more cheaply than fossil fuels, and solar energy is now 41% cheaper than the lowest-cost fossil alternative. "So yes, the momentum is real.”Last year the world invested $2 trillion in renewable energy, twice as much as the fossil fuels that spew heat-trapping gases, several leaders said. Just 10 years ago when the world's leaders adopted the Paris climate agreement, the planet was headed to 5 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming above pre-industrial times. Now it's on track for 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit), said United Nations climate chief Simon Stiell. But it's not near the Paris goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), Stiell said."We will have inched forward so progress is being made," Stiell said. He said the unanimous consensus process of international negotiations is “difficult, but it is delivering.”But it's not enough and too slow, said Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu's climate change minister. His country and other small island nations and vulnerable states plan to ask the U.N. General Assembly — which goes by majority rule, not unanimity — to follow up on the International Court of Justice's ruling earlier this year that all countries must act on climate change. Vanuatu's resolution won't be proposed until after November's climate negotiations in Brazil, he said.Places such as Antigua and Barbuda are “under siege for a climate crisis we did not create,” Prime Minister Gaston Browne said of his nation, which has been hit by four Category Four and Five hurricanes in a decade. “Every degree of warming is an invoice, literally a demand sent to small islands that we cannot afford to pay."The nations of the world all were supposed to come up with new five-year plans for curbing carbon emissions by February, leading into the Brazil negotiations. But only 47 of the 195 nations — those responsible for less than a quarter of global emissions — have done so. U.N. officials said they should be submitted by the end of this month so experts can calculate how the world is doing in its emission-reduction efforts.The world's biggest emitter, China, and another top polluter, the European Union, are expected to announce their plans or rough sketches of their plans this week. The United Nations session Wednesday is designed to cajole countries to do more.Australian billionaire Andrew Forrest tried to cheer business and world leaders on Monday. “Despair is not leadership,” Forrest said. “Fear has never built anything. We’re here today to lead by your very example.”The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See – Sept. 2025

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Did NASA scientists find signs of ancient life on Mars?

Houston Matters learns more about what NASA called “the closest we’ve actually come to discovering ancient life on Mars.”

Houston Matters Houston Matters learns more about what NASA called “the closest we’ve actually come to discovering ancient life on Mars.” VIDEO Scientists recently discovered evidence that could point to ancient life on Mars. NASA's Science Mission Directorate says it's "the closest we've actually come to discovering ancient life on Mars." Researchers from Texas A&M University, Rice University, Johnson Space Center, and the Lunar Planetary Institute all published their findings in the journal Nature. Kirsten Siebach, assistant professor of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences at Rice University, joins Houston Matters with Craig Cohen to share details of these findings (in the audio and video above), including biological signatures left behind with the presence of water, organic material (like carbon), and the presence of reactions that release energy.

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Nature
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Puerto Rico community builds solar independence as 2025 hurricane season looms

Casa Pueblo's renewable energy network in Adjuntas powers critical infrastructure and saves lives during storms when the national grid fails.

By Kiara Alfonseca | Edited by Patricia GuadalupeIn the small mountainside town of Adjuntas, Puerto Rico, a self-sustaining community is no longer waiting for government officials to offer protection during the hurricane season.Solar panels top houses across the region, powering a school, a fire station, and homes for the elderly. On eight acres of farmland, a local organization roasts and sells coffee beans, houses artisan goods for sale, and hosts ecotourists throughout the year. Casa Pueblo — a group trying to break the region’s reliance on the U.S. — is to thank for the community’s growing energy independence.“We need collective salvation, and that model of dependency upon FEMA and the government is degenerating with time, but climate challenges are increasing the risk of potential consequences,” Arturo Massol-Deyá, the executive director of Casa Pueblo, told palabra.It’s an undeniable fact that haunts many Puerto Ricans as the hurricane season rolls in: The frequency and intensity of major storms are increasing due to climate change, says Jorge E. González-Cruz, a professor of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences at the University at Albany in New York.Casa Pueblo staff, Mennonite Central Committee staff, and Sol de la Montaña staff come together to install solar panels at a family home in Adjuntas, Puerto Rico, May 2024. This partnership hopes to support solar projects that provide energy security to vulnerable island families.Photo courtesy of Casa PuebloThis year’s predictions of above-normal hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin are a grim reminder of the devastating storms that have left death and destruction in their path in seasons past. Hurricane María, the 2017 storm that led to more than 3,000 deaths in the region, was a wake-up call about the increasing impact of climate change and Puerto Rico’s ability to withstand it. And in the years since, storm after storm has cost millions of dollars in infrastructure damage and more lives lost for residents to reckon with when the clouds depart.The consequences of these storms have been magnified by Puerto Rico’s vulnerable power grid, which completely collapsed during María. Since then, island-wide blackouts have been a regular occurrence, even on days with sunny, clear skies. These power outages threaten lives, putting critical services like health care and emergency response at risk.This, combined with the uncertainty of FEMA funding and disaster relief under a Trump administration that has vowed to dismantle the agency, has Puerto Ricans on edge.Casa Pueblo’s solar energy powers a fire station.Photo courtesy of Casa PuebloGonzález-Cruz, who has spent years studying Puerto Rico’s electrical grid, says he’s seen major improvements in the grid’s reconstruction. However, if presented with another major storm — “God forbid,” he adds, and expects the recent work done to the grid will mitigate only some of the potential damage.It’s unclear whether Puerto Rico’s current infrastructure is ready for the next storm, but residents aren’t waiting around to find out.In Adjuntas, a growing chorus of residents has already found a savior in Casa Pueblo’s solar energy storage in past storms. Their energy storage allowed patients in need to access urgent medical care, like dialysis, during extreme weather events. One firefighter told Massol-Deyá that Casa Pueblo’s energy allowed first responders to receive a call about a woman stuck in the floodwaters in the neighboring city of Ponce. A working radio service or a solar-powered generator during a storm could be the difference between life and death. “We have to keep pushing,” said Massol-Deyá. “We have to do more and keep helping more people, because it’s not happening top down.”The Adjuntas town square surrounded by buildings with solar panels installed by Casa Pueblo.Photo courtesy of Casa PuebloFighting development Casa Pueblo’s success has inspired other communities to take action. On the southwestern side of the island in Cabo Rojo, the Institute for Socio-Ecological Research (ISER Caribe) has been hosting community conversations to establish a micro-grid of its own: “We know the importance of this type of infrastructure that is community-led for communities and managed and operated for communities,” institute co-founder Braulio Quintero tells palabra.“We have to decentralize power — not just electrical power, but the decision-making power.”The mission feels particularly urgent for a community facing massive change. The development of a 2,000-acre luxury resort residential area in Cabo Rojo has sparked protests and criticism about its threat to hundreds of acres of coastal forests and the species in them, the privatization of Puerto Rico’s beaches, and ongoing challenges against gentrification.“There are impacts of coastal development and how it affects coastal ecosystems and marine ecosystems, yet we see a government that is not accepting the realities of climate change and is proposing ineffective measures that will likely put people … in danger,” Quintero said, referring to recently proposed legislation that would allow development closer to the island’s shores.Marcha del Sol, organized by Casa Pueblo and other supporters, demanding energy independence in Adjuntas, 2019.Photo courtesy of Casa PuebloThe climate consequences on populated, highly developed regions are well-researched. Studies have shown that urbanization exacerbates climate impacts like flooding, high winds, erosion, and surface runoff, and intensifies heat.It’s a problem that residents in Santurce, an urban area right outside the capital city of San Juan, know well. It’s why the Coalition for the Restoration of Santurcean Ecosystems (CRES) is restoring the region’s native ecosystems. Their area is one of the most populated in Puerto Rico, slathered in concrete and dotted with hotels. This high level of development puts the region at risk of climate impacts, but research shows that trees and vegetation can act as natural barriers to mitigate these damages.CRES executive director Yvette Núñez Sepúlveda brings thousands of volunteers and students each year to restore natural barriers by planting flora and fauna throughout the coastal city and educating the community about the native plants that can withstand major storms.“It’s already documented how the Caribbean is the first area in the world to receive the drastic change of the climate, and we are also experimenting, as the first to receive this impact, how we can manage and restore, and mitigate all these impacts,” she said.Because of ongoing insecurity surrounding government funding for nonprofits, her team currently relies on donations and helping hands. But much like Casa Pueblo, financial sustainability is the next step toward building self-sufficiency.Part of this natural restoration is about creating gardens and plant nurseries where residents can produce food. Puerto Rico imports up to 90% of its food, and Sepúlveda hopes residents can begin to break the cycle of reliance on outside sources. “We believe in networks, human networks, human ecosystem networks. It’s important for us to have these conversations — and not just in Puerto Rico,” Sepúlveda mentioned. “We are trying to build this kind of network, so we can share stories as Caribbeans and also share with other parts of the world how we can help each other.”If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

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New Mexico Governor Puts Finger on Scale in Oilfield Wastewater Vote

Gov. Lujan Grisham appears to push commission to overturn its recent ruling barring the use of produced water outside the oilfield. The post New Mexico Governor Puts Finger on Scale in Oilfield Wastewater Vote appeared first on .

This story was produced in partnership with SourceNM. The administration of New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham appears to have pressured members of the state Water Quality Control Commission to consider a petition reversing a rule the commission passed unanimously in May that banned fossil fuel wastewater from being used outside oilfield work and testing. The commission’s August meeting marked the first time in years that all four department secretaries on the panel had shown up at the same time, raising eyebrows. Those secretaries then led the push to support a new petition that would overturn a rule whose development entailed more than a year of hearings and scientific debate.   In a statement to SourceNM, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said she “encouraged relevant cabinet secretaries to bring their expertise” to the proceedings. In an interview with Capital & Main and New Mexico PBS, James Kenney, the Environment Department secretary and a Water Quality Control Commissioner, said, “The governor did not explicitly ask us to all show up.” And recent reporting by the Santa Fe New Mexican reveals emails between the Governor’s Office, Kenney and other commissioners where they discussed pushing rules allowing wider use of oilfield wastewater “over the finish line.”  When reached by phone at a bluegrass festival in Winfield, Kansas, on Wednesday, Water Quality Control Commission Chair Bruce Thomson said he was unaware of the email exchanges with commissioners.  Thompson said he had not received any emails from the Governor’s Office and offered no comment when asked if he had concerns about the commission’s process.  Many who supported the original rule are livid with the apparent meddling, explicit or not. “They’re putting politics over scientifically based policy, and that’s illegal,” said Mariel Nanasi, executive director of the environmental group New Energy Economy. State statute requires commissioners to recuse themselves if their impartiality or fairness “may be reasonably questioned.” In a statement, Jodi McGinnis Porter, a spokesperson for Lujan Grisham’s office, said, “The administration’s position on water reuse has been public for months. Directing secretaries to attend required meetings rather than send staff does not violate any laws” “This is the oddest, most political rule making I’ve seen in 25 years,” said Tannis Fox, senior attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center. For nearly three decades she has worked on water issues while working in or alongside state government, including a five-year stint in the late 1990s as the legal counsel for the Water Quality Control Commission.  At the center of the debate lies oilfield wastewater — also known as produced water — which is toxic and possibly laced with chemicals that operators consider “trade secrets” and do not have to publicly identify. Projects like the New Mexico Produced Water Research Consortium have worked for years to perfect industrial-scale wastewater purification.  The Water, Access, Treatment and Reuse Alliance, which represents oil companies, wastewater treatment firms and other, unnamed parties, petitioned the committee to rewrite its ruling. It claimed the science of wastewater treatment had dramatically improved in the past year and the May ruling should therefore be rewritten. Environmental groups, which vigorously supported the original rule, say the rule should stand for its built-in five-year lifespan.  At the August meeting, the four secretaries — from the Office of the State Engineer, the Environment Department, the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health — were joined by the director of the Game and Fish Department and the chair of the Soil and Water Conservation Commission. A representative from New Mexico Tech, another from the State Parks Division and four members at large rounded out the meeting. Led by Kenney, all but three voted to reverse course and proceed with the Water, Access, Treatment and Reuse Alliance petition to pursue using treated wastewater outside the oilfields. No future hearings on the matter are currently scheduled.  Kenney said, “It’s not uncommon for the cabinet to band together around a governor priority.” Water Quality Control Commission members James Kenney and Randolph Bayliss at a commission meeting on August 12 in Santa Fe. Photo: Danielle Prokop/Source NM. That priority is the governor’s 50-Year Water Action Plan, he said. Among many initiatives, it calls for the state to develop a legal path for broader use of oilfield wastewater by 2026. The Water Quality Control Commission’s May vote likely eliminated that possibility. “I just wish the administration would come out … and be upfront and transparent about what’s going on,” Fox said. Two things are likely going on. One: Lujan Grisham wants a new source of water for industrial uses in a state suffering through a historic drought. And two: The oil and gas industry has a growing problem with tightly regulated, toxic wastewater it can’t easily dispose of.  For years, Lujan Grisham and the industry have wanted to see one problem solve the other, with the wastewater cleaned and approved for use outside oilfield applications, currently the only legal use in New Mexico. That was a goal of the governor’s Strategic Water Supply, part of the 50-Year Water Action Plan. The supply creates a new water source for new businesses as the state’s freshwater supplies dwindle from climate change. The Strategic Water Supply bill originally included oilfield wastewater, but the state Legislature stripped out that language, leaving brackish aquifers deep underground as the sole source for new water. The Legislature balked in large part because oilfield wastewater is highly toxic, hard to clean and difficult to test. Debating the idea before the Water Quality Control Commission switched the forum from the legislative to the bureaucratic realm, where the number of people involved is smaller and  nearly all of them have been appointed by the governor. Kenney has been on the commission since 2019 but until recently sent a representative to the commission meetings in his stead. At his first meeting in July, he supported the petition to remake the wastewater rule, though five of his own Environment Department scientists had previously testified that treated oilfield wastewater could not be safely used elsewhere. When he attended the August meeting, his second, Kenney led the commission to a divided vote to proceed with the petition.  Kenney said that water treatment science had changed so much even before the commission’s May vote that the petition deserved to be considered. The May rule, he said, was guided by “2022 or earlier science” and the process didn’t allow for subsequent research to be admitted as evidence. Hearings do have cutoff dates after which new information generally can’t be introduced, to give commissioners a fixed set of information to ponder. “We couldn’t introduce new testimony,” he said. Fox disagreed. “Scientific materials were NOT limited to 2022 materials, and peer reviewed articles and other materials from 2023 and 2024 came into evidence,” she said in an email. “It was possible to introduce into evidence science up through May 2024,” she said in a subsequent phone call. Deliberations ran for a year beyond that. Fox acknowledged the technology to turn toxic brine into demonstrably safe water is “inching along.” Even so, “There hasn’t been some sort of earth-shattering [scientific] article that says, ‘Hey! We got this one! We got a silver bullet here!’”  Jennifer Bradfute, president of the Water, Access, Treatment and Reuse Alliance, disagrees. She said her group has a collection of recent scientific papers showing successful treatment of oilfield wastewater. During the August hearing, she held up as evidence a list of scientific papers she said she found on Google Scholar.  Fox later dismissed the list, saying, “Some are relevant, some are not relevant, but none are showing that discharge at scale is safe. It’s just a bunch of articles on produced water.” Pei Xu, a professor in the department of civil engineering at New Mexico State University and a lead researcher at the Produced Water Research Consortium, is at the bleeding edge of several scientific studies currently testing the safety of different water treatment and testing procedures for oilfield wastewater. In a detailed interview, she described current, unfinished studies quantifying any effects of treated water on small animals and plants. She also shared a half-dozen recent papers indicating successful treatment of oilfield wastewater. Xu said she is confident that wastewater can be treated to safe levels today. However, she said, “If everybody looks for the peer-reviewed publications, I think we still need some time, especially related to all these ongoing studies.” Peer review, the gold standard of scientific research, allows other scientists in the field to critique the work done. It’s a process that can take months after the research has finished.  In the end, Xu said that it’s not her decision to use treated water outside a testing laboratory — that rests with the state. “I will work on science, and then how they will utilize the data, it’ll be up to the regulators,” she said.  Kenney listens during public comment at the August Water Quality Control Commission meeting. The majority of commenters voiced opposition to efforts to expand the use of oil and gas wastewater. Photo: Danielle Prokop/Source NM. During the August hearing, commissioners asked Kenney if Environment Department scientists could validate the results of any new studies for the commission. Environment Department scientists had previously testified that research into wastewater purification technology had not advanced to a point that it was safe to use in large scale applications beyond the oilfield. “I suspect most of the commissioners do not feel they are technically qualified to determine whether the results that are presented by these … new papers and studies, if they are in fact truthful,” said Thomson, chair of the committee.  In fact, state law says, “The water quality control commission shall receive staff support from the department of environment.” At the commission meeting, however, Zachary Ogaz, general counsel for the Environment Department, said the department had “no obligation” to make its scientists available. And Kenney hedged, saying that department turnover means scientists would “need to get up to speed” in order to testify before the commission.  “While I think it’s important to have a regulator validate the science, I think it is the obligation of the parties to present testimony that can be verified and validated,” he said. On Sept. 4, Mariel Nanasi of New Energy Economy filed a motion requesting that the Water Quality Control Commission require the Water, Access, Treatment and Reuse Alliance to “disclose the scientific basis” relied on to develop its petition. On Sept. 19, Bradfute’s group responded, asking the commission to deny that motion, calling it an “extra-regulatory” requirement that should be addressed in a hearing. Even so, the response included a statement from a scientist working at a Texas-based wastewater treatment company outlining the last three years of water treatment science, concluding, “The use of treated produced water can occur in a manner that is protective of human health and the environment, provided treatment is robust, monitoring comprehensive, and regulatory safeguards enforced.” It went on to list 16 new and older papers on wastewater science. *   *   * Oilfield wastewater is a growing, expensive headache for oil and gas producers across the country, particularly in the Permian Basin — the nation’s most productive oilfield — which straddles Texas and New Mexico. Around five barrels of wastewater are produced for every barrel of oil in the Permian Basin, and the total has increased every year as the basin’s production has grown.  The water is highly saline and loaded with naturally occurring minerals as well as chemicals added in the drilling process. All of that eventually comes back up the well, mixed with the oil and gas. Sometimes the water is contaminated with naturally occurring radioactive minerals, too.  Neither the federal government nor New Mexico requires drillers to publicly list drilling chemicals considered “trade secrets,” so it’s not perfectly known what goes down and up a well. Colorado does require operators to disclose all chemicals used in fracking, but a recent study alleges that companies there don’t always do so. Chevron, one of the companies named in the study, is represented on the board of the Water, Access, Treatment and Reuse Alliance. (Since the report came out, Chevron has complied with the Colorado law.) The overarching issue is what to do with the produced water. A small percentage is lightly cleaned and reused to drill new wells — a process that uses millions of gallons per well. For years, companies have also injected the water back into the ground, but that triggers earthquakes and some spectacular leaks. New Mexico tallies how much wastewater is produced and how much is injected, but it doesn’t track how much is shipped to Texas for disposal. The problems continue there.  Wastewater ponds in the Permian Basin in southern New Mexico. Photo: Jerry Redfern. Aerial support provided by LightHawk. Recently, ConocoPhillips said it is producing less oil and more water than expected in a Texas field just south of the New Mexico state line because of wastewater contamination from nearby disposal wells. In a motion filed with the Texas Railroad Commission (the state’s main oil and gas regulatory body), ConocoPhillips opposed Pilot Water Solutions’ plan to drill an additional wastewater well in the area. The motion read, “Pilot is banking on increased regional need for disposal capacity resulting from wells producing waste in other Texas counties and New Mexico.” Last year, the New Mexico Oil Conservation Division cancelled 75 proposed wastewater wells along the same stretch of border due to increasingly frequent earthquakes. ConocoPhillips also has a board member at the Water, Access, Treatment and Reuse Alliance.  Bradfute, the alliance president, helped write New Mexico’s law on oil and gas wastewater that clarified who had oversight of the water and barred its use outside the oilfield. The law also created the New Mexico Produced Water Research Consortium to study how to clean and test produced water so it can eventually be used more broadly. Despite years of testing, however, the constantly shifting nature of what is in wastewater raises questions about the treated water’s safety, which is what led the Water Quality Control Commission to nix its broader use in May. Bradfute formed the Water, Access, Treatment and Reuse Alliance in September 2024, three weeks after final arguments were made in the commission’s original hearings. She said that timing is coincidental — the original impetus was to promote treating brackish and produced water in response to Gov. Lujan Grisham’s 50-Year Water Action Plan. Bradfute said there are about 25 members of the alliance, but she wouldn’t name them. “Some of my members have been pretty severely attacked by different interest groups as a result of the rulemaking,” she said. “There’s been false Instagram and TikTok videos that certain groups are putting out there definitely attacking individuals by name,” she continued. Stephen Aldridge, the mayor of tiny Jal, New Mexico, is an Alliance board member with a history of wrangling over water in his corner of the state. Joining was a quick decision for him. “If there’s a conversation on water in New Mexico, we want a seat at the table,” he said. Since becoming mayor eight years ago, Aldridge has tussled with a series of oil and water companies that wanted to tap the town’s aquifers for water to drill oil wells in the surrounding Permian Basin.  “Yeah, they don’t like me very much,” he said. “But hell, I’ve got two friends I’m not looking for anymore.” Besides, he said, “I’m damn sure an advocate for this community. That’s my job.” The work has secured the town water for the foreseeable future, but only just. Aldridge says that there isn’t any excess to promote new business growth. That’s why he has his eye on produced water. Truckloads of the stuff rumble through his town every day. “I’m not without my concerns, but I’m also inquisitive enough to want to see some pilot [projects] up and running, and I would think that others would be too,” he said. In particular he worries about the toxic remains from the water treatment process. Aldridge knows there would be a lot of it: Where would it go? He’s waited years, watching the water cleaning science improve. He thinks it will be safe, eventually. Meanwhile, “Let’s don’t hurt ourselves in the process of tripping over a dollar to pick up a dime,” he said. Key WATR Alliance Players The Water, Access, Treatment and Reuse Alliance includes several political and industry heavy-hitters:  John D’Antonio, a produced water consultant; former state engineer (the state’s top water bureaucrat) appointed by Lujan Grisham; also New Mexico Environment Department secretary under Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson Deanna Archuleta, a member of the Vogel Group lobbying and consulting firm; former Washington, D.C.-based lobbyist for Exxon-Mobil; and controversial appointee to head the state Game Commission by Lujan Grisham Jason Sandel, a friend and political donor to Lujan Grisham and the head of a Farmington-based oilfield services conglomerate Tiffany Polak, policy adviser for Occidental Petroleum; a former deputy director of the state’s Oil Conservation Division Kathy Ytuarte, the former director of administrative services at the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association A review of Lujan Grisham’s published calendars shows that alliance board members and representatives of companies publicly associated with the alliance have collectively visited the governor’s office 20 times since she took office in 2019. Copyright 2025 Capital & Main.

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