"Over the past few years, as the U.S. organic market has surpassed $60 billion in sales, organic farmers, businesses, and advocates have been engaged in a heated debate about the strength and integrity of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Organic standards. Now, the agency has finally started taking action to address some of the loopholes long pointed to by advocates."
"A Texas Tribune analysis of state data found that at least 268 people in Texas were killed by heat last year, and a large portion of those deaths were likely migrants who died after crossing the border."
"A top water expert at Arizona State University began the year with a demand in a newspaper Op-Ed column directed at incoming Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs: Immediately release a state report on groundwater in Buckeye, one of the fastest growing cities in the U.S."
"Joe McCue thought he had found a desert paradise when he bought one of the new stucco houses sprouting in the granite foothills of Rio Verde, Ariz. There were good schools, mountain views and cactus-spangled hiking trails out the back door. Then the water got cut off."
Water has always been a precious commodity in the western states. Now, with rapid population growth and a drying climate, the way this resource is shared and distributed is becoming more contentious across the region. Freelance journalist Jennifer Oldham talks about the tensions between supply and demand and how to drill down into water rights laws and policies.
"A U.S. judge serving as special master in the legal battle over management of the Rio Grande, one of North America’s longest rivers, has cleared the way for a proposed settlement to be made public."
"In the increasingly dry Southwest, drought and climate change pose a challenge for developers, who need to find creative ways to provide water supply to new communities."
"The Arizona Department of Water Resources this week put a limit on the amount of land that can be watered, designating the Hualapai Valley as an irrigation non-expansion area. That means anyone who hasn’t farmed more than 2 acres there during the past five years can’t."
"[New Mexico] officials on Tuesday released a draft permit that includes tougher provisions for the U.S. government to meet if it wants to continue dumping radioactive waste from decades of nuclear research and bomb-making in the New Mexico desert."
Advertisement 
