Arizona is in for another very hot summer but a new weather pattern could bring heavy monsoon storms. A new plan for managing the Colorado River would mean a big difference for cities and towns in the Valley that depend on its water. On Wednesday, the Navajo Police Department responded to a crash involving a semi-truck carrying uranium ore from the Grand Canyon’s South Rim to a mill in Utah. Plus the latest business, health, metro Phoenix, and Fronteras Desk news.
Transcript
TIARA VIAN: This is KJZZ, your news and information station in Phoenix and across Arizona. I'm Tiara Vian, and here are this week's Stories You Don't Want to Miss.
TIARA VIAN: And this is the podcast designed to catch you up on some highlights from around the region. Thanks for listening. Here are a few of the stories for the week of May 4, 2024. Arizona ranks ninth in the U.S. when it comes to the number of incarcerated women. Most are moms, many with histories of drug addiction, mental illness, and physical or sexual abuse. And when it’s time to come home, and many will, the work to repair those bonds can feel impossible without support. As part of the series Beyond the Gates, Kathy Ritchie shares this story of one formerly incarcerated mother and the power of second chances.
KATHY RITCHIE: There’s a line in the popular Apple TV show Ted Lasso in which he says,
JASON SUDEIKIS (as TED LASSO): I hope that either all of us or none of us are judged by the actions of our weakest moments, but rather by the strength we show when and if we’re ever given a second chance.
KATHY RITCHIE: But second chances don’t always come easy, especially for the mothers who leave prison or jail with hopes of reunifying with the children they left behind. Megan Turnbo was one of those moms. She struggled with addiction, and that led to other crimes, including fraud. In 2015, police raided her home. Megan was arrested and went to jail. Her youngest son, Cameron Turnbo, was nine at the time.
CAMERON TURNBO: And the thing is that I remember it like it’s vivid. Like, I was in bed when I heard, you know, when I heard the door come down kind of thing. And I was, you know, coming downstairs to figure out what was out and all of a sudden, you know, you see fully tact out SWAT guys. Like, that’s a — it’s an experience. It’s shocking.
KATHY RITCHIE: Cameron went to live with his grandparents. Their story isn't unique. According to the Sentencing Project, about half of incarcerated people in the U.S. are parents of children under 18, and a disproportionate number are mothers. Dominique Roe-Sepowitz is a professor at Arizona State University and the director of the Office of Sex Trafficking Intervention Research there. She’s been studying incarcerated women at Estrella Jail and recently released a first-of-its-kind survey of inmates at Perryville Women’s State Prison in Goodyear.
DOMINIQUE ROE-SEPOWITZ: What we found was overwhelmingly that this is probably the most traumatized population in the United States—incarcerated women, women behind bars.
KATHY RITCHIE: Roe-Sepowitz found extremely high rates of both childhood and adult victimization among the women she surveyed, and more than 70% struggled with addiction. But when she looked at their family histories, the data was eye-opening.
DOMINIQUE ROE-SEPOWITZ: Fifty-five percent had been kicked out of their home as a child, so that lack of stability, that lack of relationship. 65 percent had been in a relationship with a domestic violence offender — big histories of violence. And then 78.2% of them had at least one child, and of those, 45% had at least one child under the age of 18.
KATHY RITCHIE: Parenting, she says, isn’t a natural experience for everyone, and for mothers with histories of addiction or trauma, especially those re-entering society after incarceration, it can be incredibly difficult. Megan Turnbo says she went to jail roughly a dozen times.
MEGAN TURNBO: Yeah, getting your children taken and then having to try to go through DCS and jump through all their hoops when you’re — you’re trying to get sober. You have to go to classes, you have to get a job, you don’t have a car, we lost our house so we’re homeless.
KATHY RITCHIE: Turnbo eventually got sober. Today, she works at New Freedom, a 90-day reentry program that offers mentorship, job training, and trauma support for people leaving incarceration. And her relationship with Cameron, now 20, is healing.
MEGAN TURNBO: So my son works at New Freedom. That’s my baby. So, it took a while, but we are rebuilding that relationship.
KATHY RITCHIE: But we also live in what Roe-Sepowitz calls a moralistic society—a world that’s not so forgiving, especially towards moms, the ones who were supposed to protect their children from harm.
DOMINIQUE ROE-SEPOWITZ: Unless you’re perfect, unless life has been really excellent, no one has ever victimized you and you’ve never victimized anyone, our moralistic society isn't terribly kind.
KATHY RITCHIE: That’s why she says the solution isn't just "do the crime, do the time." It’s to help people heal from their trauma so they can re-enter society as a better person.
DOMINIQUE ROE-SEPOWITZ: And what we are asking for in our recommendations, both in the jail study and the prison study, is to provide parenting support. Teach parents how to have those relationships, how to talk so children listen, understanding how a child’s brain develops so they can be the parent that they should be when they are released from incarceration.
KATHY RITCHIE: And aside from learning how to parent and processing old traumas, for so many mothers like Turnbo, it’s about being able to forgive themselves.
MEGAN TURNBO: For a long time, I was ashamed of losing my kids and who I was. So that’s a big part of it too, because if you can’t forgive yourself then you’re always going to feel like you’re worthless.
KATHY RITCHIE: And the risk of turning back to those old habits is much higher. Kathy Ritchie, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
TIARA VIAN: You can find the full series Beyond the Gates at kjzz.org.
TIARA VIAN: In water news, a new plan for managing the Colorado River would mean a big difference for cities and towns in the valley that depend on its water. Alex Hager reports the plan was co-signed by Arizona, California and Nevada.
ALEX HAGER: Those states would leave water in the Colorado River as part of an effort to prop up dangerously low reservoirs. Arizona would still have to take cuts, but they would not be as deep as suggested in a previous plan. Patrick Dent is with the Central Arizona Project, which brings Colorado River water to the Phoenix area.
PATRICK DENT: It’s the difference between devastating, impossible-to-manage cuts that would have real impacts on some of those communities’ residents to something that’s manageable.
ALEX HAGER: Dent says he’s hopeful the plan will also bring down the likelihood of a big court battle about sharing water. The plan would still need approval from federal water managers, but they appear likely to pass at least parts of the new proposal. Alex Hager, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
TIARA VIAN: And this is the Stories You Don’t Want to Miss podcast. Thanks for listening.
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TIARA VIAN: In tribal natural resources, on Wednesday, the Navajo Police Department responded to a crash involving a semi-truck carrying uranium ore from the Grand Canyon South Rim to a mill in Utah. Gabriel Pietrorazio has more on the first reported incident since hauling began nearly two years ago.
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: The accident occurred a half mile east of Highway 160 and State Route 98 near Shonto in Navajo County. Officials say an SUV tried passing another vehicle, striking the uranium truck bound for Blanding, Utah. The tribe’s EPA, along with the Pinyon Plain Mine, which is owned by Energy Fuels, were notified. Using a gamma radiation detector, they inspected the crash site, concluding no radioactive material leaked. The collision sent two people in the SUV to a local hospital with injuries, while the truck driver was unharmed. Gabriel Pietrorazio, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
TIARA VIAN: In business news, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors gave the green light to a 160-acre data center and power plant development in the West Valley, despite local concerns about pollution and the project’s proximity to Luke Air Force Base. Wayne Schutsky reports.
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Project Bacarra is a proposed data center development near the Air Force base that would include its own 700-megawatt gas power plant. The supervisors voted to grant the developer a military compatibility permit, which is required by state laws that regulate what can be built near bases. That came after the developer agreed to comply with multiple requests from the base, including making sure the project’s buildings and operations don’t create a hazard for pilots. Supervisor Debbie Lesko.
DEBBIE LESKO: I told them, if Luke’s against it, I’ll be against it. And so, my understanding is they spoke with Luke Air Force Base.
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: But some neighbors argued the project will create safety concerns and negatively impact their lives by importing a gas plant capable of delivering enough energy to power hundreds of thousands of homes. Wayne Schutsky, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
TIARA VIAN: And this is the Stories You Don’t Want to Miss podcast. In Fronteras news, new photos from the Center for Biological Diversity show major damage to an ancient archaeological site in Arizona during border wall construction. From the Fronteras Desk in Hermosillo, Nina Kravinsky reports.
NINA KRAVINSKY: The nearly 300-foot-long fish-shaped etching is approximately a thousand years old and located in the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge. The etching is just feet from the Arizona-Mexico border in an area slated for construction of a secondary border wall to run parallel to the existing wall. New photos from the Center for Biological Diversity’s Russ McSpadden show a 50-foot swath of earth near the fish’s head has been scraped away.
RUSS MCSPADDEN: And it was clear right away the damage is permanent.
NINA KRAVINSKY: The site is located near the Tohono O’odham reservation and the tribe’s traditional lands, said Tribal Chairman Verlon Jose in a video on Facebook.
VERLON JOSE: This was more than land. It was memory. It was identity. It was history. For us O’odham, sacred sites are not just places. They are living connections to our ancestors.
NINA KRAVINSKY: A Customs and Border Protection spokesperson said a border wall contractor disturbed the site nearly two weeks ago and that the remaining portion will be protected. Nina Kravinsky, KJZZ News, Hermosillo.
TIARA VIAN: In health news, Arizona health officials say the Hantavirus does not pose a risk to the greater public. Connor Grenwall reports.
CONNOR GRENWALL: Officials from the Arizona Department of Health Services confirmed one passenger on board a cruise ship where three passengers died from Hantavirus has returned home to Arizona. That person is being monitored by local health officials. Hantavirus is a deadly illness usually spread to humans through rodents. Dr. Joel Terriquez is with the Arizona Department of Health Services.
JOEL TERRIQUEZ: The one exception of Hantaviruses would be what we’re dealing with, which is Andes viruses. And—and even that there has been some rare human-to-human transmission, it can happen. It will require very close contact with someone that is very symptomatic.
CONNOR GRENWALL: Terriquez says the individual in Arizona remains asymptomatic, but they will continue to monitor for symptoms. Connor Grenwall, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
TIARA VIAN: And finally, from KJZZ’s The Show, Arizona is in for another very hot summer, but a new weather pattern could bring heavy monsoon storms. Here is co-host Lauren Gilger.
LAUREN GILGER: While the weather here in the Valley of the Sun has given us a bit of a break for the last few days, don’t be fooled. We are looking at temperatures in the 100s this weekend. And that won’t even be the first time we break 100 degrees this year. We broke yet another heat record this year on March 18th when temperatures at Sky Harbor International Airport hit 102 degrees. It was the earliest we have ever hit 100 degrees here, and the hottest temperature ever recorded in March. It came after we had the hottest winter ever in Phoenix and a record-hot spring. So, are we in for another record-scorcher summer? There just might be hope on the horizon in the form of a so-called Super El Niño heading our way. And here to tell us all about it is Randy Cerveny, professor of geographical sciences at ASU and extreme weather expert. Good morning, Randy. Thanks for coming in.
RANDY CERVENY: Hey, my pleasure.
LAUREN GILGER: OK, so 100 already this weekend. This feels early. Is it actually early?
RANDY CERVENY: Uh, a little bit early. Uh, we’re going to get up to 105 and that usually happens a week or so later in the year. Uh, but as you mentioned, we’ve already been up above 100 in March. Uh, what — what of course a lot of people don’t realize is we need that heat. It may not seem pretty, but in order to generate the thunderstorms that we’re going to get later on in the summer, we need to have the deserts heat up because hot air rises and it draws in the moisture from the Gulf of California and from the Pacific Ocean.
LAUREN GILGER: Okay, so in order to get those monsoons, we do have to kind of pay for it with these record—these really hot days. Okay. But what does it look like in terms of a preview of this summer’s weather? We’ve had these record-hot summers, many, many of the last couple of summers here in the valley. Are we looking at that again?
RANDY CERVENY: Yeah, we are, unfortunately. It is going to be hot. But to add to that, instead of using the normal word "dry," we’re going to put the word "moist," because it’s probably going to be humid as well. Uh, we’re going to have a lot of moisture coming up from the Gulf of California and the Pacific Ocean. Uh, as you mentioned, we’ve got this thing called a Super El Niño that’s building out in the Pacific Ocean. And what — what that means is that the center part of the Pacific Ocean is becoming really hot. Uh, hot water is pouring over from, uh, Australia and from, uh, Asia and being pumped over to our side of the Pacific Ocean. When that does — when that happens, it really messes up all of the weather patterns, not only just for the Pacific Ocean, but the entire world.
LAUREN GILGER: Wow, the entire world.
RANDY CERVENY: Basically. I mean, there’s good and bad things. It all depends on where you’re living. The good thing, I guess, for the people on the East Coast is it means likely less hurricanes this year along the Atlantic seaboard. For us, the opposite holds true, that in the Pacific, we’re going to have a whole bunch more hurricanes. Now, normally hurricanes don’t cause us any problems—they die out before they get here. But if we have a lot of Pacific hurricanes that are off the coast of Mexico, the moisture from those hurricanes will be funneled up into Arizona, and they are what trigger our Arizona monsoon.
LAUREN GILGER: So we could have a very wet monsoon season, which is coupled with that very hot weather that you’re talking about we need ahead of time.
RANDY CERVENY: Right. So instead of hot and dry, try hot and moist here, I think.
LAUREN GILGER: Hot and moist. That’ll be a weird summer for us, but not bad. We need—we need the rain. We’ll take it, right? This is an interesting one because is the monsoon a different weather pattern, a different kind of system in terms of the meteorological language when it comes to, you know, the El Niño versus monsoons?
RANDY CERVENY: Well, in the past, El Niño doesn’t have a super big impact on us. The — the only thing that’s probably helping us out that it will have this summer is that it’s so strong. That, uh, because of that incredibly warm water that’s going to be in the Pacific Ocean, it will charge up more Pacific hurricanes. Those hurricanes drop a huge amount of moisture, and it’s that moisture that we have to watch. Now, in normal El Niño years, the number of hurricanes isn’t enough to really impact us, but we’re — we’re anticipating a really, uh, active summer here. Uh, it may be more into New Mexico than Arizona right now — the long-term forecast for, uh, the summertime looks to have a lot of the moisture being funneled into New Mexico given the, uh, upper air patterns, the storm track.
LAUREN GILGER: Skipping us a little bit.
RANDY CERVENY: Right.
LAUREN GILGER: So, I mean, when we say a lot of rain, like, what does that look like? And is this something we can prepare for?
RANDY CERVENY: Well, that’s the tricky thing about the monsoon is that it’s always a localized situation. That, as you know, when we have thunderstorms here in the valley, one part of the valley can get dumped on with an inch and a half of rain, and another part of the valley gets absolutely nothing. So it’s very localized. But what it will probably mean is that there’s going to be more chances for those heavy rains. That we’ll have more storms, and if you have more storms, the likelihood of you getting hit by a particular storm is going to increase.
LAUREN GILGER: OK. There is a fire burning near Buckeye, Randy, I want to talk to you about. It’s grown to more than 1,100 acres just as of this morning. It’s not far from where a lot of people are, you know, live. It’s not far outside the city at this point because so much has been built out there. This is an air quality issue.
RANDY CERVENY: Absolutely. And it’s one of the things that the National Weather Service and other organizations like the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality do, is that they have the ability with computer models to track the plumes, to track those, uh, smoke from those wildfires and actually see which parts of the valley, in this case, are going to be impacted. So it’s—our technology has greatly improved just over the last 20, 30 years.
LAUREN GILGER: What does that kind of fire smoke kind of effect have on air quality and on people’s health as opposed to, like, smog?
RANDY CERVENY: Oh, it’s — it’s very dangerous, actually. And it’s one of the reasons why the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality keeps such big controls about that. It’s equivalent of the kind of situation that you might see during really bad dust storms. In fact, one of the things that we’re going to be doing this summer is coming up with a ranking system now for dust storms. We’re going to, uh, try to show people how bad in terms of the air quality it gets based off of some of these dust storms that we’re going to have this summer.
LAUREN GILGER: OK. So just the beginning of wildfire season, what should folks know when it comes to air quality and smoke?
RANDY CERVENY: Uh, just pay attention to the news. Find out which areas are going to be most impacted, and if you are in an impacted area, stay inside, because the air quality within your house is going to be much better than what it would be outside. Uh, think about the times across the valley on the 4th of July or New Year’s Day when all the fireworks are let off. That’s kind of the sense that you can have with some of the smoke that’s associated with these wildfires.
LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. Okay, we'll leave it there. Randy Cerveny, professor of geographical sciences at ASU. Randy, thank you so much.
RANDY CERVENY: My pleasure.
TIARA VIAN: And this has been the Stories You Don’t Want to Miss podcast, made possible in part by the Katina Foundation and Basis Charter Schools, Palo Verde Generating Station, SRP, and the Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust. Thank you for listening and for your generous support. I'm Tiara Vian. This is KJZZ. Listen more, learn more, online and on the KJZZ mobile app.
