KJZZ's Sun Up is a weekday morning podcast giving you the Arizona news you need to start your day. It is the biggest stories of the day from KJZZ News.
Transcript
PHIL LATZMAN: This is KJZZ's Sun Up. It is your daily news update from here in Phoenix on our state and region. I'm Phil Latzman. Good day. We bring you this podcast as a daily digest of Arizona news as reported by the KJZZ news team. It's Monday, the first day of June. Welcome to a fresh week, a fresh month. Let's see what's happening around our region.
Well, forever chemicals known as PFAS have been linked to cancer and thyroid-related health issues. The city of Tucson has been dealing with chemical contamination of local water wells for decades. As Ignacio Ventura reports, a national conference focused on PFAS is being held at the University of Arizona.
IGNACIO VENTURA: Tucson officials found chemicals from a jet engine cleaner used at military sites in some of the city's groundwater wells in the 1980s. The National PFAS Conference is one of the only conferences designed around the people living with the contamination very closely. This is the first time the conference has been held in the Southwest.
Recently, the Environmental Protection Agency announced it would provide $20 million to Arizona for testing, planning, and infrastructure projects to deal with PFAS and contaminants in drinking water. The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality also recently announced it would work in coordination with the State Department of Health Services to warn people about these chemicals when consuming fish. Ignacio Ventura, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: Scientists at Arizona State University are working to build more accurate forecasts about the amount of water in the Colorado River. Alex Hager reports a new study is bringing in data from satellites.
ALEX HAGER: The researchers are trying to go beyond measurements of how much water is in the river itself. Satellite data tells them how much water is stored in snow and soils to create a more complete picture. Enrique Vivoni is a senior author on the study.
ENRIQUE VIVONI: That future forecast, it's what's important for decision makers and planners to be able to make calls about how a river basin like the Colorado River will be managed in the next weeks to months.
ALEX HAGER: As the Colorado River supplies less and less water due to drought and climate change, experts say it's getting more important to track every drop of water in the Colorado River system in real time so cities and farms can plan for shortages. Alex Hager, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: Well, the Phoenix City Council set to vote Wednesday to consider whether to seek approval of a consent decree that would settle Superfund claims against the city. Matthew Casey has a preview.
MATTHEW CASEY: Superfund sites are places contaminated to the point where the federal government labels them a health and environmental risk. City records say a 10-year-old lawsuit is based on allegations that hazardous substances were released by private companies, such as Honeywell, at Sky Harbor Airport.
If the council approves, and so does a federal judge, claims against the city would be dismissed in exchange for a roughly $1.3 million settlement. About three-quarters of the money would reportedly be paid by Honeywell, and the rest by a former insurer of Sky Harbor. Matthew Casey, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: Wildfire risk is rising across the West following the dry winter and lingering drought. Researchers are now spending millions of dollars in federal funds to thin dense forests and reduce that danger. The Mountain West News Bureau's Kaleb Roedel reports from northern Nevada.
KALEB ROEDEL: In the Whittell Forest of the eastern Sierra Mountains, a wood chipper cuts through branches during a demonstration of wildfire mitigation work. Hunter Noble is a forest manager with the University of Nevada, Reno. He's showing how thinning vegetation where homes and wildlands meet can help slow the spread of future wildfires.
HUNTER NOBLE: The goal is to both reduce the density of the forest and then also reduce the continuity of vegetation. So when fire does happen again, the fire is less likely to jump from tree to tree or spread from tree to tree.
KALEB ROEDEL: Noble says the roughly $3.5 million in funding will help crews treat about 300 acres in the area. The project is part of a wider effort across the West to reduce wildfire risk at the edge of growing communities.
PHIL LATZMAN: And that's Kaleb Roedel reporting. The Chiricahua leopard frog, a native species of the Southwest, is facing many threats, but a group of volunteers recently carved out a new oasis for the frogs in the White Mountain Grasslands Wildlife Area in Apache County. Taylor Griffith tells us more.
TAYLOR GRIFFITH: The leopard frog has been federally protected for decades. Drought and predation from bullfrogs and crayfish has eliminated much of its wild habitat. An incurable fungal disease has also made it hard for them to thrive. That's why a group of volunteers spent two weeks digging and lining six ponds near the White Mountains.
The reinforced ponds will store more surface water, and their seclusion from native streams where crayfish are present should also help with predation. The more ponds the better, says Audrey Owens with the Arizona Game and Fish Department.
AUDREY OWENS: That's kind of just like, hedging our bets. And so, um, during drought, if one of these ponds maintains water, then it will prevent the whole population from disappearing.
TAYLOR GRIFFITH: Now, it just has to rain. Taylor Griffith, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: Well, new research has some paradoxical findings about the number of wildfires in our region and how much land is burning. The Mountain West News Bureau's Murphy Woodhouse explains.
MURPHY WOODHOUSE: If you have the sense that fires have been getting bigger and burning more ground in recent decades, you're not wrong. But if you also assumed that more fires were being started, that's where the data disagrees.
AMIRHOSSEIN MONTAZERI: The most striking finding in our study was that the total number of wildfire has actually gone down, but the amount of land that burning has gone up.
MURPHY WOODHOUSE: That's lead author, Amirhossein Montazeri. Specifically, the researchers looked at more than 750,000 starts in the West over a roughly three-decade period. In the second half, starts were down by 31%, but acreage was up 40%.
Montazeri explains this seeming paradox in two ways: humans account for the majority of starts and those fell substantially between the two periods, suggesting that awareness campaigns may be working. But at the same time, climate change has led to warmer and drier conditions, which promote rapid fire growth. For the Mountain West News Bureau, I'm Murphy Woodhouse.
PHIL LATZMAN: The city of Tempe is upgrading its Kyrene Reclamation Water Facility to support long-term water sustainability. But the construction could disturb a nearby historic and archaeological site known as Los Guanacos. Zachary Lechner is Tempe's historic preservation officer.
ZACHARY LECHNER: It was once a village occupied by the ancestral O'odham or Hohokam people. And it's estimated they lived there between about 1150 and 1400 AD.
PHIL LATZMAN: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is providing guidance for the project to help protect cultural resources. The agency says it's consulted with multiple Arizona tribes.
Well, an early warm winter season is affecting melon production in Yuma. The weather created an opportunity for whiteflies to spread viruses onto crops. Christopher Detranaltes is a plant pathologist with the University of Arizona. He said affected melons can lose their sugar quality and become unsuited for the market.
CHRISTOPHER DETRANALTES: So the whiteflies were present in high numbers, they were carrying these viruses that affect melons, and they infected these melons very, very early in the season.
PHIL LATZMAN: The infected plants cannot be cured, which affects production and leads to higher costs for consumers.
Well, through our Q&AZ reporting project, a listener asked: What's the story behind those large metal horse statues near McCormick Ranch in Scottsdale? As Bridget Dowd found out, the horses are more than just a public art piece.
BRIDGET DOWD: Five aluminum horse statues, each 14 feet tall, look as if they're running straight for East Indian Bend Road. The larger-than-life pieces are actually gargoyles that facilitate the flow of floodwater from the city's greenbelt down Indian Bend Wash.
KATI BALLARES: The water actually flows through the sculptures and pours out of their mouths so that the artwork is completely transformed into this functioning fountain-like structure while it's raining.
BRIDGET DOWD: That's Kati Ballares, Scottsdale's director of public art. She says that water travels through a series of Scottsdale parks and into the Salt River. The artwork is also a nod to the city's equestrian history. Bridget Dowd, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
PHIL LATZMAN: Well, tomorrow does mark the third annual 602 Day in Phoenix. More than 350 discounts, deals, and family activities are available across Greater Phoenix in honor of the city's first and most historic area code. Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego says 602 Day is a great way to create culture and boost traffic to local businesses at the start of summer.
KATE GALLEGO: June is typically a smaller, slower month for our small businesses, and so we love giving them a boost. It's a real point of pride that the Phoenix Zoo had their busiest paid day ever on 602 Day. It feels like there was a real need for this celebration of things local and bringing people together in June.
PHIL LATZMAN: The Phoenix Zoo will continue its 602 Day tradition this year, opening early at 6:02 a.m. and offering admission for $6.02.
In sports, baseball, the ASU baseball team is out of the NCAA tournament after beating host Nebraska in an earlier elimination game. The Sun Devils then lost to Ole Miss 5-4 in 10 innings late yesterday in the tournament's Lincoln Regional. That eliminates them from College World Series contention.
In the majors, a lost weekend for the Diamondbacks — they were swept in Seattle. The Mariners won yesterday's finale 3-2, and after winning 10 of 11, Arizona brings a three-game losing streak back home for the first of four against the first-place Dodgers tonight at Chase Field. They're six and a half back of the Dodgers and a chance to make up some ground in the NL West.
Basketball, the Mercury back home tonight hosting the Minnesota Lynx. Phoenix trying to right the ship, they've lost five straight now and seven of eight since an opening day win.
And that'll do it for this edition of KJZZ's Sun Up, Arizona's morning news podcast. This Monday, June the 1st, I'm Phil Latzman. Happy month. Again, stay cool and hydrated out there. You know what's coming. Have a great day, we're back at you tomorrow.
