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USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. General Technical Report PNW-GTR-870. December 2012. James M. Vose, David L. Peterson, and Toral Patel-Weynand, Editors. This report is a scientific assessment of the current condition and likely future condition of forest resources in the United States relative to climatic variability and change. It includes descriptions of key regional issues and examples of a risk-based framework for assessing climate-change effects.

EPA Web Report #4482. 2013. This report presents 1) current information on the impacts from wildfires on drinking water utilities and 2) lessons learned and recommendations for future research that were discussed during the Wildfire Readiness and Response Workshop held in Denver, Colo. April 4-5, 2013.

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENTIST AND SPECIALIST – A Position #00037087 MINING ENVIRONMENTAL COMPLIANCE SECTION GROUND WATER QUALITY BUREAU NEW MEXICO ENVIRONMENT DEPARTMENT The New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) anticipates advertisement of a vacant Environmental Scientist and Specialist-A position (#00037087) in the Mining Environmental Compliance Section of the Ground Water Quality Bureau in July-August 2012. The position advertisement will be posted on the NM State Personnel Office website,http://agency.governmentjobs.com/newmexico/default.cfm in the near future. The position is a senior staff scientist responsible for managing a technically complex discharge permit caseload for hardrock mining operations and review of New Mexico Mining Act sites. The position involves coordination with federal and state agencies on mine permitting procedures; developing, conducting and reporting on scientific geohydrologic site investigations; review and comment on Mining Act applications; review and approval of ground water pollution prevention plans, abatement plans, and corrective action plans; drafting discharge permits; and conducting site inspections. The position is responsible for assessing whether facilities are in compliance with the NM Water Quality Act and Water Quality Control Commission Regulations; NM Mining Act; and other state and federal statutes, standards and regulations. The salary range for this position is typically $25.50 (midpoint) to $32.63 (max) per hour depending on job duties and experience. If you are interested in applying or know of someone who may be interested, please send e-mail contact information to Dale Doremus so that we can send the official job advertisement to you directly when it is posted at the NM-SPO website [http://agency.governmentjobs.com/newmexico/default.cfm].

Key points about recent events in the EPA concerning climate change and water.

This final report discusses the development of a database of freshwater biological traits. The database combines several existing traits databases into an online format. The database is also augmented with additional traits that are relevant to detecting climate change-related effects, especially traits related to temperature tolerances and flow.

This final report uses biological data collected in wadeable rivers and streams, by four states, to examine the components of state and tribal bioassessment and biomonitoring programs that may be vulnerable to climate change. The study investigates the potential to identify biological response signals to climate change within existing bioassessment data sets; analyzes how biological responses can be categorized and interpreted; and assesses how they may influence decision-making processes. The analyses suggest that several biological indicators may be used to detect climate change effects and such indicators can be used by state bioassessment programs to document changes at high-quality reference sites.

Video from Intermountain West Joint Venture

Top-down regional climate patterns result in high spatial fire synchrony among Southwest forests. At landscape scales, however bottom-up (topography) patterns are also important in determining fire history and tree age structure variability. The distinct fire histories from these two study areas provided natural age structure experiments that indicated tree age cohorts occurred during periods of reduced fire frequencies. In some instances these periods were likely caused by climatic variability creating synchronous age cohorts across the region. At other times, extended fire intervals were a function of local topography. Overall, these studies demonstrated that landscape and climatic variations combine to produce complex spatial and temporal variations in fire history and tree age structures.

Forest and Watershed Health Office Annual Report FY06-07

New Mexico Forest and Watershed Health Office Annual Report FY07-08