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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Wake-Up Call Rings in TN - Watch the Water Supply

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Friday, November 21, 2008   

Nashville - Tennessee has plenty of rivers and lots of clean fresh water, but a new study from the National Wildlife Federation shines a light on how water supplies are becoming uncertain. Nine southeastern states are examined in the study, which calculates how population growth, development and climate change affect water.

Climate scientist Amanda Staudt wrote the report. She explains how Tennessee could go from "wet" to "dry" with climate change.

“Most of the climate models are showing that evaporation will outpace precipitation as the climate warms, leading to general drying out.”

Staudt says population in the Southeast has doubled in the last 40 years while water usage has tripled. Irrigation for farming accounts for some of the increase, but most of the water taken from rivers in the Southeast is used to cool coal and nuclear power plants. She says those demands, along with development, have created an unsustainable situation.

“A lot of the development in the Southeast over the last 40 years has relied upon abundant water supply. No one has really had to think about how to use their finite water supply most efficiently.”

The report also outlined how diminishing water supplies affect endangered species. About 70 percent of the nation’s endangered aquatic species are in Tennessee and Alabama. Staudt says the science shows most southeastern states will see drought more often, and more big rain events, which don't help because rain falls faster than the ground can absorb. The report calls for water conservation and a reduction in the pollution linked to climate change. Most critics of climate change science doubt a link to human actions, and say natural cycles are a better explanation for the changes.



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