South

Parched pumpkins: How a drought is impacting Halloween festivities

Published

3 days ago

June 15, 2024

Alan Mazzotti can see the Rocky Mountains about 30 miles west of his pumpkin patch in northeast Colorado on a clear day. He could tell the snow was abundant last winter, and verified it up close when he floated through fresh powder alongside his wife and three sons at the popular Winter Park Resort.

But one season of above-average snowfall wasn’t enough to refill the dwindling reservoir he relies on to irrigate his pumpkins. He received news this spring that his water delivery would be about half of what it was from the previous season, so he planted just half of his typical pumpkin crop. Then heavy rains in May and June brought plenty of water and turned fields into a muddy mess, preventing any additional planting many farmers might have wanted to do.

“By time it started raining, and the rain started to affect our reservoir supplies and everything else, it was just too late for this year,” Mazzotti said.

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This photo shows Alan Mazzotti holding one of his pumpkins Oct. 26, 2023, in Hudson, Colorado. ((AP Photo/Brittany Peterson))

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For some pumpkin growers in states like Texas, New Mexico and Colorado, this year’s pumpkin crop was a reminder of the water challenges hitting agriculture across the Southwest and West as human-caused climate change exacerbates drought and heat extremes. Some farmers lost 20% or more of their predicted yields; others, like Mazzotti, left some land bare. Labor costs and inflation are also narrowing margins, hitting farmers’ ability to profit off what they sell to garden centers and pumpkin patches.

This year’s thirsty gourds are a symbol of the reality that farmers who rely on irrigation must continue to face season after season: they have to make choices, based on water allotments and the cost of electricity to pump it out of the ground, about which acres to plant and which crops they can gamble on to make it through hotter and drier summers.

Pumpkins can survive hot, dry weather to an extent, but this summer’s heat, which broke world records and brought temperatures well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit to agricultural fields across the country, was just too much, said Mark Carroll, a Texas A&M extension agent for Floyd County, which he calls the “pumpkin capital” of the state.

“It’s one of the worst years we’ve had in several years,” Carroll said. Not only did the hot, dry weather surpass what irrigation could make up for, but pumpkins also need cooler weather to be harvested, or they’ll start to decompose during the shipping process, sometimes disintegrating before they even arrive at stores.

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America’s pumpkin powerhouse, Illinois, had a successful harvest on par with the last two years, according to the Illinois Farm Bureau. But this year it was so hot into the harvest season in Texas that farmers had to decide whether to risk cutting pumpkins off the vines at the usual time or wait and miss the start of the fall pumpkin rush. Adding to the problem, irrigation costs more as groundwater levels continue to drop — driving some farmers’ energy bills to pump water into the thousands of dollars every month.

Lindsey Pyle, who farms 950 acres of pumpkins in North Texas about an hour outside Lubbock, has seen her energy bills go up too, alongside the cost of just about everything else, from supplies and chemicals to seed and fuel. She lost about 20% of her yield. She added that pumpkins can be hard to predict earlier in the growing season because the vines might look lush and green, but not bloom and produce fruit if they aren’t getting enough water.

Steven Ness, who grows pinto beans and pumpkins in central New Mexico, said the rising cost of irrigation as groundwater dwindles is an issue across the board for farmers in the region. That can inform what farmers choose to grow, because if corn and pumpkins use about the same amount of water, they might get more money per acre for selling pumpkins, a more lucrative crop.

But at the end of the day, “our real problem is groundwater, … the lack of deep moisture and the lack of water in the aquifer,” Ness said. That’s a problem that likely won’t go away because aquifers can take hundreds or thousands of years to refill after overuse, and climate change is reducing the very rain and snow needed to recharge them in the arid West.

Jill Graves, who added a pumpkin patch to her blueberry farm about an hour east of Dallas about three years ago, said they had to give up on growing their own pumpkins this year and source them from a wholesaler. Graves said the pumpkins she bought rotted more quickly than in past years, but it was better than what little they grew themselves.

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Still, she thinks they’ll try again next year. “They worked perfect the first two years,” she said. “We didn’t have any problems.”

Mazzotti, for his part, says that with not enough water, you “might as well not farm” — but even so, he sees labor as the bigger issue. Farmers in Colorado have been dealing with water cutbacks for a long time, and they’re used to it. However, pumpkins can’t be harvested by machine like corn can, so they require lots of people to determine they’re ripe, cut them off the vines and prepare them for shipping.

He hires guest workers through the H-2A program, but Colorado recently instituted a law ensuring farmworkers to be paid overtime — something most states don’t require. That makes it tough to maintain competitive prices with places where laborers are paid less, and the increasing costs of irrigation and supplies stack onto that, creating what Mazzotti calls a “no-win situation.”

He’ll keep farming pumpkins for a bit longer, but “there’s no future after me,” he said. “My boys won’t farm.”

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Delaware

Runway extension part of new master plan

Published

14 mins ago

June 18, 2024

Press Room

Runway extension part of new master plan

It’s been more than 17 years since Sussex County had its last airport master plan update.

Over that time period, the county and Federal Aviation Administration have provided millions of dollars for expansion and rehabilitation as the complex has grown into a major economic force in the county.

During Sussex County’s June 4 meeting, Bob Bryant presented council with a new Delaware Coastal Airport Federal Aviation Administration-approved 418-page plan completed at a cost of more than $571,000 by consultants McFarland Johnson. Bryant is manager of airport and business park operations.

The plan includes factors influencing future development and needs along with upgrades to existing infrastructure, and addresses safety and security, how all FAA standards will be met, and how environmental regulations will be met. It also includes a financial plan and a project schedule.

The FAA also requires a terminal-area forecast. In 2018, the airport had 61 airplanes housed in hangars with a total of 34,401 airport operations. That’s forecast to increase to 85 aircraft and nearly 48,000 operations.

Bryant said the FAA reviews all elements of the plan but only approves forecasts of demand and an airport layout plan.

Extension in the plan

The 20-year plan provides details on the airport’s operation, infrastructure and future projects, including those needed in the short, mid and long term.

At the top of the list is an extension of the main runway from its current 5,500 feet to 6,123 feet.

Bryant said the current runway can accommodate 75% of planes. The extension will allow larger jets to access the airport.

The extension project can proceed, as the work to relocate Park Avenue around the airport is completed by Delaware Department of Transportation. Removing a section of the roadway allows for more expansion space.

Other projects included in the report are hangar development, rehabilitation of existing paved services and terminal facility expansion.

Bryant said short-term projects are considered critical and immediate needs, which include updates to FAA standards and construction of a parallel taxiway at the airport. He said the project is multi-phase and multi-grant, with construction ready to begin.

A public hearing will be scheduled on the report.

Airport has major impact

Bryant said a DelDOT Office of Aeronautics report calculated the economic impact of all airports in Delaware, which includes income, employment and taxes. Delaware Coastal’s numbers are impressive, with a total impact of nearly $167 million annually to the state and region, including $5 million in taxes, $52 million in income impacts and 617 jobs. The report includes the business/industrial park as well.

Bryant said the county’s airport has the highest return on its assets of any airport in the state at 109%.

The airport has seen $40 million in recent upgrades. It provides fuel and service, rail access, hangar space, short- and long-term parking, and rental cars, with large corporate jet capabilities.

Operating at the airport are Skyline Aviation for fuel and servicing; Sussex Aeronautic Maintenance for maintenance, inspections and other related services; and Ocean Aviation Flight Academy for flight lessons.

Arena’s operates one of its restaurants at the airport.

The airport serves as a site for a Delaware State Police Aviation Unit helicopter and also houses the Delaware Technical Community College aviation maintenance technology program.

The major tenant at the airport is ALOFT AeroArchitects. The company provides services to private and corporate jets, including auxiliary fuel systems and full VIP interior designs on jets from all over the world.

ALOFT is also an authorized Boeing Service Center.

History back to 1943

The airport’s history dates back to 1943, when it had three 5,000-foot runways. It served as a U.S. Navy testing facility then and into the 1950s until 1966. The military was testing a catapult launching system and a rocket car, among other projects.

The county got more involved in the airport in the 1970s and reconfigured the runways. Extensive rehabilitation has taken place since the early 2000s.

For more information, go to delawarecoastalairport.com.

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Florida

Florida homes empty as housing market tumbles in some cities

Published

16 mins ago

June 18, 2024

Press Room

Florida homes empty as housing market tumbles in some cities

Florida’s Cape Coral-Fort Myers metropolitan area has the highest share of rental homes sitting vacant in the entire country, according to recent research from Construction Coverage.

Read more: Avoid the Hassle of Rental Properties With These Top Real Estate ETFs

The report, which analyzed data from the U.S. Census Bureau, found that an average 15.3 percent of rental homes in Cape Coral-Fort Myers were vacant in 2023, up from 8 percent the year before. The median monthly rent in the metro area had also risen from $1,708 in 2022 to $1,967 in 2023, as the percentage of renters that are cost-burdened rose from 56 percent to 59.3 percent.

Within the same period, the percentage of households renting in Cape Coral-Fort Myers dropped from 26.5 percent to 21.5 percent, a decrease which can partially explain the rise in rental home vacancy in the metro area.

A home for rent in Miami, Florida. The state’s Cape Coral-Fort Myers area has the highest rental vacancy rates in the country, according to a Redfin report.

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

At the same time, the nationwide rental vacancy rate was 6.6 percent in the first quarter of 2024—below the historical average of 7.3 percent. The rental market is cooling off across the entire country, but, while prices have decreased since their peak in the third quarter of 2023, rent remains generally higher than many can afford.

Read more: How to Invest in Real Estate

Among the top 25 metro areas with the highest rental vacancy rates were also Jacksonville, Florida (11th with a share of 9.4 percent), Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Florida (20th with a share of 8.5 percent) and Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, Florida (23rd with a share of 8.4 percent).

Higher vacancy rates can generally be found in southern and midwestern states, according to the report, while western and northeastern states have the lowest shares of empty rental homes. This is due to the fact that western and northeastern states have a lower supply of rental units, while demand remains high.

It’s no surprise then that Florida, one of the states that, together with Texas, has been building the highest numbers of new homes in the country in recent years, is seeing higher vacancy rates as inventory grows.

Read more: How Much Is My House Worth? How to Determine Your Home’s Value

A recent Redfin report found that housing markets on Florida’s west coast are cooling faster than any other in the country, with North Port reporting a price fall of 6.6 percentage points in April compared to a year earlier—the biggest drop in the country.

It was followed by two other Florida metros, Tampa and Cape Coral, which recorded price drops of 8 percentage points and 4.6 percentage points respectively within the same period.

“Florida home prices had been going up from 2020-2023 quite rapidly, so Florida is due for a correction,” Daryl Fairweather, Redfin’s chief economist, told Newsweek in a written statement. “The rising cost of living in Florida is also discouraging migration, and high interest rates are dampening the market broadly.”

Uncommon Knowledge

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

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Georgia

Georgia Father Is Free 10 Years After His Son Died in a Hot Car

Published

20 mins ago

June 18, 2024

Press Room

Georgia Father Is Free 10 Years After His Son Died in a Hot Car

A father from Georgia has been released from prison 10 years after his toddler died in a hot car, a case that made global headlines after prosecutors accused him of murder, the AP reports. Justin Ross Harris was freed on Sunday—Father’s Day—from the Macon State Prison, Georgia Department of Corrections records show. He began serving his sentence on Dec. 6, 2016. Harris had moved from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to the Atlanta area for work in 2012. He told police that on the morning of June 18, 2014, he forgot to drop off his 22-month-old son Cooper at day care. Instead, he drove straight to his job as a web developer for the Home Depot and left the child in his car seat, he told investigators. Cooper died after about seven hours in the back seat on a day when temperatures hit the high 80s.

At trial, prosecutors put forth a theory that Harris was miserable in his marriage and killed his son so he could be free. They presented evidence of his extramarital sexual activities, including exchanging sexually explicit messages and graphic photos with women and girls and meeting some of them for sex. But his 2016 murder and child cruelty convictions were overturned by the Georgia Supreme Court in 2022, and prosecutors said at the time that he would not face another trial over Cooper’s death. Harris’ convictions on three sex crimes committed against a 16-year-old girl were upheld. He continued serving time on those crimes until Sunday, when he was released from prison.

(More Justin Ross Harris stories.)

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