Despite a year passing since the ice storm, damages are still visible in Northern Michigan forests with trees broken in half, uprooted, and debris crowding forests.
Cody Stevens, the DNR’s Northeast Lower Peninsula District Manager, says they’re still working to clean up and restore damaged forests.
Forest in Charlevoix County, Michigan. March 13, 2026
Damaged trees
Red pine and Jack pine trees experienced the worst of the damage, so they were the DNR’s top priority for clean-up.
Stevens describes, “the Red pine and Jack pine trees [were] totally snapped off. Those trees were just dead; there was no recovering for them. That’s why you see a lot more harvests in the Red pine right away.”
As the DNR has made progress with cleaning up these forests, Stevens says they’re switching gears to focus on hardwood forests, which contain species such as Maple, Oak, and Aspen trees.
Many hardwood trees were able to grow through the damages of the storm. However, Stevens explains that despite their growth, there’s likely pockets of rotting wood in the trees, and they’re unable to grow at their typical rate.
Once forests are cleared of damaged trees, the DNR’s next step is to replant trees.
Restoring damaged environments
Because so much timber was being harvested and sold after the storm, the market became oversaturated, and the value of timber dropped.
Stevens says this affected the DNR’s budget for restoration, as they rely on timber sales to fund forest development.
Ice storm damage. March 13, 2026.
Stevens explains, “Our intent is to spend some of the work project money that we receive to reforest all of those stands. So, we’ll be replanting Red pine on the majority of those sites back to ensure that there’s a forest for the future.”
The restoration process is far from over, as Stevens expects it to take them at least 5 years to recover.
Of the 3,000 miles of state forest roads that were blocked by the storm, Stevens says the DNR has roughly 250 miles left to clear.
“There is active timber harvesting going on at a little bit higher rate than what there typically would be, trying to salvage all this timber,” he says. “So, when folks do go into the woods, just have their eyes out looking for timber producers, making sure there’s no conflict on their roads.”
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Mid-February through March can be an exciting time across southeast Michigan. With spring being around the corner, people are looking to get out once again and connect with nature. One place to do that is the sugarbush.
The sugarbush is a grove of sugar maples, and the name for an Indigenous practice of harvesting and cooking down sap to make syrup.
For years Indigenous people have used sugarbush as an opportunity gather, practice fellowship, and give back to the land by cleaning the area, removing debris and evasive plants. They utilize the trees for their sap and return the land to the state in which they found it.
A conversation with Rosebud Schneider, a member of the Anishinaabe people, shed light on the community aspect around sugarbush.
“We have a responsibility to protect this land, protect each other. This is one way to do that,” said Schneider. She added that people coming together for sugarbush gives the older generations a chance to teach the younger generations what they know.
Black to the Land echoes Indigenous ethos
Organizations such as Black to The Land and Friends of Rouge Park keep the spirit of this practice going. Antonio Cosome, Black to The Land co-founder, and lead volunteer and organizer Isra Daraiseh, take volunteers through the process of sap collection, boiling and giving back to the land.
Listen: Interview with Black to the Land co-founder Antonio Cosme
Utilizing the teachings of Indigenous elders, they’ve cultivated a sense of community by bringing people out and sharing the practice with them.
Each year they gather to tap maple trees, collect sap, and boil the sap down to produce maple sugar, maple vinegar, and, of course, syrup. Even the runoff during the boil itself gets reused to top deserts such as ice cream. Though it’s labor intensive, there’s a sense of transformation or enlightenment that comes from the practice.
And, the products from the boil-down give meetings a sweet touch in the months to come.
The process of making maple syrup is shown in photos of Black to the Land Coalition’s boil down. Click photos to enlarge. Credit: Isaiah Lopez, WDET
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The Grand Traverse Conservation District (GTCD) recently received the East Creek Reserve as a donation from Rotary Camps and Services (RC&S).
The director of the GTCD, Koffi Kpachavi says they have been managing the property prior to the donation.
Kpachavi explains, “When the rotary decided to not own this property anymore because it didn’t make sense for their mission anymore, they said it made sense for them to give it to somebody who knows the property really well; you know, somebody who’s been maintaining the trials, the trees, and taking care of the land for such a long time.”
According to a press release from the GTCD, the conservation district had been managing the land since the late nineties; a few years after the RC&S obtained the land from Howard and Mary Edwards in 1993.
By 2001, the conservation district and RC&S had developed a comprehensive plan for East Creek Reserve, which included resource management, land protection, and public recreation.
Current landscape and uses
East Creek Reserve is located just 25 minutes South of Traverse City, Michigan.
After being well maintained for decades, the GTCD press release states that the reserve includes “dense mature forests, open meadowlands and the picturesque lowlands of East Creek.”
Kpachavi says how it’s a perfect place for people to connect with nature after a long day at work. In the press release, Kpachavi calls the reserve “an extraordinary landscape that reflects the very heart of our mission.”
Kpachavi describes the GTCD’s next steps.
“As we move forward, we will do some trailing programs, maybe add some new features to some trails, change the course, or elongate some trails. For the time being, we are working on a management plan to see what we would like to add or change to the property,” says Kpachavi.
Currently, East Creek Reserve has roughly 3.5 miles of trails open to the public.
Hunting, fishing, and camping is not permitted on the land.
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For tens of thousands of people across metro Detroit, this past weekend wasn’t spent relaxing. It was spent in the dark, listening to 70-mile-per-hour wind gusts. Others were likely watching the water line creep up in their basements after days of rain.
When we talk about environmental risk, we’re talking about the collision between volatile weather, intensified by human-caused climate change, and fragile, aging infrastructure. It is the risk your lights won’t stay on, your basement won’t stay dry, and your utility bills will keep rising.
Nearly 95,000 households lost power in this latest storm. While many of the lights are back on, the frustration hasn’t dimmed, especially since DTE Energy’s $242 million rate hike just went into effect earlier this month.
Today marks the start of SevereWeather Awareness Week. Governor Gretchen Whitmer is urging you to “know your plan.” But for many metro Detroiters, that plan is at the mercy of a grid and a regional geography that feels fragile.
To help us look past the downed limbs and into the systems that are failing, Nicholas Schroeck joined Robyn Vincent on The Metro. Schroeck is the dean of the University of Detroit Mercy’s School of Law and a leading expert on environmental policy.
Hear the full conversation using the media player above.
Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on demand.
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These days, when it rains, it much more often pours. That’s due in large part to climate change. Heat waves are longer, winds are stronger, and rains are heavier.
Meanwhile, much of metro Detroit’s infrastructure is old. And, combined with the downpours, it has led to more flooding. That’s true on Hines Drive in Wayne County; it’s true in East Dearborn; and it’s true in Jefferson Chalmers, or the “Venice of Detroit.”
In 2021, the eastside neighborhood was declared a “high-risk flood zone” by FEMA after heavy rains flooded many basements and roads.
The City of Detroit recently announced a $1 million pilot program to repair or replace sea walls for low-income residents to protect them from flooding. What do people in the neighborhood make of this plan? What do they need to protect their neighborhood?
Blake Grannum is a longtime Jefferson Chalmers resident. She spoke with The Metro’s Robyn Vincent about that and more.
The Metro reached out to Detroit Council member Latisha Johnson, who represents Jefferson Chalmers. Her office did not respond to our request for comment.
Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on demand.
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MDOT’s Media Representative for the Metro Region, Diane Cross, says the project requires tree removal for full reconstruction of the Ecorse interchange.
Cross explains, “Currently, traffic comes in on the left, which is very unusual and it’s a very old style. We are going to bring that up to current industry standards… That involves rebuilding I-94 through a large, wooded median near Ecorse Road.”
MDOT already owned the patch of land where these trees were located. Cross says their plan for construction is the most time and cost effective.
There are plans to replant trees around the new roadways once construction is finished, says Cross.
“Obviously they’re not the same mature age and probably number of what we’re removing—that is a large, wooded area that has not been touched for 50 years or so—but that is now where we’re going to move the freeway through, which will make it much safer for drivers.”
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After warnings about “exploding trees” went viral this winter, a local arborist says he did not hear any reports of it occurring.
“I have not heard or seen of any explosions happening in the woods,” arborist Luke Brunner says. He works with the Davey Tree Company.
“I think there was a lot of concern behind it….I had multiple phone calls asking about it,” Brunner continues.
However, he says if anyone did hear unusual sounds coming from a nearby tree trunk, it was likely frost cracking, a common occurrence during winter. Frost cracking occurs when sunlight warms the interior of a tree during the day, and temperatures then drop sharply at night, leading to water inside the trunk freezing and expanding, resulting in a popping sound.
Brunner says ice and snow pose a greater risk to trees. Heavy accumulation can weigh down branches, especially those with dead wood or structural weaknesses, increasing the likelihood of limbs breaking and falling.
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Denver is on track to see one of the city’s driest winters on record after only traces of snow fell in February, according to the National Weather Service.
Roughly 13.4 inches of snow fell in the Denver area between September and February, according to the weather service. On average, Denver records 34.8 inches of snow during that timeframe.
With only traces of snow falling in Denver in February, the city officially tied its record for the least-snowy February since 1882, when the agency started keeping snowfall records, according to the weather service. The previous record for lack of February snowfall was set in 2009.
Denver saw 0.02 inches of total precipitation, making it the second-driest February on record, and an average monthly temperature of 42.1 degrees, the third-warmest on record, weather service meteorologists said.
The warmest February in Denver’s history was in 1954, with an average temperature of 43.7 degrees, according to the agency. Temperature and precipitation records started in 1872.
One of the warmest and driest Februaries on record for much of northeast Colorado.
Denver's stats:
Least snowiest (trace) 2nd driest (0.02") 3rd warmest (42.1°F)
New research shows the presence of trees where people live may significantly impact human heart health.
The results find that those living in greener neighborhoods have lower risks of heart attacks, strokes, and other cardiovascular diseases.
Peter James is a lead researcher of the study at the University of California – Davis.
Using over 350 million Google Street View images analyzed with deep learning, James’s team identified street-level vegetation and linked it to long-term health data.
However, areas with more grass were linked to higher cardiovascular risk.
James says trees help by cooling neighborhoods, filtering air, reducing noise, and promoting activity and social interaction. “We’ve evolved as human beings to be in nature….this is our natural setting, not staring at a computer screen….that’s where we thrive… out in trees and nature,” James says.
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How exactly horses produce that distinctive sound — also called a neigh — has long eluded scientists.
The whinny is an unusual combination of both high and low pitched sounds, like a cross between a grunt and a squeal — that come out at the same time.
The low-pitched part wasn’t much of a mystery. It comes from air passing over bands of tissue in the voice box that make noise when they vibrate. It’s a technique similar to how humans speak and sing.
But the high-pitched piece is more puzzling. With some exceptions, larger animals have larger vocal systems and typically make lower sounds. So how do horses do it?
According to a new study, they whistle.
Researchers slid a small camera through horses’ noses to film what happened inside while they whinnied and made another common horse sound, the softer, subtler nicker. They also conducted detailed scans and blew air through the isolated voice boxes of dead horses.
The whinny’s mysterious high-pitched tones, they discovered, are a kind of whistling that starts in the horse’s voice box. Air vibrates the tissues in the voice box while an area just above contracts, leaving a small opening for the whistle to escape.
That’s different from human whistling, which we do with our mouths.
“I’d never imagined that there was a whistling component. It’s really interesting, and I can hear that now,” said Jenifer Nadeau, who studies horses at the University of Connecticut. Nadeau was not involved with the study, which was published Monday in the journal Current Biology.
A few small rodents like rats and mice whistle like this, but horses are the first known large mammal to have a knack for it. They’re also the only animals known to be able to whistle through their voice boxes while they sing.
“Knowing that a ‘whinny’ is not just a ‘whinny’ but that it is actually composed of two different fundamental frequencies that are created by two different mechanisms is exciting,” said Alisa Herbst with Rutgers University’s Equine Science Center, of the study in an email.
A big lingering question is how horses’ two-toned calls came to be. Wild Przewalski’s horses can do something similar, as can elks. But more distant horse relatives like donkeys and zebras can’t make the high-pitched sounds.
The two-toned whinnies could help horses convey multiple messages at the same time. The differently pitched neighs may help them express a more complex range of feelings when socializing, said study author Elodie Mandel-Briefer with the University of Copenhagen.
“They can express emotions in these two dimensions,” Mandel-Briefer said.
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Associated Press video journalist James Brooks contributed to this report.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
FILE – A horse whinnies in a barn at the Oklahoma State Fairgrounds in Oklahoma City, during a cutting horse competition, Monday, June 20, 2011. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)
Surveillance footage captured a coyote following a 3-year-old boy toward his home in Pasadena earlier this week.
At around 1 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 23, on Tamarac Drive, 3-year-old Salvo Bessemer exited his gated courtyard and headed for the driveway, hoping to give his father, Leonard Bessemer, a hug goodbye before he left for work, his father said.
Salvo did not find his dad, who had left about five minutes earlier. Instead, he spotted a coyote in front of the house, Leonard Bessemer said. The boy then turned around and ran back toward the house, screaming for his mother.
Video footage shows Salvo reaching the door, with the coyote following behind him. Audio captured Salvo’s mother, Aida Svelto, screaming when she spotted the coyote near the entrance.
The coyote then turned around and trotted away. According to Bessemer, the animal did not immediately leave the area, but lingered nearby for a short time, watching the house through ivy on the property.
Coyotes are frequently spotted in the neighborhood, Bessemer said. He sees one at least once a week while on early-morning runs and typically makes noise to deter them, especially when accompanied by the family’s chihuahua, Sam.
Monday’s scare prompted Bessemer and his fiancée to take stricter precautions with both Sam and Salvo.
“We made a rule that he’s not to go to the gate without one of us,” Bessemer said. “It might have gone differently if Salvo had been by himself.”
Bessemer said he also plans to make sure Sam is always leashed when taken outside and that the front door remains closed as a precaution.
Kevin McManus of Pasadena Humane said that while the video may appear frightening, the coyote did not demonstrate signs of aggressive or hunting behavior based on the footage.
“The good news is everybody’s safe,” McManus said.
Bessemer said he has noticed more coyotes in the area recently, including during daytime hours. McManus said this is likely due to mating season, when coyotes are more active and more likely to be seen outside of dawn and dusk.
“People should make noise and try to make coyotes uncomfortable to scare them off,” McManus said. “Remember, we’re bigger than them.”
McManus also advised residents to be extra cautious with pets during this season and to avoid leaving food or unsecured trash around their homes.
Surveillance footage shows a coyote following 3-year-old Salvo Bessemer toward his home in Pasadena on Monday, Feb. 23. (Courtesy of Leonard Bessemer)
As temperatures drop and snowfall increases this winter, Detroit’s road commissioners break out their plows and salt trucks in order to maintain safe roadways.
However, the most common road salt used, sodium chloride, has been known by experts and road commissioners to cause damage to surrounding trees.
Dr. Bert Cregg, a Michigan State University Professor in the Department of Horticulture, says that excessive usage of this road salt can lead to tree death.
Cregg says protecting trees from salt exposure and selecting salt-tolerant species are the first steps to mitigating this issue.
Identifying salt damage in trees
Cregg describes salt damage occurring in two ways: acute damage and chronic damage.
Acute damage refers to when tree trunks, branches, and leaves are exposed to salt.
“If we think about the white coat of salt that accumulates on our cars this time of year, trees and shrubs adjacent to roadways are experiencing the same thing,” says Cregg
Acute damage is the easiest to identify.
In evergreen trees, such as Michigan White Pines, salt damage causes needle browning and can lead to tree death.
In deciduous trees, such as Oak and Maple trees, salt damage commonly causes “witch’s brooms,” which is when the ends of branches repeatedly die and grow back due to salt exposure, Cregg explains.
Because chronic injury refers to damage that we can’t see as easily, it can be trickier to identify. Chronic injury occurs when road salt leaches into the surrounding soil and creates high concentrations of sodium and chloride.
Cregg says these high concentrations “reduce the plant’s ability to take up water from the soil solution, resulting in a form of drought stress.”
How to reduce salt damage on trees: protection and selection
Cregg suggests de-icing alternatives, such as beet juice or calcium magnesium acetate, which pose less environmental risk than typical road salt.
While the simple solution seems to be for road commissioners and residents to abandon their usage of road salt, this is an unrealistic approach considering sodium chloride continues to be the most affordable and efficient option for de-icing, and given Michigan’s harsh winters, public safety is often prioritized over environmental concerns.
Due to this limitation, Cregg emphasizes the importance of creating physical barriers, such as placing burlap wrap or canvas screens around existing trees, to protect them from excessive salt exposure.
These physical barriers would help mitigate damage from the inevitable salt splash caused by cars on the roadway.
When planting new trees around roadways, it’s important to consider that some tree species are more sensitive to salt exposure than others.
To aid this, Cregg advises homeowners and city planners to select salt-tolerant trees to ensure they can survive in the given environment.
“Some salt-tolerant trees for our area include Bald Cypress, Kentucky Coffeetree, Japanese Tree Lilac, Dawn Redwood, Horse Chestnut, Hackberry, and Swamp White Oak.”
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Sixty years after voters narrowly approved the first millage to establish Oakland County Parks, officials say the system is undergoing a fundamental shift.
County officials recently unveiled a plan to revamp and grow its parks system. It’s called Mission 26 and it aims to help the county’s residents easily access the outdoors, especially in urban areas.
The focus on reshaping the county’s parks is funded by a public millage passed in 2024.
Oakland County Parks Director Chris Ward says it’s a green vision for the county’s future. “We know people are struggling financially, but the fact that they, you know, demonstrated such overwhelming support for that proposal shows how deeply people in this county value recreation and the outdoors,” Ward says.
The county is expanding urban partnerships, including at Pontiac Oaks County Park, and plans to open Oak Park Woods at Sheppard Park and convert a Southfield golf course into a nature preserve.
The county also launched the Co-Creation Lab to allow residents to help guide the future of the parks system through a new online portal,
If parks are considered part of the county’s preventive health and wellness infrastructure, Ward says their success must be measured by how actively they are used.
“Empty parking lots represent a missed opportunity to reach people,” Ward says.
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In 2023, Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed one of the most aggressive clean energy laws in the country — requiring Michigan utilities to hit 50% renewable energy by 2030 and 100% clean electricity by 2040. That plan assumed federal policy would be moving in the same direction. Things like federal tax credits, Environmental Protection Agency regulations, and infrastructure money for electric vehicles were anticipated to follow.
What does that decision mean for Michigan? What does it mean for DTE and Consumers Energy, which are both tasked with transitioning to clean energy sources instead of relying on things like natural gas?
Liesl Clark is the director of climate action engagement for the University of Michigan’s School for Environment and Sustainability. She also used to run the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy.
The Metro‘s Sam Corey spoke with the director about the president’s actions and what she would recommend the state do now.
Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on demand.
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Despite a barren start to Colorado’s ski season, Winter Park Resort opened on Halloween and served up holiday powder.
The ski area’s secret is a contraption a few miles upwind of the chairlifts that looks like a meat smoker strapped to the top of a ladder. When weather conditions are just right, a Winter Park contractor fires up the machine, burning a fine dust of silver iodide into the sky — a process known as cloud seeding. Ideally, the particles disappear into a cloud that is cold enough and wet enough to produce snow, but may need a nudge. The silver iodide becomes the nuclei for water droplets, like iron filings to a magnet. Those droplets freeze and fall from the sky as snowflakes, freshening up the slopes of the resort as it tries to lure the Gore-Tex-clad masses between Denver and larger, showier ski destinations further west.
Doug Laraby, who has helped run Winter Park for nearly four decades, says the resort leaned heavily on its cloud seeding equipment over the Christmas holiday, sprinkling the skies as fresh powder fell days before the critical New Years weekend. At the moment, Winter Park has more snow than Breckenridge, Keystone and a host of bigger resorts nearby.
“For us,” Laraby explains, “that was a million-dollar storm.”
Resorts are increasingly seeking solutions to freshen up the brown slopes spanning the American West this winter, even as the East Coast grapples with back-to-back storms. Last month, Vail Resorts Inc. — which owns nearly 50 resorts across the U.S. and Canada — said it would miss revenue projections due to subpar snowfall this season. The dramatic lack of precipitation in the Rockies “limited our ability to open terrain” and, in turn, crimped spending by both locals and destination guests, Chief Executive Officer Rob Katz said in a statement.
In a battle to improve — or at least maintain — snowpack in the face of rising temperatures and drought, Winter Park, operated by Vail rival Alterra Mountain Co., is one of a growing number of groups in the American West doubling down on cloud seeding, from state governments and ski hills to utilities and watershed management agencies.
Desperate for water — ideally snow — they’re banking on the strategy to buoy the $6 billion U.S. ski industry, while keeping rivers and reservoirs at healthy levels come spring. Despite the promise, though, companies are still trying to amass data showing the technology can actually deliver appreciable amounts of powder. And scientists studying cloud seeding have cast doubt on just how effective it is.
Katja Friedrich, an atmospheric science professor at the University of Colorado, concedes that cloud seeding works in a lab. “But out there,” she says, gesturing to cirrus clouds sweeping over the Front Range outside of her office, “it’s a totally different business.”
Storms are volatile, complex and unforgiving places to gather data. “The application is so far ahead of what the science actually shows,” Friedrich explains. “Usually, it’s the other way around.”
The idea of cloud seeding dates back to the 19th century, and it got an unexpected boost thanks to research at General Electric in the wake of World War II. DRI, a nonprofit research institute in Nevada, started cloud seeding in the 1960s. Putting particles in clouds to create precipitation gained traction in recent years as waves of drought hit the U.S., tallying $14 billion in damages in 2023 alone.
DRI now runs cloud-seeding operations all over the West, including the program at Winter Park. In 2023, the Winter Park generators burned for the equivalent of five straight days, planting an estimated 24 inches of powder on the slopes that wouldn’t have been there otherwise, according to DRI. That equates to 13% of what would have fallen naturally.
“The main driver [for our clients] is water resources,” says Frank McDonough, a DRI research scientist. But, he notes, “we can help the entire mountain economy.”
Private companies are also playing a growing role, most notably Rainmaker Technology Corp., a startup that is now the lead cloud seeding contractor for Utah, which has built one of the most aggressive programs in the American West. From a warehouse in Salt Lake City, founder Augustus Doricko, a 25-year-old with a resplendent mullet that belies his Connecticut childhood, manages a crew of 120, mostly young people working to make it snow on mountains they might otherwise be climbing or skiing.
When the weather looks right, Rainmaker crews pile into 12 pickups, each loaded with two drones, and convoy up the canyons of the Wasatch Mountains. They send half of the drones whirring into the soup of clouds and spray silver iodide for about an hour. When the machines come down to recharge, the team launches the second wave. The cycle is repeated until the clouds move on or get too warm.
Doricko says his company is creating a fresh supply of water with no ecological impact; silver iodide is inorganic and even if ingested, won’t dissolve in the human body.
This year, the state of Utah will pay Rainmaker $7.5 million, part of a cloud seeding blitz that began three years ago. With the Great Salt Lake at historic low levels, Utah lawmakers approved a tenfold increase in funding, committing at least $5 million a year to operations and another $12 million to upgrade and expand a fleet of almost 200 cloud seeding machines on the ground.
Rainmaker is charged with generating enough snow to help partially refill the lake. The company also has a contract with Snowbird Resort, located to the east of Salt Lake City, and much of its seeding will happen near Powder Mountain and Snowbasin resorts, located further north, although neither ski area is a client.
“Anything we can do to increase water levels is going to be well worth the funding,” says Jonathan Jennings, a meteorologist with the Utah Department of Natural Resources.
The list of stakeholders clamoring for more water in the American West is long, ranging from ski resorts to wildfire fighters, reservoir managers to farmers.
“Every state in the West is either cloud seeding or thinking of cloud seeding,” says Friedrich, the University of Colorado researcher.
It’s also popular, in part, because it’s cheap. Jennings estimates that it costs about $30 to produce 325,000 gallons of water, or what experts call an acre-foot of water. Recycling or desalinating a similar amount would cost somewhere around $1,000. Snowmaking, meanwhile, is more expensive and uses more water than it produces.
When Doricko visits potential customers, be they utilities, ski resorts or state agencies, his sales script is simple: “It’s the only way you can bring new water supply to the Rocky Mountain West.”
More often than not these days, the pitch lands. Idaho has also hired Rainmaker this winter, eager to fill its reservoirs and keep farmers happy. All told, the company has about 100 drones flying across Western skies.
In Colorado, where arid conditions have exacerbated wildfires, officials are curious about the capabilities of Rainmaker’s drones while waiting to see this winter’s snow tallies from Utah. In the meantime, they’re working to replace decades-old, ground-based seeding machines with ones that can be switched on remotely. Without the need of a human to light the burner, the new units can be tucked into more remote places and at higher elevations that are colder for longer, improving the odds for snow.
“We feel comfortable saying we can get an additional eight to 12% of precipitation per storm,” says Andrew Rickert, a weather modification program manager with the Colorado Water Conservation Board. “And if we have a great winter in Colorado, there are 30 to 35 storms we can seed.”
Friedrich isn’t so sure about that estimate, despite being regarded as a bit of a rockstar in the cloud seeding field. In 2017, her research team zig-zagged a plane rigged with seed flares through a cloud in Wyoming that wasn’t producing snow. Sure enough, snow fell in the same pattern as the flight, results that fueled much of the recent seeding boom.
However, Friedrich points out, there wasn’t that much snow. And she notes that much remains unknown, like how wind affects the amount of silver iodide that gets into a cloud, and whether the particles trigger much precipitation beyond what would occur naturally.
“I understand why people are buying it, because they’re so desperate,” she says. “But if you ask me, there’s no scientific proof” that it produces a meaningful amount of water. Friedrich is working on a new study to try to figure out how effective ground-based cloud seeding can be and the best operating conditions.
Cloud seeding has also faced pushback from conspiracy theorists who say it works too well. Despite no evidence, Rainmaker was inaccurately implicated in last summer’s deadly Texas floods, and bills to ban weather modification have been filed in dozens of statehouses across the U.S., including those of Colorado and Utah. Former Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene also introduced a federal cloud-seeding ban in Congress in the wake of last July’s floods.
Doricko, at Rainmaker, has been working to convince lawmakers that cloud seeding does no harm and, on the other front, win over skeptical scientists like Freidrich. Rainmaker spent much of the spring and summer building its own radar system and deploying a layer of on-the-ground weather stations to measure results. It’s also working with independent researchers to provided peer-reviewed validation. As Friedrich did years ago, Rainmaker tries to spray silver-iodide in zig-zag patterns, so its results are more visible on radar — a so-called “seeding signature.”
Doricko acknowledges the challenge of teasing out the exact influence of manmade cloud seeding — which he jokingly refers to as “magic beans” — from natural precipitation. “Our fundamental research on now at Rainmaker is all about what kitchen sink of sensors can we throw at this problem to actually validate” our work, he says.
Vail abandoned its cloud seeding program in 2020, shifting its resources to invest heavily in machines that use water to spray artificial snow. The newest snow guns monitor weather in real time and can be programmed remotely.
“This technology means that Vail can make the most of every moment that conditions allow for snowmaking,” says spokeswoman Michelle Dallal. Still, the resort is feeling the pinch of an abnormally dry winter.
State officials are trying to get Vail back on board. Cloud seeding, they argue, can be cheaper than snowmaking, both in terms of cost and carbon, and it adds water to the ecosystem, rather than taking a share of it away. The state is also trying to get other ski areas to buy in: This year, Colorado positioned a ground system to seed clouds on the slopes of Aspen, in hopes that the resort will help fund future programs.
Meanwhile, Winter Park has emerged as one of the state’s biggest cloud seeding cheerleaders. Laraby says only 10% of the mountain is covered by snowmaking gear, and there are no plans to install more. And yet, when the storms rolled through the state Dec. 28, Winter Park says its cloud-seeding efforts conjured 12 inches of snow, triple what fell on Vail.
“If you ask me, it enhances the efficiency of these storms,” Laraby says. “I think it’s awesome.”
Justus Henkes of Team United States competes in the Aspen Snowmass Men’s Snowboard Slopestyle Qualifiers during the Toyota U.S. Grand Prix 2026 at Aspen Snowmass Ski Resort on Jan. 8, 2026, in Aspen, Colorado. (Michael Reaves/Getty Images North America/TNS)
The Federal Emergency Management Agency will resume staff cuts that were briefly paused during January’s severe winter storm, according to two FEMA managers, stoking concern across the agency over its ability to address disasters with fewer workers.
FEMA at the start of January abruptly stopped renewing employment contracts for a group of staffers known as Cadre of On-Call Response/Recovery, or CORE employees, term-limited hires who can hold senior roles and play an important role in emergency response.
But FEMA then paused the cuts in late January as the nation braced for the gigantic winter storm that was set to impact half the country’s population. FEMA did not say whether that decision was linked to the storm.
The two FEMA team managers, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the staffing changes with the media, were told this week that dismissals were going to resume soon but were not given a specific date. It was not clear how many people would be impacted.
FEMA staff told The Associated Press that the policy indiscriminately terminates employees without taking into account the importance of their role or their years of experience. The hundreds of CORE dismissals have wiped out entire teams, or left groups without managers, they said.
“It’s a big impact to our ability to implement and carry out the programs entrusted to us to carry out,” one FEMA manager told The Associated Press.
The officials said it was unclear who at the Department of Homeland Security or FEMA was driving the decision. Managers used to make the case to extend a contract months in advance, they said, but now leaders were often finding out about terminations at the same time as their employee.
DHS and FEMA did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
There are over 10,000 CORE workers, making up nearly half of FEMA’s workforce. While they are employed on two- and four-year contracts, those terms are “routinely renewed,” one manager said, calling CORE the “primary backbone” for FEMA’s response and recovery work. Many CORE are supervisors and it’s not uncommon for them to have worked at the agency for many years, if not decades.
CORE employees are paid out of FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund and are not subject to as long a hiring process as permanent full-time federal employees. That allows the agency to be more nimble in its hiring and onboard employees more quickly as needs arise. With DHS funded only temporarily because of a battle in Congress over immigration tactics, CORE employees can work and be paid during a government shutdown, so long as the disaster fund still has money.
It also comes as DHS faces increasing criticism over how it manages FEMA, including delays in getting disaster funding to states and workforce reductions.
FEMA lost nearly 10% of its workforce between January and June 2025, according to the Government Accountability Office. Concern has grown in recent months among FEMA staff and disaster experts that larger cuts are coming.
A draft report from the Trump-appointed FEMA Review Council included a recommendation to cut the agency’s workforce in half, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the report with media. The council’s final report, due last November, has not been published.
“Based on past disasters, we know that slashing FEMA’s workforce will put Americans at risk, plain and simple,” Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, said after introducing a resolution Wednesday condemning FEMA staff cuts.
Last week, a coalition of unions and nonprofits led by the American Federation of Government Employees filed a legal complaint against the Trump Administration over the FEMA reductions.
A CORE employee at FEMA headquarters who asked not to be named for fear of losing their job said that even though FEMA was able to support states during Winter Storm Fern, a year of staff losses could already be felt. There were fewer people available for backup, they said, and staff were burned out from ongoing uncertainty.
FILE – People work at the Federal Emergency Management Agency headquarters in Washington, on Saturday, Jan. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)
Energy Star, the program that helps guide consumers to more energy-efficient appliances and electronics, has survived the Trump administration’s plans to cut it.
The program received sufficient support in Congress that it was included in budget legislation signed this week by President Donald Trump.
Environmentalists and advocates called it good news for consumers and the planet, but raised concerns over how the program will be administered under a shrunken Environmental Protection Agency.
But Energy Star is not the only energy efficiency program targeted by Trump.
Here’s what to know about the outlook for that program and others.
What’s Trump got against energy efficiency?
Trump has regularly said efficiency standards for household items and appliances — many strengthened under predecessor Joe Biden’s administration — rob consumers of choice and add unnecessary costs.
His first executive order upon returning to office last year outlined a vision to “unleash American energy.” In it, he emphasized safeguarding “the American people’s freedom to choose” everything from light bulbs to gas stoves to water heaters and shower heads.
At the same time Trump has targeted efficiency, he’s also sought to block renewable energy development such as wind and solar and boosted fossil fuels that contribute to warming, including gas, oil and coal.
What happened with Energy Star?
Energy Star is a voluntary, decades-old EPA-run program that informs consumers about how efficient home appliances and electronics are, including dishwashers, washing machines and more. The idea is to simultaneously reduce emissions and save consumers money on their energy bills.
The Department of Energy develops product testing procedures for Energy Star, while the EPA sets performance levels and ensures the certification label is reliable for consumers. It also applies to new homes, commercial buildings and plants.
EPA says the program has saved 4 billion metric tonnes (4.41 billion tons) of planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions since launching in 1992, and can save households an average of $450 annually.
Last May, EPA drafted plans to eliminate Energy Star as part of a broader agency reorganization that targeted air pollution regulation efforts and other critical environmental functions. The agency said the reorganization would deliver “organizational improvements to the personnel structure” to benefit the American people.
The legislation Trump signed this week allocated $33 million for the program, slightly more than 2024’s $32.1 million, according to the Congressional Research Service, but it continues the general trend of declining funding for the program over the past decade. The Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers, among many industry groups to advocate for keeping the program in letters sent to Congress, said it was “very pleased” to see the funding continue.
Some concerns remain
Experts say uncertainty around the program likely didn’t impact consumers much over the past year. They note that manufacturers can’t change their product lines overnight.
Amanda Smith, a senior scientist at climate research organization Project Drawdown, said the uncertainty may have had a bigger effect on EPA’s ability to administer the program. She was among experts wondering how staffing cuts may affect EPA’s work.
EPA spokesperson Brigit Hirsch didn’t address a question about that, saying in a statement only that EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin “will follow the law as enacted by Congress.”
What other energy efficiency rules are still in limbo?
The Department of Energy has proposed rolling back, weakening or revoking 17 other minimum efficiency standards for energy and water conservation as part of 47 broader deregulatory actions. Those are standards that must be met for the products to be sold legally.
That includes air cleaners, ovens, dehumidifiers, portable air conditioners, washers, dishwashers, faucets and many more items that have been in place and updated over the years.
“These are standards that are quietly saving people money on their utility bills year after year in a way that most consumers never notice,” said Andrew deLaski, executive director of the Appliance Standards Awareness Project. “The striking thing is that consumers have a huge array of choices in appliances in the market today. Repealing these standards would simply increase cost. It just doesn’t make sense.”
Changing efficiency measures also drives up energy demand at a time when utilities are already challenged to meet the growing needs of data centers, electrification and more.
While Congress has supported Energy Star and these separate appliance standards, it also has advanced legislation that would give the president new powers to roll back rules.
Manufacturers are likely to continue making efficient consumer appliances, but weakened rules could negatively impact the U.S. marketplace.
“The problem for U.S. manufacturers is that overseas competitors making inefficient products elsewhere could now flood the U.S. market,” deLaski said, noting that would undercut American manufacturers.
Alexa St. John is an Associated Press climate reporter. Follow her on X: @alexa_stjohn. Reach her at ast.john@ap.org.
The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Lawyers for conservation groups, Native American tribes, and the states of Oregon and Washington returned to court Friday to seek changes to dam operations on the Snake and Columbia Rivers, following the collapse of a landmark agreement with the federal government to help recover critically imperiled salmon runs.
Last year President Donald Trump torpedoed the 2023 deal, in which the Biden administration had promised to spend $1 billion over a decade to help restore salmon while also boosting tribal clean energy projects. The White House called it “radical environmentalism” that could have resulted in the breaching of four controversial dams on the Snake River.
FILE – Water moves through a spillway of the Lower Granite Dam on the Snake River near Almota, Wash., April 11, 2018. (AP Photo/Nicholas K. Geranios, File)
The plaintiffs argue that the way the government operates the dams violates the Endangered Species Act, and over decades of litigation judges have repeatedly ordered changes to help the fish. They’re asking the court to order changes at eight large hydropower dams, including lowering reservoir water levels, which can help fish travel through them faster, and increasing spill, which can help juvenile fish pass over dams instead of through turbines.
In court filings, the federal government called the request a “sweeping scheme to wrest control” of the dams that would compromise the ability to operate them safely and efficiently. Any such court order could also raise rates for utility customers, the government said.
“We’re returning to court because the situation for the salmon and the steelhead in the Columbia River Basin is dire,” said Kristen Boyles, managing attorney with Earthjustice, a nonprofit law firm representing conservation, clean energy and fishing groups in the litigation. “There are populations that are on the brink of extinction, and this is a species which is the center of Northwest tribal life and identity.”
FILE – Water spills over the Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River, which runs along the Washington and Oregon state line, June 21, 2022. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski, File)
The lengthy legal battle was revived after Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement last June. The pact with Washington, Oregon and four Native American tribes had allowed for a pause in the litigation.
The plaintiffs, which include the state of Oregon and a coalition of conservation and fishing groups such as the National Wildlife Federation, filed the motion for a preliminary injunction, with Washington state, the Nez Perce Tribe and Yakama Nation supporting it as “friends of the court.” The U.S. District Court in Portland will hear the oral arguments.
The Columbia River Basin, spanning an area roughly the size of Texas, was once the world’s greatest salmon-producing river system, with at least 16 stocks of salmon and steelhead. Today, four are extinct and seven are endangered or threatened. Another iconic but endangered Northwest species, a population of killer whales, also depend on the salmon.
The construction of the first dams on the Columbia River, including the Grand Coulee and Bonneville in the 1930s, provided jobs during the Great Depression as well as hydropower and navigation. They made the town of Lewiston, Idaho, the most inland seaport on the West Coast, and many farmers continue to rely on barges to ship their crops.
Opponents of the proposed dam changes include the Inland Ports and Navigation Group, which said in a statement last year that increasing spill “can disproportionately hurt navigation, resulting in disruptions in the flow of commerce that has a highly destructive impact on our communities and economy.”
Speaking before the hearing, Jeremy Takala of the Yakama Nation Tribal Council said “extinction is not an option.”
“This is very personal to me. It’s very intimate,” he said, describing how his grandfather took him to go fishing. “Every season of lower survival means closed subsistence fisheries, loss of ceremonies and fewer elders able to pass on fishing traditions to the next generation.”
The dams for which changes are being sought are the Ice Harbor, Lower Monumental, Little Goose and Lower Granite on the Snake River, and the Bonneville, The Dalles, John Day and McNary on the Columbia.
FILE – This photo shows the Ice Harbor dam on the Snake River in Pasco, Wash, Oct. 24, 2006. (AP Photo/Jackie Johnston, File)
A Michigan lawmaker says he will continue calling for higher fees and tougher regulation of landfills in the state.
Michigan state Senator Darrin Camilleri pressed for the legislation last year as environmental officials weighed whether to renew the license of the Wayne Disposal site in Van Buren Township. Ownership also wanted to increase the size of the landfill by 24%.
The landfill became embroiled in controversy after its owners initially planned to accept toxic material left over from the first atomic bomb project.
Michigan’s Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) recently approved the site’s vertical expansion. But Camilleri says that result is not sitting well with those who live near the site.
Listen: Michigan senator wants better toxic waste regulation after state approves controversial landfill expansion
The following interview has been edited for clarity.
Michigan state Sen. Darrin Camilleri:Just like my constituents, I am deeply disappointed and frustrated that EGLE decided to expand this toxic waste facility that sits in the middle of our communities. It’s something we’ve been fighting against for many years now. I’m trying my best to regulate it at the state level. But we have not been able to push these regulatory bills through the entire process. Renewing its license is just another slap in the face to my communities. They have said that they do not want to have these types of facilities in their backyard.
The toxic waste that we are getting from all over the country should not be dumped right here in Michigan. That’s been our number one calling point. Michigan is not your dumping ground and we should be doing more to push back against these types of facilities. So of course, when we heard about the permit getting approved, my residents and I were just devastated.
Quinn Klinefelter, WDET News: Michigan regulators said they had to address issues raised by the public. But they added that those issues could not be the basis for denying the landfill a license. Regulators say the facility doesn’t present any hazard to public health or the environment based on their monitoring of air, groundwater, etc. in and near the site. With all that being the case, do you see any other options for those who would be concerned about this expansion? Or is it just a done deal and live with it now?
DC: We have won in court when it came to the nuclear waste that came out of the Manhattan Project in New York and keeping it out of Michigan. Our local community leadership, including our mayors and supervisors, led the charge against those shipments and won in court. So there are options on the table to halt this type of material from coming into Michigan, but we do need to do more.
That’s why I introduced bills further regulating landfills. We passed them out of the state senate and they’re currently sitting in the state house with no opportunities that we know of, so far, for movement. House Republicans have basically indicated that they are not interested in regulating these facilities. Which is really frustrating, because this is not a Democratic or Republican issue.
When I have town halls on these topics in Van Buren Township or in Wayne County, Republicans as well as Democrats come asking for change. We delivered that promise out of the state senate. And I’m going to keep trying this term and, if not this term, we’re going to try again next term as well.
QK: Some people blame the so-called “tipping” fees that Michigan charges for waste disposal, which are very low compared to other states or countries, for making Michigan a magnet for trash. You have talked about raising those tipping fees. A few months ago, I spoke with Michigan House Speaker Matt Hall about it. He told me that raising the fees would be “a kind of tax on people” for their trash. What’s your reaction to Hall’s argument?
DC: When we look at the reasons why we have so much out-of-state waste coming into Michigan, whether it’s regular trash or toxic trash, it’s because we have had so many low fees for far too long. Michigan has the lowest tipping fees in the nation. And that is a problem for us if you want to rein-in these large corporations that are sending their trash and their waste to Michigan. I believe that it’s time to raise the tipping fees.
And even in the proposal that we passed out of the senate, Michigan would still charge one of the lowest fees of any state in the country. But it would add more revenue back to the environmental cleanup fund and also, critically, put some of that money generated from out-of-state companies trying to send trash here and return the funding back to local communities in Michigan.
So this actually is something that would benefit our local community leadership. And it’s something that I think would be a long-term deterrent to some of these out-of-state companies continuing to use Michigan as a dumping ground.
QK: When someone like Speaker Hall argues that higher tipping fees equal another tax on people for their trash, what’s your response to that?
DC: That’s just not accurate. The fees that we’re talking about are put onto large companies. We need to hold large companies accountable for dumping their trash and their toxic waste in our communities. And then the fees that are generated from that sector go directly back into our communities to help our local governments, as well as EGLE, clean up other toxic and hazardous waste sites all over the state of Michigan. So, it’s a win-win. And there really is no reason for us to not engage in this debate. We can have a back and forth on the number and the price of the potential tipping fee. But to simply say no without a conversation is not serious policymaking.
QK: I’ve gotten different narratives from different state regulators about just how much room Michigan actually has for more landfills. Some say the state won’t have any more space for them after the next decade or two. Others say the state will always be able to build new landfills if it’s necessary. Do you have any view about that situation?
DC: One of the things that we would require in our legislation is a statewide hazardous waste management plan. We’ve not had one done since the 1980’s. And as part of that plan, I would require state regulators to map out and examine this exact question. How much waste can we take in? How much room is there for additional types of facilities? Or have we already met our cap, which is what I hope is the case. And how do we ensure that we can prioritize Michigan waste first before accepting all this out-of-state and out-of-country material? Our regulators have not really done enough to plan-out the future. This is one thing that our legislation would address.
It’s critical that we continue this conversation. Because communities like mine in Downriver and western Wayne County do have a significant amount of hazardous waste and regular landfills across our region. And we want to make sure that we are protecting our environment, taking care of our communities and investing back into them so they are the types of places where people want to move to.
Having one of these facilities in a densely populated area is just not the right move. My goal is to ensure that if they are going to exist, that they are regulated to a higher standard and that it does cost more money to send waste to Michigan. Because right now, we are way too cheap and it’s way too attractive for these out-of-state companies to dump their waste here. We’re saying enough is enough.
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