April rains bring relief to droughts, water board says.
A campaign finance report covering the time period between Feb. 1, 2017 and April 6, 2017 shows the group reported collecting $24,216.84.
At the Thursday night meeting, the board tabled action regarding whether to renew or let expire the contract for Executive Director Susan Thomas, who entered into the role in 2008.
The email conversation started between Hefton and the council members on Dec. 6, which was two days before the city announced Henry’s retirement from the Sherman Police Department.
“I had a discussion today with Otis about the Police Chief position,” Hefton wrote that Tuesday evening… Read more Despite the overcast, cool spring day, scores of people turned out to attend the workshops, children’s activities and entertainment all centered on bettering the environment during the ninth Sherman Earth Day Festival.
“And that they learn things — learn about services, learn about products, practices and see that a lot of these things are available in our community… Read more The Texoma Council of Governments will pay Stacee Sloan Caskey $555,000 after a settlement agreement was recently reached.
The settlement agreement and mutual release of all claims with Sloan Caskey were subject to approval by the TCOG Governing Board, which did approve it following an executive session at the Thursday evening meeting.
Election Day is May 6 and voting will be held from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Each city in the county has its own polling locations and ballots.
Sherman For Sherman, early voting for the Sherman Independent School District election will be held at the regular times, but an extra day has been added.
Voting will also be held from 8 a… Read more Read more

Here is the National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center’s/CPC temperature outlook for May through July: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/long_range/lead01/off01_temp.gif CPC is estimating a 40 percent probability of temperatures running above average during that time period.
Wet soil holds temperatures down.
Dry soil allows the air above to heat more readily during the day.
It’s unlikely our soil will stay so wet later in spring and into summer, but there remains a good deal of uncertainty about precipitation trends.
That means there is no clear tendency for precipitation, with CPC’s estimate of a decent chance for drier-than-average conditions to our west in the northern and western Great Lakes.
Should wetter than average conditions become more persistent in the eastern Great Lakes, soil moisture would stay higher than average and hold temperatures down to some extent.
The CPC seasonal drought outlook reflects little abnormal dryness anywhere near us: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/expert_assessment/season_drought.png The abnormal dryness over the southeast United States will allow the air to heat to above-average temperatures more often, and that is why the confidence for hotter-than-average conditions is higher over that part of the country and parts of the middle Atlantic and Northeast.
Threading the needle, CPC believes abnormal warmth is more likely just east of Western New York.
However, even with this wet April we’ve been having, our monthly temperatures so far are still running above average.
If that verifies, it would tend to produce more warm and humid days than average.

LOIS HENRY: Pollution plumes stopped by drought but how much longer for cleanup?.
The good news is that more than 40 million pounds of petroleum hydrocarbons have been sucked — literally — out of the ground around the former Shell Oil (now Alon) refinery on Rosedale Highway.
In fact, the plume is shrinking.
The bad news is there’s really no telling how much work remains before the site is “clean,” according to Doug Patteson, a supervising water resource control engineer for the Central Valley Regional Water Resources Control Board.
But, at least Shell isn’t dragging its feet any longer as The Californian discovered back in 2007.
Back then, we learned the Regional Water Quality Control Board had been playing letter tag with Shell for the better part of 10 years while remediation efforts stalled.
It was a 300-acre plume of highly volatile gasoline, diesel and some crude oil that had leaked onto the ground for so long it had reached depths of 200 feet in some places.
Even so, the state didn’t issue a formal enforcement order until the plume began migrating off refinery property in the late 1990s.
Shell promised to clean up the plume plus pay a fine of $250,000 and, for good measure, restore habitat on the Panorama Vista Preserve.
CARB bureaucrats didn’t bother to go beyond the octane information about MTBE or they would have also learned it is highly volatile, water soluble and long-lasting, making it a hugely expensive and rascally contaminant to try to control.

The 1.5 inches of rain at Kahului Airport on Thursday broke the old record of 0.65 inch set for that day in 2009, the National Weather Service said.
The highest rainfall recorded on Maui in the 24-hour period ending at 4 p.m. Friday was in East Wailuaiki in East Maui, 3.83 inches.
Puu Kukui in the West Maui Mountains logged 2.47 inches; Mahinahina in West Maui, 2.17 inches; and Wailuku, 2.12 inches.
It also rained Upcountry, which is under a stage-one water shortage declaration due to low rainfall in the watershed.
Dave Taylor, director of the county Department of Water Supply, said Friday afternoon that the rainfall was great but one event is not enough to lift the drought declaration, which is “more of a long-term thing” or a seasonal outlook.
“What is more important is whether the flow of water continues,” Taylor said.
Department officials are monitoring the flow of the Wailoa Ditch, which brings in water from the East Maui watershed; rainfall; and weather forecasts.
What the rainfall did do was to avert stage-two or stage-three drought declarations, which would have led to increased water rates, Taylor said.
Department officials were looking at the prospect of bumping up to those levels within a week before the rain came.
The weather service said that a high pressure strengthening north of the islands will bring moderate trades through the weekend and next week.

Photo by Kevin Hudson, Mississippi State University Extension Service Last year’s drought will likely affect this year’s hay acreage in Mississippi.
Rocky Lemus, forage specialist with the Mississippi State University Extension Service, said he anticipates about 690,000 hay acres.
Mississippi livestock producers heavily depend on perennial warm-season grasses — mostly bahiagrass and bermudagrass — for their grazing systems.
The state had just over 900,000 acres of bahiagrass and 770,000 acres of bermudagrass last year.
Despite last year’s dry conditions, rainfall totals have been closer to average this spring, causing bermudagrass and bahiagrass to break dormancy at least two weeks before they normally do across the state.
“Controlling those weeds, along with taking a soil sample to determine nutrient management recommendations that will aid pasture recovery after the drought, is very important.” Pasture management and productivity are equally important, Lemus added.
“Now is a good time to walk your pastures and hay fields, determine stand losses, and develop a management plan that could help with pasture renovation or pasture restoration,” he said.
“Growers who have planted annual ryegrass into a bermudagrass or bahiagrass sod for winter grazing should put a heavy grazing pressure this time of year to open that canopy and allow the release of the summer grasses.” Brett Rushing, Extension and research professor at the MSU Coastal Plain Branch Experiment Station in Newton, said renovating pastures is an expensive process that causes growers to temporarily lose grazing areas during establishment.
“Unfortunately, seed costs for a lot of warm-season grasses this year are very high.
“Pastures can then be converted into a cool-season annual in the fall once they have been grazed out.” Long-range forecasts indicate more of the same conditions for growers this summer.

Most Californians are – finally – out of the drought, but the record-setting rains have not washed away emergency conditions for all residents.
Jerry Brown’s April 7 executive order lifted the drought state of emergency for 54 of California’s 58 counties.
“This drought emergency is over, but the next drought could be around the corner.” — Jerry Brown By keeping those areas under drought rules, authorities can bypass lengthy contract requirements and quickly provide assistance for areas facing drinking water shortages, said Max Gomberg, the climate and conservation manager for the State Water Resources Control Board, which enforces water regulations.
“We still got communities that are water short, but the (drought state of emergency) allows us to complete projects that are already under way,” Gomberg said.
Gomberg said Central Valley agricultural wells were dug so deep during the drought that shallower domestic wells in nearby rural communities went dry.
Though Kings, Tulare and Fresno counties also contain some of California’s largest agricultural areas, Gomberg said the executive order will have virtually no impact on the areas’ farmers.
Those served by the federal Central Valley Project received welcome news when The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation a full, 100 percent water allocation for 2017.
Gayle Holman, a spokeswoman for Westlands Water District, said the increase will slow growers from pumping the Central Valley’s groundwater supply.
She noted that “Making Conservation a California Way of Life,” another Brown-signed executive order that aims to build long-term drought resistance throughout California, should also protect rural areas from future dry conditions.
Part of the order directs the state Department of Water Resources must work with counties to develop better drought planning for small rural areas, a requirement previously held only for larger water suppliers that had over 3,000 connections.

Over 20 inches of rain fell that season.
But the next five seasons, 2011-2016, had a collective total of 38 inches of rain, averaging only half of the normal annual precipitation each year.
The 20 inches we may receive before the current season ends on Sept. 30, however, can’t bring back those lost birches.
Then came March and April.
March, traditionally, is not as wet as the other winter months.
Instead, March 2017 was drier than even the Marches of the preceding five drought years.
The total Los Angeles rainfall for March 2017 was less than one-tenth of an inch.
In March of the wet year of 2011, 2.42 inches fell in one day!
April isn’t far behind, with only one day of measurable rain, totaling less than one-tenth of an inch.
Despite the lack of rain in late winter and spring in SoCal, the governor made his declaration based on what was a truly outstanding year for precipitation, both rain and snow, in Northern California and the Sierra Nevada.

Getting to this point was an ugly, expensive slog.
But in the face of a statewide drought, the Tampa Bay region stands well-positioned to cope with the dry conditions without harming the environment.
That’s thanks to the existence of a regional water authority, a 15-billion-gallon reservoir and a massive desalination plant that reduces the need to pump extra groundwater when the rains aren’t falling.
Thirty years ago, Tampa Bay was at war with itself over water, with counties battling over who was drawing too much from the aquifer and damaging lakes and rivers.
That eventually led to the creation of Tampa Bay Water, a regional utility uniting the interests of Pinellas, Hillsborough and Pasco counties.
The agency led the charge to construct a desal plant and reservoir for droughts just like the current one.
Both projects became mired in multimillion-dollar cost overruns, breakdowns and mismanagement.
But it has ultimately reflected the wisdom of regional co-operation.
There’s a lesson here for transit and other issues.
By cooperating rather than competing to serve the entire region’s water needs, Tampa Bay has figured out how to quench its proverbial thirst.

Despite a rainy Friday, parts of New Hampshire are still in a drought, and officials said several more months of at least average precipitation are needed.
Officials said the rain is welcome, but it’s not enough to make a dent in the drought for southern New Hampshire.
"So while the last few months have been very good, we need to continue that trend to get out of the moderate drought for the southern half of the state that we’re still in," said Brandon Kernen of the Department of Environmental Services.
It shows that the northern half of the state is no longer in a drought, while southern New Hampshire is still hurting when it comes to water.
There are some encouraging signs.
Dhima said that the rain helps, but it’s not enough.
Starting May 1, there will be a partial ban on outdoor watering.
Hudson is not alone.
Plaistow also has restrictions, and it might be some time before things get back to normal.
Kernen said it will take a couple of months for the rain that’s falling Friday to penetrate to the bedrock and sand-gravel aquifers.

(Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) **BOTTOM IMAGE** OROVILLE, CA – APRIL 11, 2017: The Enterprise Bridge passes over a section of Lake Oroville on April aa, 2017 in Oroville, California.
Much of California’s landscape has turned from brown to green as California Gov.
Much of California’s landscape has turned from brown to green as California Gov.
Much of California’s landscape has turned from brown to green as California Gov.
(Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) **BOTTOM IMAGE** SAN FRANCISCO, CA – APRIL 10, 2017: Much of California’s landscape has turned from brown to green as California Gov.
(Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) **BOTTOM IMAGE** OROVILLE, CA – APRIL 11, 2017: A view of Bidwell Marina at Lake Oroville on April 11, 2017 in Oroville, California.
(Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) **BOTTOM IMAGE** OROVILLE, CA – APRIL 11, 2017: A view of Bidwell Marina at Lake Oroville on April 11, 2017 in Oroville, California.
(Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) **BOTTOM IMAGE** OROVILLE, CA – APRIL 11, 2017: A view of Bidwell Marina at Lake Oroville on April 11, 2017 in Oroville, California.
(Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) **BOTTOM IMAGE** OROVILLE, CA – APRIL 11, 2017: A view of Bidwell Marina at Lake Oroville on April 11, 2017 in Oroville, California.
(Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) **BOTTOM IMAGE** OROVILLE, CA – APRIL 11, 2017: The Enterprise Bridge passes over a section of Lake Oroville on April 11, 2017 in Oroville, California.