Annie Ropeik

New Hampshire’s drought is not expected to improve any time soon, and officials say it’s continuing to create prime conditions for possible wildfires.

Seventy-two percent of New Hampshire is now in a severe drought, with moderate drought in the southwestern and far northern part of the state. The drought also stretches across New England, with extreme conditions in far northern Maine and on New England’s south coast.

A commuter van that transported workers in Maine to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery may be the source of a new COVID-19 outbreak, the Maine Centers for Disease Control announced Thursday.

Officials say they’re investigating 18 cases total at the facility, with 13 among Maine residents and the rest from New Hampshire and Massachusetts.

Update, Wednesday, Sept. 16: The risk of wildfires was “very high” Wednesday in New Hampshire and Maine. Officials say they've had reports of several small, deep-burning fires in the southern and central part of New Hampshire.

Smoke from Western wildfires is also still wafting over New England. Forecasters say it will make for a colorful sunset but isn't yet affecting air quality. 

The state has denied a request from the Saint-Gobain plastics factory in Merrimack for extra time to make upgrades that will control PFAS chemical emissions.

The facility’s air emissions of PFAS were found to have settled into hundreds of local water wells at unsafe levels in 2016.

A panel of federal judges has ordered a stricter monitoring plan for Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant’s issues with cracks in its concrete. 

The ruling comes from the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, under the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

It was issued in late August and made public Friday, about a year after a days-long hearing on the issue in Newburyport, Mass.

All of New Hampshire is now in a drought, with severe conditions persisting from the Seacoast to Grafton County.

Moderate drought conditions have expanded into the few areas of the North Country thathad been unaffected, according to a weekly update from the national drought monitor.

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New Hampshire’s federal lawmakers want a bigger cut of a new national grant program to address sewage discharges in local rivers.

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Casella has filed its first formal application to build a new landfill in the North Country – a major step forward for a controversial project that’s been in the works for more than a year.

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Today, Labor Day, caps off one of New Hampshire's warmest summers on record -- a consequence of climate change.

National Weather Service data for June, July and August says this summer was the warmest on record in Manchester, with an average temperature of 74.4 degrees.

Thirty-two days were over 90 degrees in the Queen City - compared to fewer than 10 normally in the years since 1980.

Labor Day highs in Manchester have also ticked up in that time, according to weather records.

The Board of Selectmen in Deerfield is calling for a local state representative to resign after comments about the Black Lives Matter movement that prompted a state civil rights investigation.

In a recent Facebook post that’s since been deleted, Deerfield Republican James Spillane calls for homes displaying Black Lives Matter signs to be looted and burned.

Former New Hampshire Gov. Steve Merrill has died.

Merrill, a Republican, served two terms as governor, from 1993 to 1997. He had previously served as New Hampshire Attorney General.

He was 74.

Portsmouth marks the 115th anniversary Saturday of its hosting of peace talks that ended the Russo-Japanese War.

The 1905 armistice earned President Theodore Roosevelt a Nobel Peace Prize for ending the conflict between the Russian and Japanese Empires.  

The delegations involved in the peace talks stayed at the Hotel Wentworth in New Castle, and met for about a month at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard before reaching an agreement. 

New Hampshire’s ongoing drought has worsened again, with severe dryness now spreading into Grafton County and escalating impacts to surface water and agriculture.

At a meeting Thursday, officials said nearly the entire state remains in a drought, with the worst of it stretching from the Seacoast into the lower White Mountains.

New Hampshire's electric and natural gas utilities are proposing an increase to their energy efficiency savings goals for the next three years, in a plan that aims to cut costs and carbon emissions but could slightly increase customers’ bills in the short-term.

The proposal centers on the utility-run NHSaves rebate program, which gives ratepayers incentives to use less energy by upgrading things like appliances, insulation or machinery.

The state has found mosquitoes with West Nile Virus for the first time this season.

The Department of Health and Human Services says the positive test came from a batch of mosquitoes in Manchester.

The last time a New Hampshire resident caught West Nile from a mosquito was in 2017. But the state has found the virus in mosquitoes every year for the past decade. It’s more prevalent during drought years, like this one.

The state is out with a first-of-its-kind report on the health of New Hampshire’s lakes, showing the effects of climate change, population growth and a decline in acid rain.

The report takes a comprehensive look at water quality trends from the past few decades or longer in 150 of the state’s lakes and ponds monitored by volunteers and state biologists.

The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing new health restrictions around a Superfund site in the town of Merrimack.

The New Hampshire Plating Company site near the Merrimack River housed an electroplating factory until the 1980s. It left toxic chemicals like lead and arsenic in the soil and groundwater. 

The EPA’s original cleanup plan mostly involved treating contaminated soil and monitoring the groundwater as the chemicals faded away on their own. 

The state is out with a draft 10-year plan for managing its forests, with a new focus on recreation and climate change impacts. 

The Division of Forests and Lands updates this plan every decade. The new 2020 draft plan is out for public comment until Oct. 15.

Researchers at Dartmouth College have published a new analysis on how current and future uses of plant-based energy could be a key solution to climate change.

The study looks at bioenergy and biofuels, which can come from all kinds of plants, including grass, trees, corn or algae.

Drought conditions are spreading and getting worse in New Hampshire, after months of below-average rainfall.

Twenty-three percent of the state is now in a severe drought – where crops, wildlife, forests and groundwater will likely be impacted. The worst conditions are in the southeastern and south central part of the state.

Nearly all of the rest of New Hampshire is in moderate drought, except for a few isolated parts of the North Country.

State agencies say there’s room for improvement in a construction permit process designed to protect endangered species – but they’re still debating who’s responsible for enforcing and revising the recently loosened rules.

The New Hampshire Supreme Court has agreed to hear a community group’s appeal in a dispute over an environmental protection ordinance in Nottingham, temporarily halting a lower court lawsuit against the rule.

The case comes from a citizen group, the Nottingham Water Association, which wants to intervene in an ongoing Superior Court challenge to their town’s “freedom from chemical trespass” ordinance.

State health officials said this week that they're prepared for a likely increase in demand for coronavirus contact tracing as schools and colleges reopen this fall. This process involves finding out exactly who an infected person might have exposed to a communicable disease. 

Gov. Chris Sununu has described New Hampshire's contact tracing program as one of the best in the country. But the state hasn't shared many details on the program until now. 

The state is asking for the public’s help in counting wild turkey broods for a couple more weeks.

The annual count by the New Hampshire Fish & Game Department lasts through the end of August.

Residents can participate by filling out a survey with details of any groups of turkeys they see. These groups typically include at least one turkey hen and several juvenile turkeys, sometimes of different sizes.

Conservation groups in the Squam Lakes region want residents to turn off their lights and watch the stars for an hour Saturday night.

The event marks the 60th anniversary of the Squam Lake Conservation Society.

People in the Squam Lakes--or anywhere--are invited to turn off all artificial lights starting at 9 p.m. It should reduce light pollution and let features like the Milky Way and more stars become visible.

The city of Manchester is adding 14 propane-fueled school buses to its fleet in an effort to improve local air quality.

The city has 81 school buses in total. The new propane-powered ones will replace the oldest buses, all of which are between 14 and 18 years old. Officials say tests show the propane buses can cut emissions from diesel buses by 96%.

The state says multiple college students have tested positive for coronavirus at home before returning to campuses in New Hampshire.

State health commissioner Lori Shibinette says it's a success for the state's pre-arrival testing requirements for returning students. She did not disclose how many students have tested positive before returning. She says some are in other states, and some are in New Hampshire.