WASHINGTON — Two and a half years after the 2020 census stopped counting heads, the Census Bureau has yet to say how many children under age 5 live in Albuquerque, or how many women are in Sioux City. And it will remain that way for another year.
The bureau said this week that it would not be able to publish those statistics and many others until May 2023, and that much of the more granular data, combining answers to several questions, must wait until at least August 2023. The cause, it said, is a series of delays that began with the emergence of Covid-19 and continues with tortuous efforts to keep information on individual respondents private, as federal law requires.
It is the longest delay of census data in memory — as much as two years past a normal release date — and it is causing consternation among some who rely on those numbers to plan for the future.
"The central and Western United States will face elevated reliability risks this summer, as extreme temperatures, drought conditions and higher peak demands challenge grid operators, according to analysis published Wednesday by the North American Electric Reliability Corp.
Among those regions, the Midcontinent Independent System Operator is at highest risk and could face a resource shortfall during normal operating conditions, NERC officials said. Peak demand in the region is expected to be 1.7% higher this year than last, while resource commitments declined in the operator’s most recent planning auction.
Grid operators may also struggle with cybersecurity threats, supply chain issues and the potential for disruptive wildfires, according to NERC officials. But the biggest long-term risk may be the unexpected tripping of solar resources during grid disturbances, for which NERC is currently developing new rules, they said."
The decennial count of America’s population drastically undercounted the number of people who live in six states, the U.S. Census Bureau said Thursday, putting at risk billions of dollars in potential federal funding over the next decade.
Most of the states that suffered severe undercounts are in the South: A follow-up survey the bureau conducted after the 2020 count showed Arkansas’s population was undercounted by just over 5 percent, the populations of Mississippi and Tennessee were undercounted by more than 4 percent and Florida’s population came in almost 3.5 percent short.
The census undercounted populations in Texas and Illinois by 1.9 percent, the Bureau said in a press briefing Thursday.
The populations in eight states — Delaware, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island and Utah — were overestimated in the decennial count, the Bureau said.
Hawaii’s population was the most overcounted, by nearly 6.8 percent.
Maine is home to the largest moose population in the lower 48 states. But in one of the moosiest corners of the state, nearly 90% of the calves tracked by biologists last winter didn’t survive their first year.
And the culprit? A tiny critter that is thriving in parts of Maine as the climate warms.
This story is part of our series "Climate Driven: A deep dive into Maine's response, one county at a time." Deep Dive Climate Driven
“You look at one data sheet after another of what we found in the woods on these moose and it’s the same profile every time: it is winter tick,” said Lee Kantar, the lead moose biologist with the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.
Winter ticks, which are sometimes called moose ticks, have been pestering Maine moose for about a century and likely longer. But their numbers have exploded in parts of Maine, New Hampshire, Minnesota and southern Canada. It’s not uncommon for biologists or hunters to find moose infested with 40,000, 75,000 or even 90,000 ticks. Some infested moose rub themselves virtually bald trying to scrape off the irritating ticks, creating the phenomenon known as “ghost moose.”
