diff --git a/CMakeLists.txt b/CMakeLists.txt
index 32b74ee15c..5fd0f711e4 100644
--- a/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -337,7 +337,9 @@ IF(NOT CYCLUS_DOC_ONLY)
 
         # make sure we know about having python
         add_definitions(-DCYCLUS_WITH_PYTHON)
-        set(LIBS ${LIBS} ${PYTHON_LIBRARIES})
+        IF (NOT APPLE)
+            set(LIBS ${LIBS} ${PYTHON_LIBRARIES})
+        ENDIF (NOT APPLE)
         INCLUDE_DIRECTORIES("${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/cyclus")
     else(Cython_FOUND)
         # If we don't have Python bindings, we may try to find tcmalloc.
diff --git a/cli/CMakeLists.txt b/cli/CMakeLists.txt
index 4c49ebe0fb..41f98a6e3c 100644
--- a/cli/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/cli/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -8,6 +8,9 @@ INCLUDE_DIRECTORIES(BEFORE ${CYCLUS_CORE_INCLUDE_DIRS})
 SET(CYCLUS_SOURCE ${CYCLUS_SOURCE}
     cyclus.cc
     )
+IF (APPLE)
+    SET(LIBS ${PYTHON_LIBRARIES} ${LIBS})
+ENDIF(APPLE)
 
 ADD_EXECUTABLE(cyclus_cli ${CYCLUS_SOURCE})
 set_target_properties(cyclus_cli PROPERTIES OUTPUT_NAME cyclus)
diff --git a/cyclus/system.py b/cyclus/system.py
index 53c3486039..a4b4ace30a 100644
--- a/cyclus/system.py
+++ b/cyclus/system.py
@@ -31,6 +31,10 @@
     try:
         import concurrent_futures
     except ImportError:
-        concurrent_futures = None
+        try:
+            from concurrent import futures as concurrent_futures
+        except ImportError:
+            concurrent_futures = None
+         
 
 
diff --git a/news/python_lib.rst b/news/python_lib.rst
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..3037c9e163
--- /dev/null
+++ b/news/python_lib.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+**Added:** None
+
+**Changed:** 
+- for MACOS only link against PYTHON lib in the binary building process. It
+  should not be required when building the Python package as python knows about
+  it self. For some reason, this is only true (and working) on MACOS, and was an issue when
+  using Conda to install Python and other CYclus deps.
+
+**Deprecated:** None
+
+**Removed:** None
+
+**Fixed:** None
+
+**Security:** None