Rural school threatened with closure suspends sports so it can focus on academics, improve scores

The Premont Independent School District, in a rural town of 2,700 in South Texas, is among many rural schools struggling with outdated buildings, budget deficits, dwindling student populations and staffing shortages. Now Premont is facing closure by the Texas Education Agency for failing to "meet the state's criteria" and "certain adequate yearly progress requirements since 2007 under the federal No Child Left Behind program," Christopher Sherman of The Associated Press reports. But in an attempt to save the school and the community, Superintendent Ernest Singleton is taking drastic measures by cutting athletics to focus on academics. (Photo by Michael Zamora, Corpus Christi Caller-Times)

All sports at the school have postponed until at least the next basketball season as Singleton shifts the focus to extra tutoring and test preparation. Singleton told Sherman it was a tough decision in a community that values high school sports so much, but "because we're so far behind with student performance I wanted an environment that was academic only."

Singleton estimates the decision to end sports programs will also save the school about $50,000 in the spring and $100,000 in the fall. The money can be used to update facilities, attract qualified teachers and pay off its $400,000 line of credit, Sherman reports.

The community would lose its largest employer, with 90 jobs, if the school is forced to close. Frank Davila, a Jim Wells County constable and school security officer told Sherman, if "the school shuts down in this town, the town dies. This is all we have." The nearest school district is 35 miles away. (Wikipedia map locates Premont)

Not everyone agrees with the decision to stop athletics. Patricia Bunch, 36, mother of three in Premont schools, "disagrees with the decision because sports helps students stay healthy and keep out of trouble," Sherman reports. Premont student Cedric de la Garza, 15, told Sherman, "Staying eligible for sports is what motivates many students to pass their classes." (Read more)

World's longest fire-truck parade staged in Okla.

Here's a story for anyone who loves a parade: Firefighters who assembled for Oklahoma State University training sessions put together the world's longest fire-truck parade, 220 of them, on Friday, Jan. 21, beating a 159-truck parade in Switzerland that is in the Guinness Book of World Records.

“Seeing fire trucks lined up for three and a half miles made all the hard work worth the effort,” said Donnie Allen, fire chief of Atoka, where the events were held. “The streets of Atoka were full of supporters, and when truck 160 (the one that broke the record) crossed the end of the parade line the roar was equal to that of the winning touchdown at a Super Bowl.” For the rest of the OSU press release, via the Bixby Bulletin, click here.

USDA's new school lunch rules are not as broad as first written, but will make meals healthier

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has released new, finalized requirements that will make school lunch a healthier meal for students.

The guidelines will mean:

• Students will be given both fruit and vegetables every school day.

• More foods will be made with whole grains.

• Students will be offered only fat-free or low-fat milk.

• Calories will be limited by portion size, based on the age of children being served.

• There will be less saturated fat and trans-fats in the food served.

• The amount of sodium will decrease gradually over the next 10 years.

Though the changes represent the first school-lunch overhaul in 15 years, they are not as comprehensive as the Obama administration initially wanted them to be. A bill passed late last year "would require the department to allow tomato paste on pizzas to be counted as a vegetable, as it is now," reports Mary Clare Jalonick of The Associated Press. "The initial draft of the department's guidelines, released a year ago, would have prevented that." Congress also kept USDA from limiting potatoes to two servings a week. Potato farmers and frozen-pizza companies lobbied hard against those proposals, some conservatives said the government shouldn't be telling children what to eat, and some school districts said the changes were too broad and too expensive.

Some of the changes will be incorporated by September, and others will be phased in. The changes affect lunches that are subsidized by the federal government in the National School Lunch Program, which serves 32 million children. (Read more)

The changes are aimed in part at curbing childhood obesity. That has also been the target of measure to limit junk food in schools, which have been called into question. A recent study of almost 20,000 students found no link between junk food at school and weight gain in children. "The researchers examined the children's weight and found that in the eighth grade, 35.5 percent of kids in schools with junk food were overweight while 34.8 percent of those in schools without it were overweight — a statistically insignificant increase," reports Benjamin Radford of Discovery News. (Read more)

USDA issues new plant hardiness zone map, corroborating evidence of climate change

Five years ago, the Arbor Day Foundation changed its plant-hardiness zones because of warmer winters. Now the U.S. Department of Agriculture has followed suit, but "made clear that it doesn't ascribe the trend to climate change," reports Bart Ziegler of The Wall Street Journal. "The 30 years of weather data used to create the map weren't sufficient to smooth out weather cycles and determine if there is any underlying climate change," according to USDA spokesman Kim Kaplan.

Also, Ziegler writes, "The agency said the methodology used to build the new map was more sophisticated than that for the 1990 version, so the maps aren't directly comparable. The new map relies on data from 8,000 weather stations and also takes into account topography, prevailing wind, elevation, proximity to large water bodies and other factors not used to create the 1990 map." The map is based on the average low temperature.

However, Cornell University professor David Wolfe, who studies climate change, said "doesn't prove climate change" by itself, but corroborates other evidence, "including shifts in animal migration patterns, changes in snow cover and other temperature readings," Ziegler writes. For the USDA press release, with a link to an interactive map that shows climate zones at the county level, click here.

Only 14% of Iowa farmers lack Internet access, but one-fifth of those who do choose not to use it

Seventy percent of the 1,276 Iowa farmers participating in the 2011 Iowa Farm and Rural Life Poll said they use the Internet to get farm-related information. Weather was the most popular type of information, with 84 percent of farmers saying they check it online. Market information was second at 78 percent, while general agricultural news drew 75 percent and information about crop production 68 percent, J. Gordon Arbuckle, Iowa State University extension sociologist and co-director of the study, told Iowa Farmer Today.

Of those with Internet service, 60 percent said they have high-speed access, with 27 percent of those using digital subscriber lines, 14 percent on satellite, 13 percent with  a wireless/cell phone service, 12 percent using cable television and 12 percent a standard phone line. Only 14 percent of those surveyed reported no access to high-speed Internet and 21 percent of those who had it available said they chose not to use it, Arbuckle told Iowa Farmer Today.

The average age of the farmers surveyed was 65, and 51 percent earned more than half their income farming. (Read more)

W.Va. post office, closed three years ago, reopens as contract unit after community fights

The U.S. Postal Service says many rural post offices are in danger of closing because of its budget woes, but communities fighting to keep their offices open might want to pay attention to Hacker Valley, W.Va., where residents rallied to reopen their post office after it closed in 2009. They celebrated winning that fight this week in a ceremony complete with a "ribbon-cutting" of USPS packing tape, reports Rick Steelhammer of The Charleston Gazette. (Gazette photo: First customer at reopened office, Retha Casto, hands letter to its contractor, Cindy Miller)

The Hacker Valley Post Office closed under an emergency suspension order after its lease expired. The Postal Service told community members at a hearing that a survey revealed no suitable replacement sites, and one couldn't be built because of a USPS building freeze. Residents first heard of the closure at the hearing, but later learned the agency knew of closure plans several years before, which should have "given the agency adequate time to find an alternative site," they said.

Dozens of residents wrote letters to the Postal Regulatory Commission about "hardships" the community faced because of the closure, and asked it be investigated. The Commission concluded "the Postal Service is using its suspension authority to avoid the explicit congressional instructions to hear and consider the concerns of patrons before closing post offices." The Hacker Valley closing led to investigation of more than 400 closures of small post offices to make sure USPS hadn't illegally closed them.

The Postal Service announced last year it would allow a contract postal unit in Hacker Valley, 20 miles north of the county seat of Webster Springs. (MapQuest image) Contract units have no salaried postmaster, but offer all postal services except bulk mailing and passport applications. The CPU costs less than half to operate as the old post office. "I would hate to see any postmasters lose their jobs, but it seems like this approach is worth looking at in rural areas with bottom-line problems," said Renee Anderson, a member of the Hacker Valley Post Office Committee. The Webster County school board allowed the CPU to operate in the former Hacker Valley Elementary School cafeteria. (Read more)

Studies about health impacts of surface mining won't be allowed in challenge to new permit

U.S. District Judge Robert Chambers of West Virginia won't allow citizen and environmental groups to argue the Army Corps of Engineers "wrongly failed to consider" scientific evidence linking health problems, including cancer and birth defects, to mountaintop-removal coal mining, reports The Charleston Gazette's Ken Ward Jr. The groups wanted to present testimony about studies conducted by Michael Hendryx of West Virginia University in permit hearings for Alpha Natural Resources' proposed Reylas mine in Logan County.

Ward says Chambers cited the Federal Rules of Procedure and a U.S. Supreme Court decision that "says lawsuits like this one should generally be allowed to be amended or supplemented unless the proposed amendment would be 'futile'." He made two points in his decision: the Corps had already issued the permit, so any review of it was "over and done with," even though mining hasn't started; and, if the groups had been allowed to put the studies in the permit review, they still couldn't prove the Corps' failure to consider them "was arbitrary and capricious." He also said even if he'd let the studies be considered, the Corps didn't have enough time to review them.

Though some Hendryx studies were published after the Corps' permit review, several others raising the same questions were published before the permit was issued in March 2011, Ward writes. More than a dozen studies by Hendryx and others came out in 2008-10. "It sure would have been interesting to see Corps officials, who concluded 'no human health effects are anticipated as a result of the proposed project,' regularly monitor major public health journals or make it a point to consult with scientists who do follow such things," Ward writes on his Coal Tattoo blog. He also points out the decision was made on the heels of a state Department of Environmental Protection study concluding that drinking water is safe in the community nearest the proposed mine, and a report (see next item) from the Kentucky Environmental Foundation proclaiming "people in Kentucky are sick from coal production." (Read more)

Ky. environmental group wants state's leaders to consider health impacts of coal mining

Representatives of the Kentucky Environmental Federation say the state's leaders should consider the health impacts associated with coal when they "craft the state's energy policy," John Cheves of the Lexington Herald-Leader reports. The organization released a 44-page health-impact assessment on coal yesterday, citing "published, peer-reviewed scientific studies ... that document health risks" associated with pollution from mountaintop-removal coal mining, mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants and toxic heavy metals found in coal-slurry ponds.

KEF Executive Director Elizabeth Crowe said requiring health impact statements before passing legislation about coal would be no different than requiring an environmental impact statement. "Unfortunately, many of Kentucky's elected officials seem concerned about protecting the image and profits of the coal industry with little if any time donated to consideration about the impact on public health," she said. The group endorses House Bill 167, which would encourage energy efficiency and use of renewable energy by utilities. The bill's sponsor, Rep. Mary Lou Marzian, D-Louisvill said she doesn't expect it to get a vote, and that House leaders are unlikely to support "a measure critical of coal." (Read more)

President seeks middle ground on energy issues

Energy was a common theme in the 2012 State of the Union address, and is an issue that affects mostly rural communities, because that's where extractive industries do most of their extracting. David Worthington of Smart Planet says the president mentioned energy at least 18 times during the hour-long speech. Juliet Eilperin of The Washington Post says Obama was seeking "middle ground" on energy issues by calling for an increase in natural gas and domestic oil production as well as investing more in renewable energy. (Smart Planet photo)

Among the proposals Obama made were: opening more land for oil and gas exploration, investing in renewable energy sources, making drilling companies reveal chemicals used in drilling, providing more money for public research to advance energy production, developing clean energy on public lands, and wasting less energy to conserve more.

Steve Hargreaves of CNN Money reported domestic energy production has increased during Obama's term. Oil production is up 14 percent and gas is up by 10 percent from 2008. The administration has approved new drilling leases off the coast of Alaska and in the Gulf of Mexico. In the speech, Obama called for the end of some oil-industry tax breaks, and for greater investment in wind and solar. Production from both has almost tripled since 2008, though both remain a small part of overall energy production. Renewable projects flourished largely because of economic-stimulus grants, which ran out last year. Renewables promoters want industry tax credits extended, and the president in his speech called for such credits to be passed to "create these jobs." (Read more)

Cleaning up, clarifying Obama's 'spilled milk' joke

President Obama didn't have too much to say about rural America in last night's State of the Union address, but he did attempt a farm joke while trying to debunk the notion that he over-regulates. "We got rid of one rule from 40 years ago that could have forced some dairy farmers to spend $10,000 a year proving that they could contain a spill, because milk was somehow classified as an oil. With a rule like that, I guess it was worth crying over spilled milk." The quip received much attention, with most thinking it was only "2 percent funny." It may also need some clarification.

The Environmental Protection Agency monitors oil storage under section 311 of the Clean Water Act. Facilities that store oil have to prepare Spill Prevention, Control and Countermeasure plans for EPA review. Under the 1973 SPCC rule, edible oils, including vegetable and animal fats, could have been considered oils that required regulation. Because of milk's butterfat content, it was included in the SPCC rule, and the milk industry saw a potential threat. EPA announced in February 2009 it would remove milk and dairy farms from the spill rules. The change took effect in April 2011. Obama's statement was true, says PolitiFact.com, in which the Tampa Bay Times checks politicians' speeches and advertising for accuracy, but added, "We’re not addressing Obama’s projection of costs of $10,000 to some farmers." (Read more)

Small movie theaters say they may have to go dark because they lack money to go digital

The movie industry has decided to completely switch from traditional 35-millimeter film prints to digital files in the next year, causing problems for small, locally owned and often historic theaters that can't afford to buy new digital projectors. The switch is estimated to cost theaters $65,000 to $100,000 per projector. Theaters say they only make money on concessions, and often small theaters that draw small crowds make very small profits and can't afford to make the digital upgrades.

Kevin Bonham of the Grand Forks Herald in North Dakota rounds up what theater owners in the Red River Valley think about the studios' mandate, with some saying they are going through a "soul-searching process." In Crookston, S.D., Bob Moore, owner of Moore Family Theaters, which owns the local Grand (Herald photo) and cinemas in three other towns, said he's unsure about the future. He's already made other improvements to screens and sound systems, but making the digital conversion seems like too much to bear. City officials and community groups in Grafton and Park River are thinking about fund-raisers and government grants to save the communities' theaters.

The story of The Roxy Theater in Langdon, N.D. could be an example, writes Bonham. The Northern Lights Arts Council bought the 1930s theater and raised more than $60,000 to renovate it in the 1990s. When the digital switch was announced, the council raised almost $85,000 for a digital projector. Donations came from many sources in the 1,800-plus-population town, including local businesses and farmers. (Read more)

Chris and Tammy Ball, owners of the Towne Cinema in West Liberty, Ky., are attempting a fundraiser to replace the 35mm projector with a digital one because they have a "desire to keep the long-running theater open," reports the Licking Valley Courier of West Liberty. If they don't raise almost $85,000, the theater may have to close. The Balls wrote a letter to the community via the newspaper asking for help. "Instead of throwing our resources into fighting a losing battle (an online petition has started to keep 35mm film), we are putting out efforts into upgrading our little ol' theater into the digital age," they said. They say other local businesses will suffer because people will have to drive a half hour or more to other towns see a movie if the theater closes.

White House aides will take questions on rural issues Thur. and Fri., say they were always going to

The White House has decided to take Twitter questions about rural and Native American isues Thursday and Friday during events playing off of tonight's State of the Union address. Those issues had been left off the list for those days, as the Daily Yonder's Bill Bishop pointed out yesterday afternoon. Shortly after his write-up about the snub, he wrote another reporting that Doug McKalip, a senior policy adviser for rural issues, sent him an email saying the issues had been on the schedule all along. "There have been many messages distributed by the executive branch today regarding the office hours and, unfortunately, not all of them have the 'complete listings'," he told Bishop.

In any event, Bishop says McKalip will answer questions about rural issues at 10 a.m. Friday, and Kimberly Teehee, senior policy adviser for Native American affairs, will discuss Indian issues at 3 p.m. Thursday. A full schedule of topics can be found here, with explanations of how to participate.

New limits on mercury in air may also help animals, which have been affected more than we thought

The Environmental Protection Agency's new rules limiting power-plant air pollution will affect human and animal health, according to researchers at the Biodiversity Research Institute. The limits will likely have a positive impact on a "broad array" of wildlife affected by mercury, reports Anthony DePalma of The New York Times. Researchers found that methyl mercury, the heavy metal's most toxic form, is widespread in forests, mountaintops, bogs and marshes in Northeastern states where species were thought to be at low risk for mercury contamination. The region was once drenched with acid rain from coal-fired plants in the Midwest.

Researchers said the highest levels of mercury were in marshes and beaver ponds that go through wet and dry cycles. Songbirds and bats suffer neurological disorders from mercury just as humans do, and some feel the effects at much lower levels than previously thought. Birds with only 0.7 parts per million of mercury in their system showed a 10 percent reduction of successfully hatched eggs. Contaminated birds were also more likely to abandon nests and display abnormal feeding behavior, and pass the effects on to chicks. Rutgers University behavioral ecologist Joanna Burger said it's "incredibly important" that someone follow the phenomenon: "The birds not only act as sentinels to what is happening in nature, but the results of these studies propose hypotheses for effects that have not yet been identified for people." (Read more)

Feds cut Marcellus gas estimates by almost 3/4

New official estimates "severely cut" the amount of natural gas believed to be in the Marcellus Shale under several Appalachian states, but the gas boom will continue, reports Erich Schwartzel of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The U.S. Department of Energy estimated 410 trillion cubic feet of gas last year, but now is guessing 141 trillion cubic feet. Researchers were able to reach the estimate because of drilling doubled in 2011, providing much more data.

Industry representatives say the estimates are premature and "as fickle as Goldilocks." Its lobbying adversary, the Marcellus Shale Coalition, said the estimate "underscores the critical and growing role that American natural gas will continue to play in meeting our nation's growing energy needs for decades to come." Spokesman Travis Windle said production continues to increase because of technological developments. The Energy Department estimates production will increase from 5 trillion cubic feet in 2010 to 13.6 tcf in 2035. (Read more)

More and more people burned by 'shake-and-bake' meth labs, overwhelming burn units

Methamphetamine makers have been mixing the volatile chemical ingredients in two-liter bottles, also known as the "shake-and-bake" approach, for several years. The slightest mistake in brewing, though, can cause an explosion, burning flesh or causing blindness or death. The number getting burned has increased sharply, flooding hospital burn units with victims. Most are uninsured, and because treating one patient for a day can cost thousands of dollars, and some wards are struggling to stay open, reports Jim Salter of The Associated Press.

The shake-and-bake approach is popular mostly because it's cheaper, but also because it's portable, easy to conceal and can yield meth in minutes rather than hours. Larger, non-portable meth labs also explode, but people can escape those fires. Shake-and-bake labs are harder to avoid because makers hold the bottle close to the body, causing burns on the face down to the waist if they explode. "You're holding a flame-thrower in your hands," said Jason Grellner of the Franklin County, Missouri, sheriff's department.

In the country's most active meth-making states, almost a third of burn patients were hurt while doing shake-and-bake. It's overwhelming hospitals and has been a major reason seven U.S. burn units have closed in the last six years. Salter reports it's impossible to know the exact number of people burned while making shake-and-bake meth, because some avoid treatment and no one keeps track of those who do. But hospitals in the most active meth-making areas report a rise in burn patients linked to meth production. (Read more)

Advocates ask Obama to remember rural in speech

Candidate Obama at forum
of League of Rural Voters
in Ames, Iowa, fall 2007

When President Obama, trying to channel Teddy Roosevelt, went to Osawatomie, Kan., in December and gave a speech about the middle class, "Some of the rural residents and surrounding farmers found it odd that he didn’t mention farming or U.S agriculture, one of the brightest spots in the economy, or the importance of helping small towns through rural development. Expect that to change in his State of the Union speech Tuesday night," writes Sara Wyant of the Washington newsletter Agri-Pulse.

Wyant notes that Obama "had a very organized rural campaign strategy" in 2008, says "The Obama campaign will need every vote it can find in rural swing states" this year, and notes that almost 30 rural organizations sent him a letter asking him to include rural development in the speech.

"As you prepare for your upcoming State of the Union address, we ask you to remember the roughly 50 million Americans who live in rural areas," the letter said, suggesting ways the organizations think rural issues could be addressed, including reauthorizing the Farm Bill in a way that "revitalizes the rural communities that form the backbone of our heartland," and developing a "strong and robust" Rural Development section of the bill that would, among other things, extend broadband services and provide entrepreneurs with needed credit.

The organizations thanked the president for creating the White House Rural Council, which to some observers appeared to be the fist step in a rural re-election strategy, but reminded him, "Rural communities across America are struggling to rebuild in the wake of closed factories, empty Main streets, and record unemployment that exceeds the national average." (Read more)

Head of GIPSA to resign; vow to protect farmers from meatpackers largely foundered

The forthcoming resignation of J. Dudley Butler, head of the Grain Inspection Packers and Stockyards Administration, "is big news," Bill Bishop of The Daily Yonder writes, because he is the last of three anti-trust officials who promised to "investigate and break up monopolies in the food business" to leave the agency. Investigations and Department of Agriculture hearings were held in many places, but the Justice Department filed no anti-trust lawsuits. (Yonder photo)

Butler was appointed to GIPSA by President Obama in his administration's early days. "He was a Southerner and a lawyer who had earned the trust of livestock raisers — and the enmity of the meat companies — by representing farmers in lawsuits aimed at companies such as Tyson Foods," Bishop writes. Butler promised ranchers and farmers he would "get out in the countryside" to better understand the "imbalance of power" they faced. At the Organization for Competitive Markets meeting, he said he would take testimony from hog, poultry and cattle raisers and "protect them if meat buyers objected."

He proposed regulations in 2010 that would have given farmers and ranchers more power when dealing with large meat-processing companies. The reforms would have made it easier to sue meat packers and provided poultry raisers more protections and transparency in dealings with meatpackers. The administration collected more than 60,000 comments during an extended 18-month comment period that allowed opposition against the regulations to grow. Last November, Congress prevented USDA from funding the proposed rules, and USDA only adopted a small portion of the regulations.

Fred Stokes, president of the Organization for Competitive Markets, told Bishop that Butler's proposed rules "raised our hopes and expectations and then let us down. Corporate influence and politics have prevailed. Independent family farmers and ranchers remain alone and unprotected." Bill Bullard, head of the cattlemen's organization R-CALF, said Butler followed through on his promise to protect independent farmers and ranchers, but the clout of the meatpacking industry "proved too great," forcing the administration to lose resolve. (Read more)

Fla. prescription pill pipeline starting to dry up

Attorneys general from Florida and Kentucky say the prescription pill pipeline between the two states is beginning to close, reports Bill Estep of the Lexington Herald-Leader. They credit new programs and rules in Florida, but Kentucky AG Jack Conway says more work is needed "to attack the epidemic of prescription drug abuse in Kentucky." The pipeline has also supplied Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia and Tennessee.

Florida became the epicenter of the prescription drug trade to the Appalachian states because of lax regulation of pain clinics and tracking prescription drugs, Estep reports. People from the region traveled to Florida, stocked up on drugs, then returned home to sell them. In 2010, a police raid uncovered 1,400 files in a Florida doctor's office, and most were on Eastern Kentuckians. Police estimated that 60 percent of pills illegally sold in Kentucky were prescribed in Florida.

Florida officials have increased monitoring of prescription pills, boosted enforcement, required pain clinics to register with the state, started a prescription monitoring system and barred many clinics from dispensing pills. The results have been significant, Florida AG Pam Bondi said at a substance-abuse conference in Lexington. In 2010, 98 of the top 100 oxycodone prescribers were in Florida; only 11 are now. Registered pain clinics in the state have dropped from 943 to 579. (Read more)

EPA to replace fracking-affected water in Pa. town

The Environmental Protection Agency announced last week it will bring tanks of drinking water to four homes in Dimock, Pa., that have likely been contaminated by hydraulic fracturing in natural-gas drilling. People in the township have complained of water troubles since April 2009, when some wells were blown up and tap water caught fire, reports Abraham Lustgarten of ProPublica. Lawsuits were filed and state investigations conducted, but the water problem was never resolved.

EPA reviewed water-well data in Dimock and found "dangerous levels" of arsenic, glycols and barium, known carcinogens. The agency plans to test water supplies in 60 more homes, "apparently concerned that contamination may be more widespread," Lustgarten writes. Pennsylvania's top environmental regulator has called EPA's understanding of the Dimock situation  "rudimentary," but state agencies haven't conducted studies of the same scope EPA is planning. (Wikipedia maps)

Environmental groups are praising the decision while callingon EPA to "address water contamination concerns in other communities across the country." The agency concluded in December that fracking was likely the cause of groundwater contamination in Pavillion, Wyo. It is conducting a multi-year, national study about the impacts of fracking on water supplies. (Read more)

Ky. bill could keep Amish, non-Amish drivers safe

Proposed legislation could relieve the unhappiness of motorists, police and judges with a segment of Kentucky's Amish population, which refuses to place reflective orange triangles on their buggies as state law mandates for slow-moving vehicles. Sen. Ken Winters, R-Murray, thinks he has a solution in Senate Bill 75, which would "increase visibility of buggies and not offend the Amish religious beliefs," reports Tom Berry of the Murray Ledger & Times.

UPDATE, Jan. 24: A similar bill received a good reception in a House committee, reports Jack Brammer of the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Men of an Amish sect in Graves, Warren and other counties have been cited for refusing to post orange safety triangles on their buggies and chosen to serve jail time rather than pay fines. In Graves County, nine men appealed 2008 misdemeanor convictions last June, but the state Court of Appeals said "religious practices can't supersede the rights and safety of the public at large." The men have appealed to the Kentucky Supreme Court.

Winters' bill would allow buggies to have silver reflective tape on the back and sides instead of an orange triangle, which the strict Old Order Swartzentruber sect says would violate their precepts against bright colors and their belief that man-made symbols should not be responsible for their safety. Winters said the tape would increase "all-around visibility, particularly when illuminated by vehicle headlights." The bill would also require mounted lanterns on both sides of buggies, with the left one higher so drivers can "tell if they are in the correct lane and pass on the left 'high-beam' side." (Read more)

More homeless in rural areas, fewer in metro areas

Agencies and shelters in rural areas are can't keep up with increasing numbers of homeless, as $1.5 billion in stimulus money for the national Homeless Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program runs out, reports Rob Schultz of the LaCrosse Tribune in Wisconsin. The number of rural homeless "using suburban and rural programs" rose 57 percent from 2007 to 2010, while the number in urban areas dropped 17 percent, Schultz writes. Rural homeless live "out of plain sight, often doubling or tripling up with others in small apartments or homes." Some live in cars, motels or stay outside no matter the weather.

Three rural counties in Wisconsin had the largest growth of homeless families and another the largest growth of chronic homelessness in the state in 2010, Schultz reports. The state received $17 million in stimulus money, which was earmarked mostly for rural areas. Jean Sewell, who works with the Southwestern Wisconsin Community Action Program, said the money helped slow the problem by buying hotel rooms, security deposits and a month's rent to "get homeless people back on track." But now, the agency is trying to stretch $50,000 it received from another federal program. Homelessness prevention programs are also losing money from county governments.

Private agencies and charities are trying to pick up the slack, such as the church-run Family Promise, part of the Interfaith Hospitality Networks that serves areas in 41 states. The program allows homeless families to live in churches for a week while volunteers cook meals, grocery shop and drive children to school. While kids are at school, parents look for jobs. Families complete the program in 70 days. (Read more) For the latest national report on homelessness, with state-by-state breakdowns, click here.

States working on agreement to spur decisions on location of new electrical transmission lines

State and federal leaders are drafting an agreement that would "create regionally uniform standards for transmitting electricity" and hope to have it ready for legislative review next year. reports Jim Malewitz of Stateline. Stakeholders' competing interests make transmission line siting across state lines difficult, making developers reluctant to invest.

An agreement would solve the problem of varying state transmission rules that often prevent energy from being sent where it's most needed, a process that will touch many rural residents where lines are proposed. In October, a federal interagency team chose seven transmission siting pilot projects to cross 12 states that it hopes to expedite.

Previous attempts at a compact have largely failed, and a successful one would "be a boon" for states with undeveloped renewable energy generating capacity, Stateline reports. Crady deGolian of the National Center for Interstate Compacts said he expects legislatures in Western and Midwestern states to be most interested in the legal contract. (Read more)

Center looks at Latino farmers in Kansas, Nebraska

The number of Hispanic and Latino farmers in Nebraska and Missouri is declining, and the Nebraska-based Center for Rural Affairs is trying to find the reasons. Its first report gives a snapshot of Hispanic and Latino farmers in both states, and the second discusses possible barriers faced when starting, developing or sustaining farming or ranching businesses. More reports are forthcoming.

In both states, Latinos are more likely to own or operate small farms. Jon Baily discovered that in both states, farming is not the primary income source for Latinos. Latino-owned farms in Missouri are smaller than those in Nebraska, but Nebraska farms are still in the smallest farm-size category. More Latino farmers in Missouri fully own their farms than those in Nebraska, who only co-own.

Rafael Martinez-Feria, who wrote about barriers and challenges for Hispanic and Latino farmers, said the purpose of the study is to "reach out" to them, learn about the barriers and explore their relationships with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, emphasizing access to USDA programs. He identifies some barriers as limited access to land, machinery and equipment and limited economic resilience, financial literacy and education. (Read more)

Plains towns offer free land if you will move there

An old tactic is being championed in the Midwest and Great Plains for economic and community development. Under what is being called "the mini-Homestead Act," rural places are offering free land to people willing to move to their community, and the idea is gaining popularity, reports the Center for Rural Affairs. The main concept behind this throwback to the 19th Century is: "We have a great town in which to live." (Photo: 10/11 News, Nebraska)

Communities provide land for home building, schools and amenities; job-hunting is left up to newcomers. The Center for Great Plains Studies at the University of Nebraska has been studying the success of such programs. Several places in Kansas have capitalized on this idea. In Ellsworth, four of 10 available lots were given away, and 20 families got down-payment assistance for existing housing. Almost all 80 lots available in Marquette, Kan., were given away and 27 of 33 were claimed in Minneapolis, Kan. Most new homesteaders have either lived in these places before, traveled there or have family ties to the area.

Most move to these communities because they are looking for a "simpler pace of life, less congestion, lower cost housing and cost of living, and being closer to family and relatives," the Center for Rural Affairs reports. The center provides a FAQ page on its website with a list of resources for communities interested in the method and several local news stories about the trend. A list of other states where this has been successful, including contact information, is also available. (Read more)

Politics aside, Nebraska agricultural interests were the key in delaying proposed tar-sands pipeline

Republicans charged that President Obama, in denying a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline to send Alberta tar sands to the Gulf coast, is "favoring radical environmental interests over a project they said would provide thousands of jobs and bolster domestic energy security," reports Cody Winchester of the Argus Leader in Sioux Falls. Obama said there was not enough time to review the project's new route within congressional Republicans' "arbitrary" 60-day deadline, which they imposed after Obama earlier deferred a decision until after the November election. And the national political debate obscures the fact that last year Nebraska lawmakers, farmers and ranchers forced Trans-Canada to re-route the pipeline around the state's ecologically sensitive Sandhills region and the Ogallala Aquifer, the lifeblood of agriculture in the relatively arid Great Plains.

TransCanada said it would reapply for a permit for the new route. That will trigger a new review process and environmental impact statement for the entire route. Assistant Secretary of State Kerri-Ann Jones told Winchester the new application would not be expedited, but the agency can use information from the first review in the new one. The department advised Obama to deny the permit.

South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard told Winchester the denial was "disappointing on many levels," but mostly because the state needs the project's jobs to help it recover from the recession. A mile of the pipeline would have crossed rancher Zona Vig's land. "This is looking at the whole state, the whole country -- every creek and every dam and every well that would be affected," she said. (Read more)

Native American activists have played a major role in protesting the pipeline, reports Rob Capriccioso of Indian Country Media Network, and some say they are preparing to continue protesting. They have said the pipeline would threaten the health and culture of Native peoples and that the government has not consulted them about the project. Lakota Sioux activist Debra White Plume told Capriccioso the denial is a temporary victory. "The oil industry will not give up its attempt to get their weapon of mass destruction approved for entry to this country. We must keep fighting, we must fight harder. If we say this is our Treaty Territory, we must be ready to defend it." Pat Spears, president of Intertribal COUP (Council on Utility Policy), said Native Americans should ask for more detailed risk analysis of economic and environmental issues for all people affected by the pipeline.

The Washington Post detailed the President's decision to deny the project, and The Houston Chronicle reported that Congressional supporters of the pipeline are "exploring legislation" that would let Congress or an independent federal agency reverse the denial and approve the permit.

Colo. farmers deplete aquifers, turn to surface streams amid drought; will pay more for water

Drought has forced large-scale commercial farmers in southern Colorado's scenic San Luis Valley to pull groundwater through center-point irrigation systems, but pumping has depleted aquifers by more than 1 million acre-feet since 1976 and has started to affect surface streams, which are strained because of drought. Plans to reduce aquifer irrigation by 30,000 acre-feet a year must be in place by May to avoid well shutdowns, reports Bruce Finley of The Denver Post. (Finley photo)

Farmers have proposed buying surface-water rights to offset aquifer pumping, and while water may be conserved, the increased cost may remove 80,000 acres of farmland from production. This will be an economic blow to the area, where there's a 38 percent child poverty rate, Finley reports. Surface-water rights fees will likely increase from $45 an acre to $75, making an irrigated crop circle cost as much as $20,000. Brian Neufeld, a potato farmer, said this could mean layoffs, fewer employees and less crop production. Some think this starts the decline of their farms.

The farms lie in the upper Rio Grande River watershed. An interstate compact restricts water withdrawals from the river and its tributaries. Texas and New Mexico have sued Colorado in the past for drawing too much. Enforcement of the compact has tightened because of massive drought in those states. Steve Vandiver, manager of the Rio Grande Water Conservation District, said it's time for commercial farms "to pay for the impacts they are causing to the river." (Read more)

Army has destroyed 90 percent of chemical weapons, stored mainly in remote rural areas

The U.S. Army came one step closer yesterday to destroying its stockpile of 20th Century chemical weapons, stored mostly in remote rural areas. After a two-hour process in which 23 projectiles filled with mustard agent were stripped of the agent's ability to blister skin and attack the respiratory system, the last of the "hard weapons" at the Deseret Chemical Depot near Tooele, Utah were destroyed. The facility once housed the Army's largest supply of chemical weapons, the Los Angeles Times reports.

The U.S. signed a treaty to dispose of its chemical weapons by April 29, 2012, but is expected to get waivers for missing that deadline, and the U.S. is farther along in this task than some other treaty signers, including Russia. The Army has destroyed about 90 percent of its chemical weapons. The remaining 10 percent are in Colorado and Kentucky, but those stores may not be destroyed until 2021. For decades, the Tooele facility burned chemicals, releasing toxins into the air. In the 1970s, more acceptable disposal methods were sought. (Read more)

Rural students in California are hit hardest by school transportation cuts

Rural schools in California will be hit especially hard by school transportation funding cuts beginning Jan. 1 because for some students, buses are their only way to and from school. The cuts are in effect for the remainder of the fiscal year to help alleviate the state's debt, reports Teresa Watanabe of the Los Angeles Times. Next year, they will likely get nothing. (Wikipedia map)

Nowhere are the cuts felt more than in the Death Valley Unified School District, Watanabe reports. Nine students living in the Native American village of Furnace Creek must ride 120 miles to their school in Shoeshone. According to the California School Boards Association, the district spends $3,500 per student per year on transportation, compared to $26 in more populated districts. State funding is based on transportation costs, and some rural districts lose about $200 per student. Districts must find money to transport students or stop busing them. In Death Valley, 85 percent of students are low-income and their families can't afford personal transportation. (Read more)

Educators have said transportation cuts are "particularly unfair" to small and rural districts. They are trying to reverse the cuts with legal action, letter-writing campaigns and legislative lobbying. Some say if cuts are necessary, they should be distributed equally across districts. The Southern Humboldt Unified School District in northern California is organizing a protest in the state capital nest Tuesday, Virginia Graziani of the Redwood Times reports.

Ed Bishop, irreplaceable rural voice, dies at 90

Funeral services were held today for Ed Bishop, a voice for rural America at the highest levels of higher education. He died Saturday at 90 in Durham, N.C. Bishop was the first chancellor of the University of Maryland at College Park, and was later president of the University of Arkansas and the University of Houston systems.

"He spent his life working to make life better in rural communities," Bill Bishop, no kin, writes in the Daily Yonder. "There isn’t anyone like Ed Bishop in the U.S. today — someone who can command the respect of presidents but understands completely the way people live in the poorest community."

Bishop's career in higher education began with his bachelor's degree at Berea College in Kentucky, "an institution whose motto, 'God has made of one blood all peoples of the earth,' became a part of his life," said his obituary, which directed memorial gifts there. After earning a master's at the University of Kentucky, he became a professor and then head of agricultural economics at North Carolina State University, then vice president of the University of North Carolina.

He served on many boards and commissions, including President Carter's Commission on an Agenda of the Eighties and his Advisory Commission on Balanced Growth and Economic Development, and President Nixon's White House Task Force on Rural Development. He was executive director of President Johnson's National Advisory Commission on Rural Poverty, which produced a report that Bill Bishop says is still "the federal government's most ambitious plan for driving poverty from the countryside." (Read more)

"Ed married a life-long commitment to the 'people and places left behind" with an uncompromising intellect and the most rigorous analytic standards," said the website of MDC Inc., a North Carolina nonprofit he worked with after retirement. "He was a champion for rural people while remaining unsentimental about the prospects of rural areas in a globalizing economy."

Farmers opt out of Conservation Reserve Program

Farmers are increasingly removing parcels of their land from the federal Conservation Reserve Program to cash in on higher-than-ever crop prices. The program pays farmers to return some of their land to natural habitat or pasture. As participation declines, Congress may cut funding for the program in the newest Farm Bill, but some say the program should be maintained to prevent soil erosion and protect waterways.

Susan Heathcore of the Des Moines Register said the program is "instrumental" in protecting Iowa's wildlife and environment and reducing pollution. "We can use proactive public policy to protect our soil, water and habitat resources, or we could allow short-term profits to drive sensitive land into row crop production whether or not that choice is the best long-term decision." She offers several solutions that would preserve CRP benefits while still allowing land to be "economically productive" for farmers. (Read more)

Dean Kuipers of the Los Angeles Times reports that the program covers 32 million acres, but Congress has proposed cutting that to 25 million or even in half. Farmers in Great Plains states removed 800,000 acres from conservation programs last year to cultivated them. Protections for 6.5 million acres will expire in September. Kuipers wrote that the smaller acreage will hurt wildlife, most notably ground-dwelling birds like quail. (Read more)

Gas boom brings steel production back to Ohio

The natural-gas boom is creating a resurgence of Ohio steel production, report Mark Niquette and Romy Varghese of Bloomberg News. Youngstown's steel era ended 34 years ago, but a new $650 million steel mill is being built to produce seamless pipe used in hydraulic fracturing. Other states are taking note and competing for other gas-related projects.

Youngstown has lost more than half its population since the 1950s, and officials hope the new steel plant will make the area "the Utica Shale supply-chain capital." Eric Planey, vice president of the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber, told Bloomberg, "Our past was exclusively steel. It looks like our future is going to be significantly a part of the oil and gas and energy business.”

State officials are trying to capitalize on other "spinoff investments" related to gas drilling, like processing plants, which Royal Dutch Shell has said it intends to build in Ohio, Pennsylvania or West Virginia. Officials are offering companies incentives. (Read more)

Alaska to let bears be killed from planes to protect human food supply in rural areas

The Alaska Board of Game announced Tuesday it will allow state wildlife officials to shoot bears from the air. This move is the latest "intensive management" practices targeting bears and wolves, including gassing wolf pups in their dens, reports Kim Murphy of the Los Angeles Times. A similar measure is being considered in Western states to protect livestock and wildlife from wolves. (Alaska Wildlife Voyages photo)

The measure is an attempt to protect from predators a "precarious population of musk oxen" in the high Arctic. It's also "designed to appease long-standing concerns among a broad swath of Alaskans about declining populations of moose and caribou, upon which much of rural Alaska depend for food." The National Park Service says aerial shooting, along with other debated methods like snaring and trapping, should not be used in Alaska's 19 million acres of federal wildlife refuges. "They have a management policy which specifically says you don't manipulate the population of one species to benefit the hunting of another," said Jim Stratton, the state's director for the National Parks Conservation Association.

Other opponents cite humanitarian concerns and say shooting, snaring and trapping conflict with scientists' advice about wildlife management. But Murphy reports the state Department of Fish and Game "has its hands tied" because a 1994 state law mandates "intensive management" policies in "crucial" parts of the state to protect human food supply. Some game officials say stronger methods should be used because current and proposed methods don't target female bears and their cubs, which they say must be killed to create meaningful population declines. (Read more)

Scientists fear white-nose syndrome has killed many more bats than they previously thought

Scientists have been trying to determine the cause of white-nose syndrome in North American bats since it was discovered five years ago. The disease has been killing bats at an alarming rate, and now researchers fear many more have died than previously thought, estimated at 5.7 to 6.7 million, Louis Sahagun of the Los Angeles Times reports. The disease seems to affect the 25 species of hibernating bats, but scientists say all 45 species of North American bats could be at risk. (Times photo by Mark Boster: Bag holds bat found in cave believed to have syndrome)

The estimate was difficult because common bat species have not been regularly counted. As mortality rates at some sites reached 100 percent, a team of 140 Canadian and U.S. researchers coordinated to come up with a number. Jeremy Coleman, national white-nose coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, told Sahagun that since bats have low reproductive rates, it will probably take more than 100 years for populations to fully recover.

The disease has killed mostly little brown bats, one of the most common mammals in North America. The species has lost 20 percent of its population in five years. Bats who contract it exhibit unusual behavior during winter, like flying outside and clustering around cave entrances when they should be hibernating, and they can freeze to death. Researchers are trying to find a treatment, including vaccination or manipulating cave environments. (Read more)

Local reporters were first to probe virtual schools

Virtual education can connect isolated rural students to students in other places and provide them with resources they may not have otherwise, but as Emma Brown of The Washington Post wrote recently, some are "leery of cyber schools," and that has drawn national journalism attention to virtual schools and the companies that operate them. But she says local news media were first to "raise questions about virtual schools' cost and effectiveness," and should be recognized for this.

She wrote that a public radio station in Greeley, Colo., reported about lax oversight and poor student performance at virtual schools, resulting in the president of the state senate calling for an emergency audit of virtual schools. Local stories in Tennessee, both in newspapers and on television, raised similar questions about its first virtual school, drawing statewide attention to the issue. Idaho Statesman reporter Dan Popkey investigated political and financial connections between virtual-school company K12 and the state's top education official. In Arizona, blogger David Safier reported K12 was outsourcing grading of papers to workers in India.

Brown said she could continue listing top-notch local stories about the failings of virtual schools from local, often rural reporters, but summed up: "Local reporters in farflung places were paying attention to virtual schools long before folks in big cities took notice. And for that, they deserve a heap of credit." (Read more)

Low cost of newly plentiful gas discourages both use of coal and investment in alternative energy

In the early 1980s, oil as a source of energy was threatened by alternative sources, but when oil prices dropped, the prospect for alternatives quickly faded. Now, a similar situation appears to be happening as a result of the boom in natural gas from tight, deep shales. Energy & Environment News reports investment in alternative energy sources is decreasing with the emergence of gas as a plentiful and cheap source of energy.

The largest U.S. wind energy producer, NextEra Energy Inc. has canceled plans for new wind projects and Exelon Corp. isn't going to expand its nuclear power plants. Even plans for new coal-fired power plants are being shelved as CMS Energy Corp. in Michigan has cancelled plans to build a new $2 billion facility. Electricity pricing in linked to the low-cost gas market, resulting in dramatically lower profits for power producers and discouraging investment in coal, nuclear and wind.

Some are warning, though, that a major shift from coal to gas will leave the industry with few alternatives, especially when gas prices rise again."The way to make $4 gas $8 gas is for everyone to go out and build combined-cycle natural-gas plants. We need to be cautious about how we go about this," Michael Morris, chairman of American Electric Power Co. Inc. told Energy & Environment News. (Read more)

New study outlines best practices for water wells and those who regulate them

The National Ground Water Association has released a study promoting best practices to maintain water well systems. The study, Water Well Systems Inspection Best Suggested Practice, is meant to be a guide for rural residents who rely on well water, and also for water system managers, regulators, contractors and pump installers.

The NGWA suggests routine inspection of well to prolong operational lifespan and monitor groundwater quality. It recommends anyone hired to inspect a well should have several specific qualifications, such as knowledge of codes and regulations for wells, awareness of safety protocols, understanding of natural and human-caused threats to drinking water supplies, and technical awareness of pump and related electrical systems.

The Water Well Systems Inspection Best Suggested Practice guide can be accessed here.

FDA's proposed ban on certain antibiotics in livestock, new research put fresh attention on issue

Early this month, the Food and Drug Administration proposed a ban on a class of antibiotics in livestock for fear the practice is fostering bacterial resistance to antibiotics used to treat a wide range of human infections. Public health officials say the move indicates "a new willingness by the government to tackle the longstanding issue," but some think public misconception about antibiotic use in livestock is driving the decision.

It's not clear how how much use of antibiotics in livestock affects humans, but those who work with farm animals are at risk for becoming colonized by antibiotic-resistant bacteria, Jill Adams reports for the Los Angeles Times. Advocates of antibiotic use in livestock cite studies that diminish human risk, like a 2004 paper that says contamination between animals and humans is a "two-way street." (Read more)

Resistance to antibiotics has become a global public health issue. Michael Fielding of Meatingplace reports German Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner has submitted legislation to limit antibiotic use after a study revealed E.coli in chickens. Germany is Europe's third-largest poultry producer. But Meatingplace blogger Sarah Hubbart writes a new study from the University of Glasgow in Scotland suggests livestock likely doesn't "have a major impact on antibiotic resistance in humans," and the researchers are urging British lawmakers to reconsider antibiotic bans in livestock.

Hubbart says that research is important in light of the recent FDA decision. Iowa State University professor Scott Hurd, a former U.S. agriculture undersecretary, said misconceptions about antibiotic use are widspread. "They think it is just being poured into the feed to make the animals grow better," he said. Tom Talbot, former president of the California Cattlemen's Association, thinks people believe that, too. He told Tim Hearden of Capital Press that "The idea that we're using this enormous quantity of antibiotics in beef cattle prior to slaughter, I think that's a misconception." Hearden reports livestock industry representatives don't think the FDA's recent change will have a big impact on operations, but they fear further restrictions.

The FDA is accepting public comments about the proposed ban on certain antibiotic use in livestock until March 6. Comments can be submitted here.

Pilot program in Minn. to stanch runoff would make farmers exempt from new environmental laws

A federal pilot program aims to support farmers in Minnesota and protect them from new environmental regulation if they agree to lessen the flow of agricultural runoff into the headwaters of the Mississippi River, reports Energy & Environment news. Federal officials say they hope the program will make farmers more responsible about water quality.

Farmers would enter a 10-year agreement in which they would limit erosion and fertilizer, pesticide and manure runoff. In return, the federal government will provide technical help, funding and certify farmers in a new Agricultural Water Quality Certification Program. Farmers would then be exempt from new environmental requirements that might be imposed generally.

Conservation groups say the program won't provide enough protection for the Mississippi's headwaters. They say farmers will be exempt from following the Clean Water Act, and this will create a bigger burden on other polluters, like cities and sewage treatment plants. Funding for the program would be provided in the next Farm Bill. (Read more)

Climate change cuts snow, lets elk graze longer at high altitude, affecting birds and other species

Scientists have found climate change is reducing snowfall in mountains and having trickle-down effects on mountainous songbird and plant populations. The U.S. Geological Survey and University of Montana study shows browsing elk are staying at higher altitudes for longer periods of time, thus consuming more plants. As a result, songbirds and deciduous trees in the Arizona mountains have declined over the last 22 years. This phenomenon directly lowers songbird habitats.

To get these results, study authors "mimicked the effects of more snow on limiting the ability of elk to browse on plants by excluding the animals from large, fenced areas," reports Science Daily. They compared bird and plant populations in exclusion areas with similar areas where elk had access. Through this six-year experiment, they found songbird and plant declines were reversed in areas where elk were excluded. (Read more)

Louisville conference will discuss local food movement on college campuses

Louisville Farm to Table, the University of Louisville and the Kentucky Department of Agriculture are hosting a conference at U of L Jan. 20 "designed to bring resources to colleges that would like to start making the switch to local food." Conference sessions will "address common perceived barriers and challenges to such changes, and will include administrators, food service contractors and local food distributors."

Farm to Table is a Metro Louisville government project that aims to open the local food market to  products from Kentucky and Southern Indiana, but the conference, called "Farm to Campus: Exploring the farm-to-food service connection," is aimed at any college educators, contract food vendors and interested parties.

The conference will begin at 8:30 a.m. with registration and end around 3 p.m. Workshops include: "Eating local: What’s in it for you?," "Getting to local: Important first steps," "Making the switch to sustainable," "If you serve it, will they come?", "Finding local food, Safety First: Is Local Food Safe to Eat?" and "Making the Money Work." (Read more)