Lawmaker wins initial approval of Tenn. horse-slaughter bill over opposition from Willie Nelson

Following a war of words between a legislator and singer-songwriter Willie Nelson, right, a Tennessee legislative subcommittee voted 7-6 today for a bill that would allow the state to establish horse slaughter and processing plants if they are again permitted in the U.S. The vote was a victory for Rep. Frank Niceley, R-Strawberry Plains, below, who "had upbraided Nelson for his opposition to killing and processing horses for meat ... during an agriculture committee meeting last month," Anne Paine writes for The Tennessean.

In an article submitted by e-mail to the Nashville newspaper, Nelson said Niceley "wants folks to believe it is more humane to allow buyers to travel around our great country purchasing healthy, wanted horses then haul them to Tennessee to be slaughtered for human consumption. ... At auctions where horse rescue operators are trying to save lives, killer buyers routinely outbid them." Nelson supports a permanent federal bans on horse slaughter here and shipment of U.S. horses to meatpackers in other nations.

Niceley told Paine he likes Nelson's music, but "People like Willie have caused more horse pain and more suffering, and they're well intentioned." Paine writes, "Niceley said his bill is needed because without processing plants, there are more unwanted horses that could die as a result of neglect." (Read more)

House Agriculture Committee chairman says he's looking to reduce direct payments to farmers

The chairman of the House Agriculture Committee said he's starting work on the 2012 Farm Bill and will look to cut direct government payments to farmers. "In my opinion, that money should be used to support the average, middle-sized commercial farmer, because they're the people that produce most of our food and I think that's the part of the system we really want to protect," Democratic Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota told Dan Gunderson of Minnesota Public Radio. Peterson said he hoped to use the money saved by cutting direct payments to create a better safety net.

"Peterson said he will not increase overall spending on farm programs, adding he is willing to cut the farm bill only if all government programs are trimmed," Gunderson writes. Peterson noted 80 percent of the Farm Bill spending goes for food stamps and nutrition, programs which no one wants to cut. He said work on the 2012 bill should begin this spring. (Read more)

Spoof of rap video promotes New Hampshire

A YouTube video parodying a popular rap song while promoting interesting facts and attractions of one of the country's more rural states has gone viral. The video "Granite State of Mind," which parodies rapper Jay Z's song "Empire State of Mind" to showcase some New Hampshire pride, was posted by Christian Wisecarver, who works for a video production company in Hampstead, and has received over 840,000 views in one week.

Except for one ill-placed expletive, the video is an "otherwise stellar rundown of all things New Hampshire, including everything from geography and landmarks to hot spots and newsmakers," Carol Robidoux of the New Hampshire Union Leader reports. "You know, the original was sort of begging to be parodied, the music is so catchy. It really started when I was listening to the lyrics of the Jay-Z video -- it just started to come together in my head," Wisecarver told Robidoux. (Read more)



UPDATE, April 10: A more traditional treatment of the charms of the Granite State was written a few years ago by Steve Taylor, a journalist who had become state agricultuire commissioner: "100 Things You Should Do to Know the Real New Hampshire." This week, Taylor was given the top alumni award from the University of New Hampshire. Read about him and the award.

Oklahoma jury says Tyson defrauded growers

A McCurtain County, Oklahoma, jury has awarded $7.3 million to 10 chicken growers who sued Tyson Foods Inc. alleging that the company defrauded them through "a series of deceptive and coercive business practices," Randy Ellis of The Oklahoman reports. Tyson officials termed the decision a "runaway verdict" in a news release a said the company believes it has "strong and numerous grounds" on which to appeal.

The trial was the first of several scheduled in McCurtain County from a May 2008 suit by 50 chicken growers. The case was split into several smaller trials to "keep court proceedings from becoming unwieldy," Ellis reports. Attorney Tony Benson, who helped represent the chicken growers, voiced hope that the verdict would send a message to the poultry giant: "I heard several comments that it was a long time coming, and maybe this will make Tyson change the way it has been treating its growers." The growers claimed Tyson coerced them into operating at less than break-even costs, by using verbal and financial pressure to persuade them to borrow hundreds of thousands of dollars to construct newer-styled chicken houses, Ellis reports.

"Throughout the trial, the jury was presented with a tabloid-style rumor mill of mostly fabricated evidence that had absolutely nothing to do with the plaintiffs’ claims in the lawsuit," Tyson said in its release. The company also used the release to remind the community of its economic investment in the are in light of the still pending trials: "We are very concerned about the legal climate in McCurtain County, and we are assessing all options available to us to address this injustice and to prevent it from happening again." (Read more)

Mine disaster coverage focuses on Massey's safety record and its CEO's controversies

Most national news coverage of the explosion that killed at least 25 West Virginia coal miners and left four others missing has shifted to the safety record of the mine and Massey Energy, with some mentions of other controversies involving CEO Don Blankenship, left.

Four years ago, after a series of mine disasters, Congress passed the first sweeping changes to mine safety laws in 30 years, but those reforms weren't enough to protect the miners at the Upper Big Branch Mine near Montcoal in Raleigh County, Ken Ward Jr. of The Charleston Gazette reports. So what happened? "It tells me one of two things," longtime mine safety crusader Davitt McAteer of Wheeling Jesuit University, who ran the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration during the Clinton years, told Ward. "One, the law isn't being enforced or, two, the law didn't go far enough." McAteer, an academic partner of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, appeared on all three major broadcast networks' evening news programs.

The mine was written up more than 50 times last month for safety violations, and 12 of those citations involved "problems with ventilating the mine and preventing a buildup of deadly methane," Steve Munson, Jerry Markon and Ed O'Keefe of The Washington Post write.  Two miners who asked for anonymity for fear of losing their jobs told The New York Times the mine had been evacuated three times in the past two months because of dangerously high methane levels.  In total, the mine has been cited 112 times since the start of the year.

After state and Massey officials delayed revealing names of the dead, upsetting relatives, "Some of these tensions boiled over around 2 a.m. Tuesday when Mr. Blankenship arrived at the mine to announce the death toll to families who were gathered at the site," the Times' Ian Urbina reports. "Escorted by at least a dozen state and other police officers, according to several witnesses, Mr. Blankenship prepared to address the crowd, but people yelled at him for caring more about profits than miners’ lives. After another Massey official informed the crowd of the new death toll, one miner threw a chair. A father and son stormed off screaming that they were quitting mining work. And several people yelled at Mr. Blankenship that he was to blame." (Read more)
"Even aside from its abysmal safety record, Massey, and its leader . . .  are almost cartoonishly villainous in the way they approach everything from the environment to union rights to media scrutiny," Dylan Matthews, a Harvard student and Post researcher, writes. A 2005 memo from Blankenship to his underground mine superintendents has also received renewed media attention. "If any of you have been asked by your group presidents, your supervisors, engineers or anyone else to do anything other than run coal (i.e., build overcasts, do construction jobs, or whatever), you need to ignore them and run coal," Blankenship wrote. Overcasts, which carry forced air across passageways, are "critical to proper mine ventilation," Andrew Leonard points out on Salon.com. A second memo sent out a week later said safety was the company's "first responsibility" and any interpretation that the first memo deprioritized safety was incorrect, the Times noted.

In his first public comments Blankenship told MetroNews of Morgantown, "Violations are unfortunately a normal part of the mining process. There are violations at every coal mine in America and UBB was a mine that had violations. I think the fact that MSHA, the state and our fire bosses and the best engineers that you can find were all in and around this mine and all believed it to be safe in the circumstances it was in speaks for itself as far as any suspicion that the mine was improperly operated." Blankenship has since appeared on several national television shows. Some coverage has noted his controversial involvement in West Virginia judicial elections and his denial of global warming.

MSHA hasn't gone without potential blame for the disaster. A government audit released last week said the agency is "is not properly tracking the retraining of its veteran inspectors and is facing a mounting backlog of appeals of health and safety violations from mining companies," O'Keefe reports for the Post. Speculation that the disaster could spur new mine safety reforms has run rampant, but lawmakers cautioned Tuesday it was too early say for sure, reports Mannix Porterfield of the Beckley Register-Herald, the local newspaper in Raleigh County.

The coverage includes some useful and illuminating resources. The Times has a multimedia graphic showing the mine map, the surrounding terrain and where bodies have been found. WSAZ-TV in Huntington is live-streaming all news conferences at the mine on its Web site. The Gazette has created a special Web page for ongoing coverage of the disaster, and Ward has extensive coverage on his Coal Tattoo blog. MSHA has also created a Web page for relevant documents about the mine's safety record.

Here's a little rural journalism, in a big-city paper, about the disaster: Author Denise Giardina, writer in residence at West Virginia State University, writes on the Times op-ed page, "we are a national sacrifice area. We mine coal despite the danger to miners, the damage to the environment and the monomaniacal control of an industry that keeps economic diversity from flourishing here. We do it because America says it needs the coal we provide. West Virginians get little thanks in return. Our miners have historically received little protection, and our politicians remain subservient to Big Coal. Meanwhile, West Virginia is either ignored by the rest of the nation or is the butt of jokes about ignorant hillbillies." (Read more)

Republicans, worried about undercounts in conservative areas, urge census participation

"Some Republicans are worried that an anti-government surge among conservatives will lead to lower participation in the U.S. census, which they fear could reduce the number of Republican seats in Congress and state legislatures," Naftali Bendavid reports for The Wall Street Journal.

"Conservative activists this year have argued it is unconstitutional for the census to ask anything beyond the number of people in a household. This year's census form also seeks information on race, gender and age, among other things, and filling it out is required by law. The census has asked similar questions for decades," Bendavid writes. "In a counter move, Rep. Patrick McHenry (N.C.), the top Republican on the House subcommittee that oversees the census, posted a message last week on Redstate.com, a popular conservative Web site, pleading with conservatives to fill out their forms."

McHenry had reason to act. "Some of the most conservative states have among the lowest response rates so far," Bendaviod reports. "About 48 percent of households in Texas and 53 percent in Alabama have mailed in their forms so far, for example, while the response rate in Massachusetts, a more-liberal state, is at about 57 percent. The national participation rate for the 2010 census is at about 56 percent." (Read more)

Appeals court: FCC can't require net neutrality

A U.S. Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday against the Federal Communications Commission in its attempt to require network neutrality. The policy would require "broadband providers to give equal treatment to all Internet traffic flowing over their networks," The Associated Press notes. The court ruled that the FCC lacks authority to require companies to adhere to such policies, and the ruling could have major implications for the commission's national broadband plan, which requires recipients of federal funds to adopt net neutrality.

"The agency needs clear authority to regulate broadband in order to push ahead with some of its key recommendations, including a proposal to expand broadband by tapping the federal fund that subsidizes telephone service in poor and rural communities," AP reports. The case centered on Comcast's challenge of a 2008 FCC ruling that prohibited the company from blocking service to broadband subscribers who used an online file-sharing technology known as BitTorrent, requiring large amounts of bandwidth. (Read more)

The ruling stems from an FCC decision in 2002, during the Bush administration, to reclassify broadband as an information service rather than a telecommunications service. "Marvin Ammori, the lawyer who argued the case on behalf of Free Press, says that the commission can change broadband's classification as long as it has a 'reasoned basis' for doing so," reports Wendy Davis of Online Media Daily. "But any attempt by the FCC to treat broadband as a telecommunications service will almost certainly be met with opposition and court challenges by Internet service providers." (Read more)

Meth labs and deaths mushroom in Oklahoma

The number of methamphetamine labs and related deaths are on the rise in the state that was the first in the country to pass a law limiting access to one of the drug's key ingredients. Data from the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control reveals 743 meth labs were discovered in 2009, up from 148 in 2006, Julie Bisbee of The Oklahoman reports. The rate of deaths from meth overdoses more than doubled, rising from 27 in 2008 to 51 in the first nine months of 2009.

"It’s always a game of cat and mouse," Darrell Weaver, director of the bureau, told Bisbee. "Law enforcement adapts, and criminals keep finding a way to work around it." In 2004 Oklahoma became the first state to reduce access to pseudoephedrine, a key meth ingredient used in over-the-counter decongestants, by limiting the amount of the drug customers can  buy each month. Congress later followed the state's lead and made the restrictions federal law. Initially, the number of meth labs dropped, but the popularity of the "shake and bake" method, which requires less equipment to make meth, has production back on the rise.

"The ingredients for a 'one pot' lab can be found at discount stores for under $25," Bisbee writes. Some law enforcement officials say the problem won't be solved until pseudoephedrine becomes a prescription-only drug, Bisbee reports. "This is a problem that’s honestly not being seen in a lot of places," Tulsa Police Department spokesman Jason Willingham told Bisbee. "Until that happens we’ll be known as the meth capital of the world." (Read more)

In forests in the Eastern U.S., it's feast or famine: too many deer, not enough woodpeckers

Forests across the Eastern U.S. are starting to recover from centuries of use and abuse, but still face man-made hurdles.  By the late 1800s, much of the woodland that stretched from Maine to Texas had been cut down for agriculture and timber, but as farms were abandoned old seeds sprouted and "unlike many other environmental mistakes, this one began to fix itself," David A. Fahrenthold of The Washington Post reports, in another of the paper's series of stories related to the 40th anniversary of Earth Day later this month.

The forest is growing back but is still burdened with too many deer, too little fire and armies of invasive bugs, Farenthold reports: "In some places, scientists are trying to fix man-made flaws that could eventually destroy forest ecosystems. In others, the test is whether the government and private interests can save the forest from becoming suburbs and strip malls." While the forest had reached 68 percent of its former range by 1997, "All woods ain't woods," said Stephen W. Syphax, a National Park Service official. To help revitalize forests, small fires are set to burn out undergrowth, an essential task to foster native birds such as the red-cockaded woodpecker. (Photo by Michael McCloy, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

State restocking programs have also revitalized deer populations that once reached record lows with the decline of forest land. The programs have been so successful that the deer, which eat almost everything and who face few predators, have taken over the forest, Fahrenthold reports. "Right now, the [deer] are hunted by people and Volvos," William J. McShea, a wildlife ecologist at the Smithsonian Institution, told Fahrenthold. Because of that, he said, "There's no future to that forest. It's like it's died, but it doesn't know it yet." Some have suggested reintroducing native wolves and mountain lions to serve as natural predators for the deer, but public safety concerns have left those plans on the back burner. (Read more)

Program to have state and local police enforce immigration laws has had problems

A program designed to allow local police to enforce federal immigration laws has serious flaws and may not be accomplishing its intended goal, says a new report released by the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general. The report says state and local police officers authorized to enforce the laws are "not adequately screened, trained or supervised, and the civil rights of the immigrants they deal with are not consistently protected," Julia Preston of The New York Times reports. The report was a sweeping review of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement program commonly known as 287(g) after the clause in immigration law that established it.

The program operates through agreements with about 60 county and state police forces, and allows local officers to question immigrants about their legal status and detain them for deportation. The report describes the program as "haphazardly administered, with local agencies detaining and prosecuting immigrants with little oversight from federal agents and significant inconsistencies from place to place," Preston writes. It concludes, "In the absence of consistent supervision over immigration enforcement activities, there is no assurance that the program is achieving its goals." Top ICE officials have said the program is designed to deport immigrants with serious criminal records, but the report concluded it lacked measures to determine if immigrants were serious offenders.

"Since the audit was conducted, ICE has fundamentally reformed the program," agency spokesman Richard Rocha told Preston, "strengthening public safety and ensuring consistency in immigration enforcement across the country by prioritizing the arrest and detention of criminal aliens, fulfilling many of the report’s recommendations." The inspector general "acknowledged many of the program’s improvements, but the report said many of the most serious problems remained unresolved," Preston reports. (Read more)

Food interests fight to kill ethanol tax credits

Ethanol's run of government support may be in jeopardy, as a coalition fights to end the extension of biofuel tax credits set to expire at the end of the year. The opponents, who mobilized after congressional representatives from Illinois and Missouri began an effort to extend the credits, include the Grocery Manufacturers of America, the American Meat Institute, the National Council of Chain Restaurants, environmental organizations and pro-taxpayer groups, Bill Lambrecht of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. The groups say their chances of ending ethanol's government support have improved from previous failed attempts because of new spending rules in Congress designed to limit government giveaways. They say ethanol makes food more expensive; studies have shown it plays a relatively small role -- less, for example, than energy prices.

"It's their Achilles heel," Steve Ellis, vice president of the nonprofit Taxpayers for Common Sense, said of ethanol's dependence on government support. "Normally, if you mandate something, that takes care of it. Or you subsidize it, and that takes care of it. Or you block imports to protect it, and that takes care of it. With ethanol, we've done all three." The 45-cent-per-gallon credit for blending the corn-made fuel with gasoline actually goes to the oil industry and not the ethanol producers, but industry advocates say oil will look to foreign ethanol markets if Congress removes the credit.

Gary Clark, director of market development for the Missouri Corn Growers Association, told Lambrecht the tax credit has a significant impact on prices that both ethanol producers and corn farmers are paid, and if it is allowed to expire the per-bushel corn price could drop 15 to 25 cents. "If they were to lose that much, it would put many, many growers at or below the cost of production," he said. The ethanol industry is planning a national ad campaign when Congress returns from the Easter break. "If you believe in renewable fuels and you believe it reduces our dependence on imported crude oil and you believe that it helps jobs and the economy, you do not want this to expire," Republican Missouri Rep. John Shimkus told Lambrecht. (Read more)

Rural Texas schools caught between politicized state board and national policies that don't fit

Schools in Texas, which has more rural students than any other state, are caught in a "growing power struggle" between state school officials who are imposing politically driven textbook standards and federal education officials whose offer of extra money comes with strings that state officials reject and that local officials say leaves them out, reports Michael Birnbaum for The Washington Post.

Birnbaum starts his story with a Tea Party gathering in Madisonville hearing from a state school board member (who lost his renomination bid in the recent primary election) making assertions that historians say are dubious and advocating "social-studies standards that set Texas apart from other states because, among other changes, they recast sections on the American Revolution to put more emphasis on Christianity and less on the writings of Thomas Jefferson."

Texas was among 10 states that did not apply for Race to the Top funds from the U.S. Department of Education. To Madisonville School Superintendent Keith Smith, the state's "version of local control takes away just as much power from him as the federal kind," Birnbaum reports. "He said the tug of war about standards and states' rights is just a distraction from more basic questions of equity in statewide school funding," and that many Race to the Top ideals, such as charter schools, don't apply to his town, which has 4,159 people at the 2000 census. The local schools sometimes are at odds with the state, too; they "scrapped a state-approved reading curriculum and bought their own after tests suggested that they needed to do better." (Read more)

Mine disaster takes on historic proportions

Yesterday's coal-mine disaster in West Virginia killed at least 25 miners, making it the worst in the U.S. since 1984, and four more haven't been accounted for, so the disaster could surpass one in Utah that killed 27 more than a quarter-century ago, The Charleston Gazette reports.

The U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration announced the death toll at a 2 a.m. briefing. The disaster is bound to focus fresh attention on mine safety and Massey Energy, the big and often controversial company whose Performance Coal subsidiary runs the Upper Big Branch Mine near Montcoal in Raleigh County. For local coverage, from The Register-Herald in Beckley, click here. (New York Times map)

"The disaster comes just four years after a series of mine accidents in West Virginia and Kentucky -- including one that brought criminal prosecution of a Massey subsidiary -- killed 19 workers and prompted the first reform of U.S. mine safety laws in 30 years," Ken Ward Jr. writes for the Gazette, with Gary Harki and Kathryn Gregory. "Mine safety experts who were in contact with state and federal investigators said initial reports are that the explosion involved methane that built up inside a sealed area of the mine or that leaked through mine seals. Such a scenario would be a repeat of the 2006 Sago and Darby disasters in West Virginia and Kentucky, which claimed 17 lives and prompted regulators to take a closer look at the safety of the vast sealed areas of underground coal mines for the first time in years." (Read more)

Hamlet feuds over federally funded phones

Shannon Dininny of The Associated Press took the Lake Chelan ferry (dotted line on MapQuest image) to Stehekin, Wash. (we presume AP didn't spring for a float plane) to do a story that began: "This remote outpost in the rugged Cascades is so cut off from the outside world that it has no roads leading to town and little telephone service. The 80-or-so locals relish the isolation and pristine beauty and sell it as an escape to tourists. So when a telephone company attempted to install basic service for a handful of people who sought it, many longtime residents blasted the idea. Siblings found themselves on opposite sides of the heated dispute. Neighbors shouted obscenities across the ferry landing. About 20 telephone lines were eventually installed at a cost of $13,000 per line a year — all paid for by the federal government," with money from a surcharge on long-distance calls. The Universal Service Fund is "a huge leak of ratepayer dollars, and someone has figured out how to put a funnel under that leak. They're just opportunists," tourist-ranch operator Cliff Courtney told Dininny. (Read more) UPDATE, July 12: The phone company, Weavetel, collected more money per line from the USF, $17,763, than any other in 2009, Nate Anderson of Ars Technica reports.

At least 7 dead at Massey mine; rescuers seek 19

"Rescuers began a race against the clock late Monday night, trying to find 19 miners who remained unaccounted for at a Massey Energy mine after a huge explosion rocked the Southern West Virginia operation and killed at least seven workers," Ken Ward Jr. and Kathryn Gregory report for The Charleston Gazette. (Photo by The Associated Press)  "Details remained sketchy for hours after the disaster, which occurred at about 3 p.m. at Massey Energy subsidiary Performance Coal Co.'s Upper Big Branch Mine-South in Raleigh County." (Read more)

Your local legislative race could attract some unusual campaign contributors this fall

More outside money could be coming to state legislative races in your area, if your state has a chamber where a change of party control could make a difference in next year's post-census congressional redistricting, Brody Mullins reports for The Wall Street Journal.

"Labor unions, corporations and wealthy individuals are preparing to break spending records to influence the November elections," Mullins writes. "Both parties are focusing on about 100 key races in 16 states that could tip the balance of power in statehouses." (Read more)

Politicians brag on community colleges, but don't want to pay for them

Community colleges have recently experienced an uptick in political attention as lawmakers champion them to boost graduation rates and help the U.S. emerge from the recession. However, community-college leaders remain worried that they won't receive financial backing commensurate with the new attention. "It's a difficult, challenging time for us," George Boggs, president and CEO of the American Association of Community Colleges, told Eric Gorski of The Associated Press. "But in the longer term view, we've never seen the image of community colleges as high as it is right now. Overall, I'm optimistic for the future." The nation's 1,200 community, technical and junior colleges enroll more than 6 million students, just under half the country's college population, Gorski reports.

"Sinking tax revenues at state and local levels have forced public colleges to cut courses or schedule them around the clock, slash summer sessions, eliminate academic programs and even restrict enrollment," Gorski writes. A survey of 128 community college systems released last week showed a slight improvement from last year's data, with 52 percent reporting reductions in their operating budgets this year. The number with cuts exceeding 10 percent more than doubled. "You put all these factors together, it's sort of a perfect storm," Michael Kirst, professor emeritus of education and business administration at Stanford University, told Gorski. "One would predict our graduation rates will decline, not increase, from the community colleges. We'll move backwards."

An estimated 35 percent of community college entrants earn a certificate or associate's degree within six years, Gorski reports. The House version of student-loan reform passed last fall would have brought $10 billion to community colleges for "job training, building projects and initiatives to get more students out the door with degrees or certificates," Gorski writes, but the version signed last week provides just $2 billion to community colleges for job training only. "A significant portion of higher education is hunkered down, trying to wait out the storm," said Robert Templin, president of Northern Virginia Community College, where President Obama held his student loan bill-signing ceremony. "We've taken the approach that while things will get better, they will never get back to the way they were. We're going to have to find new ways to do our work." (Read more)

Forecasts of declining rural population make responses to census more important

Rural areas may need to be particularly diligent in returning census forms. One Iowa researcher is predicting further population declines for many rural areas of the state, and that finding could apply to other states. When the government released its 2009 population estimates last month, it revised downward some estimates for rural Iowa counties, Jens Manuel Krogstad of The Des Moines Register reports.

Sandra Charvat Burke, a researcher with Iowa State University's Community Vitality Center, told Krogstad that data suggests results from the 2010 census will show Iowa's rural population to be far lower than previously thought. Some prognosticators still think a slight uptick in rural Iowa population may be possible as "data from the first half of the last decade showed slight population increases in areas of southern Iowa that had been in decline for more than a century," Krogstad writes. Hope lies with retiring baby boomers who move to rural areas, boosting population and the local economy. (Read more)

New York Daily News columnist Errol Louis sees a trend of decline in both rural and urban America. "Armed with fresh numbers, America will be forced to confront the harsh reality that a great many urban and rural areas have passed a tipping point and appear destined for long-term decline," he writes. "We will have to embark on a touchy national conversation about how — and whether — these failing places will receive public and private investment." (Read more)

Response to homelessness in Washington town ranges from food bank to 'Greyhound solution'

One Washington town is fighting its growing homeless population and those who provide services to it, providing an example of the special challenges of dealing with the homeless in rural areas.(MapQuest image)  Leaders of Sultan, 2000 census population 3,344, say the approximately two dozen homeless, many of whom hang around town during the day, "hurt business and tourism and give the town an unsavory feel," Lynn Thompson of The Seattle Times reports.

In recent months local law enforcement has stepped up efforts to issue trespass notices to homeless and arrest repeat offenders and  actively discouraged people who want to help them. "It's almost like they're making it illegal to be homeless in Snohomish County," Dave Wood, service director for Sky Valley Volunteers of America, which runs Sultan Food Bank, told Thompson.

Advocates say rural homelessness presents challenges that differ from urban areas: "There are few shelters or transitional housing outside of cities, fewer social-service programs or job-training opportunities, and a long commute to drug, alcohol and mental-health services," Thompson writes. Ken Stark, the county's human-services director, says "Smaller communities struggle because they don't have resources, but larger cities resent the assumption they should provide all the services and accept all the homeless."

Seven percent of U.S. homeless live in rural areas, which accounted for 20 percent of the 2000 population and rural communities that effectively address their homeless populations "get organized, use their resources in strategic ways and develop plans for each individual," Barbara Poppe, executive director of U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, told Thompson. Still, advocates say many small towns use the "Greyhound solution" by giving the homeless a bus ticket out of town. Local business owners have applauded Sultan's crackdown on the homeless, which police Chief Jeff Brand chooses to instead classify as "transients." (Read more)

Animal agriculture takes on the Humane Society

The animal-agriculture industry is escalating its efforts agaunst the Humane Society of the United States. "The Humane Society is pushing ahead, state by state, for laws against such things as 'puppy mills' and intensive confinement of animals in factory farms," Matt Campbell of the Kansas City Star reports, while the agriculture industry argues "unnecessary rules" advocated by the Humane Society will "will drive up prices, cause food shortages and force farmers out of business."

"Ultimately, the Humane Society wants to make it more difficult to produce livestock on the scale that this country requires to meet demand," Don Lipton, a spokesman for the American Farm Bureau Federation, told Campbell. The Humane Society, which calls itself a mainstream voice with a mission "to celebrate animals and confront cruelty," has 11 million supporters who contributed nearly $87 million in 2008. One of the organization's favorite strategies is buying stock in publicly held corporations so that it can introduce shareholder resolutions for more humane animal treatment. The group has won recent victories with announcements from companies like Wendy's, Sonic Corp. and Subway that they will start to buy cage-free eggs.

Livestock-industry officials say that no farmer who wants to be profitable would willingly harm his animals, and that caging chickens and keeping sows in crates — two policies which the Humane Society has railed against — keep the animals from injuring themselves and other animals. The Center for Consumer Freedom, which bills itself as a research organization on food, beverage and lifestyle issues, last month launched a Web site challenging many of the Humane Society claims, Campbell reports. The group accuses the Humane Society of "soaking up money from people who mistakenly believe the national organization helps support their local dog and cat shelters," Campbell writes. He notes the "Humane Society acknowledges that it does not run local animal shelters and does not make a lot of grants." (Read more)

Meanwhile, "The national 4-H organization is catching heat for allowing the Humane Society . . . to make a presentation at the National 4-H Conference in late March," Ken Anderson reports for Brownfield Network. "Some of those who sat in on the HSUS presentation say the material was more focused on HSUS’ goals related to animal rights and animal welfare." 4-H said on one of its Facebook pages that HSUS’s proposal for its presentation met the conference guidelines and “did not present any indication of anti-animal agriculture views or positions.”

Minnesota has one really old black bear

A 36-year-old bruin has survived to be possibly the oldest wild black bear on record, reports Doug Smith for The Star-Tribune in Minneapolis. She was first caught and outfitted with a radio collar in 1981, when she was 7. Since then, Bear No. 56 has survived 29 hunting seasons and avoided cars on highways and clashes with rural residents. (Photo by Minnesota Department of Natural Resources)

The average age of a bear killed by a hunter in Minnesota is 3.7 years. About 80 percent of No. 56's 26 cubs died by age 6. And the oldest bear ever killed by a hunter in the state was 31, based on 35 years of data using teeth to determine the age of those killed by hunters.

"Very few bears live past 25," said Dave Garshelis, a Minnesota DNR bear research scientist. "This is really old for a wild bear. She has found a way to beat the odds." Said Garshelis: "We hope she dies naturally, which would make a nice ending to the story." (Read more)

Tennessee farmer carries subsidies, GOP leaders as baggage as he seeks Tea Party support

The Republican candidate in northwest Tennessee's 8th Congressional District is Stephen Fincher, a gospel-singing cotton farmer from Frog Jump. He would almost be the perfect Tea Party candidate, except he gets about $200,000 in farm subsidies per year, reports Amy Gardner of The Washington Post. Fincher has wooed Tea Party followers, but also has won the support of Republican party leaders, which makes the Tea Party folks distrust him. Some support an independent candidate, Donn James, and that could keep Republicans from taking the seat of retiring Democratic Rep. John Tanner.

"Jim Tomasik, a leader of the Mid-South Tea Party in Cordova, Tenn., is heading perhaps the most organized effort to portray Fincher as a welfare-farmer who has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from other subsidy-receiving farmers," Gardner writes, quoting him: "If Republicans are going to complain about subsidizing General Motors, that's a drop in the bucket to farm subsidies. But they're backing candidates who are taking large amounts of money from the federal government. That's hypocritical." (Map: NationalAtlas.gov)

"Fincher said that without that money, his farm would have shut down years ago," Gardner reports. "He also said the subsidies come with conditions, such as when he was required to spend thousands of dollars building an earthen terrace to control erosion. And without the money, he said, American farmers couldn't compete with countries that subsidize fuel and fertilizer more generously than the United States." Fincher said, "People are quick to say with their mouth full, 'Well, the American farmer is on the dole,' " Fincher said. "But a loaf of bread is two bucks when it could be 10 bucks. I know what it is with the government in my business. We would be all for not having government in our business, but we need a fair system."

The race is an example of the choices facing Tea Party activists and Republicans, Gardner writes."In many cases, they will have to decide between purity and pragmatism, between ideals and organization. And their choices will provide clues to the long-term fate of the movement. Will mainstream Republicans, with their bigger budgets and more polished candidates, harness the tea party's energy at the expense of home-grown activism? And for whom would that be a victory -- the Republicans, the tea party or both?" (Read more)

Local Tex. officials want to restrict rural billboards

A Texas county commissioners' court has voted for more restrictive billboard regulations than the Texas Department of Transportation has for rural areas of the county, reports Don Bommer of the San Antonio Express-News. The Comal County officials said the state rules are not restrictive enough to control the proliferation of billboards in rural areas.

Commissioner Jay Millikin said he would not favor a complete ban on billboards. "Interstate 35 is already cluttered with billboards, but I would like to see more restrictions on state and county roads," he said. "If a business is nearby I could understand the need, but they should not be allowed to be put up a billboard out in the middle of nowhere on public roadways." (Read more)

Residents who get mail only through P.O. boxes should get Census forms by hand after May 1

Some residents who get their mail via post office boxes are concerned they won't be counted in the census because they haven't gotten their forms yet, report Adam Young for the Harlan Daily Enterprise in Kentucky and Sandra Baltazar Martinez for the Santa Fe New Mexican. The Census Bureau is not mailing the forms to boxes, so officials say they've hired workers to hand-deliver the questionnaire to the residents.

"It's also possible that in rural areas, Census workers haven't finished dropping off the questionnaires,"  Verónica Reyes, New Mexico's Census media specialist, told Martinez. The Census also has an "Update/Leave" campaign scheduled to run until today, where workers will drop off the forms in rural areas and in places where housing units do not have a city-style address.

Reyes also said residents should wait until April 12 to receive the form, or they can call and request the form or stop by a Census center to pick one up. As of April 19, however, the Census will start compiling a list of addresses from where forms have not been received. These people should expect a Census worker to arrive at their home.  (Read more)  But that should not happen before May 1, so if someone claims to be a census taker befiore that day, “I’d say they’re probably not from the census,” Linda Chambers, manager of the Better Business Bureau in Bowling Green, Ky., told the Daily News.

In southeastern Kentucky, "Bell County is one of those areas where the number of people who receive their mail by post office boxes is unusually high," Young reports from the region's largest town, Middlesboro. "As a result, thousands of people could go uncounted." (Read more)

New book examines unintended effects of breeding and stocking rainbows, 'an entirely synthetic fish'

When the government perfected its ability to successfully breed rainbow trout for prime recreational fishing, there were downsides, the book An Entirely Synthetic Fish. Andres Halverson, a former reporter who boasts a Ph.D. in ecology, "probes the history of the artificial rearing and stocking of rainbow trout around the world," Steve Raymond writes in a review for The Seattle Times.

"Over the decades, rainbows have been bred to grow faster, mature earlier, and breed at different times of year," Halverson writes. "Culturists have tried to select for disease resistance, fecundity, and even such things as color, shape and fighting ability." In a 1939 report the government's chief fish culturist declared it was now possible to produce "an entirely synthetic fish." Since then rainbow trout, above, have been stocked in all 50 states and every continent except Antarctica. (Environmental Protection Agency photo)

"Rivers, lakes and reservoirs were poisoned to make way for rainbows, and rainbows were planted in many alpine lakes previously lacking fish," Raymond writes, but "The result often was disastrous for native fish species and other life." When biologists sought to determine if stocking lakes actually helped fishing they found, "stocking hatchery rainbow severely depressed native populations and actually resulted in fewer trout for anglers." Halverson's book doesn't ignore the plight of anglers and the communities that depend on the river trout, who are now fighting back as the government looks to cut back the trout population. He agrees with the anglers that it's not fair that their taxes and license fees should pay to eradicate trout. He also cautions that the advocates for cutting trout population today closely resemble those who argued for stocking a century ago, and ""they, too, were sure they were doing the right thing for the world." (Read more)

Illinoians fight wind farm, say it hurts their health

A group of residents who live near an Illinois wind farm are not happy with their new living conditions and have sued DeKalb County and the 75 landowners who leased land for the 126 turbines. "It's gone. The country way of living is gone," Susan Flex, who lives with her husband and their nine children in Waterman in DeKalb County, told Julie Wernau of the Chicago Tribune.

Many of the angry locals say the 400-foot tall turbines harm their health. They blame the noise from turbines for sleep loss and the strobe-like flashes produced by the whirling blades in sunlight for everything from vertigo to migraine headaches, Wernau reports. In December, an expert panel, which included doctors hired by the American Wind Energy Association and the Canadian Wind Energy Association, concluded there is "no evidence that the audible or sub-audible sounds emitted by wind turbines have any direct adverse physiological effects." But Dr. Nina Pierpont, a board-certified pediatrician in Malone, N.Y., who has spent the last four years studying so-called Wind Turbine Syndrome, told Wernau not enough studies have been conducted to rule out any connection between turbines and health complaints.

NextEra Energy Resources, which owns the wind farm, is seeking to dismiss the suit it says is based on "vague allegations of hypothetical harms." DeKalb County has a population of just over 100,000 and is more densely populated than most areas hosting wind farms. "As you move to more heavily populated areas, you would see more — I don't want to say opposition — but you would certainly have more people having questions and issues that needed to be resolved," Steve Stengel, a spokesman for turbine-owner NextEra , told Wernau. Local Steve Rosene knows the groups' opposition to the wind farm might not be popular. "This is a very politically correct thing going on right now, and to say you're opposed to a renewable energy source is like saying you don't like mom and apple pie," he said. "I used to go out in my front yard in a swing and just watch the sunset." (Read more; story also includes a somewhat unnerving video of the effects of turbine-blade shadows)

Rural school advocacy group to help rural educators compete for federal innovation grants

As schools prepare applications for "Investing in Innovation" grants from the Department of Education, some officials are concerned that rural schools might be at a disadvantage due to lack of resources for support in the process. Now The Rural School and Community Trust wants to help by providing "customized technical assistance for rural school districts seeking i3 grants," says a news release from the organization. The program will be funded by a $1.4 million grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

The Trust is planing on-site workshops and other outreach efforts to ensure that rural applicants are informed of the requirements and process, and says it will "assist rural school applicants in identifying promising innovations, completing applications, and building long-term capacity to complete competitive grant applications in the future." Dr. Doris Terry Williams, executive director of the Trust, said in the release, "Our partnership with the Kellogg Foundation will provide vital support to strengthen rural districts’ capacity to secure funding for innovations aimed at reducing dropout rates, increasing graduation rates, and improving teacher and principal quality in high-needs schools."

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan praised the partnership in a statement: "Rural schools and their partners know what works in their communities. I have seen examples of great innovations happening in rural schools, and we want to see these ideas shared and replicated. The Department has reached out to the philanthropic community to discuss ways to increase support for high-need schools. We must work together to ensure all schools can compete for the millions in federal discretionary grants that are available to grow programs that work regardless of their size or location."

For more information about the program visit its Web site here.

EPA says few or no valley fills of mountaintop mines will be able to meet standard issued today

The Environmental Protection Agency took unprecedented steps today to reduce the environmental damage from mountaintop-removal coal mining by making it much harder to put the blasted rock and dirt into valley fills that bury and pollute watercourses.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said there are "no or very few valley fills that are going to be able to meet this standard," but "The people of Appalachia shouldn't have to choose between a clean, healthy environment in which to raise their families and the jobs they need to support them. This is not about ending coal mining, it is about ending coal mining pollution." She noted that EPA recently negotiated changes in the permit for the huge Hobet Mine in West Virginia, which she said will not have valley fills.

EPA is basing its rule on the electrical conductivity of streams, increased by the release of salts and other dissolved solids from mines. Agency scientists determined that streams with more than 500 microsiemens per centimeter, a measure of salinity, are impaired. That is about five times normal levels.

A Kentucky environmental official "said the EPA's action raises serious questions about the future of mining in Eastern Kentucky," The Courier-Journal reports. (Read more) "Industry groups blasted the new regulations, calling them job-killers that would further depress one of the country's poorest regions," Patrick Reis reports for Environment & Energy Daily (subscription only).

UPDATE, April 2: The leading candidates for the Democratic nomination for senator from Kentucky, who have clashed over coal issues in the past, issued statements that were not all that different. Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo issued a press release calling EPA's move a selective "declaration of war on Kentucky's coal industry," adding, "If this ruling were applied to other industries like farming, road construction, commercial development and housing, it would shut down our economy. This anti-coal decision by the EPA Administrator does not reflect what is necessary to protect the health of Kentuckians, but her own deep seated bias against the coal industry." Asked for his view, Attorney General Jack Conway said in an e-mail, “We need to mine coal responsibly and that the EPA should not legislate. That is the role of Congress and yesterday’s announcement demonstrates that Washington does not understand the importance of coal to Kentucky’s economy. . . . I will not support any measure that will cost Kentucky jobs and make it more difficult to keep electricity rates low for our working families, including cap and trade legislation.”

UPDATE, April 5: In one of the two studies EPA included in its announcement, the agency focused on "direct damage to streams that are buried and on pollution downstream from valley fills," Ken Ward Jr. reports for The Charleston Gazette, but the the report also "warns that damage to ecologically important forests is greater than some routinely cited statistics suggest." Previous EPA studies have projected that 1,200 miles of streams would be lost to valley fills and associated mining activities from 1992 to 2002, Ward writes, but the new report explains those numbers don't account for loss of other headwater ecosystems. (Read more)

The Lexington Herald-Leader also concluded in a Sunday editorial that "Kentuckians who care about the future should thank EPA" for its new guidelines. Heartland Institute fellow Ross Kaminsky disagrees, writing the new guidelines are "the inevitable outcome when government puts environmental radicals in charge of writing regulations."


FOR MORE DETAILS, SEE OUR APPALACHIAN COAL AND GAS PAGE.

New York dairy farmers say lack of competition among milk buyers is hurting their industry

At the New York state stop of a nationwide tour of Justice Department officials to hear complaints about antitrust issues in the agriculture industry, farmers placed much of the blame for the dairy crisis at the feet of milk processors. At a meeting in Batavia attended by Assistant U.S. Attorney General Christine A. Varney, the Obama administration's top antitrust investigator, farmers pointed to the growing gap between prices consumers pay for milk at the market and the price they are paid by the milk processors as the main reason for dairy industry trouble, Phil Fairbanks of The Buffalo News reports.

"Our farmers are getting paid less and consumers are paying more," Sen. Charles E. Schumer said at the meeting. "Someone's walking away with all the money." Varney, a Syracuse native, mostly listened to the farmers' complaints, but at one point assured them the administration "will not let you down. We know the problem you're facing." Farmers said a consolidation of milk processors has led to a lack of competition for the milk being produced in upstate New York. "It's a disaster," Schumer said, "not only for the our farmers but for our rural communities." (Read more)

Health care reform makes Indian Health Care Improvement Act permanent

The impact of health care reform on Native Americans is being widely praised by Indian advocacy groups, primarily because it includes the re-authorization of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act (IHCIA). The National Indian Health Board claimed "victory" and Montana Sen. Jon Tester told Indian Country Today, "The law will modernize health service delivery in Indian country, improve access to quality care, and fulfill the government’s trust responsibility to provide adequate health care."

Activists have been trying since the 1976 inception of the IHCIA to permanently reauthorize the act, which expired in 2000.  According to the Department of Health and Human Services, improvements to Indian health care will include:

• Authorization for hospice, assisted living, long-term, and home- and community-based care.
• Ability to recover costs from third parties to tribally operated facilities.
• Establishment of a Community Health Representative program for urban Indian organizations to train and employ Indians to provide health care services.
• A requirement that the Indian Health Service establish comprehensive behavioral health, prevention, and treatment programs for Indians.

Rural Ga. lawyer shortage worsens in recession

You don't often hear someone complain that the world doesn't have enough lawyers, but that may be the case in some rural areas. The State Bar of Georgia reports more than 28,200 actively practicing lawyers in the state, but roughly 69 percent of them practice in the core Atlanta metro counties. The remaining 8,700 lawyers are sprinkled across the other 154 counties, 35 of which have fewer than four practicing attorneys, Péralte C. Paul of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. While doctors are often given incentives to practice in rural areas out of school, lawyers share little of that help.

The shortage reflects a long-standing problem in rural Georgia: "Dwindling populations and the loss of thousands of manufacturing jobs over several decades, coupled with a lack of economic diversity, leave little room for a thriving services sector," Paul writes. Harvey Newman, a public management and policy professor at Georgia State University, explained, "As populations continue to decline in many rural parts of the state, what they have is such a small population that they don’t support much economic activity of any kind." new lawyers, who on average graduate with loans of $71,400 to $91,500, tend to cluster in the state’s metro areas, which boast a more dependable stream of clients.

The recession has only worsened the rural poor's lack of access to government-funded legal aid, an attorney with the Georgia Legal Services Program told Paul. The 39-year-old organization provides legal aid to low-income Georgians outside of metro Atlanta. Cost of representation also remains a significant barrier to many rural Georgians. “Cost is always an issue, and it’s certainly become an issue in a bad economy,” Josh Bell, an attorney in Whigham in South Georgia, told Paul. (Read more)

It's Census Day; return rates vary; look up yours

Today is Census Day, the date to which the decennial count is pegged. Response rates vary widely across the country. As of today, federal officials rank South Dakota, Wisconsin, Nebraska, North Dakota and Iowa as the top five states in returning the census, but households have until mid-April to mail the forms back, Monica Davey of The New York Times reports. Residents of rural Wolford, N.D., wont need the extra time, as each of the approximately 50 locals who received a questionnaire have already returned it.

"Why wouldn't you send it back?" Jim Wolf, who has been mayor of Wolford so long he doesn't remember what specific year he entered office, asked Davey. "It's a rural community, and I guess we go by the rules." Wolford residents who haven't yet received their forms because the U.S. Census Bureau won't mail the questionnaires to post office boxes have begun to complain about the delay. (Read more)

Not all rural areas are enjoying the same success as Wolford in census return rates. Issaquena County, Miss., has an estimated one person for every 166 acres of land, and in 2000 joined the rest of the Mississippi Delta as one of the "most challenging and undercounted census tracts in the state," Shaila Dewan of the Times reports. Only 21 percent of households in the county have returned their census forms, compared to 52 percent nationally. Community groups have tried a number of strategies to increase census awareness, but officials say they will almost certainly have to go door-to-door to get a semi-accurate count. (Read more)

The Census Bureau has a searchable database of census return rates by zip code. The Times map below breaks down participation rates by county.

Rural unemployment soared in January, exceeding rates in urban and exurban counties

The rural unemployment rate increased to 11.2 percent in January, passing the rate in both urban and exurban counties. The rates in urban and exurban counties, respectively, were 10.6 and 10.4 percent, Bill Bishop and Roberto Gallardo report in the Daily Yonder. Mackinac and Baraga counties in Michigan had the highest rural unemployment rates at 31.2 percent and 28.6 percent respectively. Slope and Williams counties in North Dakota had the lowest at 2.4 percent and 2.5 percent respectively.

The two counties with the highest and lowest rural unemployment rates refected a trend throughout the recession. "Rural unemployment has been lowest in the Great Plains," the reporters write, and "the rates have been the highest in Michigan, the Southeast and along the West Coast." However, unemployment deepened and spread in rural America in January. Compared to December's rates high unemployment counties, those with rates about 15 percent, emerged in California, Oregon, Utah and Arizona while spreading across the South and Michigan.(Read more)

The Yonder includes a number of helpful charts including one breaking down the rural, urban and exurban unemployment rates in each state and another with the 50 counties gaining and losing the most jobs since January 2009. The map below shows the unemployment rates in each U.S. rural county. An enlarged version can be seen here.