Opinion: Virginia county resists growth to maintain its rural character and countryside

Civil War monuments at Culpeper National Cemetery
(National Cemetery Administration photo)

As urban sprawl and industrial developments eat up Virginia countryside, Rappahannock County turns against the tide to remain a quiet, rural area with a protected "view shed," writes Dana Milbank in his opinion piece for The Washington Post.

Culpeper National Cemetery sits on a corner of land in Culpepper, Virginia, and there you will find "the final resting place for about 1,300 Union soldiers killed in the Civil War. Stone monuments honor regiments from Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania that fought the battles of Cedar Mountain, Brandy Station and others nearby," Milbank explains. "But these hallowed grounds are about to become a monument to something else: the destruction of the American countryside.

"Look east from the cemetery, to an adjacent field where cattle graze, birds sing and a brook babbles: This will become a 116-acre data center housing 2.2 million square feet of massive structures with concrete walls up to 70 feet high. Look to the south from the cemetery at another green field: Here will rise the electrical substation powering the 600-megawatt monster."

Rappahannock County, Va.
(Wikipedia map)

While other Virginia counties take the "easy dollars" developers are waving, Rappahannock County has a different goal: To remain a part of the state's "dead zone," Milbank writes. "Its board of supervisors has for years rejected almost all development, and its population hasn’t grown at all. With 7,348 residents in the 2020 census, Rappahannock has roughly the same population it had in 2000 — and in 1920, for that matter. Rappahannock fends off development with its 25-acre minimum zoning requirement."

Keir Whitson, vice chairman of the board of supervisors, told Milbank, "I don’t even want to talk about growth. It’s not a word that should be in our active vocabulary." Milbank adds, "Whitson even torpedoed a local philanthropist’s plan to build three dozen affordable housing units in the town of Washington, Va., the county seat. He forced the already modest development to reduce its size to 18 apartments and townhouses. . . . It was a tough decision to reject what was, for the county, a gift of free affordable housing. It followed an easier decision to reject a 53-unit rental property on the approach to Shenandoah National Park."

Rappahannock's refusal of development dollars keeps the county on a meager budget, but residents are willing to bear that burden instead of managing the demands of growth. "While Culpeper and other nearby counties surrender to development, tiny Rappahannock has built a firewall to preserve its rural way of life," Millbank writes. "Similar tensions between development and rural character are playing out across the country. . . . Rappahannock has a plan: no development."

Rappahannock residents seem "content to live in a place with few amenities, few services and few jobs if it means preserving their unhurried rural life, their tightknit community, their panoramic views and their abundant wildlife."

Whitson told Milbank, “People say to me, pretty consistently, ‘Come on, buddy, get over it. You know Rappahannock County’s got to change. I’m like, ‘No, it doesn’t.’ I understand change is inevitable, but in Rappahannock County, change can be tiny, tiny change.” Milbank writes, "To save our countryside, we’re going to need a lot more such leaders with the courage to think small."

Groundwater shortage makes Arizona limit home building; it's an example of climate change reshaping the West

Voluntarily fallowed fields at the Fort Yuma Indian Reservation, home of the Quechan

Tribe, in May. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images via The Washington Post)

Water shortages in the West aren't news, but a shortage of groundwater in Arizona shows its importance and provides an example of how climate change is reshaping the region, report Joshua Partlow, Brady Dennis and Isaac Stanley-Becker of The Washington Post. 

"The decision by Arizona in the past week to limit residential construction in some parts of the fast-growing Phoenix suburbs is another major warning about how climate change is disrupting lifestyles and economies in the West," the Post reports. "Throughout the region, glaciers have receded, wildfires have expanded, and rivers and lakes have shrunk. It has been a wet winter, but the deeper trends brought on by the warming atmosphere persist."

Arizona's move signals "a critical point in our history, where we're making decisions about what's most important — housing developments or farm fields," Stefanie Smallhouse, president of the Arizona Farm Bureau, told the Post.

"Sometimes, you've got to give up some dreams to get to others. Arizona is in that situation with its water," Arizona State University water-law professor Rhett Larson told the Post. "We want to be the greatest semiconductor and microchip manufacturer in the world. We can do that. We have enough water, but our food prices are going to go up because we're not going to grow as much food."

And it's not mainly about surface water, the Post notes: "Jay Famiglietti moved to Arizona to study how the worst drought in a millennium was sapping groundwater beneath the American West. . . . He has documented that states along the Colorado River were losing their aquifers far faster than the more visible shriveling of the nation's largest reservoirs. Famiglietti told the Post: "I don't think that people and this is everyone, the general public, but right up to our water managers and elected officials, really understand now that groundwater is the key to our future."

The Post explains, "Groundwater can take thousands of years to replenish once it has been sucked out. . . Such shortages are likely to reshape, in coming decades, where people live and how much they pay to do so." The Southwest does have options, and some are working. The Post reports, "Over the past two decades, Nevada has reduced by 30 percent the portion of the Colorado River's water that it uses, even as the population has grown. Las Vegas lawns have been ripped out and replaced by cactus, gravel and artificial turf. . . . Addressing climate changes "also means more money and focus on costly solutions — facilities that remove salt from seawater; pipelines bringing in water from wetter parts of the country. Arizona's prior governor, Doug Ducey, created a $1 billion fund for pursuing such projects. His former natural resources adviser, Chuck Podolak, now leads that effort at the Water Infrastructure Finance Authority of Arizona. Podolak told the Post: "Finding new water seems like a relatively doable task compared to holding back the oceans in Miami or trying to stop hurricanes from coming into Houston."

N.C. county that once said 'no' to Walmart and Buc-ee's rejected a Dollar General, but the proposal has come back

Dollar General Corp. wants a store in White Cross, N.C., which has become a rural bedroom community. (MapQuest)

The proposed Dollar General store would be a nondescript steel-
clad structure. (News & Observer photo via Glandon Forest Equity)

The small-town zoning fights about retail development were once about Walmart. Now they're about Dollar General Corp., which is trying to be Walmart on a small scale. "Residents of a crossroads community west of Carrboro, North Carolina, thought they had beaten Dollar General last year when the developer withdrew a rezoning application," reports Tammy Grubb of The News & Observer. "But the developer Glandon Forest Equity came back with a new proposal," which Orange County commissioners will hear Tuesday night.

"Most of the land around White Cross [the proposed site] is zoned for agricultural and residential uses. However, neighborhood commercial development serving nearby residents is allowed at the intersection with NC 54," Grubb reports. "Mom-and-pop shops have sprung up around the crossroads. . . . Project documents indicate Dollar General's developer is interested in the over 11,500 cars the state's Department of Transportation says pass the spot on NC 54 each day, but that hasn't eased fears the store would siphon existing businesses' customers. . . . Orange County and its towns have a history of rejecting projects that its residents don't like, from Walmart in the 1990s and early 2000s to Buc-ee's in 2021."

Nicknamed the "The Paris of Piedmont," some Carrboro residents think a Dollar General is not a good "fit with the community." Grubb writes, "Sally Jo Slusher started Plow Girl Farm about a half-mile east of the proposed site said the proposed Dollar General would be 'massive' and 'very, very out of place.'. . . [Slusher] urges the county to think outside the box about what White Cross could become." Slusher told Grubb, "We really value our neighbors. . . . I frequent Fiesta Grill and Bravos Market. . . . All these little businesses out here, I do business with, and I think our whole community sort of feels this way, or most of us."

Kristina Snyder, a Fiesta Grill customer who has lived between Carrboro and White Cross for about 20 years, noted how frustrating it was to see the proposal return. She told Grubb, "I recognize that 'no' is never forever, but it seems like it's totally unfair because all of the burden is now on community members to first go to a hearing and then go to the planning board, and now go to the county commissioners. . . . [and the developer] is not being held to any standards (after) they were told they had to wait at least a year to reapply."

"Unlike surrounding counties dotted with dozens of Dollar General locations, only a handful are located in strip malls in Carrboro, Hillsborough and Chapel Hill," Grubb reports. "Both county staff and residents have raised concerns about the building's appearance, especially since it sits across the highway from the historic 1930s-era White Cross School. . . . The proposed 10,640-square-foot Dollar General store and its 35-space parking lot would cover roughly an acre of the 4.83-acre site, where a two-story community store building now sits vacant. The plan is to build the Dollar General next year and hire four employees, documents said."

Snyder told Grubb, "And for four more jobs at whatever (wage) Dollar General pays a cashier, that's not building living wages in Orange County." Grubb adds, "She and residents said they would rather see the land being used to add more or expand existing mom-and-pop stores, provide park or green space, or create room for a farmer's market."

Small farmers squeezed out of purchasing land, partly by investors; states seek to limit foreign farmland purchases

Young farmers are being priced out of land by developers and investors, who include foreign buyers.

Young farmers often start out renting acreage, buying land as they can finance it, but that has become nearly impossible for the average young farmer, writes Linda Qiu of The New York Times: "Joel Gindo thought he could finally own and operate the farm of his dreams when a neighbor put up 160 acres of cropland for sale in Brookings County, South Dakota, two years ago. Five thousand or six thousand dollars an acre should do the trick, Mr. Gindo estimated. . . . But at auction, Mr. Gindo watched helplessly as the price continued to climb until it hit $11,000 an acre, double what he had budgeted." 

Qui reports, "What is happening in South Dakota is playing out in farming communities across the nation as the value of farmland soars, hitting record highs this year and often pricing out small or beginning farmers. As a result, small farmers like Mr. Gindo are now going up against deep-pocketed investors, including private-equity firms and real-estate developers, prompting some experts to warn of far-reaching consequences for the farming sector."

Jason Henderson, dean of agriculture at Purdue University and a former official at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, told Qui, "A series of economic forces — high prices for commodity crops like corn, soybeans and wheat; a robust housing market; low interest rates until recently; and an abundance of government subsidies — have converged to create a 'perfect storm' for farmland values." 

Meanwhile, there is emerging concern over foreign purchases of land, and at least eight states are looking to limit foreign ownership, reports Johnathan Hettinger of the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting: "Amid growing concern about Chinese investment in U.S. agriculture, there has been a renewed push to limit and more closely monitor foreign ownership of farmland across the country. There are a number of reasons for the increased scrutiny, according to experts, and China is at the heart of many of them. Increasing foreign investment in agriculture. Rising land prices. Increasing investment in farmland. A trade war with China. A pandemic, where food shortages hit home for many Americans, and spurred concerns about food security."

Nearby development puts a Virginia county's dark sky at risk

Google map, adapted by The Rural Blog; click to enlarge

As new housing and commercial developments creep closer to the Rappahannock County Park — a designated International Dark Sky Park in northern Virginia — stargazing enthusiasts wonder what will happen to the nightly natural wonder that has all but disappeared in more heavily populated areas, Christopher Connell reports for the weekly Rappahannock News. 

Fifteen miles southeast of the park, in adjoining Culpeper County, 760 homes and a new shopping center are being built, and local environmentalists are trying to convince developers "to go above and beyond what Culpeper zoning ordinances require to limit light pollution," Connell writes. Groups interested in keeping the sky dark sky virtually with the homebuilder's development manager, who seemed receptive, but the environmentalists' principal concern was with the shopping center.

As populations have grown in the towns surrounding Rappahannock County, longtime residents say the sky has already become less dark. Joyce Harman, a nearly three-decade-long resident, told Connell that from her house she "can see the lights of Culpeper, Warrenton and Front Royal. There’s tons more development."

Dark skies are important to the readership of the Rappahannock News, Connell writes. When the nonprofit Foothills Forum formed in 2015 to support the newspaper, it surveyed over 3,200 residents on what they saw as important issues and "people ranked keeping the skies dark as their sixth biggest concern." The Forum provides support for such polling, and for stories like Connell's; he is a retired reporter for The Associated Press.

A newspaper editor cries for help, in a surprisingly frank way, and gets it; his embarrassed publisher is glad he did

By Al Cross
Director and Professor, Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, University of Kentucky

Rural newspapers have become more willing to share the threats to their existence with readers, but perhaps none so frankly as the Meade County Messenger in Brandenburg, Ky., did last month.

Under a headline reading, "Will you cheer the death of an institution or come to its aid?" Editor Chad Hobbs told how the paper was suffering from social media, a boycott by some advertisers upset about an editorial stance, his personal travails in covering recent stories, and, of course, Covid-19: "The pandemic and ensuing shutdowns wrecked our advertising lifeline to the point the owner of this paper hasn’t taken a cent from the business in over two years."

Chad Hobbs and Rena Singleton in their Brandenburg, Ky., office

Whoa. That revelation about how much money a paper is making, or not making, is exceedingly rare in the newspaper business. And it surprised the publisher of the paper, Rena Singleton, who has other sources of income. "I didn't know he was going to put that editorial in," much less reveal the paper's finances, Singleton told me. "It embarrassed me." But it's working out for them. Here's the rest of story:

Hobbs and Singleton, who has owned the weekly for 40 years, said the editorial sprang from a meeting of the paper's five-member staff, in which she "put responsibility on them for the future of the paper," as she put it. "He took it to heart." In his 1,328-word editorial, Hobbs followed the financial revelation with this passage:

"The final straw has been the fallout from us doing our job as your watchdog. We hear from countless readers how much you appreciate the fact that we hold leaders accountable and fearlessly defend the citizens of this county and their tax dollars. Doing the right thing and upholding that mandate by the common men and women of this county has come at one heck of a price. After supporting everything the Meade County Chamber of Commerce has done since its inception, we sided with the people and dared to say we didn’t agree with the tax dollars they were wanting to spend on a new facility," which would have been paid for by local governments. "Several large businesses that have always supported us have pulled their advertising because the forum page does not paint images of their friends in politics while wearing rose-colored glasses."

So, a newspaper that needs more business attacked the umbrella entity for the business community. But the reaction wasn't what you might expect, Singleton and Hobbs said. Some have offered help, she said, and "That's what we needed most. . . . His editorial did have an impact." She said that if she had seen the editorial in advance, and had known the reaction would be positive, she would have left in the news that she hadn't taken an ownership distribution from the paper in two years.

Singleton said she's sure other weekly publishers are in similar situations, but "Nobody's telling it." Asked if she would recommend publishers be more forthcoming about their finances, she said yes.

Hobbs, a former reporter who moved into the editor's job in March, is a native of Meade County. Singleton said that helped his editorial have more impact than it would have if written by someone who had moved in from the outside. Hobbs reminded his audience of that in his conclusion:

"If you cut me open, I bleed Meade County green, and I can’t thank those that support me enough for allowing me to do what I do for this long. I love doing what I do, no matter how bad it hurts sometimes. As much as I hate asking for help, it appears that, if something doesn’t soon give, we very well may be traveling down a road together that is quickly becoming too narrow for the Messenger to fit. We’ve fought for you Meade County for over 100 years, and we would love to do it for another 100 years. Will you let your grand ol’ oak wither and die over a couple of articles you didn’t agree with, or will you come to our aid in this time of need, like we have so many times for you, Meade County?"

Google map, adapted by The Rural Blog; click it to enlarge

Singleton said the editorial also helped the community realize the value of the newspaper at a time when it is getting a large industry, many new residents and more development issues for the paper to cover. In the last few decades, Meade County has become mainly a bedroom community for people who work in nearby cities or Fort Knox, which lies partly in the county.

The commuters "forgot their community," Singleton said. "The people here are starting to lose the community feel, and realize the only thing that's holding us together is the community newspaper."

High court reconsiders 'significant nexus' ruling on wetlands

Here's the latest development in a longstanding debate over how much power the government has to regulate water on private land: The Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether Michael and Chantell Sackett can build a house on their northern Idaho property that has a disputed connection to wetlands. In considering the case, the Supreme Court said it would decide whether the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals used the proper test to determine whether wetlands are 'waters of the United States'," and thus subject to federal regulation, Chuck Abbott reports for the Food & Environment Reporting Network.

The conservative nonprofit Pacific Legal Foundation, which represents the Sacketts, "said the case would give the Supreme Court the opportunity to revisit a 2006 ruling that said that if a wetland has a 'significant nexus' with navigable waters, it is covered by the Clean Water Act. There have been repeated arguments over how to identify that connection," Abbott reports. Pacific Legal attorney Damien Schiff said the Sacketts' property lacks a surface water connection to any body of water and shouldn't be subject to federal regulation.

This isn't the Sacketts' first trip to the Supreme Court over the 0.5-acre plot near Priest Lake. When they bought the property in 2004, they were told it had wetlands so they would need federal permits before building on it. "The Supreme Court ruled unanimously in 2012 that the Sacketts had the right as landowners to challenge the EPA’s wetlands determinations. The Pacific Legal Foundation represented them in that case, too," Abbott reports.

Army Corps of Engineers announces it won't use relaxed Trump-era waters definition when making permit decisions

"The Biden administration last week quietly and abruptly announced that developers can no longer rely on decisions made under a high-profile Trump-era Clean Water Act rule about which waters are federally protected to obtain new permits," Hannah Northey reports for Energy & Environment News. "Legal experts say the move could have far-reaching effects throughout the building, mining and agricultural sectors."

At issue is how regulations define the Clean Water Act's definition of "waters of the United States," those regulated by the act. The Environmental Protection Agency under President Obama had expanded that term to include intermittent and seasonal waterways. Farmers and developers were unhappy with the move, saying it was government overreach and unnecessarily burdensome. The Trump administration scaled back the WOTUS definition but a federal judge tossed it on the grounds that it could harm the environment. "Notably, some argue the rule is still in effect until EPA completes the regulatory process of replacing the Trump rule with pre-2015 regulations updated to reflect consideration of Supreme Court decisions," Northey reports.

Conflicting rulings in federal district courts have sown confusion, so on Jan. 5 the Army Corps of Engineers posted on its website a new rule meant to clarify the matter. "Going forward, the Army Corps in its announcement explains that it will make new permit decisions based on the pre-2015 regulatory regime — not the Trump rule — and that the agency will talk to applicants about any pending or future permit action that relies on an approved jurisdictional determination made under the Trump rule," Northey reports. "Specifically, the Army Corps said they would talk to applicants about whether they want to receive a new determination based on pre-2015 regulations or proceed with a preliminary determination or none at all, according to the post."

The new policy could affect people who were told they had no WOTUS jurisdictional areas on their land. It could also affect developers. "Ellen Gilinsky, a former wetlands consultant and associate deputy assistant administrator for water at EPA under the Obama administration, said the Army Corps’ decision could affect anyone who had an approved jurisdictional determination under the Trump rule but figured they had five years to apply for a permit using that decision," Northey reports. "Developers that fit into that bucket, she said, are going to be surprised when they go in for a permit and are told their development plans are going to have to change."

Developers, mining companies, and farmers have objected to the Jan. 5 policy update; several legal experts told Northey the change will likely lead to multiple lawsuits. Meanwhile, EPA and the Army Corps are seeking farmers' input on a new rewrite of the definition.

Drought makes some towns slow or halt development

Oakley, Utah, a community of 1,470
near Salt Lake City in Summit County
(Wikipedia map)

The nation's five fastest-growing states are all in the Mountain West or Southwest, and all are facing severe drought. That drought has prompted many Western communities to halt development. In Oakley, Utah, for example, the drought has "depleted the natural springs that supply water to the community. During each of the past several summers, local leaders worried that quenching any major fire might empty the city’s water tanks," Alex Brown reports for Stateline. Though the city issued water-use restrictions this spring, constituents complained that the city continued issuing building permits, since new construction means more households using water, including newly-laid sod that would need to be watered.

"A rainy autumn has helped replenish Oakley’s water, and the city plans to drill a new well later this year. That should allow the city to double its water capacity and rescind the building moratorium," Brown reports. "But even as Oakley’s fortunes improve, communities throughout the West are facing difficult questions about water scarcity and what it means for future growth—especially because climate change is expected to make such droughts more frequent and intense."

Extreme weather events have left some towns in eastern North Carolina struggling, and fearing for their futures

Fair Bluff, N.C., can't afford to buy and demolish such ruined buildings.
(Photo by Mike Belleme, The New York Times)

"Climate shocks are pushing small rural communities . . . many of which were already struggling economically, to the brink of insolvency," Christopher Flavelle reports for The New York Times. Rather than bouncing back, places hit repeatedly by hurricanes, floods and wildfires are unraveling: residents and employers leave, the tax base shrinks and it becomes even harder to fund basic services. That downward spiral now threatens low-income communities in the path this week of Hurricane Ida and those hit by the recent flooding in Tennessee — hamlets regularly pummeled by storms that are growing more frequent and destructive because of climate change." (Not all are hamlets.)

Downtown Fair Bluff (Photo by The News Reporter, Whiteville)

Flavelle's object example is Fair Bluff, N.C.: "The town’s only factory, which made vinyl products, closed a few months after Matthew. The population of around 1,000 fell by about half. The federal government tried to help, buying the homes of people who wanted to leave, but those buyouts meant even less property tax, tightening the fiscal noose. Al Leonard, the town manager, who is responsible for its recovery, said his own job may have to be eliminated, and maybe the police department, too."

The city has received money from several sources for recovery, but it has a bigger plan, Flavelle reports: "Buy the ruined stores downtown, tear them down, clean up the land and turn it into a park that can flood safely. Build a new downtown a few blocks east on land is less likely to flood. Rebuild, revive and regain what has been lost. But the town can’t afford any of it." The price tag: $10 million. Leonard told him, “Fair Bluff’s recovery will go as far as someone else’s money will take us.”

Such money is usually federal, and the federal government lacks a coordinated approach, Flavelle reports: "In 2016, the Obama administration set up a working group among agencies that handle disaster policy and recovery, including FEMA, HUD and the Army Corps of Engineers, asking them to devise a coordinated approach for what experts call managed retreat — relocating entire communities from areas that can’t be protected. But that work stopped under President Donald J. Trump and hasn’t resumed. Instead, agencies continue to pursue their own programs, even if they conflict with each other." As examples, he cites the troubles of nearby towns, Princeville and Seven Springs, and reports the sad calculus: "With each flood, more people leave. The tax base shrinks. Those who stay lose the will to improve their properties, knowing that they’ll likely flood again."

Exurbia, the housing beyond suburbia, is encroaching more on wilderness, and that means more animal-human conflict

By Mary Jane McKinney

Neighborhood Watch groups are typically on the lookout for crime. In my West Texas village, “If you see something, say something” has a different meaning.

The housing developments surrounding us on all sides have altered the environment and hunting grounds for thousands of animals we don’t usually see crossing our yards. We’re used to seeing deer, squirrels, rabbits, hawks, feral cats, and an occasional skunk or armadillo. Lately, it’s been like watching an episode of "Wild Kingdom."

Mary Jane McKinney

A few days ago, I spotted a large gray fox sniffing around a lantana bush 20 feet from my backdoor. I ran to the phone and called my cousin B.W. who lives on the property next door. A few hours later, he caught the fox in his chicken pen and shot it.

The phone alerts also work for nocturnal (possibly rabid animals) that appear in the daytime. A skunk or opossum spotted in the bright sunshine signals danger. At twilight, when nocturnal mammals emerge to hunt, we’ve seen a parade of porcupines, civets, and raccoons. The worst incident so far involves a rabid bobcat that squeezed through a small pet door in Currie Jones’s garage. The bobcat was chasing two dogs around the garage when sharpshooter Jones managed to kill the bobcat without shooting the dogs or plugging holes in his wife’s SUV, or his Ram pickup.

The collective sleep of our community is being disrupted by the nighttime screams of rabbits being carried off in the talons of owls. Some of the clever nocturnal creatures have managed to find a way under houses where they bed down for the night. How do we know they are there? We hear them, and many of them give off a musky odor, especially if they have been socializing with skunks.

All over Texas, residents in new developments have had to cope with coexisting with wild things. Exurbia, the housing beyond suburbia, is encroaching on more and more wilderness. Animals go where they can catch and kill food. A survival twist is that animals are acquiring a taste for human food. Why kill a small animal if you can eat garbage, pet food? When B.W. found the fox in the chicken pen, she wasn’t attacking the chickens yet. She was feasting on some leftover chicken casserole tossed in the pen for the chickens.

It could be worse. We haven’t seen coyotes, black bears, eagles, or feral hogs yet. And we don’t have to deal with alligators like Florida residents do. But the pastoral calm we enjoy has been disturbed. We’ve had to change our way of life. No more going away for the weekend and leaving pets enough food and water on the back porch. Now, we have a neighbor feed pets while we’re away, and put away the dog’s bowls when they are through. No more tossing scraps in the chicken yard, and no more leaving fruit and vegetables at a neighbor’s door. Now, we ring the bell and hand over the home-grown produce in person.

The irony in this situation is that the new homes being built on 2- to 5-acre lots in the wilderness are for people who want to live in the country, away from the stress of the city. We wonder how the new people will react to the new stress of dealing with wild animals. The city transplants often install swimming pools and ponds, both magnets for wild animals. Just as the natives here have a lot to learn about our wild reality, so do our new exurbanite neighbors. If the wild animals continue to multiply, we may have to fight fire with fire and invest in a few llamas and donkeys to guard our block. Now, that’s a Disney movie!

Mary Jane McKinney of Christoval, Texas, writes her "Plain English" column for Texas newspapers.

'Waters of the U.S.' definition, widened under Obama and narrowed under Trump, in line for expansion under Biden

"The Biden administration has plans to roll out a new proposal for federal clean-water regulations, working to undo moves by the Trump administration that had eased permit requirements for landowners," Gabriel Rubin and Katy Ferek report for The Wall Street Journal. "The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday said it plans to start a regulatory process alongside the Justice Department to revise a Trump administration rule that the Biden administration says has reduced clean-water protections. A new rule would restore protections put in place by prior administrations, with a special emphasis on projects in arid Western states like New Mexico and Arizona."

EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement, “We are committed to establishing a durable definition of ‘waters of the United States’ based on Supreme Court precedent and drawing from the lessons learned from the current and previous regulations.” U.S. Army Corps of Engineers regulators said "the Trump-era EPA rule has led to a 25 percentage-point reduction in 'determinations of waters that would otherwise be afforded protection,'" Rubin and Ferek report.

The Trump administration narrowed the definition of the term in the Clean Water Act in all but one state in June 2020, saying the new rules were clearer and would save landowners time and money. "The Trump rule rescinded an Obama-era one that expanded federal oversight to protect wildlife and the country’s drinking-water supply from industrial runoff and pollution in 2015," Rubin and Ferek report. "The expansion meant more landowners and developers needed to apply for permits. It also put them at greater risk of steep fines for polluting the country’s smaller waterways. Farmers, property developers, chemical manufacturers and oil-and-gas producers had fought the expansion, saying it inappropriately curtailed property owners’ rights."

UPDATE: American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall issued a statement saying that the nation's main agriculture lobbying group was "extremely disappointed" to do away with a rule that he said "brought clarity" to farmers and ranchers, Todd Neeley of Progressive Farmer reports.