Local foes of Army's plan to burn nerve gas persuaded the federal government to change its plans; the job is now done

Craig Williams, local activist, became a national leader.

Headlines around the world Friday announced that the United States had completed destruction of its last chemical weapons, accomplishing a 1997 global treaty's goal of eliminating all declared national stockpiles of such weapons. The final deed was done at the Blue Grass Army Depot near Richmond, Ky., ending decades of concern in the town of 36,000 and the surrounding rural area about leaks from the 23-square-mile depot and the incinerator that the Army wanted to build to burn nerve gases and other chemical agents.

Residents of the area mounted a campaign that succeeded in getting the plans changed to a chemical neutralization process, which required more billions and more time but eased fears. In 2019 U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell praised the Kentucky Chemical Demilitarization Citizens’ Advisory Commission and the Chemical Destruction Community Advisory Board, both co-chaired by local resident and Vietnam veteran Craig Williams. "He said no community has ever had a more effective leader looking out for their interests," the Lexington Herald-Leader reported.

Google map

“With singular focus and an unwavering drive, Craig poured over literally every document, every detail, and literally every inch of Blue Grass. He became the leading expert,” McConnell said. “Time and again, Craig showed an uncanny ability to find answers nobody wanted him to see.” The story of the efforts by Williams and others is told in a documentary by Ben Evans and the Kentucky Environmental Foundation, "Nerve," which won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2016 Environmental Film Festival at Yale University.

That time again: What to know about Daylight Saving Time, and other household things to do as we reset our clocks

Electric Time technician Dan LaMoore adjusts a 1000-lb.,
12-foot-diameter clock in Medfield, Mass. (Elise Amendola/AP)

Daylight saving time (should we capitalize that?) begins at 2 a,m. local time Sunday. Here are some key facts about it, as reported by Scott Dance of The Washington Post:

Daylight time began as "a global response to wartime energy demands. During World War I, countries on both sides of the conflict adopted it to maximize daylight time during typical waking hours. . . . It no longer has as much to do with energy savings. Increasing adoption of super-efficient LED bulbs means lighting now makes up a tiny fraction of households’ energy usage. Today, the persistence of daylight saving time is more a matter of inertia — and the costs of changing more than a century of habit."

Since you have to make the effort to change your clocks twice a year, emergency managers recommend adding steps to your routine — at both the start and end of daylight saving time — that can keep you prepared all year. There are other things to do besides changing your clocks:

• Test smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors, and replace their batteries, if not the devices themselves.
• Review household emergency plans and readying your home for potential power outages or extreme cold.
• Good Housekeeping magazine suggests some spring cleaning-type steps: flipping mattresses, cleaning refrigerator coils, replacing air filters.

To adjust to the beginning of daylight saving time itself, sleep experts encourage preparing for potential sleep disruptions. Some suggest using relaxation techniques to improve sleep in the days ahead of the clock shift, and to prioritize daylight exposure to help set your body’s internal clock.

Daylight saving time is a federal law, but states have been taking stands on it, mostly in favor of year-round daylight time; sleep experts say we'd be better off with year-round standard time. The National Conference of State Legislatures has a rundown of recent state activity.

What should I do besides changing my clocks?

Railroad accidents have been increasing, especially at Norfolk Southern, but have decreased along some big lines

Energy & Environment News graph; click to enlarge

"The country’s major freight railroads were becoming more dangerous even before the train wreck in East Palestine, Ohio, that sparked a chemical fire and weeks of political controversy," Mike Lee and Ellie Borst report for Energy & Environment News.

The reporters found that Norfolk Southern Corp., which had the derailment, had the largest increase in its accident rate from 2013 to 2022, rising 81 percent. Overall, the seven "Class 1" railroads "had 27 percent more accidents," E&E News reports, noting, "The increased accident rate comes as the chemical industry predicts a rise in the amount of chemicals that will be shipped by rail, trucks and other forms of transportation," and that most accidents involve trucks, which handle most of the chemical freight.

The American Association of Railroads told E&E News that the data include minor collisions in train yards and that “main line” accidents are becoming fewer. “If you were going to look at the main line accidents … 2022 was the lowest year in history overall,” said Mike Rush, the lobby’s senior vice president of operations and safety.

"Looking strictly at on-rail accidents, three of the freight railroads — Norfolk Southern, CSX Corp. and Union Pacific Corp. — had higher rates over the last 10 years," Lee and Borst report. "Norfolk Southern had one of the lowest accident rates in 2013 and now has the second highest behind Union Pacific . . .  The accident rates at Union Pacific, CSX and Norfolk Southern are far lower than they were in the 1970s and ‘80s, but they also show a stark contrast to the other four Class 1 railroads — BNSF, Canadian National, Kansas City Southern and Canadian Pacific — where accident rates fell between 5 percent and 65 percent over the last decade."

NTSB blames deadly pipeline blast on bad pipe, failed corrosion protection, flow reversal for fracked gas, lots more

NTSB diagram overlays aerial photo of most of burned area onto satellite image. Flame from pipe went east-northeast.

Pipelines carrying natural gas and other flammable products sometimes blow up, bringing destruction and death to rural Americans. A gas pipeline blew up in Central Kentucky in 2019 mainly because of a manufacturing defect and failure of a system that is supposed to prevent corrosion of the pipe, the National Transportation Safety Board said in a report Wednesday.

Bill Estep of the Lexington Herald-Leader reports, "Ineffective electrochemical protection, called cathodic protection, on the outside of the pipe designed to prevent corrosion, the report said. The NTSB also said the operator of the pipeline, Enbridge, didn’t accurately assess the condition of the pipeline or properly assess the risks to it. That contributed to the accident, the agency said."

The report also blamed the Pipeline and Hazardous Safety Materials Administration's "non-conservative assumptions used to calculate the potential impact radius, incomplete evaluation of the risks caused by a change of gas flow direction [fracked northern gas going south], limitations in data analysis related to in-line inspection tool usage, incomplete assessment of threats and threat interactions, and missed opportunities in training and requalification practices."

The 30-inch Texas Eastern Transmission pipeline blew up at 1:23 a.m. Aug. 1, 2019, between Moreland and Junction City, rural communities south of Danville, releasing over 100 million cubic feet of gas that ignited, causing one death, six injuries, destruction of five homes, damage to 14 other residences, other property damage including the burning of 30 acres, and evacuation of more than 75 people. The same line "also failed in November 2003 near Morehead and in February 1986 in Garrard County. The Garrard County incident injured three people," Estep reports. A parallel line "blew up in April 1985 in Metcalfe County, killing five people and injuring three others."

In cleanup after a flood, how to stay safe and healthy

Disaster workers in high heat, like that forecast in
Kentucky this week, take breaks and keep hydrated.

The extent of the devastation caused by the flooding in Eastern Kentucky is still not fully known, as the death toll is 37 and rising, but cleanup has begun even as search-and-rescue operations are still going on. That overlap, and the urgency that many feel in such situations, could create even more danger as people risk their safety and health in trying to recover.

"As people try to re-enter flood-damaged properties, the risk of serious injury and even death is high," Anna Goodman Hoover, an assistant professor in the University of Kentucky College of Public Health, told Kentucky Health News. She shared a package of "vetted materials from various agencies and environmental/disaster organizations that provide safety information for re-entering, cleaning up, etc." and KHN published most of the list.

The material comes from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The college's Department of Epidemiology and Environmental Health has put the material on a web page.

How permanent daylight saving time would change sunrise and sunset times across the nation

New maps from The Washington Post show how permanently adopting daylight saving time would change sunrise and sunset times. In the winter, some areas in the northwesternmost parts of time zones wouldn't see the sun rise until 10 a.m. or later. Read more here. 

Time of the year's latest sunrise, by county, if daylight saving time is made permanent. Alaska and Hawaii do not observe daylight time. Washington Post map; click on the image to enlarge it.

Senate's no-debate passage of daylight-time repeal could founder on later sunrises' effects on children and health

Bureau of Transportation Statistics map, adapted by The Rural Blog; Alaska and Hawaii don't observe daylight time.

There was no dissent and no debate Tuesday when the Senate passed legislation to make daylight saving time year-round, and the idea has majority support in national public-opinion polls, but some Americans may change their minds and dissent when they realize that "fast time" in the winter will make daylight begin unusually late in places near the western edge of time zones.

For example, on Dec. 20, the sun will rise in Indianapolis at 8:02 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. On daylight time, that would be after 9 a.m., at time when many businesses and almost all offices and schools are open. In early January, it would be 9:06, according to the federal government's sunrise-sunset calculator. (Just because the winter equinox has the shortest day doesn't mean it has the latest sunrise. Also, Indiana once exempted itself from daylight time but now follows it.)

Farmers have long objected to daylight saving time, and the National Association of Convenience Stores opposes the change, Reuters reports. The NACS told Congress, "We should not have kids going to school in the dark." And while there is evidence that changing clocks has bad effects such as traffic accidents and health episodes, sleep scientists think there would be even more risk from year-round daylight saving time. They like standard time.

"Sleep scientists point out that standard time — winter time — is more closely aligned with the sun’s progression," The New York Times reports. "They say that bright mornings help people wake up and stay alert, while dark nights allow for the production of melatonin, the hormone that triggers sleep. When it is too light at night, it can be hard to fall asleep. When it is too dark in the morning, it can be hard to wake up. Together, that could lead to chronic sleep deprivation, which has been linked to a range of health conditions, like obesity, heart disease and diabetes. Light cues from the sun also regulate metabolism, insulin production, blood pressure and hormones."

Citing such views, Washington Post analyst Aaron Blake decries the lack of debate on the resolution. He notes that when Richard Nixon decreed year-round daylight time to fight the energy crisis in 1973, Americans said they liked it the idea, but changed their minds when it took effect: "The overriding reason: Without standard time in the winter, they were going to work when it was darker and colder, and they were putting their kids at the bus stop when it was darker and colder."

The resolution, offered by Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, passed by unanimous consent, meaning there were no objections and no recorded vote, but "There were plenty of speeches made for the Congressional Record," note Luke Broadwater and Amelia Nierenberg of the Times.

In the House, "A spokesman for Speaker Nancy Pelosi referred a reporter to comments made by Representative Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J), chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, who wrote on Twitter that he was 'hopeful that we can end the silliness of the current system soon'," the Times reports. But Majority Floor Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland was wary, citing school concerns.

The legislation would continue to allow states and localities to exempt themselves until its effective date of Nov. 5, 2023, so that could lead to a patchwork of time zones that the Uniform Time Act of 1966 was passed to prevent. It could also lead to a reversal of the mostly westward shift of U.S. time-zone lines in the last 70 years.

Home generator sales are booming; if you want one, here's what to consider, including essential safety precuations

Home generator sales are booming as increasingly extreme weather and wildfires lead to more power outages. Major generator maker Generac Power Systems saw a nearly 50 percent jump in revenue in 2021. But "buying a generator can be a big investment with a lot to consider. It's important to know what kind of generator would work best for your situation and how to use it safely," Jeff Brady reports for NPR. With a major winter storm expected to hit much of the central U.S. starting tomorrow night, it's a good time to review the topic and safety precautions.

The first option is a home standby generator, which usually runs off natural gas or propane and can automatically start up when the power goes out. These units can power an entire house, but they have a price tag to match—upwards of $10,000 for a medium-sized house, after installation—so they make up only 5% of the market, Brady reports.

Most people instead buy portable generators that run on gasoline. "Portable generators cost as little as a few hundred dollars, but they come with limits. Most won't power an entire house, like a permanently mounted model will, so you have to choose what gets plugged in during an outage," Brady reports. Paul Hope, home and garden editor at Consumer Reports, said an electrician can connect a portable generator to a house's circuit breaker box, then the homeowner can manually transfer power to the generator when the power goes out.

Instead of wiring a generator to the house, some people choose to run extension cords out to a generator. If you go that route, be careful. "The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission estimates that about 70 people die each year from carbon monoxide poisoning from portable generators," Brady reports. "The agency says the machine must be at least 20 feet from a house, with the exhaust directed away from the home and other buildings where people go. The CPSC says you should never operate a portable generator inside a home, garage, basement, crawl space or shed — or even on a porch." Hope advises people to make sure they have a generator and plenty of long, heavy-duty, outdoor-rated extension cords so the generator can be located at least 20 feet away from the house.

"Another thing to consider is how much gasoline needs to be stored to run a portable generator during an extended outage," Brady reports. "Some burn up to 20 gallons of gas a day. Hope says to make sure to store gas in approved containers and add fuel stabilizer to boost the life of the gas up to two years. If you still haven't used it by then, you can burn the gas in your car."

If you don't want to deal with a generator, Hope notes that there are a few other options. If you just need a little juice to charge, say, your phone, some lights and a hotplate, you can get a battery-powered portable power station for about $1,000, but it won't keep your refrigerator and freezer cold for long unless it's one of the much higher-end models. Solar panels are also an option, Hope told Brady, but acknowledges they're as expensive as a home standby generator and can't store much power unless you invest in a considerable home battery storage.

Rural youth are more likely to land in an emergency room from self-harm, especially from gunshots, study finds

Rural youth are much more likely than their urban counterparts to visit a hospital emergency room after harming themselves, "and when it comes to self-inflicted firearm injuries, the difference is even more pronounced," reports Nara Schoenberg of the Chicago Tribune, citing new research.

"Rural youth in the study were three times more likely to be treated in the emergency room for self-inflicted gunshot wounds than their urban counterparts," Schoenberg reports, quoting Dr. Jennifer Hoffmann, a pediatric emergency medicine physician at Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago: “More attention needs to be given to youth mental health, including earlier diagnosis, and more resources need to be invested in rural areas. . . . It’s important that more messaging goes out about safe firearms storage.”

Hoffmann is a co-author of the study, published in the Journal of Pediatrics. It drew a representative sample of youth aged 5 to 19 from a database of 33 million ER visits in 37 states during 2016. It "didn’t examine the reasons for the higher rates of self-harm by firearms in rural America," Schoenberg writes, "but Hoffmann offered several potential explanations based on previous studies, among them that rural households are more likely to contain guns."

On the broader issue of self-harm, Hoffmann said earlier studies suggest that rural rates are higher because rural areas "tend to have greater shortages of mental health professionals and lower household incomes," Schoenberg writes. "Privacy may also be a concern when people in small communities consider seeking mental-health services. Hoffmann called for more mental-health training for pediatricians and school personnel. She also sees promise in telemedicine, which can allow families in rural emergency rooms to consult with psychiatrists from other regions."

Citing studies that show many children who die of suicide visit an ER in the months preceding, "Hoffmann said she would like to see more emergency rooms embrace suicide screenings for young patients ages 10 and up," Schoenberg reports, quoting Hoffmann: “The emergency department is a critical space for identification of suicidal thoughts.”

Children on farms pick up risky behaviors from parents, Canadian study confirms; U.S. experts say it applies here

Farm kids learn how to farm from their parents, grandparents and sometimes even great-grandparents. They may also learn risky behaviors that get passed from generation to generation, according to a Canadian study that U.S. researchers say applies south of the border.

The study in the Journal of Rural Health surveyed farmers Saskatchewan farmers. It concluded, "Occupational health and safety risks and protections experienced on farms appear to be transferred between generations. This suggests the need to target farm owner-operators, the responsible authority on the farm, as a focus of primary prevention strategies aimed at injury risks to children and young workers."

The researchers at the University of Saskatchewan and the University of Alberta wrote, "Family farms provide an opportunity to pass down traditions of hard work, valuable occupational skills and abilities, and family values. Some of these traditions, however, can have a negative side with respect to rural health. There is a quiet epidemic of traumatic farm injuries that are disproportionately experienced by farm children, which may be related to cultures of safety and risk-taking that are also passed down through generations."

Two leading farm-safety researchers in the U.S. told The Rural Blog that the study is valuable.

“This inquiry into the intergenerational aspects of farming practices is critical in broadening and deepening our understanding of how the social-cultural aspects of risk impact current and future generations of farmers,” said Casper Bendixsen, director of the National Farm Medicine Center at the Marshfield Clinic Research Institute in Marshfield, Wis. “While the study is based on Canadian farmers, the findings resonate with me as a U.S. researcher and as the son of farming and ranching. It also grounds what is theoretical, and sometimes mythical, into concrete, quantitative findings.”

Dennis J. Murphy, Nationwide Insurance Professor emeritus of agricultural safety and health at 

Penn State, wrote, “This research is innovative and very applicable to farm and ranch operations in the United States. I think agricultural safety and health researchers and educators have always thought along these lines but there is little, if any, direct research that supports these notions. Their suggestion that injury prevention strategies for the protection of children and young workers should target the responsible authority on the farm or ranch is certainly applicable throughout the U.S.”

States allowing online driver-license renewals, written tests

The pandemic has prompted many states to allow online renewals of driver and motor-vehicle licenses, and now some are even allowing driver-licensing tests to go online, another boon for rural residents in states where the licensing function is regionalized and requires out-of-county travel.

"Prospective drivers in Minnesota can go online at home to take their knowledge tests for a learner's permit," which is required before a road test for a license, which must still be done in person, Kate Elizabeth Queram reports for Route Fifty. "Test takers can’t consult manuals or online resources, and the test will close and record an automatic failure if another browser window is opened during the 30-minute window. Proctors are required to check a box before the test launches pledging that they won’t allow the use of other study materials, though that will be entirely on the honor system."

Queram notes similar measures in other states: states "Wisconsin and North Carolina, allowed certain teenage drivers to apply for a waiver for the road test. Georgia implemented a similar policy in April, but amended it a month later to require a modified road test instead. Others, including California and Massachusetts, extended the expiration dates for learner's permits, allowing teens to continue practicing their driving until road tests resumed."

Search-and-rescue teams, which rely mainly on rural volunteers, are being stretched thin by the pandemic

The Rocky Mountain Rescue Group in Colorado on a mission earlier this year. (RMRG photo via Stateline)

Search-and-rescue teams, lifelines that are mainly by volunteers in rural areas, are being stretched thin by the coronavirus pandemic, Alex Brown reports for Stateline.

"The pandemic has led some older and higher-risk members to stay home, while others who have lost work or changed jobs no longer have the money or flexibility to deploy. And the need to postpone or cancel in-person training means fewer new volunteers, accelerating a long-term problem," Brown writes. "The pandemic also has forced teams to adjust rescue practices for social distancing and buy protective equipment such as masks."

In some areas, such as southwestern Utah, the need for searches and rescues have increased. “We've been very taxed,” said Sgt. Darrell Cashin, a sheriff-department liaison for the teams. “When covid came out, I really thought our rescues were going to drop through the floor. But we're actually having a record year at this point, with a diminished capacity to respond. It was like the floodgates opened. It's been rescue after rescue after rescue, and it's not stopped.”

Brown reports, "In response, lawmakers in several states are considering proposals ranging from providing state funding for programs and workers’ compensation insurance for volunteers to charging people for their rescues." That would be a case of first impression for most states. "Nearly all search and rescue missions in the United States are handled by volunteer teams, who mostly pay for their own equipment and work under a patchwork of guidelines and government oversight that can vary widely by state," Brown reports.

SAR teams in many areas were already busier than before because outdoor recreation has been increasing lately, Brown notes: "Many of the newcomers to public lands are inexperienced and lack the appropriate gear, skills or fitness for major excursions. SAR leaders say they often have to rescue hikers who become lost when their phone loses its signal or dies, or who try to summit a mountain they saw on Instagram without researching the terrain or weather."

'To mask or not to mask?' reminds columnist of questions some had about seat belts, DUI laws and smoking bans

By Mary Jane McKinney

     To mask or not to mask? That is the question a lot of people are wrestling with as the coronavirus pandemic in Texas worsens. We as a culture have been here before. Americans have resisted seat belts, helmets, infant car seats, and other safety measures. They have also resented laws prohibiting driving while drunk, buzzed, or high. And for 60 years, Americans have been warned not to use tobacco. Laws now prohibit smoking in public places, but tobacco use persists in spite of overwhelming evidence that it is harmful. Most Americans go along with changes, but there is always a percentage of the population who are slow to comply. Now it’s wearing a protective face mask in a pandemic.
     Our village post office is the size of a large walk-in closet. The mail is put up Monday through Saturday by 11 am. After that time, more than 300 residents enter the closet-sized space to get their mail. The daily trip has become dangerous as residents try to social distance. I thought I had the answer to safe mail pickup when I started getting my mail after 7 pm. My plan worked for four weeks until others had the same idea. Now there is a line of cars parked on Main Street between 7 pm and 8 pm. Almost everyone I’ve seen at the late mail pickup is over 60 years old. Nobody wears a mask except me. I’ve got gloves on, too.
     The whole idea of the late pickup is to go to the post office when no one else is there, thus eliminating the need for a mask. Why the resistance to masks? We can blame human nature for the reluctance to change. I also think the mask seems so low-tech; primitive; and to some, silly, that a lot of people dismiss its power to make a difference in the pandemic. But masks work to slow the spread of the virus. I heard a reporter in Hong Kong say that not wearing a mask in public is like not wearing clothes. In China, Singapore, South Korea, and other Asian countries, wearing a mask is accepted as a public health requirement and a cultural norm. The root of resistance to masking up in rural Texas may be the fear that the custom will become a cultural norm in the United States.
     As the number of coronavirus cases in Texas rises, we will also see an increase in mask-wearing. We’re just putting off the inevitable as long as possible. One of the best things about living in a small town is the feeling of safety. The illusion that the virus won’t come here is just that—an illusion. As more businesses open, we will see more cashiers, clerks, and store managers in masks. We will see more stores requiring customers to wear masks.
     As the covid-19 cases increase in my county, I already see more West Texans wearing masks. At first, we had three cases, then 17, then 29, and now 106 cases. The virus is here, and more people will be infected in the next few weeks, especially after the abandonment of social distancing on Memorial Day weekend.
     Epidemiologists are calling the spike in cases “the second wave of the first wave.” Texas cases may reach 100,000 at the rate they are going. Eventually, Gov. Abbott will have to follow in the footsteps of Gov. Murphy of New Jersey, who told his citizens to wear masks and stay six feet apart. Exasperated, he finally tweeted, "ATTENTION KNUCKLEHEADS: KEEP A SAFE DISTANCE."

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

Firearm suicide prevention efforts are tricky in rural Utah

Robin Hatch hands out gun socks with a suicide prevention
hotline printed on them. (KUER photo by Erik Neumann)

Firearms account for just over half of all suicide deaths, but trying to prevent use of guns for suicide can be difficult in rural areas, where firearms are part of the local culture.

Suicides by gun are much more common in rural areas, mostly because of easier access to firearms. It's a particular problem in Utah, which has one of the highest suicide rates in the nation, and especially in rural northeastern Utah, which has a suicide rate 58 percent higher than the rest of the state. Guns are a popular means of suicide in Utah: 85% of the state's firearm deaths are suicides, and suicide attempts with guns are far more likely to be successful, Erik Neumann reports for NPR.

Because guns are so popular in Utah, efforts to prevent suicide have mostly focused on increasing gun safety with devices such as free gun locks, expanding mental-health and crisis-response programs in rural areas, and promoting awareness among locals about when and how to intervene if they see someone at risk of suicide, Neumann reports. 

Dee Cairoli is a pastor who teaches concealed-carry classes on the side. "When hosting classes, Cairoli explains how gun owners can intervene if another gun owner shows signs of a mental-health crisis," Neumann reports. When Cairoli was 15, his father killed himself with a gun, but Cairoli says he never hated or blamed the gun; he focuses on the fact that his father could get a gun in a "desperate moment," and wants other gun owners to understand the importance of keeping an eye on friends.

Republican state Rep. Steve Eliason, who represents suburbs near Salt Lake City, has sponsored several bills focused on firearm safety, suicide prevention, and mental health. Eliason also has been touched by gun tragedy; three young male relatives have been firearm suicides. He told Neumann he has been careful to focus on safety and not restricting gun rights, since guns are so popular.

Counselors from Northeastern Counseling Center, in the northeast Utah community of Roosevelt, are more pointed. They have a table at a local gun-and-knife show to give out safety goodies meant to slow someone considering suicide in a moment of crisis: cable locks and gun socks with the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline phone number printed on them, Neumann reports. As they hand out the swag, they strike up conversations. One counselor, Robin Hatch, told an attendee: "Lethal access to lethal means makes a difference. Suicide attempts by any other means are less lethal."

Hatch told Neumann, "Anything that we can do to get people off track a little bit, thinking something different. We believe that will help make a difference in our suicide rates."

Pipeline that blew up, killing one, has exploded before; it remains a threat, says lawyer who settled suit with company

Lexington Herald-Leader drone video by Alex Slitz shows scene of Thursday's explosion

The natural-gas pipeline that blew up Thursday in Central Kentucky, killing one person and injuring several, has blown up several times -- and remains a threat to people living near it from Texas to New York, says a lawyer who negotiated a confidential settlement for a Pennsylvania woman injured in one blast, Valarie Honeycutt Spears and Beth Musgrave report for the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Alfred Miler of the Louisville Courier Journal reports that since 2011, the pipeline has has 29 "significant incidents," according to the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. In 1985, an explosion on the line about 70 miles southwest killed five people.

The line, owned by Enbridge Inc., exploded Jan. 21 in Noble County, Ohio, injuring two and destroying two homes, the Herald-Leader reports, adding: "In 2016, an explosion at a Greensburg, Pa., on the [same] Texas Eastern Transmission pipeline burned one person and prompted evacuation of the area about 30 miles east of Pittsburgh." In 1986-87, the line blew up in three places in Kentucky in 10 months, and the last one, just a few miles from Thursday's blast site, "prompted revisions in federal operating regulations for all pipeline companies. . . . The probable cause of the explosion was corrosion. A federal investigation later showed the company had known for about five months that the line was badly corroded but failed to repair it."

Enbridge Inc. map via Lexington Herald-Leader

Minnesota lawyer Fred Pritzker, who represented the victim in the 2016 Pennsylvania case, "said in that case and many other pipeline failure incidents, corrosion is the problem," the Herald-Leader reports, quoting him: “With the rate of corrosion on this pipeline, there are many sections of the pipeline that are essentially a ticking time bomb. These pipelines are not supposed to suddenly blow apart. When they do blow apart, it’s usually because of internal and external corrosion which eats away at the pipe wall to the point where the pipeline is no longer capable of withstanding . . . the pressure and it basically just blows it apart, the gas rushes out and it’s ignited by a spark."

Enbridge spokesman Michael Barnes told the Herald-Leader that Enbridge has owned the pipeline since February 2017. "He said he was unaware of the problems that occurred more than 30 years ago but would look into the history," the paper reports. "Barnes said a variety of things can cause a pipeline rupture, including land moving because of rain. He said the investigations could take months."

Administration poised to relax truck driver safety rules; critics say deadly truck crashes up 40% since 2009

The Trump administration is expected to relax trucking safety rules that many drivers see as too restrictive, but safety advocates disagree and point to a sharp rise in deadly truck crashes in the past decade, Frank Morris reports for NPR.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is expected to issue a notice that “will open a two month comment period on hours of service changes. Then the administration can move forward with new rules,” Morris reports. The agency is considering exceptions to the rule that caps driving time at 11 hours a day and requires at least 30 minutes of rest during that time. If the changes go through, the government would ease some regulations, including allowing drivers to break up their required sleep time.

Driver Michael Whitaker told Morris that tweaks in the regulations would make it easier for drivers to avoid rush-hour traffic. "We don't want to interact with cars during rush hour traffic. We want to stay as far away from you all as possible," he said.

Another driver, Carmen Anderson, said, “It's kind of like when you're in kindergarten and they're sitting there saying, OK, it's nap time. You have to take a nap.” Recalling a time when she was stranded in an industrial area, Anderson said she once spent 17 hours parked in a spot with no restrooms and no security because she had no flexibility in the regulations for hours of service.

Safety advocates disagree with the proposed changes. Dawn King, volunteer president of the Truck Safety Coalition, told Morris that the trucking industry has not produced data to show relaxed standards would increase safety. King said her father was killed by a tired trucker in 2004.

"We really should not be considering weakening the regulations we should be considering enhancing them," said Cathy Chase, president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety. "The safety of everyone traveling on our roads is at stake." Chase said deadly truck crashes are up 40 percent since 2009.

Congress lets historic riverboat ply rivers again, after fixup

The Delta Queen was docked at Coolidge Park in Chattanooga until 2015. (Photo contributed to Times Free Press)

The historic Delta Queen will once again ply the rivers after the U.S. House reauthorized its operation in a Coast Guard bill Tuesday night. The sternwheeler is expected to begin passenger trips on the Mississippi, Arkansas and Ohio rivers in 2020 after $10 million to $12 million in renovations.

Christened in 1927, the partly wooden boat was docked in Chattanooga as a stationary bar and hotel in 2008 after its federal fire-safety exemption expired. It stopped taking passengers after damage from a 2014 ice storm, Mike Pare reports for the Chattanooga Times Free Press. In 2015 local preservationists and business people formed the Delta Queen Steamboat Co. and bought it, hoping to repair it and get the exemption renewed. The boat is currently docked in Houma, La.

CEO Cornel Martin said the upgrades will include new boilers, generators, rebuilding the paddlewheel and adding more exit routes. The bill requires 10 percent of the wooden or other combustible parts of the boat to be replaced with non-combustible materials each year, according to the Mississippi Delta Grass Roots Caucus, which lobbied for it.

Chattanooga city leaders are lauding the vote, saying that the Delta Queen will help attract well-heeled tourists to the city. And Shaw Sprague, senior director of government relations for the National Trust for Historic Preservation, said the boat is historically significant and "connects citizens to our proud maritime past," Pare reports.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation designated the Delta Queen as a National Treasure recently. It is also on the National Register of Historic Places and is a National Historic Landmark. "It represents the last vestige of the sternwheel steamboat maritime heritage," he said. "There's nothing like the Delta Queen actively traveling the inland river system," said Shaw Sprague, the trust's senior director of government relations.

Newsroom safety is an issue, but being accessible helps make you more accountable, and perhaps more accurate

By Al Cross, Director and Professor

Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, University of Kentucky

Part of remarks at "Journalists in the Hot Seat: Staying safe in a hostile political climate," a panel discussion at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications convention Aug. 9. To view the discussion on C-SPAN, click here.

This panel was scheduled before the recent mass shooting at the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland, where a man upset with the newspaper’s coverage of his court case walked into the newsroom and shot five people to death. I once worked in newsrooms much like the Capital Gazette’s, where anyone coming in the door could spot you. In Monticello, Kentucky, where I was running the second paper in a one-paper town, my desk was right next to the front door; I was from the next town, Albany, and I wanted to meet as many people as I could.

In community journalism, you’ve got to be part of the community or you won’t succeed. Community journalism is relationship journalism; you have a closer and more continuing relationship with your subjects, your sources and your audience. So it’s good to be accessible.

In Russellville, Kentucky, where I worked for the great weekly publisher Al Smith, he liked to tell the story about how a farmer walked into his office to complain about his editorials for school consolidation, which would raise property taxes. As the farmer talked to him, Al turned to his typewriter and pecked out what the man was saying. He whipped the paper out, handed it to him and said, “You just wrote a letter to the editor. Read it, sign it and we’ll put it in the paper.”

My friend Jock Lauterer at UNC-Chapel Hill, who has also run community papers, did a study that confirmed what he suspected – that the smaller the newspaper, the more accessible its staff was to the public. The good thing about being accessible is that it makes you more accountable. And when you’re more accountable, that tends to make you more accurate. Jock calls those the Three As of community journalism. It’s one of the many community-journalism principles that work in all kinds of journalism; you’ve got to be engaged with your audience, for journalistic reasons and for business reasons.

That being said, the Capital Gazette shooting, in a town of 40,000, shows how vulnerable journalists can be – not just in newsrooms in small towns, but on the street in big towns. Journalists and their news outlets deal with just about everything and every walk of life, and that makes them targets for people like the Capital Gazette shooter.

In the wake of the shooting, one of the largest owners of community papers, Community Newspaper Holdings Inc., asked their papers to have local law enforcement come in and give a training seminar for employees on what to do in such a situation. One police officer told one newsroom in Kentucky, “You’ve got to have it ingrained in your head what’s best for you at all times. Know your doors and exits. You have to know when to run, hide and fight.”

The American Society of News Editors and the Associated Press Managing Editors put out a list of best newsroom safety practices, from planning to prevention to response to the aftermath.

To download it, click here.

Texas shooting raises concern over church security

In response to Sunday's deadly shooting in Sutherland Springs, Texas, population 400, part of the national conversation has turned to church security. How can churches protect themselves from active shooters? Should parishioners be allowed to carry in church?

Church shootings are, sadly, not without precedent. In 1999 a man shot 14 people, killing seven, at a youth prayer rally at Wedgewood Baptist Church in Ft. Worth, before killing himself; in 2005 a man shot and killed four people at the Sash Assembly of God Church in Fannin, Texas. And just six weeks ago a gunman shot eight people, killing one, at the Burnette Chapel Church of Christ in Tennessee. More notoriously, in June 2015 Dylann Roof killed nine people at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

Even before Sunday's shooting, the Trump administration was working on efforts to train houses of worship on emergency security preparedness, including active shooter situations, Elizabeth Dias reports for Time. Jamie Johnson, the director of the Department of Homeland Security's Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships office, told Time, "We are going to be a whole lot busier in the months and years to come when it comes to safety and security for houses of worship . . . This issue will now come to the forefront of the religious conversation in America." (Johnson, previously a conservative talk show host, was appointed to the post by then-homeland security secretary John Kelly, now White House chief of staff.) Johnson has spoken at church conferences nationwide, and told Time in August, "We teach pastors and church executives to teach their members to be aware that not everyone who steps onto a church property has worship on their mind."

Anthony Williams, the police commander for the Dallas County Community College District, holds security seminars for churches in northern Texas. "He teaches de-escalation — knowing when it is best to run and hide, and when it is time to fight and defend. It all starts with preparedness," Jennifer Lindgren reports for KTVT in Fort Worth. "Williams looks at what churches can do — from the parking lot to the pulpit — to help keep the faith, but understand that these shootings are a real threat." Williams told her, "What we try to do is, we try to prepare our churches to find that balance between faith, as well as reality."

Some churches are taking such warnings to heart. Robert Jeffress, the pastor of First Baptist Dallas, who preached at President Trump's private inaugural church service, told Dias that his church worked with DHS to complete a safety assessment months ago. The 13,000-member church has paid uniformed and plainclothes security officers at every service, and parishioners are not allowed to carry backpacks. But they are allowed to carry guns. "It would be unthinkable in a state like Texas not to allow it," Jeffress told Dias. “We think that is safer."

Larry Rowell, a Baptist minister who recently retired as editor of Kentucky's Casey County News, asked his Facebook friends, "Should church attendees who are duly licensed to carry a concealed weapon bring it into a worship service?" Here are selected responses, in order of posting:
"My heart says no, my mind says yes."
"There are local churches that have selected members to carry."
"I used to not think yes, but times have changed . . . " (some other responses were similar)
"If he's in his right mind and can legally do so and has the preachers permission, then yes."
"I know of some churches who have at least four people who carry in the church . . ."
"We have a large church and many concealed carry members in church."
"Our church has two concealed-carry members who patrol our campus."
"Yep. But I'm not for churches 'authorizing' their concealed carrying members to be armed security. If a church 'sanctions' it, they are legally responsible for the actions of those they 'authorized'."
"I don't think they should because that is God's house."
"No. Google accidental discharge of weapon in church. And then look at the number of toddlers who shoot people to death, because they found a gun in a purse or a jacket."
"Yes. Even small churches need to have these conversations."

In response to a question, Rowell wrote that he is licensed to carry concealed, and does, but "My fear is with five or more pistol packing parishioners in a small church such as the one I lead, if a shooter enters and we have parishioners shooting at him from both sides of the church, innocent parishioners can get hit. It’s a thorny situation. There are also legal implications."

Ex-coal executive nominated to head MSHA

President Trump's pick to head the federal mine-safety agency is David Zatezalo, who "repeatedly clashed with federal regulators when the Obama administration Labor Department tried to step up industry-wide enforcement in the wake of the worst U.S. coal mining disaster in a generation," Ken Ward Jr. reports for the Charleston Gazette-Mail.

The White House announced a long list of appointments Friday night that included Zatezalo to be assistant secretary of labor for mine safety and health, subject to Senate confirmation, which would make him the boss of the Mine Safety and Health Administration. It said Zatezalo retired in 2014 as chairman of Rhino Resources, where he had been president, CEO and chief operating officer.

In 2010 and 2011, "The company had a series of run-ins with MSHA over safety and health conditions at mines in West Virginia and Kentucky" when the Obama administration was strengthening enforcement following 29 deaths at a West Virginia mine. MSHA accused Rhino of a pattern of violations, "a long-unused MSHA tool for cracking down on repeat violators of safety and health standards," Ward notes. "Rhino improved and MSHA backed off, but the company’s safety performance quickly deteriorated again, prompting a second pattern of violations letter."

Meanwhile, MSHA blamed a death at a Rhino mine in Kentucky on the company’s inadequate efforts to control mine walls, and it paid $44,500 in fines. Earlier in 2011, at another Rhino mine in Kentucky, "MSHA had taken the unusual action of seeking a federal court injunction against the company when it discovered mine employees giving advance notice of an agency inspection to miners working underground," Ward writes. A judge granted a restraining order.

United Mine Workers of America President Cecil Roberts said through a spokesman, “It is my hope that Mr. Zatezalo will take the tough stance on enforcement that is needed to reign in the rising level of serious injuries and fatalities. We look forward to meeting with him and sharing ideas on how to best protect the nation’s miners and reduce the number of fatalities,” which have been rising.

The White House release said, "Zatezalo began his mining career in 1974 with Consolidation Coal Co. [now Consol Energy] as a UMWA laborer, became a foreman and subsequently general superintendent for Southern Ohio Coal Co. and General Manager of American Electric Power’s Windsor Coal Co. He later rose to be vice-president of operations of AEP’s Appalachian mining operations. Mr. Zatezalo also worked in Australia for Broken Hill Proprietary, Ltd. as a general mine manager. Mr. Zatezalo is a mining engineering graduate from West Virginia University."