Stories on mining, Brian Mann's radio double are rural standouts in Sigma Delta Chi Awards for 2013

Some great rural journalism is included in the Sigma Delta Chi Awards for Excellence in Journalism in 2013, presented by the Society of Professional Journalists.

Samantha Wright and The Watch of Telluride, Colo., won the award for deadline reporting for non-daily newspapers for her story about miners who risked their lives in an unsuccessful effort to save two co-workers following an accident at a silver, gold and sulfide minerals mine near Ouray.

Also on the mining front, among daily newspapers with circulations of up to 50,000, Joe O'Sullivan and Daniel Simmons-Ritchie of the Rapid City Journal won the public-service award for their series, "South Dakota takes a hands-off approach to uranium mining." The award for online investigative reporting went to “Out of Breath: The Untold Story of Big Money, Black Lung and Doctors for the Coal Companies,” by Chris Hamby of the Center for Public Integrity and ABC News. The series won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting earlier this week, but only for Hamby; ABC complained, and CPI replied.

Jim Steinberg, Rachel Luna and Paul Penzella of the San Bernardino Sun won the award for non-deadline reporting by a small daily, for "Ghost Town," a story about Hinckley, Calif., fading away after toxins from a utility company polluted its groundwater. The award for newspapers of up to 100,000 circulation was won by Dave Philipps of The Gazette in Colorado Springs, who won the Pulitzer for national reporting for his series on treatment of veterans with "other than honorable" discharges.

The San Bernardino Sun also won the award for editorial writing in newspapers of up to 100,000 circulation for Jessica Keating's editorials on the city's recovery from bankruptcy. In the same size category, Mark Harmon of the Knoxville News-Sentinel won for column writing.

Louise Knott Ahern, Dave Wasinger and Rod Sanford of the Lansing State Journal won the award for feature reporting by small dailies for "Silence of the Wolves," about the plight of inbred wolves in Isle Royale National Park on Lake Superior.

John Partipilo of The Tennessean won the feature-photography award for dailies up to 100,000 for a package illustrating how rural ways of life are fading in fast-suburbanizing Middle Tennessee. The story by Duane Gang was good, too, and informed the caption below.

In broadcasting, Brian Mann of North Country Public Radio in New York was a double winner among journalists in small markets. His report with David Sommerstein, on the dangers of oil trains in the wake of a catastrophic explosion in nearby Quebec, won the award for public service in small markets, Nos. 101 and larger. He and Natasha Haverty also won for their investigative report “From Birth to Death Behind Bars.” The award for public-service radio in large markets was won by environmental reporter Erica Peterson of WFPL in Louisville for a series on black carbon.

Other rural radio winners included breaking-news coverage of the Moore, Okla., tornado by KGOU, KOSU, StateImpact Oklahoma and Oklahoma Public Media Exchange; investigative reporting of an Oregon county's budget problems by Amelia Templeton, Eve Epstein and Michael Clapp of Oregon Public Broadcasting; small-market by Natasha Haverty and Brian Mann of North Country Public Radio in New York; feature reporting, “Wild Goose Church,” by Robbie Harris and Connie Stevens of Nashville's WVTF and Radio IQ; and the documentary “Kentucky Dam: Power for the People,” by Todd Hatton and Chad Lampe of WKMS-FM in Murray.

Television winners in small markets (Nos. 51 and above) included the staff of KWTX-TV in Waco for breaking-news coverage of the fertilizer plant explosion in West, Tex.; for public service, “The Compassion Project,” by Jennifer Livingston, Mike Thompson and Anne Paape of WKBT-TV in La Crosse, Wis., Alex Rozier, Gabe Ferguson and Jordan Caskey of KHQ in Spokane for “The Climb For Closure,” a documentary about a mountain climber; and Mary Sturgill, Patrick Owens, Vanessa Holmes and Chase Conner of KBMT in Beaumont, Tex., for “Asher's Story,” a documentary about a small boy overcoming child abuse.

The award for public service in online journalism by an affiliated site went to John Sutter and Edythe McNamee of CNN for “The Most Unequal Place in America,” about income inequality in East Carroll Parish, Louisiana. The winners will be honored at an awards banquet on June 21 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

Tractors in Annapolis protest 'war on rural Maryland,' GOP term for septic-tank limits

Photo: Brian Witte, The Associated Press

Protesters rode tractors past the Maryland Capitol building in Annapolis this week in protest of the state's new restrictions on septic tanks in rural areas. The "tractorcade" was in support of a bill being that would repeal last year's Sustainable Growth and Agricultural Preservation Act, Senate Bill 236. One sign read "Septic bill 236 belongs in a manure spreader," Tim Wheeler of the Baltimore Sun reported, noting that the protest was the latest epidsode in a debate that has lasted for months and included Republican allegations that Gov. Martin O'Malley is waging a "war on rural Maryland."

O'Malley and his allies "say septic limits are needed to curb sprawl development, preserve farmland and reduce nitrogen pollution into the Chesapeake Bay," Wheeler reports, noting that officials say septic systems cause more pollution then "state-of-the-art" sewage treatment systems. Their foes argue that since rural farmers' borrowing power is based on the development value of their land, they are suffering financially from the drop in value brought about by the law. Wheeler reports that many feel forced to sell now so that they can take advantage of a "grandfathering" provision in the law. (Read more)

Republicans allege 'war on rural Maryland'

Republican legislators "from rural (or once-rural) parts" of Maryland have introduced bills to fight Gov. Martin O'Malley's efforts to "clean up the Chesapeake Bay, to limit new development on septic systems and to use state funds more effectively in fighting rural sprawl," accusing the Democrat of waging "war on rural Maryland," Tim Wheeler reports for The Baltimore Sun.

"None of the measures is likely to get a hearing, much less a vote, until the General Assembly returns for its regular 90-day session in January. But the rural lawmakers were serving notice they intend to push back against O'Malley's initiatives," Wheeler writes. "The Environmental Protection Agency is requiring local governments around the bay to submit bay cleanup plans by next year, and a task force is looking at whether to resubmit failed O'Malley legislation to limit new large-scale development on septic systems." The group 1000 Friends of Maryland "argues that rural Maryland is already under assault by sprawling development, and it will only get worse" if such bills pass. (Read more)

Real-estate developers reap huge tax breaks from metro-area land classified as agricultural

In a phenomenon that may be evident in rural areas across the country, and bears investigation, farmers are not always the main beneficiaries of tax breaks for land designated as agricultural for tax purposes.

In Douglas County, Colorado, south of Denver, about "one in six of the county's parcels taxed as agricultural are owned by subsidiaries of Denver home builder MDC Holdings Inc.," Christopher N. Osher and Eric Gorski report for The Denver Post. In Broomfield County, in the same metropolitan area, "a staggering 95 percent of the county's agricultural parcels are controlled by developer, commercial or investor interests," Osher and Gorski write.

"From Denver's outskirts to exclusive mountain communities, the story line is similar," the reporters write. "Developers and corporations more interested in bulldozing land for houses and strip malls than raising cattle or crops are saving millions of dollars in taxes by taking advantage of a state law meant to help struggling farmers." The Post's analysis of property-tax records reveals developers and firms with little ties to agriculture control over 40 percent of the almost 54,000 parcels classified for agriculture in eight Front Range counties. "The lenient tax structure saves developers, businesses and others who have no real mud on their boots an estimated $366 million a year in those counties," the reporters write.

In 10 mountain counties analyzed by the Post, groups that don't meet the traditional definition of "farmer" or "rancher" own more than 9 percent of the 23,244 agricultural parcels. "The constituencies that currently benefit from the tax break don't want a change," said state Rep. Matt Jones, D-Louisville. "And there's not a strong constituency for the average taxpayer." Or perhaps no well-organized constituency that lobbies.

Farm interests say the tax breaks keep good land in production, while real-estate companies and homebuilders say higher taxes on undeveloped land will lead to higher home prices, Osher and Gorski report. "I think it is a shame, and it adds to sprawl," Former Gov. Dick Lamm told the Post. "It is unfair, and it unjustly enriches people. It allows people to tie up land under so-called agriculture and use it as a speculator's device." (Read more) (Post graphic of Broomfield County land parcels)

States still preserve farmland despite recession

The recession has not been enough to stop some states from spending millions to preserve farm land from suburban sprawl. "Twenty-five states have farmland preservation programs, and nearly half of them are in the densely populated Northeast, where the loss of fields to housing developments and shopping malls has been rapid and pressing," Stephen Singer of The Associated Press reports. Connecticut increased spending on preservation efforts after losing 21 percent of farmland in less than 20 years.

"It's difficult sometimes when there are so many pressing needs," former Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell said of farm preservation just days before leaving office on Jan. 5. "It's our culture, our way of life, our farms." Advocates for farmland preservation say "efforts are needed to ensure food is available locally if the national distribution system is ever disrupted," Singer writes. "They also say it helps maintain a way of life important to many Americans."

Between 1982 and 2007 all of the 48 contiguous states lost farmland to development, reports the National Resources Inventory from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Iowa State University. "More than 11 million acres of cropland, nearly 7 million acres of pasture and 5 million acres of range land were lost to developed land in the 25-year period studied," Singer writes. "State preservation programs typically buy development rights to the land, paying farmers a set amount in exchange for a promise not to build on the land or sell it to a developer." (Read more)

Study shows role of land use in global warming; turning U.S. forests into farms has cooling effect

Most changes in land use in the U.S. raise regional surface temperatures by reducing vegetative cover, but "Conversion of any land to agricultural use results in cooling, even land that was previously forested," Newswise reports on a study by scientists at the University of Maryland, the University of Colorado and Purdue University.

The study, which will appear in the Royal Meteorological Society’s International Journal of Climatology, is based on "observation minus re-analysis," an approach co-developed by Maryland Professor Eugenia Kalnay. It adds "significant weight to a growing recognition among climate scientists for the need to more fully incorporate land-use change into computer models that are designed to forecast future changes in climate conditions," says Newswise, a research-reporting service. (Map shows variances in degrees Celsius from 1979 to 2003)

"Until recently, human-induced changes (warming) in climate have been viewed by most scientists as primarily the result of increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases," Newswise notes. Now, says Dev Niyogi, a Purdue earth and atmospheric sciences professor and the Indiana state climatologist, "a significant trend, particularly the warming trend in terms of temperatures, can also be partially explained by land-use change." For the Newswise report, go here. For the study, here.

N.J. ballot measure would maintain program for farmland preservation; opponents object to cost

The Warren County Freeholders in New Jersey are among the latest supporters of a state ballot question that would issue $400 million in bonds to continue funding land preservation for three years, Kevin M. Leciski of the Warren Reporter writes. Public Question No. 1, the Green Acres, Clean Water, and Farmland Preservation Act of 2009, would continue funding land preservation through the Garden State Preservation Trust, which has resulted in more than 314,000 acres of open space and farmland throughout the state being preserved between fiscal years 2000 and 2008. Supporters say the bond would cost $10 per household per year. (Read more)

"During the past 60 years, our Garden State has lost 1 million acres of irreplaceable farmland," former state agriculture commissioner Charles Kuperus writes in an editorial in support of the ballot question for The Star Ledger of Newark. Kuperus admits that "much developed land was used to create the wonderful communities where we live and work," but he says "some has been lost to low-density sprawl." He argues the measure would preserve Jersey agriculture and promote local food. (Read more)

Here's the other side: "While those are certainly laudable causes, with the state's fiscal condition at this time, we can't support it," Jerry Cantrell, president of the New Jersey Taxpayers Association told Carmen Cusido of The Times of Trenton. "The reality is it's an expense we can forgo." Rob Calabro, a Republican Assembly candidate, echoed those sentiments in an email to The Times: "In the midst of skyrocketing property taxes, a record-high unemployment rate, and the state already straddled with $10 billion dollar deficit, now is not the time to borrow money." (Read more)

Farmer's crop is victim of urbanization: road lights

A soybean farmer in southwestern Kentucky is losing part of his crop due to urbanization, but not how you might think. No shopping mall or industrial park is being built on farmland; rather, high-powered lights recently installed on a new segment of the Edward T. Breathitt Pennyrile Parkway next to Kelly Keith's fields are tricking his beans into still growing as the harvest season approaches, Julia Hunter of the Kentucky New Era reports, in a story that is based on a fine point of farming but broaches the larger subject of urbanization.

"They don't know whether it's daylight or dark out here," Keith told Hunter. One irregular area of the field, shaped by shadows of trees blocking the lights, has already turned brown, signaling harvest time, while the rest remains green. To be harvested, beans must turn brown and have no more than than 15 to 16 percent moisture, Hunter reports. "Basically it's the same for with any crop -- even trees, how their leaves get brown in the fall," Scott Lain, crop consultant for Argi-Chem, a local agricultural supplier, told Hunter. "The days start getting shorter and the crop responds to the shortness in the days."

Keith expects to lose half his profit on about 40 acres, and plans to contact state highway officials about the lights. He tells Hunter than cutting the lights off at 10 o'clock would stop the beans from growing, but he doesn't expect any sympathy from the state. For now, he'll wait the beans out, hoping for the unlikely self-correction or the season's first freeze to kill them off. He tells Hunter: "I'm just going to have to consider something different here. I won't be able to raise soybeans." (Read more, subscription required)

Metro reporter uses Census of Agriculture to write about urban sprawl and measures to control it

As suburban areas expand, some rural jurisdictions "are imposing impact fees and other regulations on new residential development to keep suburban sprawl from encroaching on farmland," reports Carrie Whitaker of the Cincinnati Enquirer. She draws on the recent Census of Agriculture to provide data that illustrate sprawl.

While opponents of urban sprawl see it as a threat to local farms, some farming interests see land sales as an opportunity, and oppose measures that discourage them. "The best way to save farms is to develop land where it's appropriate and preserve the rest," Joe Cornely of the Ohio Farm Bureau told Whitaker.

Whitaker focuses on a county near Cincinnati: "2007 Census of Agriculture data show that from 2002 to 2007, Warren County lost farms at one of the highest rates in the state, from 1,036 farms to 896, a 14 percent decline," adds Whitaker. In adjoining Butler and Clermont counties, the declines were 10 and 8 percent, respectively. "During the same time period, the number of U.S. farms increased 4 percent." The farm count is easy to find; it's the top line of each county's page in the census. To search by state, click here.

Before the recession hit the housing industry, as many as 600 new homes a year were being built in the county's Hamilton Township. "To cope with growth costs, the township imposed an impact fee on new development that led to a bitter and unresolved court challenge from home builders," writes Whitaker. "Government officials also have changed a zoning code to limit the density of homes in rural areas." (Read more)

How to sustain agriculture in urbanizing counties?

"Sustaining Agriculture in Urbanizing Counties," a report released Dec. 16, "sought to identify conditions under which farming may remain viable in agriculturally important areas that are subject to substantial development pressures," reports the American Farmland Trust. The report examined 15 county-level case studies from 14 different states and covers topics such production inputs, marketing, farmland protection and the future agricultural outlook.

Providing information for coping with growing urbanization is important since the majority of rural Americans live in or adjacent to metropolitan counties. To read a list of key findings and recommendations from the report, click here. To read a large PDF of the full report click here.

Forest Service plans to amend easements, allowing logging roads to be paved for subdivisions

In its final days, the Bush administration is preparing to change U.S. Forest Service easements to "make it far easier for mountain forests to be converted to housing subdivisions," by allowing logging roads to to paved, Karl Vick reports for The Washington Post.

Vick reports that Mark Rey, a former timber-industry lobbyist who is the agriculture undersecretary overseeing the Forest Service, negotiated the change "behind closed doors with the nation's largest private landowner," Plum Creek Timber Co., which transformed itself from a logging firm into a real-estate investment trust and is building subdivisions in the Rockies, primarily in Montana, where President-elect Barack Obama campaigned against the idea after journalists reported on it and county officials opposed it.

Michael Jamison of The Missoulian reports that officials in Missoula County officials, where Plum Creek owns 57 percent of the private land, that the change "could pave the way for wholesale rural development -- along with all the attendant costs, as taxpayers struggle to deliver urban infrastructure and firefighting" to newly developed areas.

"The uproar last summer forced Rey to postpone finalizing the change, which came after 'considerable internal disagreement' within the Forest Service, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office report requested by Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.)," Vick writes. "The report said that 900 miles of logging roads could be paved in Montana and that amending the long-held easements 'could have a nationwide impact.'" (Read more)

Threatened, rural South Carolinians accept zoning

Some rural residents of Greenville County, S.C., "have banded together to do what was once unthinkable in the county's rural reaches -- ask the county to add zoning restrictions to their property," reports Ben Szobody of The Greenville News. "The grassroots movement is an example of how traditional property-rights advocates can come to embrace limited land-use rules when large-scale development threatens a way of life."

The move was prompted by a proposal for "a dense, 100-acre subdivision" with septic tanks, Szobody writes. The plan faltered, but it made zoning-shy residents think about "what robust growth is doing to the farthest reaches of a county that still contains vast swaths of prime unzoned property, and how attitudes are changing about planning ahead of growth by way of land-use restrictions." (Read more)

Va. gives green light to controversial power line

A controversial electric transmission line planned in northern Virginia received approval from state regulators Monday. The line is aimed at providing more electricity to rural areas in the state, and, pending approval in Pennsylvania, will be part of a larger, 250-mile line running through Virginia, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

Dominion Virginia Power says that without the Trans-Allegheny Interstate Line, or TrAIL, the area could see rolling blackouts starting in 2011, as an eight-percent increase in demand has caused by instability in the electrical grid. Critics say the project will damage the environment and create an eyesore in an area with aesthetic and historical significance.

The project still hinges on approval by Pennsylvania. "West Virginia officials have agreed to their portion, but Pennsylvania has not made a decision on the mile within its borders," Sandhya Somashekhar writes for LoudounExtra.com. "A decision is expected any day, and a denial could derail the Virginia section." (Read more)

Photojournalist, 27 years in Wasilla, seeks its soul

For 27 years, photojournalist Bill Hess has lived in Wasilla, Alaska, which few Americans had heard of until its former mayor became the Republican nominee for vice president of the United States. Bill has been posting his photographs on blogs for some time, but with Wasilla much in the news he has broadened his agenda. His new blog is called Wasilla by 300, meaning its scope is a 300-mile radius of the town, "perhaps the most wild, dramatic, gorgeous, beautiful section of land and sea to be found in any comparable space anywhere on Earth." It includes Wasilla's sister city of Palmer, where Hess took the Alaska State Fair photo at left.

"Wasilla is not the quintessential small American city that it has recently been built up to be since former Mayor Sarah Palin was chosen by John McCain to be his running mate. Yet -- Wasilla is my home and if I am lucky it will be until I grow old and die," Hess writes. "Wasilla is a sprawling community that has been slapped down hodge-podge upon what was so recently wilderness of the most exquisite beauty. In its design, it is deliberately anti-zoned, anti-planned. In the building of Wasilla, the desire to make a buck has trumped aesthetics and all other considerations. This town, built in the midst of exquisite beauty, has largely become an unsightly, unattractive, mess of urban sprawl."

Many of Hess's Wasilla photographs are "grab shots," taken as he drives around the area, like the one above. "Despite the odd, random, nature of the images, I believe they communicate something powerful about this town that I have never seen expressed anywhere else," he writes. "if one were to search hard enough, it might just be possible to find a sense of community here, and a town soul. So, using my skills as a photojournalist and a writer, I hope to do just that. If this place has a sense of community, I will find it. If there is a town soul to Wasilla, I will document it." Hess also has a site that displays his professional work, here.

Report details four types of places in rural U.S.

"Rural America is as varied and nuanced as the landscape it inhabits," the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire says in touting its new report, based on telephone polling of 8,000 Americans in 19 rural counties. The report "identifies four distinct, often disparate, rural Americas," Carsey says:
· Amenity-rich areas that draw vacationers, retirees, and second home-owners with their mountains, lakes, coastlines, or forests.
· Declining resource-dependent areas that once thrived on agriculture, timber, mining and manufacturing industries which, threatened by globalization and resource depletion, no longer support a vibrant middle-class population.
· Chronically poor regions where residents and the land have suffered decades of resource depletion and under-investment.
· A transitional type of locale, characterized by amenity-driven growth and resource-based decline. While traditional resource-based economies in these areas have weakened, these transitional regions show potential for amenity-driven growth.

The report surveyed residents in amenity-rich Park and Chaffee counties in Colorado; Jewell, Osborne, Republic and Smith counties "in the declining heartland of Kansas;" Harlan and Letcher counties in southeastern Kentucky; Coahoma, Tunica and Quitman counties in the Mississippi Delta; Choctaw, Clarke, Marengo and Wilcox counties in Alabama's Black Belt; Clatsop County in Oregon and Pacific County in Washington, both on the Pacific coast; and Coos County, N.H., and Oxford County, Maine, "in the Northern Forest."

Journalists in those localities and states may find interesting some poll questions that get at tough issues, such as "For the future of your community, do you think it is more important to use natural resources to create jobs, or to conserve natural resources for future generations?" In three of the four major types of areas, conservation was preferred; not so in chronic-poverty areas, where 38 percent chose using resources, 37 percent chose conservation and 25 percent volunteered that they were equal, that there should be a balance, or a similar reply.

The report says "Populations in all but the amenity-rich regions are aging, as young adults leave, older residents remain, and reproduction rates fall. Amenity-rich areas, on the other hand, are attracting both retiring boomers and young professional families. The natural environment is a significant, although varied, force on rural America, attracting residents to amenity-rich areas and leading to their departure from declining areas where natural resources have been depleted and economic shifts have diminished employment opportunities." Drugs and crime are the chief concerns in persistently poor places, population decline is most worrisome in the declining-resource Heartland, and growth and sprawl are the top concern in high-amenity areas.

For a PDF of the report, click here. For a video of Carsey Institute Director Cynthia "Mil" Duncan describing the “four rural Americas” concept, go here. She wrote the report, "Place Matters: Challenges and Opportunities in Four Rural Americas," with Carsey senior fellow and UNH professor of sociology Larry Hamilton, writer Leslie Hamilton, and Chris Colocousis, a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at UNH.

Farmers pay developer prices for Mich. cropland

Land in rural southwestern Michigan is selling for $10,000 an acre -- not for real estate development, but for farming, Rosemary Parker writes for the Kalamazoo Gazette. "Everybody wants land to farm right now," said Larry "Cassey" Jones, Allegan County Board of Commissioners vice chairman. "It's just skyrocketing." (Encarta map)

Five to ten years ago speculators and developers were buying land at similar rates, said Bob Boehm, manager of the Michigan Farm Bureau commodity department. "Softening of the general economy and strengthening of the agricultural economy has lessened the pressure for diversion of farmland" into residential and commercial development, he said.

And maybe even reversed the trend? Parker's story begins, "The developers weren't laughing when Vicksburg village trustee Ray Vliek, 87, quipped at a recent meeting: 'By golly, I believe I'd tear those houses down and put in corn.' Developers paid $10,000 an acre for the land to build houses, the same price now being commanded for irrigated farmland, Vliek said."

Land prices began to rise when the ethanol boom hit in 2006, nearly doubling corn prices, Parker writes. "In southwestern Michigan that year, prices went from $1.85 per bushel in August to about $3.50 per bushel in October. Since then, corn prices have doubled again, to more than $8 a bushel this spring. Wheat and soybeans have seen similar gains."

Roger Betz, a Michigan State University extension district farm educator, cautions that farms must deal with with increasing fuel, fertilizer and equipment prices. A recent study by MSU showed agriculture and food generate an economic impact of $63.7 billion, making it the state's second-largest industry behind manufacturing. Michigan agriculture has become more important this year because of the devastating floods in other parts of the Corn Belt. (Read more)

Having lost 300,000 acres of farmland since 2002, North Carolina strengthens laws to preserve farms

In the booming counties around Charlotte and other North Carolina cities, farms have given way to new subdivisions. The process has been playing out in other parts of country, but North Carolina has seen the most dramatic losses of farmland. As a result, the state is taking action to preserve farms by creating development-free agricultural districts, reports Bruce Henderson of The Charlotte Observer.

Since 2002, North Carolina has lost 6,000 farms and 300,000 acres of farmland, which the state's Agriculture Department says is more than any other state in that time. The state already had agricultural districts where farmers voluntarily agree to keep their land undeveloped, but starting in 2005, the state created a stronger version of the system. In these new seven new districts, four in counties around Charlotte, "farmers agree not to sell their land to developers for at least a decade," Henderson writes. "In return, the farmers are eligible for a higher percentage of state conservation grants. They're also less likely to get unsolicited purchase offers from developers."

At the same time, the state legislature earmarked $8 million annually for the restructured Agricultural Development and Farmland Preservation Trust Fund. Those in favor of the preservation plan argue that it's cheaper for counties to pay for development rights rather than encourage development, they say means building roads, schools, etc. (Read more)

In Florida, rural homeowners form group to fight encroaching development

Many move to the country hoping to escape urban sprawl. When that sprawl starts getting too close to home, some of these rural residents take action. In lesser developed areas near Tampa, Fla., some rural residents formed the United Citizens' Action Network, or U-CAN, to fight development near their homes, reports The Tampa Tribune.

"The rural activists belonged to groups in specific areas fighting local battles, and then discovered they would have more power together," Yvette C. Hammett writes. "They shared one another's experience and expertise, joined forces at public meetings and then in January formed U-CAN."

The fight is primarily over what will happen to the land outside Hillsborough County's urban service area, Hammett reports. "Of the 574,390 acres in unincorporated Hillsborough, 361,364 acres remain outside the urban service area, according to the county planning commission," she writes. It is this land that U-CAN hopes to protect. One of the group's plans is to start charting the voting records of county officials on the Web site, u-canhillsborough.net. The site currently proclaims the scrolling message, "Watchout!!! The Brandon Bypass is coming and we must stop it!!!" (Read more)

Drawn by scenic horse farms, Ga. homebuyers discover the true sights and smells of rural living

The postcard-like beauty of horse farms in rural Milton, Georgia, has lured many new residents to the area in Fulton County north of Atlanta. They have built expensive new homes in this rural setting, but upon moving in, some were surprised to learn horse farms are still farms, reports The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The town of 20,000 has about 90 percent of its land zoned for agriculture; at the same time, the average price a home is more than $800,000, reports Doug Nurse. "As city officials are finding out, some Milton residents are more enamored with the visual aspects of a rural environment than with the inevitable byproducts," he writes. Farm such as Yellow House Farm may look perfect (in an AJC photo by Phil Skinner) but they still produce smells and sounds new residents find less than appealing.

The growth in Milton has put farmers and the new residents at odds, especially since the agriculture zoning "allows a wide variety of uses that doesn't fit the increasingly suburban nature of Milton, such as chicken farms, pig farms, kennels and horses," Nurse writes. Recent conflicts include the fight between one homeowner and a neighboring farm's horse arena. In response, the city is set to begin its first comprehensive plan which may change much of the zoning to residential. (Read more)

As rich buy up timberland near national forests, loggers and environmentalists align

"A new wave of investors and landowners across the West ... are snapping up open spaces as private playgrounds on the borders of national parks and national forests," The New York Times reports, in the second in a series of articles looking at the changing demands on federal land in the West. "In style and temperament, this new money differs greatly from the Western land barons of old — the timber magnates, copper kings and cattlemen who created the extraction-based economy that dominated the region for a century."

Reporter Kirk Johnson's object example is William P. Foley II, above, who bought a mountain because he thought it was being logged too heavily. He "proudly calls himself a conservationist who wants Montana to stay as wild as possible," Johnson writes. "That does not mean no development and no profit. Mr. Foley, the chairman of a major title insurance company, Fidelity National Financial, based in Florida, also owns a chain of Montana restaurants, a ski resort and a huge cattle ranch on which he is building homes." Foley told Johnson, “A lot of it is more for fun than for making money.”

Johnson's larger view of economic change: "With the timber industry in steep decline, recreation is pushing aside logging as the biggest undertaking in the national forests and grasslands, making nearby private tracts more desirable — and valuable, in a sort of ratchet effect — to people who enjoy outdoor activities and ample elbow room and who have the means to take title to what they want. ... The United States Forest Service projects that over the next 25 years, an area the size of Maine — all of it bordering the national forests and grasslands — will face development pressure and increased housing density."

Private development has left the timber industry short of trees of private land, increasing pressure for logging in national forests. "In ways that would have been unthinkable only a few years ago, environmentalists and representatives of the timber industry are reaching across the table, drafting plans that would get loggers back into the national forests in exchange for agreements that would set aside certain areas for protection," Johnson writes. "Both groups are feeling under siege: timber executives because of the decline in logging, and environmentalists because of the explosion of growth on the margins of the public lands." (Read more)