Coal-ash spill prompts bills for federal regulations; editor recalls eerily similar incident early in career

The billion-gallon coal-ash spill in East Tennessee has made disposal of such waste "a pressing national environmental concern that has already sparked legislative proposals and the prospect of new regulation," reports Juliet Eilperin of The Washington Post.

The issue has been "largely ignored" though the federal government has deliberated on it for three decades, Eilperin reports. Now, she writes, it may move ahead of climate change on the environmental agenda of the new Obama administration.

"Burning coal produces more than 129 million tons annually of combustion waste -- a concentrated ash that includes toxic elements such as arsenic, lead, cadmium, selenium and mercury -- but federal authorities have yet to establish uniform standards for handling it," Eilperin writes, in a good summary of an issue that affects many rural places. (Read more)

The spill was an eerie reprise for Terri Likens, editor of the Roane County News, the paper published in Kingston, Tenn., next to the site. She wrote a recollection:

It was a biting cold day in December.
I shivered violently as I looked out at a sea of sludge that had swept down and moved homes from their foundations.
Roane County’s Swan Pond?
No.
Harlan County’s Ages Hollow.
It was Dec. 19, 1981, and I was in Eastern Kentucky covering the first big story of my new career.
A coal slurry pond on the hillside over Ages Hollow — in my mind I always hear the word “holler” — had broken open and swept down on the small village.

The spill killed a former postmaster who "had predicted her own fate to a mine safety inspector," recalled Likens, pictured flying over the Roane County spill. "I had already gone back to our newsroom across the county line when one of the searchers’ makeshift probe struck something with a little bounce to it. But I had been there when her son arrived, a strapping man wild-eyed with heartbreak. Some things you never forget." (Read more)

Internet overtakes papers as source of national and international news; more local focus likely

The Internet is now Americans' No. 2 source for national and international news, surpassing newspapers and second only to television, according to a recent survey by the Pew Center for the People and the Press. The figures suggest that major newspapers are likely to continue their increasing focus on local news, closing Washington and state-capital bureaus and cutting out rural circulation and coverage.

Asked their main source of national and international news, with multiple answers allowed, 70 percent of adults named TV, 40 percent named the Internet and 34 percent said newspapers. Last year, the figures were TV 74, newspapers 34 and Internet 24. (Pew chart) Among those 18 to 29, the Internet now equals TV as main source of such news. (Read more)

Miners' widows object to Massey firm's plea deal

Delorice Bragg and Freda Hatfield, widows of two miners killed in a Massey Energy coal mine in January 2006, urged U.S. District Judge John T. Copenhaver to reject the plea deal being offered to Massey subsidiary Aracoma Coal Co. The plea deal would impose 10 criminal counts, including one felony, and $2.5 million in fines on Aracoma but would not allow federal prosecutors to pursue charges against any Massey employees.

"Under the plea deal, prosecutors agreed not to pursue charges against parent company Massey or any of its officers or agents," writes Ken Ward Jr. of The Charleston Gazette. "They also agreed that the government 'does not have evidence suggesting that Massey knew, approved or acquiesced in, Aracoma's failure to maintain true and accurate records of escapeway drills.'" Many including Bragg and Hatfield feel Massey employees deserve much of the blame for the deaths.

Aracoma "entered its plea Wednesday, admitting to not providing a proper escape tunnel out of the underground mine, to not conducting required evacuation drills, and to faking a record book so it appeared the drills had been done," Ward reports. Falsification of the evacuation drill record book is the only sort of violation that can draw felony charges under mine safety laws. (Read more) We first reported the settlement in the following blog item.

Bush administration enacting last-minute rule on toxic Teflon constituent; not enough, groups say

"Less than a week before leaving office, the Bush administration is preparing to issue an emergency health advisory for drinking water polluted with the toxic chemical C8," reports Ken Ward Jr. of The Charleston Gazette. The proposed federal standard, while stronger than the one currently in place, is 10 times weaker than a standard put in place in New Jersey.

"C8 is another name for ammonium perfluorooctanoate, or PFOA," writes Ward. "DuPont Co. has used the chemical since the 1950s at its Washington Works plant south of Parkersburg. C8 is a processing agent used to make Teflon and other nonstick products, oil-resistant paper packaging and stain-resistant textiles." There is growing evidence that even low levels of C8 and other PFC's in the blood stream can pose health risks.

According to a draft of the Environmental Protection Agency advisory obtained by Ward, EPA "plans to recommend reducing consumption of water that contains more than 0.4 parts per billion of C8," he writes. Environmental and health advocacy groups say that is too high a threshold. "This is nothing more than a last-minute bailout by the Bush administration for PFOA polluters that would legalize dangerous levels of Teflon pollution in the tap water of millions of Americans," said Richard Wiles, director of the Environmental Working Group, which has followed the issue closely. (Read more)

House stimulus plan includes money for rural broadband, more for digital-TV converter coupons

UPDATE, Jan. 16: For other rural-related items in the bill, from the Daily Yonder, click here.

The House Appropriations Committee "today released details of an economic stimulus package that would include $6 billion in grants to bring high-speed Internet lines to rural and other underserved areas," reports Cecilia Yang of The Washington Post. The panel "also called for $650 million for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to provide coupons for consumers to buy converter boxes for the Feb. 17 digital television transition." The coupon program is out of money and is keeping a waiting list.

The broadband and digital TV incentives are part of a larger $825 billion stimulus plan developed by congressional Democrats with President-elect Barack Obama. Freshman rural Democrats are pushing for rural stimulus and are led by Rep. Betsy Markey, D-Colo., who met with members of the Obama economic team to share ideas. (Read more)

During that meeting, Markey "said the only commitment she got from the Obama staffers was that he would push for a two- or three-year extension of the renewable energy production tax credit in his $775 billion stimulus plan," reports Faith Bremner of The Coloradoan in Fort Collins. (Read more)

Freshman rural Democrats seek share of stimulus

Twenty House Democratic freshmen who represent primarily rural districts want rural America to have its share of the stimulus plan coming to Congress. "A significant amount of any economic recovery package has to be invested in rural areas, Rep. Betsy Markey and 19 of her colleagues said in a letter today to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi," reports Robert Moore of The Coloradoan in Fort Collins.

"The infrastructure of rural economies is in crisis," the Democrats said. "The economic recovery and reinvestment plan must invest significantly in maintaining and upgrading infrastructure in rural and other distressed communities, which will create local jobs. Among other viable options, the quality of life in rural America can be improved by expanding broadband technology, public transportation, and water and sewage systems."

The letter stemmed from a report by Democratic Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina, which called for the need to include rural areas in any economic stimulus. (Read more) View the letter and signers here.

VA gives $22 million to states to care for rural vets

The Department of Veterans Affairs announced that it is giving states $22 million to improve services for rural veterans. "The extra funding is part of a two-year VA program to improve the access and quality of health care for veterans in geographically isolated areas," according to a VA release. "The program focuses on several areas, including access to health care, providing world-class care, the use of the latest technology, recruiting and retaining a highly educated workforce and collaborating with other organizations."

The funds will allow states "to increase the number of mobile clinics, establish new outpatient clinics, expand fee-based care, explore collaborations with federal and community partners, accelerate the use of telemedicine deployment, and fund innovative pilot programs," VA said. To read more and see a state-by-state break down of the available funds, click here.

Pilot plant making ethanol from corn cobs in S.D.

A new program is testing the viability of using corn cobs to make ethanol. "A pilot-scale facility located at Scotland, S.D., has become the first such plant to produce ethanol from corn cobs," writes Dave Russell of Brownfield. The POET company has set up the pilot facility and says the process has run smoothly and that corn cobs are an excellent source of biomass for ethanol production. (Flickr photo by Dragonseye)

POET CEO Jeff Broin claims there are other benefits to using cobs. "Because they are being grown today, they don’t require farmers to grow a new crop," said Broin. "And there are lots of them, enough to produce 5 billion gallons of ethanol every year, that’s 5 billion gallons of ethanol that can come from what is a waste product today." Broin says a full-scale facility should be operational by 2011. (Read more)

Montana station lays off veteran reporter whose statewide reports had a rural impact

For some time we've reported about metropolitan newspapers abandoning circulation and coverage in rural areas, and now the trend has shown up in broadcasting. A Montana television station has laid off a veteran journalist whose special reports had statewide impact in Montana, especially its vast rural areas, and whose work in freedom of information served journalists nationwide.

Ian Marquand had been at KPAX-TV in Missoula since 1978. "The senior reporter, journalism mentor and open-government advocate was the station's special projects coordinator, a position the station cut to combat the recession," reports Keila Szpaller of The Missoulian. The station's general manager, Bob Hermes, told her, "The need or the opportunity to use a statewide special projects coordinator has kind of changed over time, so it's just an area the company decided to go without given the state of the economy." (Photo by Luke George, University of Montana)

Marquand's final report for the station was a 2½-minute look ahead at stories for Western Montana in 2009, including several of rural interest in a state that was 46 percent rural at the 2000 census. Because your blogger knows Ian and his journalistic skills well, I can say that the only part of the report that was off base was his final line: "See you next year."

As freedom-of-information chairman of the Society of Professional Journalists, including my term as president in 2001-02, Marquand produced Open Doors, a resource book for journalists to use laws on open meetings, courts and records. In 2004, SPJ awarded him the Wells Key, its highest honor to a member, for service to the society. On the FOI Committee's blog, Chairman David Cullier called Ian a "longtime SPJ FOI hero."

Ian says his layoff surprised him, but he is looking forward to life's next phase. He told Szpaller, “It may be that it will be something in television. It may be something elsewhere in journalism. It might be in the academic world,” he said. “I think I bring a certain group of skills that would be useful in a number of areas.” (Read more) I agree. Good luck, my friend.

TV manufacturers fight delay in digital transition

The lobbying battle over a proposed delay in the Feb. 17 transition to digital television went public today, as the Consumer Electronics Association said a postponement would be confusing, “serious and potentially disruptive.” CEA made its arguments in a letter to John Podesta, co-chair of President-elect Obama's transition team, who last week asked Congress to delay the Feb. 17 mandate, mainly to help poor and rural TV viewers, since the federal coupon program for converter boxes has started and a waiting list has begun.

CEA represents major manufacturers of TVs and other electronic goods. Its president and CEO, Gary Shapiro, said in the letter, “A change in the date could engender skepticism, confusion and distrust the next time government asks them to undertake specific actions in anticipation of a major event. ... With awareness now close to 100 percent, any change will be confusing and difficult to explain,” and perhaps also expensive.

While Podesta's letter to Congress "didn’t mention a date, broadcasters say the date being considered is some time in June," reports Ira Tenowitz of TV Week. "Senate Commerce Committee chairman Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., is preparing legislation that is expected to propose a delay." (Read more)

UPDATE, Jan. 13: Two big telecommunications firms are on opposite sides of the issue, with At&T endorsing a three-month delay and Verizon opposing it, Ted Hearn of Multichannel News reports.

Expect corn output to rise, use and price to fall, USDA says, contrary to market analysts' forecasts

Confounding farm market analysts, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated today that U.S. corn production and stocks of the crop would increase in the current marketing year, which ends Aug. 31. USDA also said expected use of corn would decline because of reductions in "livestock feeding, ethanol use and exports," writes Janie Gabbett of MeatingPlace, a news site for the meat industry.

"Market analysts had expected USDA to decrease corn production and expected a much smaller increase in ending stocks," Gabbett reports. The main factor in the forecast for decreased use was ethanol, because producers are losing money. "The projected season-average farm price for corn was lowered 10 cents on each end of the range to $3.55 to $4.25 per bushel."

Gabbett also reports on USDA forecasts for soybeans. While exports are expected to rise on strong demand from China, the projected bean crush is down because of reduced domestic demand. "The U.S. season-average soybean price range for 2008-09 is projected at $8.50 to $9.50 per bushel compared with $8.25 to $9.75 per bushel last month." (Read more)

Jeff Caldwell of Agriculture Online writes, "All eyes now turn to South America, where weather conditions will have a lot to do with crop size there and, in turn, market prices here. And, soybeans will be leading the charge, analysts say." (Read more) For the full USDA crop forecast, click here.

Report finds West Virginia lax on coal slurry dams

Federal investigators from the Office of Surface Mining are finding inconsistencies in the regulation of coal-slurry impoundments by the state of West Virginia. Ken Ward Jr. of The Charleston Gazette writes, "Department of Environmental Protection officials do not properly apply 'safety zone' rules for impoundments built on top of underground mine workings, according to the report."

The report comes during nervous times in the coal industry, following the highly publicized coal ash spill in Tennessee. (Read more) To view the Gazette's graphic on coal-slurry dam problems, click here.

Once-booming towns in the Southeast are feeling more of a bust as unemployment spreads

As the length and severity of the recession continues to increase, areas of the country previously resilient to the economic downturn are beginning to struggle. "For decades, high-growth states like North Carolina, Georgia and many of their neighbors showed extraordinary resiliency during national economic downturns," reports Dan Fitzpatrick of The Wall Street Journal. "But increasingly, the region appears no longer able to stave off the slowdown."

For example, "North Carolina's widely lauded economic transformation of the last three decades -- in which the state diversified away from its dependence on agriculture and textiles and into technology, banking and pharmaceuticals -- is proving no match for what could be the longest and deepest U.S. recession since World War II," Fitzpatrick writes. The state is experiencing a 26-year high in unemployment at 7.9 percent and some experts are predicting double digit unemployment for 2009.

The town of Hickory is indicative of what small towns in the Southeast are experiencing. Fitzpatrick writes, "The area is still a hub for furniture and textile makers, despite plant shutdowns and tens of thousands of layoffs as cheaper foreign labor took its toll."(Read more)

To see state-by-state unemployment data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, with year-over-year change in percentage points, click here.

TVA needs to return to its roots, journalist opines

The recent coal-ash slurry spill at the Tennessee Valley Authority's steam plant in Kingston, Tenn., highlights the need to bring the Depression-spawned federal utility back to its research and environmental roots, writes Tom Eblen of the Lexington Herald-Leader, who covered TVA in his days as a reporter in the Southeast.

Former TVA Chairman S. David Freeman told Eblen, "We taught the rest of the nation about flood plain management. We had a civil-service system before the [rest of the] federal government had one. TVA was the fertilizer research center for the whole world, and we developed all kinds of fertilizers. We taught soil conservation to the farmers." But in the 1980s, Congress eliminated many if not most of TVA's non-power programs. "The power part of the system was the tail," Freeman said. "I think what happened over the years was the tail became the dog."

Eblen asks, "What if TVA were tasked with developing renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind, or demonstrating new technologies to solve environmental problems? If such a thing as “clean coal” technology really exists, why not have TVA show how it could work?" Sounds logical to us. (Read more)

Farmers cite business skills as key to success, but researchers also cite basic farming knowledge

The financial success of farmers depends on both business savvy and basic agricultural ability, according to a new study by Purdue University. The land-grant school asked some of the most financially successful farmers which of their skills they considered to be most important. The farmers rated their competence in financial and risk management to be most important, but researchers also noticed other factors that indicated success.

“What we found is the success of today’s farmers, as they rated themselves, was more related to their ability to manage livestock, grow crops, and to manage their personnel, some of what we consider more of the basic skills of managing that farm operation," says Bruce Erikson, director of Purdue's Cropping Systems Management. "So we theorize that going into the future those more business type skills will be important, but at least for the success of today’s farmers, it’s the basics that seem to prevail." (Read more)

5 adjoining rural states lowest in unemployment

As unemployment last month reached peaks not seen in six decades, five adjoining states with largely rural landscapes had the lowest unemployment rates in the nation. Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Nebraska were all at 3.7 percent or lower in November, compared to 6.7 percent nationally. The following month, the national rate hit 7.2 percent; state rates have not yet been published.

Ernie Goss, an economics professor at Creighton University in Omaha, told Dirk Lammers of The Associated Press that the five states have been "insulated, but not isolated" from the recession. Goss says a more stable housing market, willingness to relocate, and a greater margin of error due to smaller sample sizes may all affect the rates. Other contributing factors may include a history of more cautious lending practices, strong commodity prices for wheat, soybeans and corn, and falling fuel prices. (Read more) We would add as additional factors the oil and gas industries in Utah, Wyoming and North Dakota.

Leahy pushes for aid to rural police in stimulus

Add rural law enforcement to the list of potential beneficiaries of the economic stimulus package being prepared for Congress. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., "this week introduced the Rural Law Enforcement Assistance Act, which would authorize $75 million a year over the next five years in new ... grant money for state and local law enforcement in rural states such as Vermont and in rural areas within larger states," Erin Kelly writes for the Burlington Free Press. "The money could be used to hire and train police officers, buy equipment and fund special crime-fighting task forces. The grants also could be used for crime prevention and drug treatment programs."

Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, had several law-enforcement officials testify before his panel yesterday, all of whom pushed for restoration of recent cuts in federal support for local police. "The one dissenting voice ... was David Muhlhausen, a senior policy analyst for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank," Kelly reports. He said expanding such programs wouldn't stimulate the economy. “The federal government should not become a crutch on which local law enforcement becomes dependent,” he said. (Read more)

What sort of ash disposal method does your coal-fired power plant use?

The Coalfield Progress, a twice-weekly newspaper in Norton, Va., is doing what should be done by all news organizations that serve readers, listeners and viewers who live near coal-fired power plants or future plant sites: asking questions about ash disposal in the wake of the spill that wrecked a neighborhood in Tennessee (see item below).

"If the coal-ash disposal method that failed Dec. 22 near Knoxville is an apple, then Dominion Virginia Power’s proposed Virginia City coal-ash landfill is an orange, according to company officials," Jeff Lester reports. "Dominion says its plan for burying ash in a lined, state-of-the-art landfill is very different — and much safer — than the Tennessee Valley Authority ash slurry pond that breached in Kingston, Tenn., causing the biggest ash spill in American history."

The Tennessee plant uses wet disposal, which creates a slurry that flows. The Virginia plant, far from a major stream, plans to conserve water and will use dry disposal, Lester writes. (Read more; subscription may be required)

Leak found, stopped at TVA disposal pond in Ala.

The Tennessee Valley Authority "is investigating a leak from a gypsum pond at its Widows Creek coal-burning plant in northeastern Alabama, a spokesman said at about 10:45 a.m. Central Time," writes Anne Paine of The Tennessean. TVA says was detected at 6 a.m. today and has been stopped. Many safety concerns about waste disposal at coal-fired power plants have been raised following the disaster at the TVA ash pond in Kingston, Tenn.

Some of the material from the Alabama pond flowed into nearby Widows Creek, but according to TVA officials most remained in the pond. "Gypsum is a byproduct of coal-burning power plants when 'scrubbers' are added that use limestone spray to clean air emissions," adds Paine. This pulls sulfur dioxide from the emissions." (Read more)

2008 saw record low number of miners killed

"The number of miners killed on the job in the United States fell to 51 in 2008, the fewest number of deaths since officials began keeping records nearly a century ago, according to preliminary data released by federal regulators Thursday," writes Roger Alford of The Associated Press. The historic low follows two years in which the number of mining fatalities rose, largely because of coal-mine disasters. Coal mines accounted for 29 of last year's deaths, compared to 34 in 2007. The U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration reported that 22 deaths occured in other types of mines, down from 33 in 2007.

As beefed-up mine safety regulations helped bring down the number of mining deaths in 2008, it was also the first year that mine safety inspectors were able to complete all mandated mine reviews. MSHA added 360 inspectors and paid $10 million in overtime to complete the task. "Inspectors issued nearly 167,000 citations for safety violations in 2008, up from 130,000 the year before," writes Alford. "The federal agency fined mine operators $194 million in 2008 for safety violations. That was the largest amount of fines in the agency's history, up from $130 million in 2007."(Read more)

Chair of Obama transition calls for digital TV delay

Congress should delay the Feb. 17 switch to digital television because the nation, especially many rural viewers, are unlikely to be prepared for it, President-elect Barack Obama's transition co-chairman told congressional leaders in a letter today.

John Podesta cited the new waiting list for $40 federal coupons for digital converter boxes and "problems with the government's effort to educate the public about the switch and help prepare people, particularly the elderly, poor and those living in rural areas," report Jim Puzzanghera and Christi Parsons of the Tribune Co. Washington Bureau.

"Podesta said in the letter that 1 million requests are on the waiting list and the number could climb to more than 5 million by early February," Tribune reports. "Obama supports waiving federal rules to allow the Commerce Department to start sending out more coupons' rather than waiting for coupons already issued to expire." He also plans to include more money for the coupon program in his stimulus package; broadcasters favor that instead of a delay. They "have spent billions of dollars preparing for the transition and are eager to turn off their old analog signals." But Consumers Union favors a delay, "and Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.), the incoming head of a House subcommittee with oversight over telecommunications, said Thursday that he is considering a delay." (Read more)

Obama includes rural broadband in stimulus plan

President-elect Barack Obama said today that his massive economic stimulus program includes "expanding broadband across America, so that a small business in a rural town can connect and compete with their counterparts anywhere in the world." Obama had called for action on rural broadband throughout his campaign and after the election.

"Most industry players concede that there needs to be greater stimulus for broadband rollout, but there are disagreements over how relevant the rankings are given that some of the leading countries are smaller and easier to wire. They also disagree on the best way to close the gap," John Eggerton reports for Broadcasting & Cable. "One proposal the FCC has been considering is to reform the government-run, telecommunications company-funded subsidy of rural telecommunications to underserved communities, the Universal Service Fund, to help fund the broadband rollout. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has also proposed creating a baseline free Internet service as part of an upcoming auction a national spectrum license, and recently agreed to allow unlicensed devices like laptops to share broadcast spectrum, in part to boost broadband penetration." (Read more)

Buyer found for Conn. papers in danger of closing

A buyer has been found for five small newspapers in central Connecticut that the financially troubled Journal Register Co. planned to close next week. Michael Schroeder, a Long Island media consultant and former publisher of a free commuter daily in Boston, has signed a letter of intent to buy the Bristol Press and the New Britain Herald, 9,000-circulation papers that have a combined Sunday edition, and three weeklies: the Wethersfield Post, the Newington Town Crier and the Rocky Hill Post.

"The move to save the papers became something of a community cause as Mayors Timothy Stewart, of New Britain, and Art Ward, of Bristol, along with state Reps. Tim O’Brien, Betty Boukus and Frank Nicastro and others worked to keep them open and functioning as a service to their constituents," the Press reported. In a news conference at the state Capitiol, Schroeder indicated that the papers, not far from the capital of Hatford, need to strengthen their community connections: “I’m here to give enough time so the community can save the papers.” Press reporter Jackie Majerus paraphrased him as saying "The papers are going to need subscribers, advertisers and community support to make it work." (Read more)

"Just who is Schroeder?" asks Lynn Doan of The Hartford Courant. "He's getting into the newspaper business as the industry faces fundamental change, but those who know him say he might be just the person to resurrect the Press, Herald and three weeklies that come with the deal." Schoreder was a copy editor and later chief of staff to the publisher of Newsday on Long Island. (Read more) For Press reporter Steve Collins' blog on efforts to save the paper, click here.

UPDATE, Jan. 13: Schroeder's plan for changes at the papers "could be one of the most remarkable experiments in media anywhere in America," Courant columnist Rick Green writes.

Sharper decline in number of students in rural Alaska suggests rural population is shrinking

As Alaska officials attempt to determine how many rural residents have migrated to the state's only urban area, in and around Anchorage, they are trying to find out how many students have left rural schools. State researchers ... report that rural schools lost 1,802 students in the last five years," writes Alex DeMarban of the Daily News-Miner in Fairbanks, but there have been some problems in using these statistics.

In the same period, the number of urban students declined by 204, and one would expect that number to have risen if rural students were migrating. A decrease in the birth rate is a likely factor. "The Alaska birth rate has fallen in recent years, dropping from 24.4 for every 1,000 residents in the 1980s to 15.4 in 2005-2006," DeMarban writes.

The review of student populations is part of a larger effort to determine at overall population trends in Alaska. What the rural student numbers clearly suggest is that the state's rural population, 34 percent of the total at the 2000 census, is in decline. (Read more)

An earlier blog here, citing an article from the Anchorage Daily, found that much of the data about the migration from Alaska's rural school population has been exaggerated.

Democrats plan bill to void late Bush regulations

Congressional Democrats are preparing bills to reverse a host of reguations adopted by the Bush administration in its final weeks, apparently including one intended to remove legal and technical obstacles to mountaintop-removal mining of coal. So reports Joaquin Sapien of ProPublica, citing The American Prospect, a liberal magazine.

The Prospect's Tapped blog reports that one of the first 10 Senate bills will be the "Returning Government to the American People Act, to return the government to the people by reviewing controversial 'midnight regulations' issued in the waning days of the Bush administration. Senate Democrats plan "to provide the new administration legislative authority, if it doesn't have it already, to review (and presumably deny) the last administration's late regulations." (Read more)

In agreement with EPA, Perdue will help its contract poultry farmers limit water pollution

Perdue Farms has agreed with the Environmental Protection Agency "to implement a four-year program aimed at protecting waters in the mid-Atlantic and Southeast" over the next four years, reports Janie Gabbett of MeatingPlace. "The agreement grew out of a pilot program initiated by EPA and Perdue on the Delmarva Peninsula in Delaware, Maryland and Virginia," Gabbett writes. The agreement is especially important for the Chesapeake Bay.

"Beginning in 2007, EPA and Perdue provided training and assistance to the largest independent contract poultry farms growing for Perdue throughout the peninsula," EPA said in a press release. The training helps farmers control water runoff and manage chicken litter. Under the agreement, each Perdue plant will have a management system "to reduce environmental impacts and increase operating efficiency," EPA said. "The initiative also will include an awards program to recognize poultry farms that demonstrate environmental excellence in protecting and restoring waterways." For a copy of the agreement, click here.

As housing bubble burst, rural had less air to lose

The burst of the housing bubble was a largely urban phenomenon. "From early 2007 until the third quarter of '08, housing prices in rural areas have risen by two percent on average, according to figures released by the Office for Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight," writes Bill Bishop of the Daily Yonder. "During the same period, metro housing prices have declined by nearly 8 percent."

Rural home values didn't drop as sharply because, as the graph shows, they did not experience a steep price increase that preceded the decline in urban home values that followed. "There was less rise in rural home prices from 2000 to 2005 so there was less air in the bubble when it finally popped," Bishop writes.

Not all rural areas were able to avoid the sharp decline in home values. Some areas of Pacific Coats states have seen a sizable decline in home values since 2007. However, "In the West South Central region (Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana), an area where rural communities have been bolstered by a strong energy-producing and agriculture economy, housing prices outside the cities have continued to grow despite the national bust," Bishop notes. Read an earlier post on the rural housing market by clicking here.
(Read more)

Coal-ash dump sites are unmonitored, unregulated

In wake of the coal-ash pond breach in East Tennessee last month (Associated Press photo), The New York Times reports that many of 1,300 similar dump sites in the U.S. remain unregulated and unmonitored. The sites contain toxic heavy metals such as arsenic, lead, mercury and selenium, which according to the Environmental Protection Agency threaten both water supplies and human health, and are not subject to any federal regulation.

The coal industry has even been seeking "beneficial uses" for coal ash as a means of dealing with the huge quantities of waste from burning coal. "In 2007, according to a coal industry estimate, 50 tons of fly ash even went to agricultural uses, like improving soil’s ability to hold water, despite a 1999 EPA warning about high levels of arsenic, writes the Times' Shaila Dewan. "The industry has promoted the reuse of coal combustion products because of the growing amount of them being produced each year — 131 million tons in 2007, up from less than 90 million tons in 1990."

There have been numerous reports of water contamination from coal-ash dumps across the country. "In 2007, an EPA report identified 63 sites in 26 states where the water was contaminated by heavy metals from such dumps, including three other Tennessee Valley Authority dumps," adds Dewan. "Environmental advocacy groups have submitted at least 17 additional cases that they say should be added to that list." (Read more)

Kentucky coal companies stop fighting bill that would require emergency plans for slurry spills

Kentucky's coal industry has dropped its opposition to legislation that requires emergency plans for action in the event of coal slurry disasters. "We recognize the need. It's the right thing to do," Bill Caylor, president of the Kentucky Coal Association, told Bill Estep of the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Kentyucky has 64 coal-slurry impoundments that are considered "high-hazard," meaning that a dam break would pose high potential for death or serious structural damage. Many residents at risk began lobbying for legislation requiring emergency plans after a dam broke in Martin County in 2000. Though the damage was largely to creekside property, many believe it could easily have been much worse, because residents were not immediately notified of the breach.

Caylor says coal-industry opposition has never been to the implementation of emergency plans, but to legislation that unfairly targets slurry impoundments. He says that legislation should apply to all high-hazard dams. Kentucky is one of 10 states that do not yet require such plans. (Read more)

Rural stock index scored better than the bigs in '08

The Daily Yonder summarized the 2008 performance of the "Yonder 40," the 40 stocks it has picked to represent the rural economy, and found that those stocks beat the Dow Jones Industrial Index, the NASDAQ composite and the Standard and Poor's 500. The Yonder 40 was down 31.3 percent , compared to -34% for the Dow, -38% for S&P, and -40.5% for NASDAQ.

"The Yonder 40 was helped by having some of the best performing stocks in the major indices," co-editor Bill Bishop writes. "The two best stocks in the S&P 500 in 2008 were UST, the smokeless tobacco producer, and Family Dollar, the Main Street retailer," while "Wal-Mart, a DY 40 stalwart, was one of only two stocks among the 30 companies in the Dow Industrials to show positive returns in 2008." (Read more)

Rural housing prices more stable than in metros

Rural housing prices have remained more stable than their metropolitan counterparts during the recent crisis, according to a study published in The Main Street Economist, a publication of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.

Chad Wilkerson, a vice-president of the bank, attributes that to "better fundamentals in home prices" in rural areas. He notes that rural housing prices have always been more closely related to household income than in urban areas, so there was less of a "bubble" in rural areas. Also, new home construction in rural areas slowed at the first sign of the economic crisis, which left fewer unsold houses to drive down prices.

The rural housing market is not immune from the crisis, though. While not experiencing the housing inflation seen in metropolitan areas, rural areas did see housing prices grow slightly faster than incomes, a trend that Wilkerson says "may need to unwind somewhat." He adds, "With commodity prices falling sharply in late 2008, many rural economies are bracing for slower economic growth heading forward -- and, in turn, softer demand for housing." (Read more)

RIP: Verna Mae Slone, writer, homemaker, cultural historian and a face of Appalachia

Appalachia lost one of its most authentic chroniclers yesterday, when Verna Mae Slone died at the age of 94. Slone, who lived most of her life in Pippa Passes, Ky., population 300, was best known for her first book, What My Heart Wants to Tell, which was published when she was 65. She went on to write five more books. "I often referred to her as the Grandma Moses of the mountains," Mike Mullins, longtime director of the Hindman Settlement School, told Tom Eblen of the Lexington Herald-Leader.

"In simple language, Slone wrote about life and the importance of family, community and the fast-disappearing culture of her beloved Eastern Kentucky mountains," Eblen writes. But along with serving as a voice for Appalachia, she also became a face of it when a 1993 photograph, right, by Barbara Beirne was the centerpiece of Beirne's "Women of Appalachia" exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution. "Verna Mae Slone was a gracious, dignified, intelligent woman," Beirne said Monday. "Everyone who views her photograph seems aware that they have been introduced to a very special person."

Slone became a writer after reading transcripts of oral histories she gave the settlement school. In addition to her books, she also wrote a column for the local weekly, the Troublesome Creek Times. The paper still has five community correspondents, plus a local music columnist. (Read more)

Study confirms long-held suspicion that when local budgets get tight, cops write more traffic tickets

A new study has confirmed what many have long suspected: when local government budgets tighten, more traffic tickets are written, at least in North Carolina. After getting a speeding ticket, Thomas A. Garrett, an assistant vice president at the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, teamed with Gary A. Wagner, an economist at the University of Arkansas Little Rock, to study the correlation between local economies and traffic citations.

The study, "Red Ink in the Rearview Mirror," examined 96 North Carolina counties over 14 years, and found, that "controlling for other factors, a 1 percentage point drop in local government revenue leads to a roughly .32 percentage point increase in the number of traffic tickets in the following year, a statistically significant connection," reports Todd Frankel of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "Garrett said the study does not dispute that public safety remains at the heart of ticket-writing, but he said the study shows that political and economic interests affect how much emphasis is placed on writing tickets." (Read more)

The findings would not apply to all states. For example, when Kentucky unified its state judicial system in the mid-1970s, local governments stopped getting revenue from fines. They still get an annual appropriation from the state, based on the revenue they were generating then.

Developer drops bid for change that would have let federal forest roads be paved for development

We recently reported on controversial plans by the U.S. Forest Service to change its road easements, allowing the paving of logging roads through naitonal forests for residential development on adjacent tracts. But today, The Missoulian reports that the developer pushing for the change has backed off, citing public opposition as the primary factor.

“Although we continue to believe that the easement amendment would be beneficial to the general public, given the lack of receptivity, we have decided not to go forward with the amendment,” Plum Creek Timber Co. President and CEO Rick Holley wrote in a letter to Montana's Missoula County. The company had been working with Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey to amend the company's easements, which traditionally have been understood to allow roads only for timber transportation.

"The argument over the scope of the easements, in fact, remains far from resolved," writes Michael Jamison. County Commissioner Jean Curtiss "said Plum Creek has removed the urgency created by Rey's departure," which will come as the Bush administration ends. Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Tester said Plum Creek's move will help create a more transparent process in deciding on how to interpret the easements: “If this is a good deal for the public, then there's no harm in taking the time to work through it properly." (Read more)

Immigration raids may have paved the way for unionization of America's largest pork plant

The recent unionization of the largest pork processing plant in the U.S., Smithfield Foods' plant in Tar Heel, N.C., may have been driven by immigration raids that purged the plant of undocumented workers wary of the idea.

"The 2007 raids purged the Bladen County plant of illegal Hispanic workers, and left behind a majority of native workers more likely to support unionization," writes Kristin Collins of The News & Observer of Raleigh. "According to the company, the share of Hispanic workers has shrunk from about half in early 2007 to one quarter today. Black people now make up 54 percent of the plant's work force. ... Labor experts say blacks are traditionally more supportive of unions than other races or ethnic groups."

A pro-union employee who is a U.S. citizen of Dominican descent told Collins that the raids left even legal workers at the 5,000-employee plant "too frightened to speak up for unionization," as Collins put it. But company and union officials dismissed the ethincity factor. A United Food and Commercial Workers spokesman "said the key to the union victory was not the exodus of Hispanics, but bridging the divides between races," Collins writes. (Read more)

Coalition urges an end to wildlife killings by USDA

"A coalition of 115 conservation, animal protection, ranching, and faith-based organizations from across the United States today sent a letter to President-elect Barack Obama's nominee for agriculture secretary asking that he halt the government slaughter of millions of wild animals, including wolves, coyotes, bears, cougars, and prairie dogs," according to the Environmental News Service. These groups argue that the killing of these animals is bad for the environment, because carnivores are "keystone species," and that money spent on the killings could be used to educate people to reduce contact with the animals. Former Iowa Gov, Tom Vilsack is Obama's choice for secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. (Read more)

Need a federal coupon for a digital TV converter? You'll have to wait; the program is out of money

Next month's transition to digital television, which is bound to be troublesome for many rural Americans, just got more troublesome. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration announced today that the program to provide $40 coupons for digital converter boxes has exhausted its $1.34 billion budget, "weeks sooner than anyone expected," because of heavy news coverage of the issue over the holidays, writes Ira Teinowitz of TVWeek.

"Instead of getting a coupon, consumers on the list will be notified there will be a delay," Teinowitz reports. "Through Feb. 11, about 351,000 coupons are expected to expire unused each week, and the same number then can be issued. Because more consumers applied for coupons in November and December, the number that will expire later in February and March also will grow, but that will come after the Feb. 17 DTV transition." (Read more)

"Members of Congress are now scrambling to find ways to allocate more money to the program," reports Kim Hart of The Washington Post. "Congress could solve the funding shortfall by approving more money for the program or waiving the rule to allow the NTIA to issue new coupons without waiting for unredeemed ones to expire." (Read more)

The switch to digital TV is a major story in rural America, but one that many rural journalists may have difficulty covering because it's an unfamiliar subject and the sources are mostly in Washington. The National Press Foundation is sponsoring a free, 75-minute webinar on the subject on Jan. 22. Space is limited, and available on a first-come, first-served basis. For more information, click here.

Towns seek new solutions to rising salt prices

High salt prices have some towns getting creative when it comes to keeping ice off their roads. A couple of recent articles have examined solutions to salt prices that have almost doubled since last year, a rise which has strained many towns' already-squeezed budgets.

The Wall Street Journal reports many towns are abandoning traditional road salt outright, or making their own concoctions. "We're sort of experimenting," says Ted Hubbard, the chief deputy county engineer in Hamilton County, Ohio, where road salt is being mixed with ash residue from coal-fired power plants. Other towns have tried garlic salt, molasses and "a rum-production byproduct that smells like soy sauce," write Ilan Brat and Timothy W. Martin. (Read more)

Some Midwestern states and localities, on the other hand, are finding that buying salt together is helping to defray costs and combat price gouging, reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "Investigators also found price discrepancies in Indiana and Kentucky, where some local governments were paying up to 50 percent less than their counterparts just across the border in Ohio," writes Scott Williams. As a result, the Ohio Department of Transportation is recommending interstate cooperation with states such as Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota and Iowa in purchasing road salt, saying that "coordination instead of competition among other states could reduce the likelihood of unbalanced shortages and supplies." (Read more)

To read The Rural Blog's previous coverage of road salt, click here and here.

Study says 1/3 of veterans show signs of depression, a major risk factor for suicide

About a third of veterans treated at Department of Veterans Affairs health care facilities show signs of depression, a serious risk factor for suicide among them, a study by the University of Michigan Health System found. That is significant for rural areas, since rural inhabitants make up a disproportionately large amount of military recruits and the VA has had difficilty getting mental-health services to rural areas.

The researchers recommended that patients, in the 12 weeks after seeking treatment, should receive intensive treatment for depression to prevent suicidal behavior. Marcia Valenstein, M.D., clinical psychiatrist with the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System and associate professor of psychiatry with the University of Michigan Health System said the study shows "the need for very close follow-up for patients who are discharged from our inpatient services because this is a particularly vulnerable time for them."

The VA has made the isssue a priority by giving $300 million to expand suicide prevention and other mental-health services. (Read more)

Lovers of the land call for farm programs against soil loss and degradation, for rural communities

One of the first New Deal farm programs was the Soil Conservation Service, successor to the inaptly named Soil Erosion Service. Now it's part of the Natural Resources Conservation Service, part of the Department of Agriculture, but the ethic of soil stewardship lives on in county soil conservation districts -- and in the minds of thoughtful folks like farmer-author Wendell Berry of Kentucky, right, and Wes Jackson, a plant geneticist and president of The Land Institute in Salina, Kan. In The New York Times today, they call attention to the parlous health of our nation's soil.

Soil "is as nonrenewable as (and far more valuable than) oil. Unlike oil, it has no technological substitute — and no powerful friends in the halls of government," they write. Soil erosion and depletion "never enough noticed, has been made worse by the huge monocultures and continuous soil-exposure of the agriculture we now practice. To the problem of soil loss, the industrialization of agriculture has added pollution by toxic chemicals, now universally present in our farmlands and streams. ... Clearly, our present ways of agriculture are not sustainable, and so our food supply is not sustainable. We must restore ecological health to our agricultural landscapes, as well as economic and cultural stability to our rural communities."

Berry and Jackson recommend a return to crop rotations that include pasture for hay and grazing, and the "more radical response" of research to develop perennial versions of major grain crops. (Rye may offer the best immediate prospect.) And they call for "a national agricultural policy that is based upon ecological principles. We need a 50-year farm bill that addresses forthrightly the problems of soil loss and degradation, toxic pollution, fossil-fuel dependency and the destruction of rural communities." (Read more)

Daughter of Stinking Creek author returns, tells story of two women who made big differences

Forty years ago, John Fetterman was a top writer at The Courier-Journal in Louisville and spent much of his time chronicling the tribulations of Appalachia, in particular the communities along Stinking Creek in the southeastern corner of the state. He wrote a book, Stinking Creek, and won a Pulitzer Prize for a C-J Magazine story on the funeral of a mountain soldier killed in Vietnam. John Fetterman died young, but took his daughter Mindy to Stinking Creek with him and inspired her to be a journalist. In the last year or so she went back, to report on life there for USA Today, for which she has been a reporter and is now manager of enterprise and innovation.

The result was an insipring story that ran over the holidays in USA Today, The C-J and surely some other Gannett Co. Inc. newspapers, accompanied by an online photo gallery and video. It told the tale of a teacher-farmer, Irma Gall, and a nurse-midwife, Peggy Kemner, left, who had spent 50 years on the creek, educating and serving generations of families with a wide range of health, social, youth and community services -- and are still doing it through tribulations of their own, such as the osteoporosis that has bent Kemner's back. (Photo by Garrett Hubbard)

"Quietly, they advocated birth control and education for women," Fetterman wrote. "Viewed at first with suspicion and distrust, the women known as "the nurses" have, over the decades, proved how much hands-on caring can make a difference in the lives of individuals. ... As family size shrank, the abject poverty that encased Stinking Creek began to ease. The mountains opened up, and the people could see out."

Fetterman says in the video, "I realized that these two women have had as much impact on Stinking Creek as the federal government's War on Poverty," which provides a national frame for her story. To read it, view the photo gallery and watch the video, all of which are worth your time, 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)

Small-town filmmaker's nationally recognized production can now be viewed online

The National Film Registry of the Library of Congress recently announced its 25 additions for 2009, and at the same time a short film added to the list last year became available for viewing online. "Our Day" made in 1938 by Wallace Kelly of rural Lebanon, Ky., left, is a silent, 12-minute movie about a day in his household.

We reported on the film in an item last Jan. 10. Last week, Kentucky Educational Television did a story about it and, with permission of the filmmaker's daughter, Martha Kelly, posted the film on its Web site. To watch it, click here. For KET's page about the movie, click here.

The film gained national attention through Home Movie Day, an annual event held in New York and other cities. It was praised for its sophisticated staging, lighting, camera work and editing. Dave Kehr of The New York Times, a member of the National Film Preservation Board, which picked the movies, called Kelly's picture "extraordinary" and said in his personal blog that it "displays a more sophisticated sense of mise-en-scene [staging] than the great majority of current Hollywood features."

Surgeons starting to disappear from rural areas

General surgeons "are the backbone of rural medicine, and all across the country they are starting to disappear," David Brown writes for The Washington Post. That means longer, more expenisve and in some cases more dangerous trips for specialized services, and it threatens the futire of some rural hospitals.

"Many young physicians are opting for non-surgical specialties, such as radiology or cardiology, in which they can earn as much money as a surgeon with less grueling and unpredictable hours," Brown explains. "Many young surgeons, in turn, choose to concentrate in fields such as transplant surgery or plastic surgery, in which they can make more money and don't have to face (usually alone) the wide range of problems a generalist faces."

The problem is getting worse and is not about to get better, because more than half of general surgeons in rural areas are over 50, "and a wave of retirements is expected in the coming decade," Brown writes. Surgeons are a key element in access to specialized health-care services, he notes: "Without general surgeons as backup, family practitioners can't deliver babies, emergency rooms can't take trauma cases, and most internists won't do complicated procedures such as colonoscopies." (Read more)

Cattle ranchers say they quashed backdoor effort by feds to require registration of farm premises

Mandatory premises registration, the bugaboo of the National Animal Identification System, won't be coming in through the back door, says the leading group of independent cattle ranchers.

The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture has canceled a September memorandum that would have required registration of premises owned by "producers involved in interstate commerce and in any of the federally regulated disease programs," according to R-CALF USA, the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America.

"R-CALF had demanded the agency retract the memo," reports Tom Johnston of MeatingPlace. R-CALF CEO Bill Bullard told Bob Meyer of Brownfield Network that the retraction wouldn't affect states that require premises registration, but "Bullard says there are a number of challenges to state laws either filed or in the works and R-CALF has submitted affidavits in support of some of those producers." (Read more)

Iowa Independent posts its brag sheet for 2008

"In journalism, the scoop is the name of the game," writes Jason Hancock of the Iowa Independent. "The exclusive story is no longer the exclusive domain of the traditional media. In many cases, it’s the small, independent media that are breaking stories and driving the news these days." The Independent, one of five state-based news sites of the Center for Independent Media, claims eight such scoops in 2008.

First on the list is Doug Burns' June 29 prediction that Arizona Sen. John McCain would pick Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. The prediction was only in the headline, but Doug wrote it. His lede said (emphasis added) that Palin "could vault from relative national obscurity," and our friend deserves credit for a very perceptive guess, and for much good reporting on a wide range of topics.

Five of the Independent's eight scoops dealt with the presidential election, in which Iowa cast the first votes, made Barack Obama the front-runner and was a battleground state for most of the general-election race before falling into the Obama column. For the Independent's report on itself, click here.

State legislator has bill to ban corn ethanol in N.H.

Even as federal officials consider raising the amount of ethanol in gasoline from the current 10 percent, a New Hampshire legislator has drafted a bill to ban corn-based ethanol from being any part of the mix in his state, Steve Taylor reports in Lancaster Farming, a weekly journal aimed at the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic.

"It makes no sense environmentally when making a gallon of ethanol has a bigger carbon footprint than a gallon of gasoline, and it makes no sense to allow it to drive up food costs and availability when millions of people around the globe are facing starvation,” David Campbell told Taylor, who writes that the lawmaker is "undeterred" despite advice from "state bureaucrats" who say his idea "is an impossibility in light of ethanol mandates coming down from Washington."

Taylor, who recently retired after a long tenure as New Hampshire's appointed agriculture commissioner, reports that Campbell has allies in "owners of chainsaws, snowmobiles, outboard boat motors, weed whackers and other power equipment who have already seen their machines damaged by fuel containing ethanol. They’re the leading edge of what the Outdoor Power Equipment Institute, a Washington trade group, says is going to be a huge and angry mass of equipment owners should the Environmental Protection Agency go along with proposals to allow gasoline to be formulated at more than the current 10 percent level for ethanol content."

Taylor, right, also reports, "Many in the gasoline industry claim ... unscrupulous marketers are boosting ethanol content well beyond the present E-10 limit because they can make money doing it." (Read more)

So, does Taylor think Campbell's idea will go anywhere? "When it comes to setting public policy, New Hampshire is usually either first or last. An ethanol ban will be sure to stir things up, but I'll bet it will get referred to study," he told us in an e-mail. "But the New Hampshire legislature can do some startling things when it looks from the outside like an idea will go nowhere. The best recent example is a law that banned private entities from mining unknowing patients' medical records for profit. The law was recently upheld by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, to the consternation of drug companies, and now a couple of other states are looking to copy."

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)

Massey to pay record fine in deadly coal-mine fire

A Massey Energy Co. subsidary agreed last week to pay $2.5 million in fines and $1.7 million in civil penalties for violations that caused a fire that killed two West Virginia coal miners in 2006. "Combined, the $4.2 million in criminal and civil fines appear to amount to the largest government penalty ever in a coal-mining death case," reported The Charleston Gazette.

Aracoma Coal Co. also agreed to plead guilty to 10 criminal violations, including one felony. The violations included "not providing a proper escape tunnel out of the underground mine, to not conducting required evacuation drills, and to faking a record book so it appeared the drills had been done," Ken Ward Jr. and Andrew Clevenger wrote.

The deal with federal prosecutors disposes of more than 1,300 health and safety violations at the Alma No. 1 mine, where the fire occured, and the nearby Henshaw mine. Last month, Massey settled a wrongful-death lawsuit by the two widows. The chief administrative law judge of the federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission wrote that he approved the settlement "reluctantly," because the $1.7 million penalty is 61 percent of the amount the federal government initially sought, while Massey CEO Don Blankenship got a raise of more than 35 percent last year, to "a compensation package that probably exceeded $23 million." (Read more)

Wal-Mart settles most suits over labor violations

Rural America's largest employer, Wal-Mart, agreed last week to settle dozens of lawsuits alleging that it underpaid employees as a matter of course and violated other state and federal labor laws.

"The company disclosed in a regulatory filing earlier this year that it had 76 such cases; resolving 63 in one fell swoop would leave just 12 remaining cases. Wal-Mart settled a case in Minnesota earlier this month," reports Miguel Bustillo of The Wall Street Journal. "Wal-Mart lost similar cases in California in 2005 and Pennsylvania in 2006 and was ordered to pay $172 million and $187 million, respectively, for denying breaks to thousands of employees. The company has appealed both cases and they are not part of the settlement."

Paul Secunda, a Marquette University law professor, told Bustillo that Wal-Mart may have wanted to settle not only to avoid further such verdicts, but "to get their labor house in order" before Congress takes up the Employee Free Choice Act, which would allow workplaces to be organized by signatures of employees rather than secret-ballot elections. The bill "is fiercely opposed by Wal-Mart because the company worries it will make it easier for workers to unionize," Bustillo writes. Settling the suits could cost as much as $640 million, but Secunda said, "Compared to what unionization might cost them, I think they probably realized it was a small price to pay."

Wal-Mart said the settlements were "in the best interest of our company, our shareholders and our associates. Many of these lawsuits were filed years ago and are not representative of the company we are today." (Read more; subscription may be required)

Support the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues with a year-end donation

The Rural Blog is brought to you by the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, which helps rural journalists define the public agenda in their communities through strong reporting and commentary, often issues that come at them from far away but have a local impact.

In addition to the blog, the Institute conducts research, holds seminars on issues, makes presentations at other organizations' meetings and maintains a Web site, http://www.ruraljournalism.org/, that is a resource for rural journalists. For the Institute's annual report for 2008, click here.

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Many rural TV viewers in fringe areas will lose 'local' stations in transition to digital signals

Millions of rural Americans will no longer be able to watch some local television stations when all stations switch to digital-only programming on Feb. 17. Unlike traditional analog signals, which gradually fade with distance, "digital broadcasts either come in clear or not at all, meaning that those on the fringes of analog coverage areas will lose that reception entirely after the transition," The Associated Press reports. Also, "Many television stations will shift their broadcast footprints with the mandatory transition by changing transmitter locations, antenna patterns or power levels," Joelle Tessler writes.

The Federal Communications Commission released maps last week of the current and expected coverage areas of the 319 stations -- about 18 percent of the 1,749 full-power stations -- that are expected to lose at least 2 percent of their viewers. For a market-by-market list of those maps, click here. (The maps do not account for repeater or translator stations that rebroadcast signals to targeted areas.) In some cases, a more sensitive antenna, plus the converter box needed for all antennas, will bring in the digital signal. Rural residents may also be able to use satellite or cable service to get channels that the FCC deems local. (Read more)

The switch to digital TV is a major story in rural America, but one that many rural journalists may have difficulty covering because it's an unfamiliar subject and the sources are mostly in Washington. The National Press Foundation is sponsoring a free, 75-minute webinar on the subject on Jan. 22. Space is limited, and available on a first-come, first-served basis. For more information, click here.

As Tennessee goes agog at coal-ash spill, enviros urge Obama to block more disposal in old mines

UPDATES, Dec. 29: So many people showed up for a meeting among TVA officials and local residents that it had to be moved to the county high school, Terri Likens of the Roane County News reports. The New York Times has an excellent graphic with its Dec. 25 story on the issues raised by the spill, except it errs in saying the Clinch River flows 100 miles to Chattanooga. (See below.) The mapping mistake recalls some geographic history: In pioneer days, the Tennessee River was deemed to begin at Kingston, at the confluence of the Clinch and the river that flowed through Knoxville, then named the Holston. But Knoxville folks wanted to be on the Tennessee, and they argued that it began at the confluence of the Holston and the French Broad, upstream from their city. They prevailed.

The day after a coal-ash retention pond broke at a Tennessee Valley Authority power plant in Kingston, Tenn., closing a river and inundating about a dozen homes with sludge, 39 environmental groups asked President-elect Barack Obama to reject a pending regulation that would make it easier to dispose of such ash in abandoned coal mines.

On Monday, an estimated 500 million gallons of sludge went into the Emory River near its confluence with the Clinch River, which shortly downsteam flows into the Tennessee River, impounded as Watts Bar Lake. Residents "had trouble coming to grips with the scope," reports Terri Likens of the Roane County News (who took the photo). "Depending on where they looked, the scene was like a moonscape or piles of pavement scraped up from a giant roadway." (Read more)

On Tuesday, the environmental groups said coal ash "has already polluted water in 23 states and the new rule would open the way for more pollution by failing to require consideration of risks to human health and the environment before new disposal sites are approved," reports Don Hopey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

"Coal-fired power plants produce approximately 129 million tons of waste ash a year, the second-largest industrial waste stream in the nation. About 25 million tons are dumped in coal mines," Hopey writes. "The waste contains numerous hazardous materials including arsenic, selenium, lead, mercury, cadmium, chromium, boron, thallium and molybdenum. Water pollution has resulted in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Indiana, North Dakota and New Mexico." (Read more)

Big electric co-op in trouble; board has a conflict

Kentucky utility regulators made an accounting move yesterday to help East Kentucky Power Cooperative stave off some creditors and ordered a management audit, saying the co-op's "worsening financial problems raise questions about its continued viability." It has suffered setbacks recently in an air-pollution case and a failed attempt to expand its territory.

EKPC, which generates and trasmits electricity, is owned by 16 small co-ops that distribute power to more than half a million consumer-members -- and that each have one director on the EKPC board. The state Public Service Commission said those directors have a conflict of interest because "They must balance East Kentucky Power's need for revenue with the desire for low electricity rates for its customers," Jim Jordan writes for the Lexington Herald-Leader. "The customers' desire for low rates can hurt the long-term health of the company." (Herald-Leader map)

Many other generation-and-transmission cooperatives have similar board structures. Does yours? How's it working?

Injury hospitalization rate is higher in rural areas

Injuries requiring hospitalization occur at a significantly higher rates in rural areas, according to a study that researchers say is the first of its kind.

“As the population density decreases, the risk continues to increase,” said Dr. Jeffrey H. Coben of the Injury Control Research Center at West Virginia University. “If you just look at violence – person against person – the rates are higher in urban areas. But for virtually every other cause of trauma, the risks are substantially greater in rural areas.”

Previous studies found that death rates from injuries are higher in rural areas. This study examined all injuries that prompted admissions to U.S. hospitals in 2004. Hospitalization rates for injuries were 35 percent higher in sparsely populated rural counties and 27 percent higher in more populated rural counties. (The release from Newswise, a research-reporting service, didn't make clear whether the comparisons were with metropolitan-area counties or the U.S. as a whole.) The study is published in the January issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Why is rural riskier? In addition to promptness of care, other factors include higher-risk occupations such as farming, longer commuting distances, and a host of other possible factors. "Previous studies have shown that people who live in rural areas are more likely to take part in risky behaviors such as recreational drug use, drunken driving or failing to use seatbelts," Newswise reports. "Plus a culture of self-reliance may cause people to undertake household fix-up chores that are inherently dangerous, such as roof repairs." (Read more)

Gov. Palin creates Rural Subcabinet for Alaska

Last week, we noted data indicating that reports of mass migration from rural Alaska was no more than would be expected at a time of economic downturn, but Gov. Sarah Palin is creating a new structure to help rural communities deal with what may be a long-term trend. The Rural Subcabinet will also examine rising energy costs and make proposals to strengthen schools and public safety, create more jobs, and improve community infrastructure, writes Pat Forgey in the Juneau Empire.

Although the migration numbers were not as bad as expected, Palin said if economic pressures were causing the trend, the state needs to act: "I want the Rural Subcabinet to look for ways to make certain migration is a result of personal decisions, not despair or a lack of choice resulting from economic pressures or other factors." (Read more)

Rural Kansas towns struggle to keep pharmacies

Having to drive to another town to go to the store or the cinema can be a bother, but when you or a family member are sick it can be a hardship. Communities in rural Kansas are having trouble recruiting qualified pharmacists to open or stay open in their towns, The Associated Press reports. Among the 105 counties in Kansas, 31 only have one pharmacy, and six have none at all. Pharmacies in urban areas often offer signing bonuses and incentives to pharmacists that rural pharmacies cannot offer.

The limited number of pharmacy-school graduates also adds to the challenge. "When the school is only graduating about a 100 a year, and you figure only a handful want to come to a small town, that is hard," says Dick Stanley, who is on a task force to recruit a pharmacist to Hoisington, population 3,000. "You are competing against every other western Kansas community that wants to attract the same person." While recently, state legislators moved to expand the pharmacy school at the University of Kansas, proposed budget cuts are threatening that expansion. (Read more)

Big Gates Foundation grant will create high-speed Internet access in libraries in seven states

Broadband in public libraries, the only form of regular Internet access for many people in rural areas, will improve in seven states with grants from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Almost $7 million in grants will be shared by Connected Nation, a non-profit broadband advocacy group, and the American Library Association's Office for Information Technology Policy. The grants will support faster Internet connections at libraries in Arkansas, California, Kansas, Massachusetts, New York, Texas, and Virginia.

The foundation's press release notes that, with the economy's decline, library visits have increased significantly. “Our nation’s future depends on our ability to compete successfully in global markets,” ALA President Jim Rettig said. “To maintain our competitive edge, citizens must be guaranteed access to the ever-expanding universe of knowledge, tools, services, and resources available on the Internet. Public libraries not only can and should provide that access, they also act as catalysts for improving Internet service for entire communities." (Read more)

Indiana electric co-op fighting insurance company

Hoosier Energy Rural Electric Cooperative, which serves most of Southern Indiana, is thriving but threatened with bankruptcy -- by "an atrociously convoluted deal" it made with an insurance company six years ago, Gretchen Morgensen writes in her "Fair Game" column in The New York Times.

The deal is much too complicated to explain in a short blog item, but Morgenson says it illustrates how "collateral damage from the credit crisis continues to crop up in the most unlikely places." It's also a tale of how investment bankers used a non-profit's tax-exempt status to rack up millions in fees and rob the Treasury of tax revenue. And how John Hancock Life Insurance Co. filed the default notice just as Hoosier Energy was about to strike another deal to avoid it. Hoosier believes John Hancock is trying to use the situation "to generate a quick $120 million," Morgenson writes.

Here's a map of the Hoosier service area, its headquarters, five generating stations and 18 member cooperatives, which have 800,000 member-customers: