Report: Frackers use unregulated diesel-like fluids

A new report from the Environmental Working Group says poor federal oversight of hydraulic fracturing, a drilling technique that boosts natural gas extraction by blasting water, sand and chemicals underground at high pressure, puts drinking water supplies at risk. EWG, a Washington-based research and advocacy group, says drilling companies are "side-stepping a permitting requirement for the use of diesel fuel in their fracturing fluids by using similar petroleum distillates that contain the same toxins as diesel, but require no permitting," John Collins Rudolf of The New York Times reports.

"The industry has been able to operate above the law,” said Dusty Horwitt, EWG's senior counsel. "They’re doing an end-run around what little oversight is left." The report also cites evidence that drilling companies continue to inject diesel fuel underground without proper permits. Gas companies "acknowledge the validity of some concerns, but they claim that their technology is fundamentally safe," Rudolf reports. (Read more)

The West Virginia Independent Oil and Gas Association told Ken Ward Jr. of The Charleston Gazette such practices are "long-standing and proven technology that enables operators to better produce much needed natural gas for our nation." Julie Archer, a spokeswoman for the West Virginia Surface Owners' Rights Association, disagreed: "The industry claims that the chemicals are safe and pose no threat to human health, but as the EWG report indicates, they are not as benign as the industry would have us believe. By failing to require disclosure, the state runs the risk of being perceived -- like the industry -- of hiding danger from the public." (Read more)

Hold coal-ash debate in public, NYT editorial says

We most recently reported about the ongoing debate over new Environmental Protection Agency regulations governing the disposal of coal ash last week. One of the country's top newspapers has chimed in. "The agency’s recommendations, which have not been made public, are now the focus of a huge dispute inside the Obama administration, with industry lobbying hard for changes that would essentially preserve the status quo," The New York Times writes in an editorial. "The dispute should be resolved in favor of the environment and public safety."

The Times dismisses arguments that a hazardous-waste designation for coal ash would damage beneficial recycling efforts. "Evidence suggests that tough but carefully tailored rules could encourage even more recycling, protecting the environment while yielding income to help pay for more secure landfills," the editorial says.

"This debate is being conducted behind closed doors, mainly at the Office of Management and Budget, where industry usually takes its complaints and horror stories," The Times writes. "A better course would be to let the EPA draft a proposal, get it out in the open and offer it for comment from all sides. The Obama administration promised that transparency and good science would govern decisions like these." (Read more)

One in four U.S lakes is in fair or poor condition

New analysis from the Environmental Protection Agency shows four of every 10 U.S. lakes are in fair or poor condition. The report is the first from EPA using consistent criteria to evaluate lakes; it reveals that man-made impoundments tend to be in worse condition than natural lakes. The findings were "based on a review of indicators for physical, chemical, and biological measures of water quality; condition of lakeshore and shallow water habitat; and ability to support selected recreational uses," the Society of Environmental Journalists reports.

The investigation analyzed more than 1,000 lakes in the lower 48 states that were selected to represent the over 50,000 lakes in the contiguous U.S. Individual findings for specific lakes were not released, but the EPA report groups lakes into nine eco-regions. "Ninety-one percent of the lakes in the Upper Midwest were in good biological condition, compared to just five percent in the Northern Plains," SEJ reports. "Recreational conditions were by far the best in the Western Mountains and the Northern Appalachians, and the worst in the Northern Plains and Temperate Plains."

Half the lakes are home to fish whose flesh contains health-threatening concentrations of mercury, and more than one-quarter were found to potentially pose a threat from algal toxins. Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Texas and Wisconsin had enough lakes measured to provide state-level data. (Read the SEJ TipSheet)

Kansas reporter gets temporary reprieve from order directing her to testify, reveal sources

UPDATE 1/22: Despite the court's Tuesday ruling, O'Brien was subpoenaed on Wednesday by Malone as a potential witness in the murder trial. "This subpoena is basically a blatant attempt by the county attorney and the judge to do an end run-around the Supreme Court's stay," O'Brien told the Associated Press. Malone said the subpoena was normal for any potential witness in a trial and had nothing to do with the temporary stay. (Read more)

Yesterday, the Kansas State Supreme Court granted a Dodge City Globe reporter's request to temporarily stay an order requiring her to reveal a confidential source to Ford County prosecutors. Clair O'Brien was scheduled to appear today before an inquisition at which prosecutors would force her to source's identity and content of unpublished notes regarding her interview with Samuel Bonilla, who is charged with second-degree murder in a Labor Day shooting death, The Associated Press reports.

"The newspaper has challenged the subpoena on the grounds that forcing O'Brien to testify would violate her First Amendment rights and hurt her ability to gather news," AP reports. O'Brien maintains she has already told Ford County Attorney Terry Malone what Bonilla told her during the jailhouse interview, when she called the prosecutor for comment. Malone also wants O'Brien to reveal confidential sources who said "one of the victims had 'a base of support that is well-known for its anti-Hispanic beliefs' and has a supply of semiautomatic weapons," AP reports.

O'Brien told AP, "It is not so much about whether I win, but whether the government is allowed to have so much influence on the ability of the press to report without fear or intimidation." (Read more)

First tribal solar plant to be built in New Mexico

The 3,000-member Jemez Pueblo tribe in northern New Mexico is on the verge of building the nation's first utility-scale solar energy plant on tribal land. The project, which could bring millions of dollars to the tribe, is moving ahead with the site selected and the contract to sell outsiders the four megawatts of electricity at hand, Susan Montoya Bryan of The Associated Press reports.

"Experts say tapping into the sun, wind and geothermal energy on Indian land could generate the kind of wealth many tribes have seen from slot machines and blackjack tables," Bryan writes. "We don't have any revenue coming in except for a little convenience store," James Roger Madalena, a former tribal governor who now represents the pueblo in the state Legislature, told Bryan. "It's very critical that we become innovative, creative, that we come up with something that will last generations without having a devastating impact on the environment."

Renewable energy presents a new revenue option for Indian tribes, which control more than 55 million acres, Bryan reports. The U.S. Department of Energy's Tribal Energy Program estimates those lands are capable of producing 535 billion kilowatt hours of electricity per year from wind power and 17 trillion kilowatt hours per year of electricity from solar power. The Pueblo plant will feature 14,850 solar panels than can supply enough electricity for about 600 homes. "Not every tribe is a gaming tribe, but every tribe is an energy tribe," Roger Fragua, a consultant working with the Council of Energy Resource Tribes, told Bryan. (Read more)

Mass. loser Coakley won the rural and urban vote; Brown won on strength of conservative suburbs

Republican Scott Brown won the Massachusetts U.S. Senate special election Tuesday and dealt a serious blow to the Democratic health-care reform bill, but he didn't win on the strength of the rural vote. Democrat Martha Coakley, the state's attorney general, won the counties with both the most rural and urban populations, while Brown rode victories in the more suburban counties to victory, the Daily Yonder reports.

In the five counties with more than 20 percent of their population living in rural areas, (Nantucket, Hampshire, Berkshire, Franklin and Dukes), Coakley won 64 percent of the vote, and in the most rural county, Dukes, she won by more than 2 to 1, the Yonder reports. Brown did fare better in the five rural counties than Republican presidential candidate John McCain, getting 36 percent to McCain's 25 percent. (Read more)

Voter turnout was surprisingly high for the special election that many first predicted to be a "sleepy election day," David Abel and David Filipov of The Boston Globe report. More than 2.2 million of the 4.1 million eligible voters cast ballots in the three-way election. "A surge of angry voters looking to upset the status quo flocked to the polls yesterday" led to a strong Republican turnout the reporters write, but "Democrats, who, facing the loss of a seat their party had held for decades, also flocked to the polls." (Read more)

Obama has met only with Beltway commentators as president, except maybe for Kathleen Parker

Despite using victories in rural states like Iowa to win the 2008 election, President Obama hasn't met with a single pundit from middle America, libertarian columnist Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune reports. Chapman asked the White House for a list of commentators who met with the president in the last year and was provided a list of 37 names, none of which "hails from outside the Georgetown-Manhattan corridor."

"There are, of course, dozens of columnists and editorial writers from flyover country, but the White House hasn't found one worthy of a meeting with Obama," Chapman writes. "There are also lots of conservatives and libertarians, but they also need not apply." Self-described conservative columnists Kathleen Parker and David Brooks did meet with Obama, but Chapman writes neither "is a favorite of most true-blue right-wingers." Parker, left, is the closest thing to a middle American writer; she's based in both Camden, S.C., and Washington.

"You can't really blame Obama. He has to worry that a bunch of tobacco-chewing rednecks would track manure into the Oval Office or waste his time asking for directions to the Washington Monument," Champan writes. "But once in a while it's good for a president to know what's on the minds of people in the Land Beyond the Potomac." (Read more)

Colbert reports on mountaintop mines, 'hillbillies'

Mountaintop-removal mining, and the scientist who led the recent study of it, made it to "The Colbert Report" on Comedy Central yesterday, giving the issue a higher national profile. Stephen Colbert's three-minute repartee with Margaret Palmer of the University of Maryland revealed only a few basics of the issue, such as stream damage, but the comedian suggested an underlying factor that may have limited attention and action on the issue: its location.

"Most of the stream poisioning happens in Appalachia," Colbert said, pronouncing it "Apple-ate-cha." Next to a map of the region, he continued, "And the only people it affects are the one remaining group that everybody still feels comfortable making fun of: hillbillies." Following a segment of a hillbilly cartoon, as a frame of it remained on the screen, Colbert laughed and said, "Hillbillies are poor," and his studio audience laughed and applauded. "Though if we keep taking away the mountains, we're going to have to start calling them just 'billies'." (View video)

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Coal Comfort - Margaret Palmer
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Asian carp, threatening Great Lakes, to be sold as food in Louisiana to help limit population

In November we reported about the ongoing threat invasive Asian carp are posing to the Great Lakes. Now a group of Louisiana companies is hoping to turn the nuisance into a marketable meal, The Associated Press reports. The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries marketing plan calls for the carp to be branded "silverfin," and the agency recently approved preliminary rules for the harvesting of the fish. Several restaurants and food companies have already developed recipes like silverfin cakes and silverfin almondine.

Rivere Foods of Paincortville will be the lead processor, New Orleans Fish House will be distributing the frozen products, and Rouse's Supermarket is the first official buyer, AP reports. Chef Philippe Parola, CEO of Chef Parola Enterprises and Partran, describes the silverfin taste as a cross between scallops and crab meat. "This is being done without any taxpayer dollars," Parola told AP. "This is our money."

Parola was among the chefs leading the way in cooking alligator meat (tastes like a free-range chicken!) and was partly behind the effort to promote softshell crawfish before he decided it was "too expensive." Parola's most famous endeavor may have been attempting to sell the nation on nutria meat several years ago; that plan failed due to the swamp rodent's resemblance to an overgrown rat, Parola says. "If we can't do something with silverfin, we are clowns. It's too good to ship to Asia, it's too good to use as bait, and it's too good to leave on the bank," he told AP. (Read more)

Mississippi editor challenges local officials, university students to health contest

Michael Simmons, right, managing editor of The Cleveland Current in northwest Mississippi, has challenged local officials and community members to a health and wellness competition for 2010. To help promote the BlueCross BlueShield Healthy Initiative run by Delta State University, Simmons encouraged the Cleveland mayor, aldermen, the Cleveland School Board and the DSU senior cabinet to undergo baseline health screenings. At the end of the year, the participants will be measured for improvements.

If Simmons beats "Team Cleveland" he gets an official declaration for Michael Simmons Day from the city in his honor. A certain age group of local students, determined by which group has the most students sign up for the health initiative, would be invited to a party on the DSU campus to celebrate the occasion. "So, all entities I have called out have a good reason to stop me," Simmons wrote in his column announcing the challenge. "I’m sure the city board doesn’t really want to have a day in my honor. I’m sure the school district doesn’t want to have to let children escape for a day to play."

Cleveland adults are also encouraged to sign up with their improvement counting toward Team Cleveland and against Simmons. Simmons will receive a boost for the number of students he gets to sign up, but health improvements from the children will not help him. He encourages those hoping to "stop the threat of Michael Simmons Day" to contact the Healthy Initiative office for more information. (Read more)

Columnist: Green activism threat to U.S. farming

American farmers are under assault from "urban aesthetes and green activists who hope to impose their own Utopian vision of agriculture," writes Forbes.com columnist Joel Kotkin. He says this vision includes shutting down "large-scale, scientifically run" farms and replacing them with "small organic homesteads and urban gardens" despite the ever increasing world population and its need for food.

As "the assault" moves into the policy arena, water cut-offs, stricter rules on pesticides, prohibitions on the caging of chickens and a growing movement to ban the use of genetic engineering in crops account for the most troubling facets of the green movement, Kotkin writes. Despite the vision of agriculture as an industry of small family farms being promoted by authors like Michael Pollan, Kotkin says American agriculture, dating back to the early 19th century, has always been big business.

Kotkin describes the notion that the U.S. is running out of land, one justification for subsidizing urban farming, as "fanciful at best." The green arguments, which Kotkin characterizes as ludicrous, have still had a major effect on President Obama, he argues. "The Obama administration remains influenced by green groups and is the cultural prisoner of the lifestyle left, with its powerful organic foodie contingent," Kotkin writes. "That leaves farmers and the small towns dependent on them with little voice." (Read more)

New TVA spokesman facing questions about last job, at NASA amid climate-science controversy

The Tennessee Valley Authority's new spokesman was brought in to help the organization regain credibility after the Kingston, Tenn., coal-ash disaster in 2008, but questions about his performance at his previous job with NASA have followed David Mould to Tennessee. A 2008 report from NASA's inspector general includes several mentions of Mould in reaching its conclusion that the agency's public-affairs ofice "managed the topic of climate change in a manner that reduced, marginalized, or mischaracterized climate-change science," Anne Paine of The Tennessean reports.

Mould says the NASA conflict began before he arrived in 2005 and was caused by tension between scientists, "who couldn't tolerate announcements they wrote on their findings being edited for clarity, and public relations officers, who could be lousy editors," Paine writes, quoting Mould: "When I got to NASA, I found a lot of cases where the science people and the communications people were at each other's throats over some kind of editing mistake or another. Quite often they were fast to label anything they disagreed with as some kind of political thing, which it was not. I'm not saying there was never any whatsoever."


The inspector-general report concludes the "preponderance of the evidence" did "point to politics inextricably interwoven in the Headquarters Office of Public Affairs' news dissemination." Mould described the report to Paine as a sloppy, unsubstantiated and a waste of taxpayer money. TVA CEO Tom Kilgore told Paine that he was aware of some of the NASA issues when Mould was hired, but saw nothing to concern him. (Read more)

Bristol paper exposes 'malfeasance, corruption and outrage' in Virginia schemes for natural gas

A list of last year's best investigative journalism, compiled by California Watch Editorial Director Mark Katches with the suggestions of top editors and reporters around the nation, includes December stories by Daniel Gilbert of the Bristol Herald-Courier, circulation 33,000, about the mess Virginia and its natural-gas companies have made of a law and program to develop the state's coalbed methane and pay royalties to those who have a claim on it. (Herald-Courier photo by David Crigger) To read the main story that began the eight-day package, click here. For the second day, here. Other stories reported how coal companies block access to royalties, how the state escrow fund is bleeding money, how gas companies fail to pay into the fund, how small landowners are left without royalties. As the series concluded, the state Oil and Gas Board voted to audit the fund.

J. Todd Foster, editor of the Media General paper, wrote in a column that the problem "involves millions of dollars and affects thousands of Southwest Virginia property owners," many of them scattered across the country, and various "forms of malfeasance, corruption and outrage." He said the gas companies "are getting rich. The moms and pops who own the land are getting screwed" and "can’t afford to battle deep-pocketed corporate armies of attorneys bent on stringing the process out over years." He detailed how the story developed, and how Gilbert reported it over 13 months. "This is a classic example of how a newspaper dedicated to a community can mine a story that no one else would have ever tackled for its sheer complexity and obscurity."

Foster, who has a pugnacious streak we like, couldn't resist ending his column with this paragraph: "The rest of you also need to ponder this fact: If newspapers fall by the wayside as victims of a fragmented media landscape, much of it free and offered on the Internet by authors untrained in journalism or its ethics, then you can kiss goodbye watchdog reporting that keeps government and the private sector from straying outside the lines of the law." Amen!

Ky. Highlands Investment Corp. gets grants, loans to builld a new incubator for entrepreneurs

A venture-capital firm in rural southeastern Kentucky has broken ground for an "eco-friendly business incubator," reports Carl Keith Greene of The Times Tribune in Corbin. Kentucky Highlands Investment Corp. will use the "9,000 square feet for product development, office space and laboratory facilities for local entrepreneurs," and estimates that in the next five years will "assist 16 businesses, create 127 new jobs and generate $6 million in private investments," Greene writes. The company's curent incubator has a capacity of three businesses, and has spawned four businesses that employ more than 30 people. Highlands spokeswoman Carla Blanton said a typical business requires three years in an incubator with an option for a fourth.

A $1.08 million grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration, a $300,000 grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission, a $500,000 loan from Jackson Energy Cooperative and a $100,000 loan from the Kentucky Department of Commercialization and Innovation will allow the building to meet the environmental standards of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED). (Read more)

Rosenwald Schools that educated rural blacks are mostly gone, but efforts under way to save them

A drive is under way to save and restore some of the schools that were built for rural Southern blacks in the early 20th century with help from Chicago philanthropist Julius Rosenwald. He funded more than 5,000 Rosenwald Schools for rural blacks in 15 states from 1912 to 1937. In the late 1920s, one-third of black children in the rural South attended Rosenwald schools, including this one at Hickory in far southwestern Kentucky. It has since been moved to Graves County High School.

Spot surveys indicate that no more than 800 of the 5,000-plus Rosenwald Schools remain, "their historical importance often unknown to residents and even to many of the dwindling alumni, according to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which calls the schools an endangered treasure," reports Erik Eckholm of The New York Times. "The need for them reflected the segregation of the age and the paltry financing of black schools. But historians say their blossoming also demonstrated the strong community ties forged by rural blacks and a fierce determination to educate their children despite official indifference." The National Trust mounted the effort largely with a $2 million donation from Lowe’s. (Read more)

Farm Bureau president calls for unity against climate legislation and animal-rights campaigns

This week's American Farm Bureau Federation convention in Seattle started off with a bang with promises to aggressively fight back against any attempts to change the landscape of American agriculture from the group's president. Among the threats President Bob Stallman listed were climate legislation and animal-rights campaigns, Allison Winter of Climatewire reports for The New York Times.

"A line must be drawn between our polite and respectful engagement with consumers and how we must aggressively respond to extremists who want to drag agriculture back to the day of 40 acres and a mule," Stallman said in his speech. "The time has come to face our opponents with a new attitude. The days of their elitist power grabs are over." He added that farmers and ranchers must unite against "misguided, activist-driven regulation."

Nearly four dozen scientists, organized by the advocacy group Union of Concerned Scientists, asked Stallman in a letter last week to reverse the group's position on climate change, Winter reports. The letter says Farm Bureau's position doesn't reflect scientific evidence and agriculture has much to lose from climate change. Farm Bureau spokeswoman Tracy Taylor Grondine told Winter the letter "appears to be more of a media stunt than a sincere request for dialogue." (Read more)

Census, health reform, 'shop local' campaigns top 2010 rural small business trends to watch

Small Business Trends, an award-winning online publication for small-business owners, has released its top 10 rural small business trends to watch for 2010, and the census took the No. 1 spot. "Smart small towns and counties will be actively finding ways to get everyone counted," Becky McCray writes. "Watch for town meetings to answer questions, and a whole bunch of canvassing. Your small town business will be indirectly affected by the results for ten long years."

Health care reform, "shop local" campaigns, infrastructure and state budget crunches round out the top five trends to watch. Rural broadband ranks sixth on the list, which may seem low considering the heavy stimulus plan investment in high-speed Internet expansion. "Yes, it’s a trend this year," McCray writes, "but the solution will be a series of long-term projects." The migration of baby boomers to rural areas, regional partnerships across small towns, tightening of business lending and an added emphasis on close-to-home tourism close out the list. (Read more)

Abused rural children more likely than urban kids to be in families with high stress or money trouble

The types of child mistreatment in rural families tend to mirror those in urban families, but a new study from the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire suggests that high family stress and financial difficulties are more likely causes of child abuse and neglect in rural areas than they are in cities.

More than 60 percent of caregivers in rural America with a report of child maltreatment experience high family stress, compared with 50 percent in urban areas, Carsey reports. Almost one in three rural families reported to Child Protective Services are experiencing financial difficulties, compared to one in five families in urban areas. Drug use in homes of rural children reported to CPS is at eight percent compared to 13 percent in urban kids' homes.

Half of child-maltreatment reports in rural America are for neglect while about a quarter are for physical abuse, Carsey reports. Thirty-nine percent of rural children who are reportedly abused or neglected are in single-parent homes; among urban kids, the figure is 31 percent. For the study, "rural" was defined as all locations outside metropolitan areas. (Read more)

USDA tightens eligibility for farm subsidies; critics say rules fall short of Obama campaign promises

Last week the U.S. Department of Agriculture unveiled tighter eligibility rules for farm subsidies. The new rules prevent subsidies from going to the wealthiest Americans, as required by the 2008 Farm Bill, Reuters reports. "After nearly a year of review, USDA settled on a modestly stricter definition of who is a farmer," Reuters writes. "Producers must be able to document a regular, separate and identifiable contribution of labor, management or both to qualify for subsidies if they do not provide capital, land or equipment." (Read more, subscription required)

President Obama said during the 2008 campaign that payments should only go to active farmers and landlords who rent to them, and the White House Web site says the administration favors a cap on crop subsidies. Those promises were not fulfilled by the USDA announcement, leaving some frustrated with the news. "Advocates for small-scale farmers are accusing President Barack Obama of reneging on a pledge to tighten restrictions on who gets federal farm subsidies," Phillip Brasher of The Des Moines Register reports.

"Like other administrations before, when push comes to shove, something is always more important to the White House politically than the fate of family farming, and they trade away subsidy reform in a heart beat," Ferd Hoefner, policy director for the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, told Brasher. "Once again, principle and sound public policy have been sacrificed on the altar of political expediency." USDA press secretary Caleb Weaver said in a statement that USDA is "continuing to explore additional opportunities through legislation and/or regulation" to better target program payments. (Read more)

Justice Department is investigating Monsanto

On the heels of our item yesterday, the Justice Department has officially launched a formal antitrust investigation of Monsanto. Yesterday the department presented the St. Louis-based chemical and seed firm with a formal demand for information on its "business practices surrounding its Roundup Ready soybean, the nation's most popular genetically modified crop," Scott Kilman and Thomas Catan of The Wall Street Journal report.

The department's inquiry appears to mirror calls from Monsanto rival DuPont Co. for a nationwide series of hearings hosted by the Justice and Agriculture departments to listen to farmers' competitive concerns, the reporters write. Monsanto said in a statement, "We respect the thorough regulatory process. We believe our business practices are fair, pro-competitive and in compliance with the law." (Read more)

Obama's rural campaign promises unfulfilled

As his administration nears the end of its first year, President Obama has not fulfilled any of the rural promises he made in his campaign, according to PolitiFact, the St. Petersburg Times service that checks out politicians' claims.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning service lists only five rural promises, and finds that four are still "in the works": create a rural revitalization program, attract more doctors to rural areas, expand rural veterans' centers and support airline service to small towns. (For details, click each link.)

It finds that a fifth promise, to "establish a small business initiative for rural America," has been partly fulfilled by the economic stimulus package and lists it in the "compromise" category. Overall, "Of 502 campaign promises, a PolitiFact analysis finds Obama has fulfilled 91 and achieved at least partial success with another 33. More than half of his promises have had enough progress to be rated In the Works," write Bill Adair and Angie Drobnic Holan. (Read more)

Arrival of Obama and big issues have changed farm politics in Washington, Dan Morgan writes

"The politics of agriculture in Washington have been substantially reshuffled," writes Dan Morgan, Transatlantic Fellow for the German Marshall Fund of the United States and former agriculture reporter for The Washington Post, in a GMF paper to which Keith Good of FarmPolicy.com made major contributions.

"Proposed climate change legislation has confronted the farm bloc with issues that received scant attention in the farm bill itself," the paper's summary says. "At the same time, the congressional energy committees and the Environmental Protection Agency -- not the traditional guardians of agriculture -- have taken the lead in shaping climate and biofuels policies that could have long-term impacts on farmers. At the White House, President Obama has proposed cutting some key subsidies, and he has signaled interest in aligning himself -- at least symbolically -- with a grass roots movement that supports "sustainable agriculture" and "healthy foods." These developments have moved long-standing tensions over agriculture policy to center stage."

The paper contrasts the "Old Ag" farm lobbies and their allied "Agricrats" of the rural wing of the Democratic Party, who "appear even stronger and more confident than they
did a year ago," with "New Ag" forces that include Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. It speculates about a "new politics of agriculture" that could be created by passage of climate-change legislation, international trends and growing awareness of consumers about the sources of their food. The 58-page paper is strong on details and policy, but is also a good read. To download a PDF, click here.

Coal ash recyclers predict doom if EPA labels ash as hazardous; proponents claim scare tactics used

We reported in December that the Environmental Protection Agency had delayed a decision on new rules for the disposal of coal ash waste. One holdup in that decision appears to be the effect a hazardous waste designation would have on ash recycling efforts. "Slapping a hazardous label on coal ash and other coal byproducts would trigger the writing of a federal disposal standard to replace a patchwork of state regulations," Patrick Reis of Greenwire reports for The New York Times.

Industry officials say a hazardous designation would cripple the ash-recycling enterprise that the Electric Power Research Institute says generates $5 to $10 billion a year in revenue for coal-burning utilities, Reis reports. The American Coal Ash Association says about 60 million tons, 45 percent of the total ash generated in 2008, was used to fill abandoned mines, make concrete and shore up eroding highway embankments. The American Society for Testing and Materials International, a coalition that sets material and building standards, said last month it would not support the use of coal ash in concrete if the ash is declared a hazardous waste.

Supporters of the hazardous designation say fears about the death of the recycling industry are unfounded and just a scare tactic from industry officials. "I have never seen the first study or piece of data to substantiate the claim that there would be this stigma that would stop recycling of coal ash," Jeff Stant, director of the Environmental Integrity Project's campaign for federal regulation of coal-combustion waste, told Reis. "It's important to note that the people who have been making that claim are the ones who have a financial interest in not having the designation." EPA could issue a hybrid ruling that declared ash as waste hazardous ash put toward beneficial use as OK. (Read more)

Arkansas, Pennsylvania, Wyoming news projects among Knight Community Information winners

Five community newspapers in Arkansas will each get an extra reporter for the next two years, thanks to a $252,000 grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and matching money of about $140,000 to be raised by the Arkansas Community Foundation. The grant was among those announced yesterday by the Knight Community Information Challenge, which Knight calls "a five-year, $24 million contest that helps community and place-based foundations find creative ways to use new media and technology to keep residents informed and engaged."

Write for Arkansas is designed "to provide more in-depth coverage of local issues," including economic development, Knight said. "The reporters will write articles for print and blog about their communities and experiences on a new Write for Arkansas Web site. The additional reporting staff will help Arkansas residents and leaders have a greater understanding of the state’s challenges and needs. Meanwhile, the project’s online component will chronicle local issues from across the state and open a new channel of communication allowing residents to participate in the news."

The reporters will be paid $35,000 a year, Tom Larimer, executive director of the Arkansas Press Association, reports in the latest Arkansas Publishers Weekly. "A committee will develop the complete criteria for the program, but it is likely that the five newspapers selected will represent each of the corner quadrants of the state and one in Central Arkansas. APA is working with the ACF to develop the criteria." (Read more)

Among other grants, $225,000 will go to the Centre County Community Foundation in Pennsylvania to "help launch a 2-1-1 phone information service in 15 Pennsylvania counties. Residents will have access to round-the-clock answers to questions about local services for basic needs and emergencies, as well as general community information. While there will also be an online component, much of this area is without broadband Internet access, and phone service is likely to be the primary link," Knight says.

Another rural-orirnted grant, of $122,000, is going to the Lander Community Foundation of Wyoming to support WyoFile.com, which examines Wyoming public policy and politics. "Wyoming’s economy and culture have been rooted in natural-resource industries, including agriculture, timber, mining and oil and gas development," Knight says. "Like many energy colonies with small populations and vast landscapes, industrial proponents have heavily influenced Wyoming policies. WyoFile.com will increase its staff and reporting budget to further engage Wyoming’s residents, lawmakers, educators and business people through an independent, alternative source of content and analysis." (Read more)

New Zealand dairy farmers revitalize Missouri milk industry, are looking to expand in Southern U.S.

After being met with initial skepticism, an influx of New Zealand dairy farmers to Missouri has helped reinvent the state's struggling dairy industry. In the last few years a handful of kiwis have invested $100 million Missouri milkmaking, which annually generates more than $900 million in economic impact, Phillip O'Connor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports for the Los Angeles Times. The New Zealanders operate four dairies and own almost 10 percent of Missouri dairy cattle.

"New Zealanders are considered among the most efficient dairy producers in the world," O'Connor writes. "But much of that country's suitable land has been converted to pasture, driving up prices and forcing dairy farmers to look overseas for new opportunities." With milk prices plummeting, their less expensive methods, which focuses on pasture-grazed cattle, are starting to catch on with other farmers.


"Their impact has been so significant in our state that it's hard to get your arms around it," David Drennan, executive director of the Missouri Dairy Association, told O'Connor. Another measure of the kiwis' success is their continued expansion in Missouri and around the country, O'Connor writes. Some have already established operations in Georgia, and more are looking at other Southern states. (Read more)

Tenn. tourism interests don't like guns-in-bars law

We most recently reported in November about a law allowing guns in Tennessee bars. Now the leaders of the tourist bureaus in Nashville and Memphis are saying the law has hurt local tourism efforts. "It's probably the single biggest issue people write and talk about when they're considering coming here," Butch Spyridon, CEO of the Nashville Convention & Visitors Bureau, told Nate Rau of The Tennessean.

"We had international press, and we have gotten letters from visitors who literally have canceled plans to visit," Spyridon added. Bar owners are permitted to post signs banning guns at their individual businesses, but Preston Lam of Memphis-based River City Management says that option isn't attractive to tourism either. "You're kind of damned if you do, damned if you don't," he told Rau. "You put the sign on the door, but somebody coming in says, 'Gosh, is it dangerous around here?'" (Read more)

Monsanto update: Farmers fear Roundup Ready seed will be gone before the patent is

In the last two months we've reported about allegations of monopolostic practices by seed giant Monsanto (here, here and here). Now National Public Radio has posted an in-depth examination of farmers' concerns.

Monsanto is beginning to promote its new Roundup Ready 2 Yield seeds, in advance of the 2014 patent expiration on the original Roundup Ready seeds, Frank Morris reports. Roundup Ready 2 uses the same gene as the original, but places it in a different spot on the genome, a move that Monsanto says will increase yields. Monsanto is putting the new trait in all its best soybeans, and some competitors like Paul Schickler, president of Pioneer, the seed subsidiary of the DuPont chemical company, say Monsanto moving to eliminate the original Roundup Ready trait from the market by forcing its licensees to do the same. After Monsanto's original patent expires in 2014, other companies could create generic forms of the seed trait, which would eliminate a half-billion dollar annual Monsanto revenue stream from royalties, Morris reports.

Farmers are prohibited from saving Roundup Ready seeds and replanting them the following year. After Monsanto's patent expires this restriction would be lifted. "I don't care how good Roundup Ready 2 is; if you tell me I can save back my own seed, I'm going to plant my own seed," Luke Ulrich, a Kansas corn and soybean farmer, told Morris. The problem for Ulrich and other farmers like him, Morris writes, may be that the Roundup Ready 2 gene could have pushed the original out of stores by then. (Read more)

Pickens shifts focus from wind to natural gas

Texas oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens, right, spent most of the last two years and $62 million on a massive advertising and public relations campaign to convince Americans to invest in wide expansion of wind power. The so-called "Pickens plan" called for the natural gas reserves freed up by the new wind investment to fuel vehicles and reduce the country's dependence on foreign oil, Clifford Krauss reports for The New York Times. Now Pickens is about to launch a new campaign focusing on national security risks associated with foreign oil, downplaying wind and calling for further natural gas investment. (NYT photo by Matt Nager)

Pickens suspended his campaign in October when he felt health care was drowning out the energy debate, but he feels energy will soon return to the top of the Washington agenda, Krauss writes. Pickens made most of his fortune in oil before shifting to gas and wind in recent years. His new plan downplays wind because he says cheap gas has made it almost impossible to finance a wind project. Some of his financial stakes in various companies would stand to benefit from a boost in gas consumption, Krauss reports.

Pickens will call for the president to convert the entire federal automobile fleet to natural gas, he wants Congress to give large tax credits to companies that use natural gas vehicles and filling stations that install the necessary equipment. He told Krauss that fueling just a small percentage of the country's automobiles with natural gas could displace as much as 8 percent of oil imports within seven years. (Read more)

EPA issues 2009 enforcement data, new map tool, offering online access to local enforcement data

There's a new way to check on envieornmental violations and enforcement in your area. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has released its enforcement data for 2009 and developed a new Web-based tool and interactive map that allows the public to get detailed information by location about the enforcement actions taken at approximately 4,600 facilities. In 2009 EPA enforcement actions required polluters to invest more than $5 billion on pollution controls, cleanup, and environmental projects, says an EPA news release.

The maps show facilities where civil enforcement actions were taken for air, water, and land pollution, and a separate map shows criminal enforcement actions. Clicking on specific facilities reveals historical information about specific enforcement actions. The maps also show which facilities are near bodies of water that are deemed impaired because they do not meet federal water quality standards.

The maps include 90 percent of the facilities that were subject to enforcement action in 2009 but omits the locations of drinking water treatment plants due to possible security concerns. You can read the entire report or the EPA release.

Rural Nebraskans want more wind power while some Minnesotans complain about turbine farms

The last estimates from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory placed Nebraska as the No. 3 state for wind energy potential, but it currently ranks only 22nd in developed wind- power capacity with 153 megawatts. While a 340-turbine wind farm is clearly visible from the Nebraska panhandle, all the towers are actually in Colorado, a discrepancy that is starting to raise eyebrows among Nebraska lawmakers and rural residents, Paul Hammel of the Omaha World-Herald reports.

"Everyone is asking the question, 'Why can't we develop it here?'" state Sen. Ken Haar of Malcolm told Hammel. "If there's economic opportunity," Ogala state Sen. Ken Schilz added, "the State of Nebraska needs to step up and be able to allow the same kinds of opportunities here." Some state lawmakers hope to open Nebraska to private wind farms, which can export the power to other states. Public power utilities are not eligible for major federal incentives to build wind farms in Nebraska because of the state's policy favoring public power. (Read more)

Not all rural residents are excited about increased wind generation. In Minnesota, the nation's fourth largest wind power producer at 1,805 megawatts, an increasingly vocal backlash against noisy, shadow-casting turbines is launching a serious blowback to the industry, Tom Meersmen of the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports. Most people who live more than a half mile from the turbines aren't bothered by them, and residents who own the land the turbines sit on receive substantial compensation, but those in between are starting to complain.

"The rural area isn't what it used to be anymore," Kevin Hammel, a dairy farmer about nine miles east of Rochester, where wind developers are active, told Meersmen. "I'm not against wind. They're going to put them up whether I like it or not," Katie Troe, leader of Safe Wind for Freeborn County, told Meersmen. "What we're asking is that every turbine be looked at and placed correctly." (Read more)

RFD-TV turns profit for first time, hopes to expand and might become a forum for rural policy issues

When Patrick Gottsch started RFD-TV, his 24-hour cable television network aimed specifically at rural Americans, in 2000 it was little more than reruns of the now defunct Nashville Network. But after a decade his strategy of bridging the rural divide between rural ranchers and farmers is finally starting to pay off. Gottsch blended agriculture, horses, rural living and country music to form the backbone of RFD-TV, which generated a Nielsen-rated audience of 13 million weekly viewers from small towns and farm communities across the U.S., Dirk Smillie of Forbes magazine reports.

Gottsch first pitched the channel to satellite providers, but now most major cable companies carry it too. He says RFD's $25 million in revenue finally nudged it into the black last year. "There are 27 million television homes outside urban areas in the U.S., most with no access to media coverage of agriculture issues or rural lifestyles," Gottsch told Smillie. RFD doesn't follow the urban news trend of viewing rural American through natural disasters; instead Gottsch focuses mostly on everyday agricultural issues.

RFD-TV could become a public forum on rural policy. Newt Gingrich's civic-involvement group, American Solutions, bought a series of 30-minute segments on RFD during the last presidential race, and Gottsch hopes his channel will become a go-to platform for red-state political campaigning in 2012. For now, Gottsch plans to launch a national prime-time rural news broadcast with news gathered from bureaus in Chicago and Washington, as well as overseas bureaus he plans to open in Sydney and London, Smillie reports.

Chinese mining officials visit Harlan County, Kentucky, to learn about coal-mine safety

A group of Chinese mining officials and government leaders recently completed a tour of Harlan County, Ky., to learn more about coal-mine safety and become better acquainted with the U.S. mining culture and industry. Among the stops on the tour were the Kentucky Coal Academy in Cumberland and the Portal 31 exhibition mine in Lynch, Jennifer McDaniels of the Harlan Daily Enterprise reports. In October we reported on the opening of Portal 31, a former mine entry that is is a recently opened mining museum.

"I am most surprised and most impressed," Chunian Zhong, mining company i-sunnet’s general manager, told McDaniels through an interpreter. "We have learned much today. The United States, more specifically here in Kentucky, is far more advanced than our country in terms of mine safety. It’s a major concern in China because of our high fatality rates in the industry. We hope this is a start of a partnership that can benefit both countries."

The visit was planned after i-sunnet officials heard of Richmond-based Mine Shield LLC's development of the United States' first modular safe-haven chamber for underground mines. The chamber, developed in response to the Mine Safety and Health Administration's new law requiring mines to provide an alternative refuge chamber, is designed to remain underground for up to 10 years. Each chamber contains a compressed-air circulating system, food, water, toilet and medical supplies, McDaniels reports, and also enacts an alert system that transmits signals to the surface, McDaniels reports.

N.D. wind farm is largest in U.S. owned by a co-op

A North Dakota rural electric cooperative completed the largest cooperative-owned wind farm in the country just before the new year. Basin Electric Power Cooperative's 77-turbine wind farm is located near Minot and Max and is the first step toward achieving the company's goal of meeting 20 percent of its current member load with renewable energy by 2010, The Bismarck Tribune reports.

Basin Electric's membership passed a resolution in 2005 for 10 percent of the company's electricity to come from renewables, but the company has chosen to double that requirement. The Minot-Max wind farm combined with the company's other renewable projects should generate 600 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 175,000 homes, by the end of the year. Verendrye Electric Cooperative of Velva, N.D., is also a working partner in the Minot-Max project. (Read more)

N.M. newspaper publisher, mayor exchange blows

The mayor of Gallup, N. M., and the publisher of the Gallup Independent, the city's daily newspaper, exchanged blows in the parking lot of a local bank last week. Both men claim the other started the fistfight, but a series of stories linking Mayor Harry Mendoza to the gang rape of a 16-year-old woman in 1948 appear to be at the hear of the dispute, reports Jim Winchester of KRQE, a Gallup TV station. "He's [Mendoza] just a thug," Independent Publisher Bob Zollinger told Winchester. "That's all he is and unfortunately he's our mayor."

Gallup City Attorney Dave Pederson told KRQE that the mayor informed him of the altercation and insisted Zollinger has started the fight. Zollinger told the station Mendoza had refused repeated requests for comment about the rape allegations, but he denied instigating the fight by poking the mayor as alleged. The Gallup Independent is owned by Gallup Independent Co. (Read more)

Car dealers losing franchises can go to arbitration

Small-town car dealerships that lost their franchises as a result of the recession, manufacturer downsizing and federal bailouts can take their cases to arbitration, under a provision Congress included in a catch-all appropriations bill last month. A reminder of that comes from the National Newspaper Association, the lobbying group for community newspapers, which have a major economic interest in the survival of rural dealerships.

The NNA release says "The arbitrator shall balance the economic interest of the covered dealership, the economic interest of the covered manufacturer, and the economic interest of the public at large and shall decide, based on that balancing, whether or not the covered dealership should be added to the dealer network of the covered manufacturer. The factors considered by the arbitrator shall include (1) the covered dealership's profitability in 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009, (2) the covered manufacturer's overall business plan, (3) the covered dealership's current economic viability, (4) the covered dealership's satisfaction of the performance objectives established pursuant to the applicable franchise agreement, (5) the demographic and geographic characteristics of the covered dealership's market territory, (6) the covered dealership's performance in relation to the criteria used by the covered manufacturer to terminate, not renew, not assume or not assign the covered dealership's franchise agreement, and (7) the length of experience of the covered dealership."

The release also notes the economic and convenience benefits of having a dealer in your town. "One of our members recently noted that now citizens in his small Minnesota town must drive 30 miles or more to buy a car," said NNA President Cheryl Kaechele, publisher of the Allegan County News in Michigan. "They also must go that far for service from the dealers. That is one massive towing fee imposed upon rural America when the family car breaks down. We are hearing reports like this from across the nation." (Read more)

Tobacco may have new life as a possible biofuel

As smoking bans become more and more prevalent across the country, tobacco may be finding a new life as a possible biofuel. Researchers at the Biotechnology Foundation Laboratories at Thomas Jefferson University have developed a way to modify tobacco's genes to increase their oil production, which would help spur their use as a biofuel, Wendy Koch of USA Today reports. The preliminary research has been published online in Plant Biotechnology Journal.

"Tobacco is very attractive as a biofuel because the idea is to use plants that aren't used in food production," study co-author Vyacheslav Andrianov, an assistant professor of cancer biology at Jefferson, told Koch. "Based on these data, tobacco represents an attractive and promising 'energy plant' platform, and could also serve as a model for the utilization of other high-biomass plants for biofuel production."

The researchers say they have modified plants to create 20-fold more oil in some instances. (Read more)

White House and EPA at odds over coal ash rules

The debate over the Environmental Protection Agency's new regulations for the disposal of coal ash is at the heart of an unusual dispute between the White House and EPA. The Obama administration has already backed several new environmental regulations that have angered the coal industry, Neil King Jr. and Rebecca Smith of The Wall Street Journal report, but some environmental groups say the White House's position on coal ash is evidence of the industry establishing a foothold in the administration.

White House records show administration regulatory czar Cass Sunstein has held nearly 20 meetings with industry groups since October to discuss the potential impact of proposed EPA rules to treat coal ash and other coal byproducts as hazardous waste, the reporters write. Watchdog groups told the reporters the involvement of the White House Office of Management and Budget, which Sunstein heads, at this early stage in the process is unusual. EPA has yet to publish its proposed regulations.

"Industry is trying to influence the process in a back-door fashion," Lisa Evans, a senior attorney for environmental organization Earthjustice, told the reporters. OMB spokesman Thomas Gavin disagreed, telling the reporters, "This has been a very regular, very normal deliberative process on a very complex rule." (Read more)

New Ky., W.Va. mine rules better protect streams; Ky. lawmaker says they're like 'stream saver' bill

In November we reported about major changes to the Kentucky strip mining regulations hinted at by panelists at a University of Kentucky forum on coal in the state. Now the state Environment and Energy Cabinet has released those new regulations. The new guidelines will require coal companies to put more excess rock and dirt back on mined area instead over streams in nearby hollows, Bill Estep reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader.

"This is probably the single most important change in mining practices in many years," Tom FitzGerald, executive director of the Kentucky Resources Council, told Estep. A news release also explained the Department of Natural Resources would hire three additional people to perform the enhanced review of surface-mining permit applications the new regulations will require. A representative for TECO Coal, a major producer, told Estep the new guidelines would mean added costs for the coal industry, but the industry did help work out the changes and supports them. (Read more) For more details from FitzGerald, click here.

In West Virginia, regulators are going to "stop processing surface mining permits that propose to dump waste rock and dirt into streams while they develop new guidelines that force coal operators to reduce water quality impacts downstream from valley fills," Ken Ward Jr. reports for The Charleston Gazette. Randy Huffman, secretary of the state Department of Environmental Protection, told Ward his goal is to stop wasting DEP staff time on permits that change dramatically after they are re-examined by the Environmental Protection Agency, and he feels that the state must push coal companies to further reduce environmental damage. (Read more)

Meanwhile, a group of scientific researchers called for a ban on mountaintop-removal strip mining, citing the damage done to streams when rainwater "trickles through the rubble and picks up pollutants off rocks that came from deep underground," David Farenthold of The Washington Post writes. "The water emerges, they said, imbued with pollutants such as metals and chemicals called sulfates, which can be toxic to the insects and fish in small Appalachian streams." (Read more) The scientists say "current mitigation strategies" have been inadequate; their analysis could not take into account the effect of the new rules, which remains to be seen. To read their heavily footnoted article, click here. UPDATE, Jan. 12: The Kentucky House sponsor of a "stream saver" bill mountaintop mining says the new rules achieve his goal, Mike Wynn of The Winchester Sun reports.

Knight gives FOI Coalition $2 million to help fund increasingly scarce legal battles for records

Battles for freedom of information often stop for lack of financial ammunition. Now help may be available, thanks to a three-year, $2 million grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to the National Freedom of Information Coalition.

The grant will create the Knight FOI Fund, which "will fund up-front costs such as court costs, filing fees, depositions and initial consultation fees, if attorneys are willing to take cases that otherwise would go unfiled," NFOIC announced. The grant application was prompted by an NFOIC survey that found almost 80 percent of its members lawsuits to open public records in their states had become less numerous, and 60 percent said it had dropped dramatically. And 85 percent predicted that FOI litigation would drop dramatically over the next three years. NFOIC blamed "the economic crisis and the evolution of the news media," and cited several specific examples in its release.

Mine deaths hit record low, but miner's memoir is a reminder of the dangers still underground

We didn't plan it that way, but we should have remembered: In today's Courier-Journal, the undersigned reviews Face Boss: the Memoir of A Western Kentucky Coal Miner, and at the top of the Louisville newspaper's section page (and at the top of the Lexington Herald-Leader's front) is the annual Associated Press story about mining fatalties -- which declined for the second year in a row in 2009, to a record low of 34. (AP photo by George Frey: Face boss Carrey VanBuren watches a continuous mining machine cut coal at the Horizon mine near Helper, Utah.)

"That was down from the previous low of 52 in 2008," writes Roger Alford, now AP's sole correspondent in the state capital of Frankfort and former correspondent in the coalfield town of Pikeville. Coal mines accounted for only 18 of the deaths, "down from 29 in 2008; and 16 were in gold, copper and other types of mines, down from 22 in 2008. Most involved aboveground truck accidents on mine property," which shows the increasing role of surface mining.

"Most news of coal these days is above the ground: strip mining, including mountaintop removal, and coal-fired power plants that contribute to global warming. But in Kentucky and most Eastern coal states, most coal is still produced by underground miners, who work in what Michael Guillerman calls “a dark and remarkable world” that few Americans know."

That's the start of the book review, which is complimentary. I wish it could have been longer, to repeat Guillerman's point that mine operators prepare for federal inspections and usually run considerably less coal when inspectors are underground. That point was made in the AP story by Kentucky's Steve Earle, United Mine Workers of America international vice president for the Midwest: "I can say without reservation that the safest day coal miners have is when inspectors are in the mines."

New laws show a historic turn on Tobacco Road

The annual story about new laws taking effect on New Year's Day has a rural angle: The new statewide smoking bans in North Carolina and Virginia, still two of the leading tobacco-growing states.

North Carolina's ban on smoking in bars and restaurants, which actually takes effect Jan. 2, is "among the most surprising new laws," The Associated Press says. "There are exceptions for country clubs, Elks lodges and the like, but the change is a dramatic one for North Carolina, whose tax coffers long depended on Big Tobacco.

"Virginia approved a similar law that took effect Dec. 1, but it's more accommodating to smokers because it allows establishments to offer areas in which to light up as long as they have separate ventilating systems. Not including Virginia and its partial ban, smoking will be banned in restaurants in 29 states and in bars in 25, according to the American Lung Association." (Read more)

Pilgrim's Pride to pay $4.5M in immigration case; Pilgrim family members demoted, ousted by JBS

Fresh out of a bankruptcy that left some of its contract farmers holding mortgages for chickenhouses that no longer had plants to supply, Pilgrim's Pride Corp. has agreed to pay the federal government $4.5 million "to settle a two-year investigation into identity theft and hiring people not authorized to work in the United States," Rita Jane Gabbett of MeatingPlace reports. "As part of the settlement, Pilgrim's Pride recognized that its voluntary compliance programs can be enhanced to more accurately identify unauthorized persons who seek or gain employment through identity fraud or other unlawful means."

The agreement was with the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Texas and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency. ICE raided five Pilgrim's Pride locations in 2007 and 2008, finding 338 unauthorized workers, but no civil or criminal charges were filed. "The news comes days after Pilgrim's Pride announced it had emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy after completing a 13-month restructuring that included selling a 64 percent share in the company to JBS USA," Gabbett notes.

Meanwhile, the chief operating officer of JBS, Wesley Mendonca Batista, has replaced Lonnie "Bo" Pilgrim as chairman of Pilgrim's Pride, and Lonnie Ken Pilgrim, the company's vice president, and Richard Cogdill, its chief financial officer, have been removed, Ann Bagel Storck of MeatingPlace reports, citing a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

States struggle to keep up with natural-gas drilling; EPA tells New York state to be careful

"State oil and gas regulators are spread too thin to do their jobs," ProPublica reports, in the nonprofit journalism outlet's latest look at natural-gas drilling. The country has "nearly one million active oil and gas wells, a number that's likely to climb as the feverish growth in natural-gas exploration continues," Abram Lustgarten writes.

Lustgarten examined the states where drilling has expanded rapidly. "While the number of new oil and gas wells being drilled in the 22 states each year has jumped 45 percent since 2004, most of the states have added only a few regulators," who are usually also responsible for overseeing oil drilling. "Those with the widest gaps are Texas, which is already grappling with the most drilling, and New York, which is expected to soon have the fastest rate of growth. As regulators' workloads have grown, enforcement actions -- the number of times violations were recorded and acted on -- have dropped in many states, often by more than half. That could mean companies are complying with the law -- or that inspectors aren't checking the wells." In our experience, both are true, but better compliance usually follows better enforcement.

There were exceptions; in Kentucky since 2006, drilling has declined but enforcement actions have increased. In Pennsylvania and West Virginia, the state that provided the example that Lustgarten used to start his story, drilling declined greatly this year but staffing and enforcement actions have gone up. ProPublica has a state-by-state database here; its latest wrapup story is here. UPDATE, Jan. 5: The database has been updated with information from Montana, where enforcement is up.

Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Agency, responding to New York state's proposed drilling regulations, told the state "that it had major concerns about how proposed hydraulic drilling for natural gas would affect public health and the environment, and urged it to undertake a broader study of the potential impact," Mireya Navarro of The New York Times reports. "It recommended that “essential environmental protection measures” be taken before the state begins to review permit applications for the drilling." (Read more)

How religious is your state? By what measurement?

Mississippi is far and away the most religious state, ranking first in "absolutely certain" belief in God, daily prayer, weekly worship attendance, and the percentage of residents who say religion is very important in their lives, according to polling data compiled by The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

The next 10 most religious states, based on the importance respondents attach to religion, are all in the South. In other categories, Utah and Kansas are in the top 10. The least religious states are those in New England, followed by Alaska, though Arizona and Colorado rank among them on church attendance. For an interactive table of the categories and the states, click here.

EPA lays out possible penalties for states if they fail to clean up Chesapeake Bay

We reported in September that the Environmental Protection Agency was going to get tough with states and localities in the Chesapeake Bay watershed (right) in a redoubled effort to clean up the estuary and rid it of "dead zones" where fish and shellfish can't live. Yesterday, EPA laid out the possible penalities for compliance. David Farenthold of The Washington Post reports, "EPA officials said they might:
-- Object to state-issued permits for new sources of pollution, such as factories, sewage-treatment plants or suburban storm sewers.
-- Require states to offset pollution in one area by cutting it in another. If a state can't find ways to curb pollution from farms, for instance, the EPA could require stricter cuts from sewage-treatment plants.
-- Take tighter control of federal money that goes to states for antipollution programs, to make sure it is used to solve outstanding problems."

However, Farenthold notes, "Clean-water laws make it easy to crack down on pollution that comes out of a pipe, such as treated sewage and factory discharges. But they give states less power to crack down on pollution that doesn't come from pipes, such as the fertilizer and animal manure that wash off suburban lawns and farm fields." (Read more)

Rural school group has news, data and analysis on education issues and trends

The Rural School and Community Trust is an excellent watchdog in Washington for rural education, and often a good source of information for reporters who cover rural schools. Its latest Rural Policy Matters newsletter has several stories of interest:

Race to Top revisions slightly better for rural schools, plus a detailed analysis

Large, very-low-poverty districts benefit in Title I formula at expense of high-poverty districts large and small

Rural districts with low graduation rates are high-poverty, high-minority

Helping Students Prepare for College, with rural adaptations (registration required)

Kansas City Fed economists see little risk of sharp drop in farmland values in the near term

The value of farmland is an important underlying factor in the rural economy. The recession has "cut farm incomes and also cooled residential and recreational demand for farmland," reducing farmland values slightly, and while they have "held relatively steady" this year, increased volatility in agriculture markets and the prospect of higher interest rates makes some wonder, "Are today’s farmland values another bubble getting ready to burst?"

So write Jason Henderson, a vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, and Assistant Economist Maria Akers in the latest edition of the bank's Main Street Economist. But after going through a detailed analysis of the data, as well as current and historical trends, they sees "little risk of a sharp collapse in farmland values in the near term" because "near-term projections suggest that returns to crop production may be strong enough to support recent cropland value gains." (Read more)

Repoened rural refinery in Kentucky accuses Marathon Oil of unfair competition

A small oil refinery Southern Kentucky, recently bought in bankruptcy and reopened, is accusing Marathon Oil Corp. of unfair competition that is about to run it out of business. Marathon says a deal the refinery proposed would violate federal and state laws.

Lawrence Barker of Somerset Energy Refining wrote in an open letter to Marathon, dated Dec. 15 and published in the Dec. 26 Somerset Commonwealth Journal, that trucker-brokers who once delivered to Somerset are going 172 miles northeast, to the Marathon refinery on the Big Sandy River at Catlettsburg, because Marathon is paying them "additional incentives that SER simply cannot match." Barker said Barrett Oil of Albany has "threatened to divert to Marathon" Jan. 1, and "This refinery will close without the Barrett deliveries."

"Barker asked Marathon to refuse future purchase of regional crude reserves, and to cease the trucker’s incentives, instead giving local producers a higher price for their crude," Commonwealth Journal Editor Ken Shmidheiser wrote, calling Barker's letter "a David-versus-Goliath challenge." In return, Barker offered to provide Marathon a rare type of crude and co-sponsor advertising that would give Marathon credit for saving Somerset's 100 jobs.

Marathon spokespersons said they had not been asked to comment on the letter until contacted today by The Rural Blog. "We deny that those allegations are appropriate or correct," spokeswoman Angelia Graves said in an interview. She said Marathon told Somerset that its proposal "violates anti-trust laws," and her company is "not going to engage in any discussion with them or anyone else in the industry that is anti-competitive." Marathon's Dec. 18 letter is posted here.

In the interview today, Graves first said "Our company pays the market price," and she was asked if that included the trucker incentives Barker mentioned. "I'm not sure what he's referencing there," she said. "I'm not familiar with the individual arrangements, but we deny there's any intent to engage in any practice that is in violation of the law."

'Whoppers of 2009' and other FactCheck reports can help thwart inaccurate, misleading assertions

The folks at FactCheck, who do a good job of separating truth from fiction in politics, have published "Whoppers of 2009," their most outrageous examples of inaccurate and/or misleading assertions. The list, and future reports at FactCheck.org, can help local news media avoid passing along bad information from interviewees, letter writers and so on.

"The list of howlers includes the false claim that the stimulus bill would dictate to doctors what procedures they can and can’t perform, and assertions that health care legislation would require seniors to get advice on how to commit suicide," Lori Robertson, Brooks Jackson and Jess Henig write. "Democrats exaggerated the problems their legislation aims to fix — at one point Obama falsely accused an insurance company of being responsible for the death of an Illinois cancer patient."

FactCheck is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. For its report, click here.

More concern about livestock antibiotics' effect on people creates more pressure for regulation

"More and more Americans — many of them living far from barns and pastures — are at risk from the widespread practice of feeding livestock antibiotics," The Associated Press reports. "These animals grow faster, but they can also develop drug-resistant infections that are passed on to people. The issue is now gaining attention because of interest from a new White House administration and a flurry of new research tying antibiotic use in animals to drug resistance in people."

Reporters Margie Mason and Martha Mendoza write that they looked at the issue for six months. They start their story with a compelling dateline (Frankenstein, Mo.) and anecdote, about a farmer who nearly lost his leg after being gored by a boar with a strep infection that was resistant to antibiotics. After finding that he and his pigs all has the same resistances, he "tossed his hypodermic needles, sacked his buckets of antibiotic-laced feed, slaughtered his herd and started anew," Mason and Mendoza report. They also write about an Iowa farmer who feeds his pigs an antibiotic that is not absorbed by their digestive systems.

"Farm groups and pharmaceutical companies argue that drugs keep animals healthy and meat costs low, and have defeated a series of proposed limits on their use," the reportyers write. "Thirteen percent of the antibiotics administered on farms last year were fed to healthy animals to make them grow faster. Antibiotics also save as much as 30 percent in feed costs among young swine, although the savings fade as pigs get older, according to a new USDA study." Rep. Louise M. Slaughter, D-N.Y., is fighting for a law that would ban giving antibiotics to animals unless they are sick. (Read more)

Stimulus funds allocated to rural areas go to some places in metro areas; definition of 'rural' at issue

"Nearly a quarter" of the $12 billion in economic-stimulus funds that has been paid out after being designated for rural areas, most of it in loan guarantees for home buyers, has gone to localities in "the nation's biggest metropolitan areas," Brad Heath reports for USA Today. "The spending reignites a longstanding debate over what 'rural' really means in an increasingly urban nation." Congress wrote definitions into the bill that allowed the aid to "small, far-flung suburbs" in metropolitan areas, Heath writes. Because metro areas are deifned by county lines and commuting patterns, much rural territory can be included. For a detailed explanation of how the federal government can define "rural," click here.

UPDATE, Dec. 30: Dawn House of The Salt Lake Tribune reports that few Utahns have taken advantage of the loan guarantees and none have applied for stimulus-funded business loans, both administered by the Department of Agriculture. "The loan programs aren't well known because the agency has no money for advertising -- and few think of the USDA as a bank," House writes. "Rural residents often find out about programs through word of mouth or when a state or federal agency refers them to the USDA Rural Development office." (Read more)

Drilling in Marcellus Shale leaves more chemicals than expected, as Congress reconsiders exemption

Gas drilling companies leave a lot more water and chemicals in the Marcellus Shale formation, right, than they did in similar formations elsewhere when they won an exemption from federal regulation four years ago partly with arguments that relatively little drilling fluid remained, Abram Lustgarten of ProPublica reports. The news could affect debate on a bill in Congress that would eliminate the exemption. (ProPublica map)

"When lawmakers approved that exemption, it was generally accepted that only about 30 percent of the fluids stayed in the ground. At the time, fracturing was also used in far fewer wells than it is today and required far less fluid," Lustgarten writes. "Three company spokesmen and a regulatory officials said in separate interviews with ProPublica that as much as 85 percent of the fluids used during hydraulic fracturing is being left underground after wells are drilled in the Marcellus Shale." (Read more)

Meanwhile, Mike Lee and Elizabeth Campbell of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram report on problems caused by a disposal well for chemicals used to extract gas from the Barnett Shale, a formation similar to the Marcellus. "There have also been reports of problems in small-town water wells and private water wells across the Barnett Shale," they write.