‘Coal’ TV show being previewed in Appalachia

The producer of the new documentary-style show "Coal" gave a sneak preview to a Pikeville, Ky., audience Tuesday, the first of several previews in Appalachia before it premieres on the cable-and-satellite channel Spike TV March 30 at 10 p.m.

The show is produced by Thom Beers, who also produces "Deadliest Catch," "Ice Road Truckers" and "Ax Men." He said Tuesday that he had the idea of the show in his mind for several years but finally had found the right people to work with in Tom Roberts and Mike Crowder of Cobalt Coal, whose underground mine in West Virginia is the focus of the program, Bill Archer of the Bluefield Daily Telegraph reports. You can see our previous item about the show here.

Roberts and Crowder fielded questions from journalists at the event about a variety of issues, including mine safety, state and federal mine-safety agencies, and reaction from the environmental community about the show, Archer writes. "My job is to make everyday heroes out of these coal miners," Beers said. "‘Coal’ is not about politics. It’s about these men." (Read more) For more on Beers, from Luaine Lee of McClatchy-Tribune, go here. For his company's release on the show, here.

Rural paper delivers bad census news frankly

How does a community newspaper deliver bad news about the community as a whole? Straight from the shoulder, not mincing words and getting responsible reaction from knowledgeable sources. That's what Jeff Noble, editor of the Times-Voice in Jackson, Ky., did when he found that Breathitt County had the largest percentage population loss in 2000-2010 of any county in the state, 13.8 percent.

(Wikipedia map) "The 2010 Census figures are out, and they weren't kind to Breathitt County," Noble wrote. "Many say the lack of jobs here, and a better quality of life in the Bluegrass region, are the real reason for the population decline."

As commentary on covering this topic, this blog item is too late for most places, since almost all states have received their preliminary census figures, but Noble's story takes a good approach and also illustrates an all-too-familiar rural trend: Most young people who leave rural areas to attend college don't come back. The Times-Voice has no website, so we have posted the story on the website of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, here.

Search for a bee bugaboo suggests many causes, and bodes ill for flowering plant species

Instead of one bugaboo causing the collapse of bee colonies across the world, more than a dozen factors may be involved. "Scientists are warning that without profound changes to the way human beings manage the planet, declines in pollinators needed to feed a growing global population are likely to continue," Southwest Farm Press reports. In a new study, "Global Bee Colony Disorders and other Threats to Insect Pollinators," the UN Environment Programme found an estimated 20,000 flowering plant species could be lost over the coming decades if conservation efforts are not increased. (Photo: Bee and almond tree flower)

The study "indicates that bees are early warning indicators of wider impacts on animal and plant life and that measures to boost pollinators could not only improve food security but the fate of many other economically and environmentally-important plants and animals," Southwest Farm Press reports. The study's authors call for farmers and landowners to adopt pollinator-friendly habits, including placing flowering plants next to crop-producing fields. The report notes that managed bee hives can be moved to avoid insecticides, but wild populations are completely vulnerable to the chemicals, which have been implicated in colony collapse.

"The way humanity manages or mismanages its nature-based assets, including pollinators, will in part define our collective future in the 21st Century. The fact is that of the 100 crop species that provide 90 per cent of the world's food, over 70 are pollinated by bees," Achim Steiner, UN undersecretary-general and executive director of the environment program, said. Steiner and others are pointing to next year's Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro as an important step in developing a global, sustainable, green economy. The summit "is an opportunity to move beyond narrow definitions of wealth and to bring the often invisible, multi-trillion dollar services of nature -- including pollination from insects such as bees -- into national and global accounts," Steiner said. (Read more)

AT&T says T-Mobile merger will help rural areas

Earlier this month we reported low-cost cell-phone firm T-Mobile had joined a coalition of smaller wirelesss carriers opposing the Obama administration's National Broadband Plan on grounds it would benefit large companies. On Monday T-Mobile announced it was merging with the largest of those outfits: AT&T, which says the merger will help rural areas. AT&T's materials announcing the merger "pulled language directly from the president’s State of the Union message with references to providing wireless high-speed Internet to nearly all Americans in the next five years," Edward Wyatt of The New York Times reports.

The merger would leave AT&T and Verizon controlling almost 80 percent of the national wireless market and Sprint, the third-largest company, lagging far behind. West Virginia Democratic Sen. Jay Rockefeller was among the lawmakers to critcize the merger, calling for the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission to "leave no stone unturned in determining what the impact of this combination is on the American people." To counter Rockefeller's concerns, AT&T out on its website a map, below, of how the merger would expand its service in West Virginia. (Read more)

Renewed nuclear concerns may boost gas, coal

The concerns arising from the crisis at a nuclear power plant in Japan, in the wake of the massive earthquake earlier this month, may be the latest point boost for natural gas as a source of electricity. The nuclear concerns, combined with the aftermath of the Gulf of Mexico oil blowout and linkage of coal-fired energy to global warming, have helped boost natural gas's role in the U.S. energy mix, and "Gas has overcome two of its biggest hurdles — volatile prices and questionable supplies," Jad Mouawad of The New York Times reports.

Despite the positive forecast for gas, Mouawad writes, "It is far too early to say for sure whether the calamitous events in Japan may roll back the global nuclear revival and lead to a surge in natural gas demand." Since the earthquake, uranium prices have dropped by 30 percent and gas prices in the U.S. and Europe have risen by 10 percent. John Rowe, chairman of Exelon, told Mouawad the prohibitive price of building nuclear or coal-fired power plants in the coming years will make it easier for companies to overlook gas price fluctuations that have held back the fuel in the past. (Read more)

And while the Times didn't make note of it, the nuclear disaster is also a boost for coal, at least in the short term, Barron's reports.

Walmart plans to double local produce it sells

Walmart says it plans to triple the amount of food it buys from small and medium farmers by 2015. As part of the company's efforts to improve its global-sustainability efforts it also plans to provide training to 1 million farmers in its food supply chain, Andria Cheng of The Wall Street Journal reports. In the U.S. Walmart says it plans to double, to 10 percent, the amount of local produce it sells. (Read more)

After public outcry, Utah governor calls session to repeal bill that would weaken records law

UPDATE, March 28: The law has been repealed.

Citing "a loss of public confidence," Utah Gov. Gary Herbert, left, reversed himself and said today he is calling the Legislature into special session Friday to repeal "the controversial bill restricting access to many government records," Paul Koepp of The Deseret News reports. "House Republicans said they plan to repeal the bill," Koepp writes, but Republicans who run the Senate seemed miffed.

The bill would exempt electronic records from the state open-records law and "allow officials to charge overhead and administrative cost — and possibly costly attorney's fees — for especially broad requests," Koepp notes. A poll taken for the newspaper and KSL-TV found 61 percent of Utah adults opposed to raising the fees, and 83 percent supporting "disclosure of elected officials' text messages on public business." (Read more) For more background, click here.

Where to count prisoners in redistricting?

Many rural areas have sought prisons as boons to economic development; they can also have the effect of increasing their neighbors' political clout, because most states count prisoners where they are confined, not their last permenent address. But that is changing, and now that almost all states and localities have data from the 2010 census, the debate over where to count inmates for redistricting has emerged as one of the key issues in the process.

Here's an extreme example: In Anamosa, Iowa, one of the four city council wards, supposedly equal in population, had hardly any voters because it was the site of a correctional institution. (Prison Policy Initiative map)

In Somerset County, Md., Commissioner Craig Mathies won his race with just 307 of 542 votes while other districts produced at least 1,400 votes each. Maithes' district had a low vote total because more than 3,300 of his constituents are inmates of the Eastern Correctional Institution Complex who can't vote, Josh Goodman of Stateline.org reports. Soon that distortion in Somerset County will change, because Maryland was the first state to "require that, for the purposes of local, state legislative and congressional redistricting, prisoners must be counted at their last permanent address — not the place where they’re incarcerated," Goodman writes. Since Maryland passed its law, New York and Delaware have followed suit. In New York "the state Senate map drawn 10 years ago used prison counts to boost the representation of Upstate Republican counties, where a disproportionate number of state prisons are located."

Two states, Vermont and Maine, allow prisoners to vote, but both use the prisoners' permanent residence for voting purposes. Many people want that approach adopted elsewhere. "People in prison are being used in many ways as filler," Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, told Goodman. "The districts’ population is built on the backs of the ghost population."

However, simply counting prisoners where they came from isn't as easy as it might seem. "States lack consistent records for prisoners’ permanent home of record," Goodman writes. "The Census Bureau said this would mean that each prisoner would have to be contacted individually to make the change." (Read more) The Prison Policy Initative, which advocates counting inmates for redistricting purposes at their last permanent address, offers a primer on the issue for rural journalists. To download the PDF, click here.

Small towns offer free land to boost populations

The Homestead Act of 1862 is no longer in effect, but some small towns are giving away land in hopes of attracting new residents. "As with the homesteaders of the 1800s, the new pioneers must not be the faint of heart—they can’t be the type to shy away from the trials of building a home from the ground up, or the lack of Starbucks on every corner, or unpaved roads," Colleen Kane of CNBC reports, highlighting some of the towns (and all of Kansas) with homestead-like programs.

Beatrice, Neb., has passed its own Homestead Act of 2010, which requires people who accept free plots of land to live on those plots for at least five years. Marne, Iowa, population around 150, recently made four free lots available to attract families to the region. "The decline of the family farm affects rural areas like this," Marne Mayor Randy Baxter said. "Back in the ‘60s and ‘70s, there more smaller farms, and small towns supported the folks in the country, but now those homes aren’t there anymore."

Kansas is a leader in the free-land trend. Local governments and development groups offer so much free land in the state that there is "an online hub to organize all the information, the appropriately named Kansas Free Land," Kane writes. Jenny Russell, Republic County economic development coordinator, explained "Most rural areas in Kansas have been declining in population since 1900, so rural Kansas communities either fight or disappear." CNBC also highlights New Richland, Minn. (in photo), Curtis, Neb.; Muskegon, Mich.; and Camden, Maine, but the latter two are offering free land to prospective employers, an old tactic in rural America. Bone up, Colleen!(Read more)

Court rules against EPA in CAFO case

U.S. livestock groups scored a victory last week with a federal court's ruling that the Environmental Protection Agency could not require livestock operations to obtain Clean Water Act permits unless they are discharing manure into a waterway. "American Farm Bureau Federation, National Pork Producers, United Egg Producers and several other ag groups sued EPA over its so-called CAFO rule" aimed at concentrated animal feeding operations, American Agriculturalist reports. The decision of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans was the second against EPA since 2005 on the issue.

The disputed rule "required a Clean Water Act for all CAFOs that discharge or 'propose' to discharge," American Agriculturalist notes. "The rule covered production areas and crop land on which manure is applied and imposed fines of up to $37,500 a day. Doug Wolf, president of the National Pork Producers Council, said "The court recognized a clear limit on EPA's authority and required the agency to comply with the clean water law." (Read more)

Rural churches evolve with their communities

The traditional image of small rural churches is fading as their congregaitons evolve, writes one rural Kentucky pastor who has also been a journalist. "I’ve spent so much time in so many different rural churches that I’m something of a minor—and self-appointed—expert on them," Paul Prather, right, writes for the Daily Yonder. "What I mainly can say is that country congregations aren’t what they used to be." No longer are rural churches centered on farming communities, Prather writes, noting most of his congregation in Montgomery County commutes "from the towns of Mount Sterling, our county seat, and Winchester, in neighboring Clark County," on the east side of the Bluegrass Region.

The religious backgrounds of Prather's congregation at his Penecostal church are varied. "We’ve got lifelong Pentecostals, former Baptists, former Catholics, refugees from the non-instrumental Church of Christ, and people of no discernable religious heritage," he writes. He notes his congregation like most people are no longer receptive "to legalistic doctrines or fire-and- brimstone sermons." While women may have always done most of the work at rural churches, Prather writes they now do it in a more official capacity serving in leadership positions.

Smoking is now a social taboo for Prather's congregation, while drinking and swearing are much more common and accepted that he remembers as a child. While Montgomery County is traditionally made up of conservative Democrats, Prather notes his congregation has Tea Partiers, Old Glory Republicans and Barack Obama Democrats, and says he had to ban partisan discussions to prevent fistfights.

While the racial makeup of rural congregations may not have changed, the overwhelming white majority of Prather's congregation is now a more a "matter of local demographics than bigotry," writes Prather, former religion reporter for the Lexington Herald-Leader. He concludes if you were to walk into a modern day rural congregation you would "discover they were as well-traveled and complicated and self-contradictory and holy and confused and profane and delightful and enlightened and irritating as any similar-sized group you’d stumble into in Austin or Portland." (Read more)

Oregon reporter wins big community-journalism award; Gish Award winner Swindler a runner-up

Tracy Loew of the Statesman Journal in Salem, Ore., is the winner of the $10,000 prize for community journalism in the National Journalism Awards sponsored by the Scripps Howard Foundation.

Loew and the 38,000-circulation Gannett Co. newspaper won for a 16-month investigation of widespread mismanagement during the past 10 years in the Willamette Education Service District, which serves rural and suburban schools south and west of Portland. "WESD's Web of Deals" had already "won the top investigative reporting prize for small newspaper markets in the Education Writers Association contest," the Statesman Journal reports.

Runners-up were Will Doolittle of The Post-Star in Glens Falls, N.Y., for "Showdown at Black Brook," an examination of conflicts between landowners and the Adirondack Park Agency, which earlier won the New York State Associated Press Association's first-place award in depth reporting; and Samantha Swindler and Adam Sulfridge of The Times-Tribune, circulation 6,000, in Corbin, Ky., for their investigation of a sheriff who was later indicted.

Swindler, right, is the winner of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues' 2010 Tom and Pat Gish Award for courage, integrity and tenacity in rural journalism. She now publishes weekly newspapers in, of all places, Oregon -- in Tillamook, 75 miles from Salem. The institute, which publishes The Rural Blog, is the repository for entries in the Community Journalism category of the National Journalism Awards.

Another Gannett newspaper that has a significant rural audience, the Burlington Free Press in Vermont, won the First Amendment category of the National Journalism Awards "for its aggressive editorial stance that made open government a paramount issue in the 2010 elections and spurred reforms," Scripps said in its news release about the awards. The paper (32,000 circulation, 42,000 Sunday) beat out finalists from much larger papers, the St. Petersburg Times and The Washington Post.

AP: It’s now ‘email,’ ‘cellphone’ and ‘smartphone’

The editors of the Associated Press Stylebook have made some changes, effective at 3 a.m. EDT today. Since many rural newspapers are weeklies that are not AP members but like to follow its style, we pass along the changes, most of which are related to technology:

• email, not e-mail. (Other “e” terms, such as e-book and e-commerce, remain unchanged.)
• cellphone and smartphone are now each one word.
• handheld is the noun and hand-held is the adjective.
• The big city in eastern India is Kolkata, not Calcutta, the local usage.

The changes were announced at the annual conference of the American Copy Editors Society in Phoenix. "The editors say the spiral bound version of the newest AP Stylebook will be available sometime in May," ACES reports.

Postal Service is selective and inconsistent in releasing data on individual post offices

As it considers closing and downgrading many rural post offices, the U.S. Postal Service is being selective and inconsistent with the information it reveals about the business activity at individual offices. We'd be interested in hearing from our readers, especially journalists, about their own experiences on this front.

We've read stories, such as this one in the Rapid City Journal and this one in The Washington Post, that gave annual revenues and expenses of post offices that were the foci of those stories. Those reporters tell us they got their information from Postal Service officials. But when the Midway Messenger asked the manager of post office operations in the Lexington, Ky., sectional center for such data on the post office in Midway, Ky., above, he denied the request.

"The Postal Service does not disclose specific financial data, not even in response to a Freedom of Information Act request," Thomas J. Adkins wrote. "The revenues and expenses of our offices are considered proprietary business information." Midway Mayor Tom Bozarth had also asked for the information, to help him evaluate Adkins' claim at a town meeting on the issue that cuts at the office would save almost $100,000 a year.

But the USPS does release certain information, as it did to residents of Slayden, Tenn., population 300, who may lose their post office. At a meeting there this week, a USPS official "said low business activity at the post office warranted an investigation into the closure. She said the Slayden post office processes 15.1 daily retail transactions, 84.4 pieces of mail, rents about 68 boxes, and dispatches about 51 letters/flats," reports Josh Arntz of the Dickson Herald. The number of retail transactions was mentioned in a letter the USPS sent residents, Arntz told us.

Another postal manager "said a post office’s closure or consolidation is regulated by federal law," Arntz wrote. "Congress requires that the decision be based on the effect the closure will have on the community served and the effect on post office employees. She added that government policy dictates that the Postal Service must provide effective and regular service to rural areas, communities and small towns." (Read more)

As isolated rural community celebrates broadband success, others fear funding sources will dry up

Spruce Knob-Seneca Rocks Telephone Cooperative, with an average 2.5 customers per square mile, could be the first telephone cooperative to provide fiber-to-the-home broadband to “one of the most sparsely populated areas of West Virginia” if federal funding is not reallocated, reports Miranda Kessel for the Daily Yonder.

In 2008, the co-op received a $7.7 million loan from the Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service to update its copper-line telephone system the latest fiber-to-the home broadband technology. It got another $8.5 million was in 2010 as a part of the Broadband Initiatives Program, to “expand their (SKSRTC) customer base in surrounding rural communities, including Green Bank”, reports Kessel, a West Virginia University graduate student. (Read more)

Vickie Colaw, the co-op's eneral manager, credits the project to subsidies form the Universal Service Fund, which subsidizes rural phone service. The Federal Communications Commisison wants to restructure the program to give more help for broadband, but the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association fears that will penalize rural phone co-ops that have made a strong commitment to broadband delivery, like Spruce Knob-Seneca Rocks. For background on that debate, go here.

OSHA is doing more inspections of farms with more than 10 employees

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is increasing inspection of farms that have more than 10 employees or operate a temporary labor camp, Brownfield Network reports. OSHA compliance assistance specialist Mary Bauer told Bob Meyer of the network that in areas like hers, in western Wisconsin, the Labor Department agency is focusing on dairy farms. (Read more)

Cash-strapped school districts turn to bus ads

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-03-16-schoolbusads16_ST_N.htm

Interior Dept. has website for youth to find jobs, events as part of Great Outdoors Initiative

The Department of the Interior has created a website for young people to serve as a "one-stop shop for information on job and internship opportunities, upcoming outdoor events, educational resources and more," the department said today. The new website – http://www.youthgo.gov/ – is part of President Obama’s America’s Great Outdoors Initiative, which also includes the Department of Agriculture.

The site links to internships, seasonal jobs and career opportunities in the Interior Department, ranging from working concessions in a national park to building trails on public lands. “This website is designed to help young people get out, get involved, and get a job when it comes to the great outdoors,” said Secretary Ken Salazar. He said it is part a department-wide effort to get youth more involved in recreation and conservation, and to increase employment and career opportunities. (Read more)

House votes to deny NPR federal funds; unlikely, but would have disproportionate rural impact

The U.S. House voted 228-192 today to keep federal funds from going to National Public Radio, a move that would have a disproportionate impact on public stations in rural areas.

"All but seven Republicans voted for the measure, and all Democrats present voted against it," reports Felicia Sonmez of The Washington Post. "The measure is unlikely to be taken up by the Democratic-controlled Senate." However, in the current budget-cutting atmosphere, and recent impolitic statements and actions by NPR officials, the issue is unlikely to go away.

"Could NPR survive without public funding? That depends on which NPR you're talking about," writes Clarence Page, Washington columnist for the Chicago Tribune. "There are two NPRs. There's the national news and talk show syndicator formerly known as National Public Radio, and there are about 800 local "member stations" that buy its programming. It is the local stations that serve more rural and less wealthy markets that would suffer the most without the federal grants they receive" from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which House Republicans have voted to de-fund. (Read more)

Former Post editors Len Downie and Bob Kaiser make similar points in an op-ed piece that concludes by urging local stations and their supporters to speak up: "The public broadcasting community has appeared flustered by the ferocity of its critics’ attacks, some of which are ideologically motivated. But most members of Congress are sent to Washington by communities with NPR member stations, which could do a better job of selling their increasingly vital role in news reporting. Consumers of public broadcasting could raise their voices, too. Public broadcasting should be able to accept and manage a fair share of federal budget cuts, but should it be abandoned?"

Alaska is especially dependent on public radio, Erika Bolstad of McClatchy Newspapers reports: "The state's public radio stations have long been woven into the fabric of life, and the state's 700,000 residents could be hard hit if Congress limits how local public radio stations spend federal money — or if it does away altogether with government funding of public broadcasting." She quotes Steve Lindbeck, president and general manager of Alaska Public Telecommunications Inc.: "The more rural and remote you are, the more dependent you are." (Read more)

Rhonda McBride of KTUU-TV in Anchorage reports, "If you tuned in to KYUK, the public radio station in Bethel at noon on Monday, you would have heard Lillian Michael broadcast in Yup’ik, the Eskimo language of Southwest Alaska. On the radio, she goes by her traditional name, Atmak, which means 'backpack' and, true to her name, she shoulders an important responsibility. She helps to keep elders in her region informed about state, local and national news. In so doing, she helps to keep the Yup’ik language alive. Native language broadcasts are just one of the reasons the Alaska public broadcasting system is different from those in the Lower 48. Stations also receive more federal funding, due to their remote location and sparse population, which in most rural communities is not big enough to support commercial radio."

The boss of the public station in Carbondale, Ill., WSIU, Greg Petrowich, discussed the issue with Chicago's WBEZ-FM. To listen, go here. Rural NPR affiliates came under attack when the network fired commentator Juan Williams. For that story, click here.

EPA imposes first limits on mercury, lead, arsenic, other pollutants from coal-fired power plants

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday unveiled its first national standard for emissions of mercury and other previously unregulated pollutants from coal-burning power plants. The proposed rules could lead to the early closing of a number of older plants and are likely to be challenged by congressional Republicans, John M. Broder and John Collins Rudolf of The New York Times report.

EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson said compliance with the standard would cost the industry about $10 billion annually and would result in an increase of $3 or $4 for monthly household electric bills. It could also accelerate coal-burning utilities' use of natural gas. EPA "said the proposed rules, once fully implemented, will prevent 91 percent of mercury in coal from being released into the air," Timothy Garder of World Environment News reports. "Power plants would have four years to meet the standards."

The Times reports, "Roughly half of the nation’s more than 400 coal-burning plants have some form of control technology installed, and about a third of states have set their own standards for mercury emissions. But the proposed rule issued Wednesday is the first national standard and will require all plants to come up to the standard of the cleanest of current plants."

The rules had long been expected, but the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, a group of utilities, called them "an extraordinary threat to the power sector" and questioned Jackson's claim that the technology needed to reduce emissions of mercury, lead, arsenic, chromium and other airborne pollutants was readily available and reasonably inexpensive. (Read more)

Rural cops seek more effective national voice

Rural law enforcement agencies have reponsibility for the vast majority of the American landscape, but lack an effective voice at the national level for their concerns and those of their communities, so they need to work on that, many of them concluded at a recent conference.

At the 2010 National Summit for Small Law Enforcement Agencies, attendees from 27 states “identified their primary concern as the lack of a unified voice at the national level to present the concerns of small and rural agencies,” TechBeat, part of the Department of Justice, reports on PoliceOne.com.

Most attendees agree that until they have a unified voice, their other goals cannot be met. Some said they have success working with state law-enforcement associations. Kim Wallace, chief of a six-officer force in Dover, Tenn., told TechBeat that she is working with her state association to start a Rural Law Enforcement Committee.

The conference was sponsored by the Small, Rural, Tribal and Border Regional Center of the National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center System. Scott Barker, director of the center, told TechBeat, “Quite often, when the national organizations form committees and working groups, they typically select representatives from major cities. It isn’t that they have a hidden agenda, they just don’t realize that policing is different in rural areas.” (Read more)

Barker's center is part of the National Institute of Justice in the Justice Department's Office of Justice Programs. TechBeat is a service of the institute.

Fracking puts gas industry on the defensive

The public backlash against hydraulic fracturing is being felt throughout the oil and gas industry. "Protests across New York state have temporarily banned the practice," Steve Hargreaves of CNN reports. "Unfavorable coverage in the media and a scathing documentary film that was nominated this year for an Oscar also seem to have scared the industry." One gas company executive recently noted during a fracking discussion at a recent conference, "We've done a terrible job at getting our message out to the public. Now we're locked out of New York."

In fracking, which millions of gallons of water, sand and chemicals are injected into wells drilled into dense shale formations, releasing natural gas or oil. Critics worry that the process may taint drinking water sources. At the conference, sponsored by energy consultant IHS CERA in New York, the Oscar-nominated documentary "Gasland" and a recent fracking series by The New York Times both were mentioned as examples of poor publicity for the industry. Despite the increased focus on fracking, no representative from a drilling company that is fracking was included on the panel. "Typical," said one attendee from a water purification company. "Put the environmental guys in a room and let them talk to each other." (Read more)

Gas drilling may be causing problems for water treatment plants in Western Pennsylvania

Wastewater from natural-gas drilling may be causing problems for water systems in Western Pennsylvania, a Pittsburgh water official tells Don Hopey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

“The spike in salty bromides in Western Pennsylvania's rivers and creeks has already put some public water suppliers into violation of federal safe drinking water standards,” Hopey writes. “Others, like the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority, haven't exceeded those limits but have been pushed up against them. Some have had to change the way they treat water.”

The concern with bromide in the water supply comes when it is treated. “Bromide facilitates formation of brominated trihalomethanes, also known as THMs, when it is exposed to disinfectant processes in water treatment plants,” writes Hopey. Some studies suggest links between THMs and various cancers and birth defects.

Stanley States, water quality manager for the Pittsburgh system, told Hopey the elevated bromide levels in the river could be coming from municipal sewage-treatment plants and private brine-treatment plants handling drilling wastewater. (Read more)

Closing and consolidation: Is this the future of rural education?

After a 10-year battle in the Arkansas courts, the Lake View School District in the Mississippi River Delta was awarded equal funding from the state budget. However, “within a few years of this decision, the Arkansas school funding system was dramatically overhauled,with significant increases in funding for operations and facilities and with more emphasis on getting the money to high-needs districts,” but it included A mandate that all districts with fewer than 350 students be closed, and that included Lake View, writes Marty Strange, policy director for the Rural School and Community Trust, in the latest edition of Phi Delta Kappan Magazine.

Lake View is not alone. Strange identifies four main factors for mandated closings of rural schools or districts: increasing per-pupil costs due to declining enrollment, state budget cuts, disparities in economic fortunes of a state's rural and urban areas, and court decisions like the one in the Lake View case. Strange reports that these problems are exasperated by state and federal funding formulas that limit funding to rural areas. For example, much state aid is based on district enrollment size. To read Strange's entire report, with details about the federal funding formulas, click here.

Two newspapers serving rural readers are among 10 recognized for digital innovations

A rural newspaper in Connecticut and another one serving rural communities in California made this year's list of "10 Newspapers that Do It Right" from Editor & Publisher magazine.

The Register Citizen of Torrington, Conn., pop. 35,000, won recognition for tearing down the walls between its newsroom and the public with the Newsroom Cafe, where folks sip coffee, munch pastry, use wi-fi, talk with staffers, comment on just-published stories and suggest others. "The public is even invited to daily story meetings, which are streamed over the Internet with live chat," report Kristina Ackermann and Deena Higgs Nenad.

"It has generated a slew of story ideas and has even convinced a stingy advertiser to buy digital space for the first time," E&P reports, citing Publisher Matt DeRienzo, who told the magazine: "It's like social media. It peels back the curtain like the Wizard (of Oz) ... the great and powerful newspaper how it used to be." Well, actually, Toto pulled back the curtain to reveal the wizard, but we get the point.

The 8,000-circulation daily is owned by Journal Register Co., which emerged from bankruptcy with a new motto, "Digital First," and a goal of $40 million profit in 2010. "You hit more than $41M," CEO John Paton told employees in his Digital First blog, announcing that all would get an extra week's pay. "Not bad for a bankrupt, beat-up, old newspaper company people had written off as dead in 2009. But we didn’t write ourselves off. We picked ourselves up and got working. We learned to harness both cloud and crowd. Using new tools and working the new news ecology we produced new digital products and revenue streams AND reduced costs. We focused on what we do best and linked to the rest."

E&P also recognized The Appeal-Democrat of Marysville and Yuba City, Calif. The cities have a combined population of 72,000, and Yuba and Sutter counties 162,000, but are the hub of farm country and Sierra Nevada foothills north of Sacramento. Last year the Freedom Communications paper went big on multimedia, started using QR codes, "bar-type codes that enable smartphone users to link content, enter online contests, and view photos," and teamed with the two cities' chambers of commerce "to produce nearly a dozen political forums during the primary and general elections last year," E&P reports. "Employees, including the editor, lugged the necessary equipment to various locations so they could do live webcasts and live blogging. Total video views and visits to the Appeal-Democrat website exceeded 15,000 in a month." (Read more)

Crackdown on fertilizer fraud leads to indictment of another 'organic' manufacturer in California

Kenneth Noel Nelson Jr., the largest supplier of organic fertilizer in the Western U.S., was indicted by a federal grand jury last week on 28 counts of mail fraud. The indictment accused Nelson of "selling premium-priced liquid fertilizer touted as made from all-natural products such as fish meal and bird guano that instead was spiked with far cheaper synthetic chemicals," P. J. Huffstutter of the Los Angeles Times reports. This is the second indictment of a California organic fertilizer producer in five months and has "fueled fears among some farmers about possible contamination of their pristine fields," Huffstutter writes.

To be certified organic, the federal government requires farmers to not put synthetic chemicals on their land for three years before harvest. Justice Department officials told the Times that federal law prohibits organic farmers from using synthetic fertilizer with limited exceptions. The indictment says Nelson received organic certification from the Washington State Department of Agriculture and the Organic Materials Review Institute by lying about the ingredients he was using. "The motive in these types of cases is economic," U.S. Attorney Benjamin Wagner said. "Consumers pay a premium for organic products, and they should not be misled." (Read more)

Coal company paying big fine for water pollution, and a lot more for new pollution-control system

The nation's largest underground coal producer, Consol Energy, has agreed to pay a civil fine of $5.5 million for water-pollution violations that caused a huge fish kill in Dunkard Creek, along the West Virginia-Pennsylvania border. The company also agreed to built a "state of the art" pollution-control system, at an estimated cost of $200 million, for wastewater from its mines, the Environmental Protection Agency said in a news release.

"As is standard procedure in such agreements, Consol did not admit any liability," reports Don Hopey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "It issued a lengthy news release touting its economic importance to West Virginia and its environmental record."

Consol said in its release that it "challenges other operators along the Monongahela [River] tributary to follow its lead to protect the watershed and believes that today's announcement sets an example for everyone in the energy industry." For our most recent item on the Dunkard Creek spill, click here.

Horse slaughter could be banned in Canada

The U.S. essentially stopped domestic horse slaughtering in 2007 by prohibiting federal funds from going to inspection of horse slaughterhouses, and now "there is a movement to bring the ban to Canada," Liz Twan, a rancher and columnist, writes for the Williams Lake Tribune in British Columbia.

A bill in the House of Commons would ban horse slaughter for human consumption in Canada. Twan warns "there should be grave concern at the thought of the Canadian government blindly galloping into the same box canyon as the U.S. regarding horse slaughter," noting the uptick in abandoned horses in the U.S. In the face of mounting horse neglect, many horse lovers in the U.S. are advocating a re-opening of domestic slaughter facilities, she notes.

While consumption of horse meat may sound alien to Americans and Canadians, the world consumes about a million tons per year, Twan notes. "Worldwide there are many meat dishes that you’d not be able to force the average Canadian to eat, knowing beforehand what animal was killed to make it," she writes, citing Mark Schatzker of The Globe and Mail in Toronto's key facts about horses: "They're cute. They're edible. You probably haven't eaten any lately because of No. 1."

Twan concludes, "We may love our horses with all of our hearts and souls, but trying to keep them all forever might not necessarily be the kindest, most humane option." (Twan's original column said the U.S. has banned horse slaughterhouses, but she clarified that in a subsequent column.)

Derry Brownfield, famous farm broadcaster, dies

Derry Brownfield, who founded and sold an agricultural radio network that later fired him because he was too hard on Monsanto Co., died Saturday of an apparent heart attack at the age of 79.

Brownfield, left, was a cattle farmer and University of Missouri graduate. He and friend Clyde Lear established Brownfield Network in 1972, and he called himself "America's most listened-to farm broadcaster." He sold the network to Lear in 1997 but kept the talk show he had started three years earlier. He called it "Common Sense Coalition" and used it to attack Monsanto for its business practices. In 2008, after complaints from the Learfield Communications sales staff, which feared loss of advertising from the chemical-and-seed giant, Lear asked his old friend to "lay off" the company or have a Monsanto representative on the show. Brownfield refused, and Lear canned him. For our story on that, go here.

"Never one to give up, Derry continued broadcasting his show via webcast," the Daily Yonder reports. "Long an advocate for family based agriculture and a harsh critic of its enemies, Derry Brownfield will be missed across Missouri and the entire nation." His old network has a Soundslides tribute to him on its home page, with Roy Rogers and Dale Evans singing Dale's "Happy Trails to You," which he used to end his show. It also has a video of Brownfield at work and a tribute from his friend Bob Priddy, which begins "He used to joke about things that would have to wait for 'Bury Derry Day'."

Rural reporter gives school district some advice about public relations, or public information

Some rural school administrators who already have plenty of responsibilities sometimes spend too much time worrying about the image of their school systems, which, of course, means their own image as well. That can cause problems for rural journalists, and Allison Hollon smelled that coming last month when the school board in Adair County, Kentucky, unveiled a draft public-relations plan.

"I applaud you for making the effort," Hollon, left, wrote in a column, but urged officials not to adopt a policy that school-district employees go through a public-relations person before speaking to the news media. "Employees of any school district already have reservations about speaking to the media," she wrote. "I strongly believe if the school district develops a system where employees have to go through a public relations department before they can speak to me or any other media, it will increase that fear."

Hollon, who has had classes in public relations, also questioned the school superintendent's plan to have "print ready" press releases. "When I receive a press release in 'print ready' form, the first thing I do is come up with a way to change it that makes it unique to our publication," the weekly Adair County Community Voice, Hollon wrote. "Any good journalist worth their salt would do the same thing." The Voice competes with the weekly Adair Progress.

Hollon said a role model exists right there in Columbia: Lindsey Wilson College. "I can call just about anybody at LWC and have an on-the-record conversation. ... Developing a relationship with the media is more than just sending out story tips or press releases. It’s also about developing an open line of communication between the media and janitors, teachers, bus drivers and administrators." (Read more)

Hollon has it better than some. Lisa Gross, the director of the Division of Communications and Community Engagement at the Kentucky Department of Education, told us in an e-mail: "I recently talked to an editor at a newspaper in Eastern Kentucky, who told me that the superintendent of the school district he covers had informed him that he’d no longer be receiving press releases or news items from the district, because the paper had reported (truthfully) on some negative issues at a local school. When I talk to school district PR folks, I remind them that their local media outlets are not there to serve as 'cheerleader' for their school systems – media can be helpful, but they should not expect to only see the good things covered and not the 'bad' things." That's good advice that rural journalists need to remember, and on occasion share with school folks.

Is Conservation Reserve Program to protect marginal land causing rural population loss?

A federal farm program that pays farmers to idle their land may be causing population losses in rural America. Leaders of small towns across Washington state think it is. The Conservation Reserve Program, which was established 25 years ago, "paid Washington farmers $84.6 million to leave 1.4 million acres for habitat and erosion control," John Stucke of The Spokesman-Review in Spokane reports. In Whitman County, where more than a dozen towns lost people over the last decade, but the county's largest city, Pullman, enjoyed a 21 percent population growth, the program has become a target of local ire. (Wikipedia map)

"CRP is killing our towns," Whitman County Commissioner Greg Partch told Stucke. Critics of the program say that when farmers idle land, they no longer buy fuel or fertilizer or hire local help for the harvest. Partch argues the program stifles "the local economies by suppressing high-production agriculture in an area that boasts some of the best wheat-growing conditions in the world," the Palouse region, Stucke writes. Still, Judy Olson, state executive director of the federal Farm Service Agency, says the CRP has helped thousands of farmers hold onto their land during down years.

"In the past several years the high price of wheat and other crops has helped farmers fetch a handsome profit, dulling the conservation program’s allure as a safe financial bet," Stucke writes. Farmers who pull land out of the program before its contract expires must pay penalties, and in some cases might have to return the signing bonuses collected upon enrollment. While that is a business decision for many farmers, LaCrosse Mayor Larry "Butch" Burgess still wishes the local economy wasn't hurt. "Used to be around here that the town would get some sales tax money when farmers would spend a few million dollars on new combines," he told Stucke. "We miss that." (Read more)

There's no reason to think that this phenomenon is limited to eastern Washington. What do your local leaders think?

Obama ramps up plea to fix No Child Left Behind, opposes cutting federal spending for schools

"We have to reform No Child Left Behind," President Obama said at a Virginia middle school this morning, urging Congress to "fix" the No Child Left Behind Act "before the next school year begins" in August. He also said that as Congress cuts federal spending, it should not cut aid to education.

The speech was "the administration's highest-profile pitch yet for reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which is seen as one of the few pieces of legislation that could garner bipartisan support in a deeply divided Congress," Alyson Klein of Education Week reports.

"High-profile education programs have already taken a hit in the stopgap spending measure now funding the federal government," Klein notes. "And the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives has shown support for slashing Pell Grants, Head Start, Title I grants to districts, and money to turn around low-performing schools." (Read more)

Obama said the law's goals of an excellent teacher for every child, with higher standards and accountability, are correct, but the law is "denying teachers, schools, and states what they need to meet these goals. That's why we need to fix No Child Left Behind," he said to applause. "we need a better way of figuring out which schools are deeply in trouble, which schools aren’t, and how we get not only the schools that are in really bad shape on track, how do we help provide the tools to schools that want to get even better to get better."

Obama called "inexcusable" the fact that "15 states have actually lowered their standards to make it easier for their kids to meet the targets set by No Child Left Behind. . . . So instead of measuring students based on whether they’re above or below an arbitrary bar, we need to set better standards to make sure our students are meeting one clear goal –- they’re graduating ready for college and ready for a career." The president's quotes come from a White House transcript, which is online here.

UPDATE, March 15: "Pitching the area Republicans agree the most with him on, education," Obama is doing local TV interviews today with affiliates in Albuquerque, Pittsburgh and Hampton Roads, Chuck Todd and Domenico Montanaro of NBC News write on First Read. "What do they all have in common? They’re all in swing states." But it's not all politics. Klein notes the unusual direct involvement and bipartisan cooperation among four senators "overseeing reauthorization in that chamber . . . Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, the chairman of the Senate Education Committee; Sen. Michael B. Enzi of Wyoming, the top Republican [on the panel]; Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., himself a former secretary of education under President George H.W. Bush; and Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M." Education reporters in those states, take note.

Small-town hair salon good place for a story

Here's a story that can be done in many small towns with a longtime hair stylist, and a good example of how to do it, from Brittany Cofer of the Chattanooga Times Free Press. She went up US 127 to Dunlap, population 5,200, to profile the Bouffant Salon, named for the most popular hairstyle when it opened 50 years ago.

"Leaning over a small table, Anna Faye Heard files down Naomi Barker’s nails. Barker, with her hair wound tightly in yellow, blue, orange and purple rollers, has visited Heard’s shop twice a week for nearly 15 years," Cofer writes, quoting Heard: "This is a modern day ‘Steel Magnolias,’ that’s what I like to say."

(TFP photo by Jenna Walker: Heard does Barker's hair) Heard, 68, was 18 when she opened the shop. Naomi Barker is my aunt, and she displayed the Miller girls' capacity for succinct wisdom when she told Cofer why she had been a Bouffant regular from her first visit: “What lady doesn’t want to get her hair done? She does what we want, and it’s a friendly atmosphere.” (Read more)

Future of strip mining in Appalachia could depend on something called conductivity; what is it?

The future of surface coal mining in Appalachia could depend on a scientific standard that the Obama administration has adopted as a sort of litmus test for water pollution but one that the coal industry says hasn’t been proven in the field.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says research has proven that high conductivity, which indicates a high level of salts, damages aquatic life in streams. The coal industry says that research is far from conclusive. But EPA’s independent Science Advisory Board found in September that the agency was correct in concluding that valley fills increase conductivity in downstream waters, threatening stream life.

If EPA’s standards remain in place, coal companies will find it difficult or impossible to win approval for mountaintop-removal permits like those issued in the past, industry and agency officials agree.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson says her agency isn’t trying to end surface mining in Appalachia. “This is not about ending coal mining,” she said in a conference call after the agency announced its conductivity guidance in April. “This is about ending coal mining pollution.”

For the full story by Jon Hale of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, click here.

Claim of rural bias in federal spending disputed; Vilsack says ethanol subsidies need a phase-out

Federal spending on rural issues became the target of a recent blog post from Ezra Klein of The Washington Post, but his argument that the government subsidizes rural life to the detriment of cities may not hold up. "Klein’s initial point was that cities are unique in the efficient way they create new wealth," Bill Bishop of the Daily Yonder reports. "He then said that we should capitalize on this unique attribute of urban life, but that we won’t because the structure of the Congress inevitably leads to programs and spending that subsidize rural life." Bishop writes that argument doesn't hold up because federal spending per capita on urban counties is usually higher than it is in rural counties. (Yonder chart of per capita rural and urban spending)

Klein mentioned federal farm subsidies, but Bishop notes, "crop subsidies are a drip in the bucket of federal spending." Klein said disproportionate rural representation in Congress leads to a rural bias in spending, but Bishop says no such bias is reflected in spending on community development. "Spending on community resources in rural areas (for housing, community assistance, Native American programs, environmental protection, regional development and transportation) is far lower on a per capita basis in rural counties," he writes.

"The one area of federal spending where rural areas exceed urban ones is in the broad category of income security," Bishop writes. "This includes medical benefits, Social Security, disability, food and nutrition programs and education." This disparity can be attributed to the fact that rural people tend to be on average older and poorer than their urban counterparts, he argues.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack also took issue with Klein's story, but did say that ethanol subsidies to corn farmers should be phased out. Bishop argues the conversation between the two men was fruitless. Instead of discussing easily available facts, conversations like that one mean "nothing changes and nothing gets better, but everybody feels supremely righteous," he writes. An unnamed writer for The Economist says Vilsack offered "a pandering defence of agricultural subsidies so thoroughly bereft of substance I began to fear that Mr. Vilsack would be sucked into the vacuum of his mouth and disappear." (Read more)

Bush EPA official: fracking study shouldn't have been used to support exemption from regulation

A 2004 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report that concluded hydraulic fracturing was not a significant threat to drinking water was never intended to permanently preclude the drilling method from environmental regulation, says a former agency official who oversaw the report. "Whether it's hydraulic fracturing or any other type of practice that can have an impact on the environment, one single report shouldn't be the basis for a perpetual, never-ending policy decision," Benjamin Grumbles, who was assistant administrator for water at EPA during in the George W. Bush administration, told ProPublica.

The industry and Congress used the conclusions from the report to "bolster the case for passing a law that prohibited the EPA from regulating fracking under the Safe Drinking Water Act," Abrahm Lustgarten reports. "It wasn't meant to be a bill of health saying 'well, this practice is fine. Exempt it in all respects from any regulation,'" said Grumbles, who is now on the board of the Clean Water America Alliance. "I'm sure that wasn't the intent of the panel of experts, and EPA never viewed it that way." Grumbles also noted Bush administration officials made it clear no EPA employees were supposed to publicly support or oppose the legislation. (Read more)

EPA boss debunks myths about agency's farm plans

A series of fictions have incorrectly characterized the Environmental Protection Agency's attempts to regulate agriculture, says the agency's director. Speaking to the House Agriculture Committee, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson highlighted five of those myths, Andrew Restuccia of The Hill reports. First was the claim that EPA will implement a cow tax that will regulate greenhouse gas emissions from cattle. "The truth is — EPA is proposing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in a responsible, careful manner and we have even exempted agricultural sources from regulation," Jackson said.

Jackson said the claim that EPA will used regulations for oil containment facilities to regulate spilled milk was "simply incorrect," and the agency has moved to exempt milk containers from the law. Sen. Mike Johnanns, R-Neb., "pressed Jackson to finalize" that exemption, Dairy Herd Network reports.

Jackson said EPA had no plans to expand regulation of dust from farms, and the agency does not want to regulate all pesticide drifts from farms. "While no one supports pesticides wafting into our schools and communities, EPA does not support a 'no-spray drift policy'," she said. "EPA has been on the record numerous times saying this, but the incorrect belief that EPA desires to regulate all spray drift persists." Jackson also said EPA is not developing limits on nutrient pollution limits from animal manure and chemical fertilizers. (Read more)

Environmental groups allege another coal firm misrepresented water-quality monitoring data

A Kentucky coal company has submitted seemingly fraudulent water-pollution monitoring data to state regulators, says a group of environmentalists who have been examining public records. "Five environmental groups on Wednesday alleged that 12,000 violations of Clean Water Act reporting requirements occurred at 15 Nally & Hamilton Enterprises Inc. mining operations in seven Eastern Kentucky counties," James Bruggers of The Courier-Journal reports. Aaron Colangelo, a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, one of the five groups, told Bruggers "Over and over in its monitoring reports, Nally & Hamilton simply repeated the results from one month to the next. These cut-and-paste reports are obviously false."

"The same environmental groups previously submitted findings that resulted in the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet last year issuing $660,000 in fines against two other coal-mining companies," Bruggers writes. The new allegations concern active strip mines and reclamation sites in Letcher, Perry, Leslie, Harlan, Knott, Bell and Knox counties. Nally & Hamilton representatives did not respond to the Courier-Journal's request for comment Wednesday. In addition to the NRDC, environmental groups Appalachian Voices, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, Kentucky Riverkeeper and the Waterkeepers Alliance joined in the allegations. The groups say they have "taken the first step toward filing a lawsuit under the Clean Water Act by putting the company on notice and giving it 60 days to respond," Bruggers writes. (Read more)

4 of 5 public schools could fall short of federal standards this year, education secretary warns

Around 80 percent of the nation's 100,000 public schools could be labeled as failing under No Child Left Behind, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan warned yesterday. That estimate, "based on an analysis of testing trends and the workings of the law’s pass-fail school rating system, was the latest evidence of the law’s shortcomings and the need to overhaul it," Sam Dillon of The New York Times reports.

Even many of the nation's best public schools are likely to miss the federal education law's rising standardized testing targets, Duncan said. "This law is fundamentally broken, and we need to fix it this year," he told the House education committee. Last year 37 percent of schools missed the testing targets, and Duncan said this year's number could be as high as 82 percent. "I find it hard to believe that the percentage would rise that much in one year," Jack Jennings, president of the nonpartisan Center on Education Policy in Washington, told Dillon. "Maybe they are right. If so, it’s certainly a mind-blower."

"The No Child Left Behind Act, introduced in 2001 by President George W. Bush and passed by Congress with bipartisan support, requires that all schools bring 100 percent of their students to proficiency in math and reading by 2014," Dillon writes. President Obama and Duncan have mounted a push to reform the law this year, a move that has been met with support by some Republicans. "States are now facing very steep goals under the law, and they are not going to meet them," Peter Cunningham, an Education Department spokesman, told Dillon. "Arne is just telling the committee that is charged with rewriting this law what’s coming." (Read more)

Vote buying lingers on; former E. Ky. officials get long terms in federal probe, and more are coming

Vote buying remains a problem in poor areas, perhaps more so in rural ones, where voting places are more isolated and there are fewer eyes to watch election officials. Two former election officers and a former circuit judge in Clay County, Kentucky, were sentenced this week to prison terms of 20 years and more for their role in a massive vote-buying and corruption scandal that has consumed the county for almost a decade.

"U.S. District Judge Danny C. Reeves sentenced Charles Wayne Jones, 71, to 20 years in prison and William E. Stivers, 58, to 24 1⁄3 years," Bill Estep of the Lexington Herald-Leader reports. Six other former county officials, including a former school superintendent, county clerk and magistrate, who were convicted with Jones and Stivers last year, will be sentenced this week. Today, former Circuit Judge Cletus Maricle, 67, was sentenced to 26 2/3 years.

"Jurors convicted the eight of using Clay County's election board as a tool to corrupt elections in 2002, '04 and '06 by buying or stealing votes on a scale that Reeves said he hadn't seen in any other case," Estep writes. Stivers was an officer at a polling place during the scandal, and Jones was the county's Democratic election commissioner. Stivers' attorney had sought a sentence of less than 20 years for his client because of Stivers' age and serious health problems, but Reeves said Stivers could receive adequate medical care in prison. (Read more)

Postal service tells folks in tiny town they might lose their post office; could keep mailboxes

Residents of Fairfield, Ky., population 78, have been put on notice that their post office might close, and the city's current and former mayor say that could signal the death of the community. "We just feel like it’s going to be one more nail in the coffin that will end our city," former mayor Mary Ellen Marquess told Stephanie Hornback of The Kentucky Standard in the county seat of Bardstown. (Photo by Hornback)

Her comments came after the United States Postal Service sent Fairfield residents a letter on Feb. 25 that asked how they got their mail because "the maintenance of the Fairfield Post Office may not be warranted," Hornback reports. We haven't heard of other communities receiving such letters, and would like to know about others.

"Fairfield Mayor Tommy Trent said a representative from the postal service contacted him before the letter went out and asked if the city would be interested in buying the property, making one side its city hall and keeping the P.O. boxes on the other," Hornback writes. Under that arrangement the post office, which is currently open for four hours on weekdays, would no longer employ a clerk.

"A town loses its identity if it gets stuck with a rural route address," Trent said. "Although we’re small, an incorporated town with a post office and its own ZIP code means a lot as far as communicating with your people. It would just be a total loss for the city itself." (Read more)

A couple of counties to the east, in Midway, the USPS is scaling back the level of service, prompting concerns that the office might be closed. No way, the service says, but some residents are skeptical.

Ethanol boosted by soaring oil prices; bipartisan Senate duo moves to repeal industry's tax credit

Rising oil prices have boosted the ethanol industry, but it may lose its federal tax credit in the battle over the federal budget deficit.

"Since December the rise in the price of crude oil has driven the wholesale price of regular gasoline to $3 per gallon," Dan Piller of the Des Moines Register reports. "That made room for the price of ethanol to climb from $2 per gallon in December to $2.59 per gallon Monday." The spike is particularly helpful for the industry, squeezed by the doubling of corn prices in the last half of 2010.

"The lower price of ethanol gives oil companies extra incentive, beyond the federal renewable-fuels mandates, to purchase ethanol to blend with unleaded gasoline," Piller writes. A decline in gas consumption early last year hurt ethanol demand, but ethanol margins improved as oil prices began to rise. Then came soaring corn prices. The industry could face a crisis by fall if U.S. farmers don't produce a bumper corn crop, Todd Becker, chief executive of Green Plains Energy, told Piller. "Most plants will get through the second quarter of this year all right, but a lot of plants are very nervous about the third quarter," he said. "We could see some plants shut down." (Read more)

A true sea change may be in the works for ethanol. A bipartisan Senate duo on Wednesday introduced legislation that would repeal the 45-cents-per-gallon credit that goes to refiners and gasoline blenders for each gallon of ethanol blended into gasoline, Ben Geman of The Hill reports. The bill is sponsored by Oklahoma Republican Sen. Tom Coburn and Maryland Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin. "The ethanol tax credit is bad economic policy, bad energy policy and bad environmental policy," Coburn said in a statement. "The $6 billion we waste every year on corporate welfare should instead stay in taxpayers’ pockets where it can be used to spur innovation, stimulate growth and create jobs." (Read more)

Electric co-ops reluctant to adopt renewables; some pose obstacles for members' opinions

Few rural electric cooperatives have been on the forefront of renewable energy development, and most are heavily dependent on coal. Now many are facing increasing pressure from their members to begin looking at new energy sources, and some make it hard to apply that pressure, freelancer Allen Best reports for Planning magazine.

When Tona Barkley tried to attend a directors' meeting of her co-op, Owen Electric in Kentucky, she was met with a closed door and instructions to file a written request at least a month in advance if she wanted to speak at a future meeting. Owen Electric is not the only co-op with a closed-door atmosphere, Best writes. "Our co-ops, for the most part, tend to build pretty sturdy stockades around their processes," Steve Wilkins of Berea, Ky., a member of Blue Grass Energy, which he said also bars members from directors' meetings.

"Too many electric co-ops have turned away from their historic role as exciting, pro-consumer organizations and have instead taken on deeply troubling anti-consumer behaviors," Tennessee Democratic Rep. Jim Cooper wrote in a 2008 essay in the Harvard Journal on Legislation, which Best quotes.

Rural electric co-ops get 80 percent of their electricity from coal, much higher than the national figure of less than 50 percent. With prices of coal-fired energy on the rise and an uncertain future regarding environmental regulation of coal mining, some co-op members are questioning the logic of continuing to invest in coal-fired power.

Some co-ops have moved away from coal, but face questions about where their energy will come from in the future. In 2006 Western Colorado's Delta-Montrose Electric Association refused a contract extension with its current electricity supplier that would have financed a new coal-fired power plant, but now the company "must figure out its own electrical future after 2040," Best writes.

"It's uncharted territory, and it could be we spoke more optimistically than we should have," Ed Martson, a Delta-Montrose director for 15 years, told Best. "Now that you're in the execution phase, you'd understand better what you're up against." John K. Hansen, president of the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union, sees renewable energy as key to bringing jobs to rural areas, which can only help electric co-ops. "It doesn't do any good to have a [rural electrical association] if you don't have any customers," he told Best, referencing the population loss of many rural areas. (The entire story will be available after next month's issue of Planning magazine is published.)

Missouri farmer objects to state protections for concentrated animal feeding operations

A pair of Missouri bills would limit damages property owners can seek against large agricultural facilities, such as concentrated animal feeding operations. That goes too far, one Missouri farmer writes. "According to the wisdom of our elected leaders, if a CAFO damages a neighbor, damages are limited to the sale price of the property," Richard Oswald, president of the Missouri Farmers Union, writes for the Daily Yonder. "Wreck my home and all you have to do is hire an appraiser, get a price and buy me out." Both the state House of Representatives and Senate have passed similar bills, HB 209 and SB 187. The bills arose after 15 residents of northwest Missouri, Oswald's home area, were awarded $11 million in damages in a lawsuit last year against Premium Standard Farms, a CAFO subsidiary of Smithfield Foods, for property damage.

"Don’t get me wrong, I’m a farmer," Oswald writes. "I’ve had fertilizer of the livestock variety on my boots and I’m not allergic to it. It’s just that what’s going on here is an insult to responsible livestock producers wherever they are." He notes some CAFOs are well designed and maintained, but he claims the Missouri bills would take away the incentive to run a good CAFO. Oswald concludes with one question: "Now that Missouri has greased a path for Big Pig pollution that resembles corporate take-all power of eminent domain, and Missouri voters have lost a big slab of their property rights . . . How big can Big Pig in Missouri grow?" (Read more)

Applications sought for rural broadband grants

On Friday the Rural Utilities Service of the Department of Agriculture's announced it was accepting a new round of grant applications to provide broadband Internet access in communities that have no broadband. Funding is through the Community Connect Grant program. The grants are available to "communities in the most rural, economically challenged areas where loans would not be sustainable," USDA said in a news release.
Incorporated organizations, tribes and tribal organizations, state and local government bodies, for-profit or non-profit cooperatives, private corporations and limited liability corporations are all eligible to apply. Funds may be used to "construct, acquire or lease facilities to deploy broadband to residents, businesses and essential community facilities such as police and fire stations, libraries, schools, and health care clinics," USDA says. (Read more) You can find more information about the grant applications here and here.