Rural county says goodbye to longtime publisher

The line to the casket ran out the front door of the funeral home in Jamestown, Ky., yesterday as the people of Russell County said goodbye to David Davenport, who had edited or published their leading local newspaper for decades.

Davenport, 71, died Sunday of lung cancer. He was publisher and co-owner of The Times Journal of Russell Springs and the Russell County News-Register, which was created by a recent absorption of a competing weekly paper. The Times Journal's story is here.

This item is a point of personal privilege for the undersigned, who in 1975 edited and managed a weekly that was printed at The Times Journal. Dave Davenport helped me become a professional community journalist -- he would say "newspaper man" -- and I remain in his debt.

Ky. state parks, mostly rural and all 'dry,' will sell alcohol in 'wet' areas; legal ad was story tip

State parks are an economic boon to many rural areas, but some of those areas prohibit the sale of alcoholic beverages, so some parks have been unable to offer the full range of amenities to visitors. In Kentucky, almost all the parks are in "dry" territory, so the state Department of Parks hasn't even bothered to break the alcohol barrier for the few parks located where alcohol is legal. Until now.

The department's plan to open four parks in "wet" areas to alcohol had been part of a strategy of "turning food services at selected parks over to private vendors" to save money, but "there was not enough interest from private vendors to proceed with that part of the plan," writes Phyllis McLaughin of The News-Democrat in Carrollton, site of General Butler State Resort Park, on the Ohio River between Louisville and Cincinnati. (Parks Department photo: Two Rivers Restaurant at General Butler)

State officials have applied for licenses at General Butler, Lake Barkley State Resort Park in Cadiz, Jenny Wiley State Resort Park in Prestonburg and John James Audubon State Park in Henderson, McLaughlin reports. "We’re only doing this in parks where voters have already voted to allow alcohol sales," spokesman Gil Lawson said. "There will be no bars or cocktail lounges," though alcohol will be available at conference centers and golf courses. "We still see ourselves as family friendly." (Read more)

Note to journalists: The News-Democrat, a weekly paper, learned of this development from the legal ad that the state had to place regarding the license application. It shows why the legals are always a good place to check for story ideas.

Texas egg farm to pay $1.9 million for water pollution, largest civil fine in federal CAFO case

The term "concentrated animal feeding operations" typically conjures up images of feed lots for cattle and houses for broiler chickens, but a Texas egg producer, one of the nation's largest, has agreed to pay the largest civil penalty ever in a federal enforcement action against a CAFO, the Environmental Protection Agency said in a news release.

Mahard Egg Farm will pay $1.9 million "to resolve claims that the company violated the Clean Water Act at its egg production facilities in Texas and Oklahoma," the release said. "The company will also spend approximately $3.5 million on remedial measures to ensure compliance with the law and protect the environment and people’s health." The company has seven CAFOs.

The settlement, reached with the help of state agencies, "reflects the seriousness of Mahard’s violations," said Cynthia Giles, assistant administrator of EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance and Assurance. "Large animal feeding operations that fail to comply with our nation’s environmental laws threaten public health and the environment and put smaller farming operations at a disadvantage." (Read more)

Agriculture Department spending bill starts moving with cuts in discretionary programs

The House Appropriations Agriculture Subcommittee yesterday approved a Department of Agriculture spending bill for the 2012 fiscal year, beginning Oct. 1, with $17.25 billion in discretionary funds, about $2.7 billion below the figure enacted for the current year "and more than $5 billion below the amount requested by President Obama in a fiscal 2012 spending proposal released in February," reports the Washington newsletter Agri-Pulse.

Commodity prograns would not be affected, but "Agricultural research takes a major hit of some 15 percent compared to the FY 2011 and requested levels, farm programs (primarily ag credit and RMA operations) are about 8 percent short of FY 2011 and 17 percent short of the president’s request, and Rural Development is about 17 percent shy of FY 2011 and 5 percent shy of the request."

The bill, which includes $108 billion for nutrition programs, is scheduled for action by the full Appropriations Committee Tuesday, May 31. For a copy, click here; for a summary chart, here. Agri-Pulse is a subscription-only newsletter, but offers a free trial subscription.

Farm runoff remains top source of stream and lake pollution; here are tips on how to cover it

Agricultural runoff remains the "leading source of water quality impacts to surveyed rivers and lakes, the third largest source of impairments to surveyed estuaries, and also a major contributor to ground water contamination and wetlands degradation," according to the most recent National Water Quality Inventory, noted in the latest Tipsheet from the Society of Environmental Journalists.

"The consequence of such runoff is well illustrated by the annual plume of nutrients that pour into Lake Erie from the Maumee River," the Tipsheet notes. "The runoff is high in the fertilizers phosphorous and nitrogen, which leads to a gigantic algal bloom in Lake Erie that, after it dies off, sinks to the bottom and begins decomposing, depleting the water of oxygen. Every summer, a 'dead zone' grows in Lake Erie as the oxygen levels get so low that fish can't survive. This is the same phenomenon observed in the Gulf of Mexico." (NASA photo: Lake Erie, with Toledo and Maumee River at left, Cleveland at bottom)

States are most responsible for controlling such pollution, and a 2010 report by the Environmental Law and Policy Center and the Mississippi River Collaborative concluded that they are failing to protect water quality. "The farm lobby is politically powerful, and farmers have resisted mandatory controls for decades," the Tipsheet notes. "Most of the time, the best that could be hoped for has been federal incentive payments for land conservation measures that reduce pollutant runoff." Those include the the Conservation Reserve Program, which some farm interests are trying to change in order to avoid penalties for putting more erodable land back into production.

The Tipsheet points to a list of agricultural issues and guidelines from the Environmental Protection Agency, the federal Natural Resources Conservation Service website and state agricultural runoff policies, avaialble from state agencies.We suggest contacting state Farm Bureaus for the farmers' side of the issue.

Community Newspaper Holdings executive gets coveted Nieman fellowship at Harvard

The vice president for content of one of the largest community newspaper chains has been awarded a Nieman fellowship to study at Harvard University in the 2011-12 academic year.

David Joyner of Community Newspaper Holdings Inc., based in Birmingham, will study the availability of local news and information and its effect on civic engagement. He is the 2012 Donald W. Reynolds Nieman Fellow in Community Journalism, sponsored by the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation. The full list of fellows is here.

The foundation, created by a late small-town publisher, started funding Nieman fellowships for community journalists six years ago, renewing a five-year grant last year. This year's Reynolds fellow is Annmarie Timmins from The Monitor in Concord, N.H. (Read more)

Bill to criminalize recording of farm activity without owner's consent is advancing in Iowa

UPDATE, June 16: "A measure to punish those who make secret videos initially appeared to be sailing through the Iowa Legislature, but after clearing the state House it has sputtered out in the Senate and appears dead for this session," Mike Glover of the Associated Press writes in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Legislation has stalled the bill due to strong opposition from animal welfare groups.

Iowa may be "the first state to criminalize recording sights and sounds at farms without permission from owners," Mike Wiser of Iowa-based Lee Newspapers reports. The development comes after attempts to pass similar legislation failed in Colorado, Texas, Missouri and Florida.

Dan Mathews, senior vice president for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, said at a news conference, "With lawmakers in other ag states wanting these bills to die, the ongoing debate in Iowa makes it appear like the farmers there have more to hide." Democratic Sen. Tom Rielly of Oskaloosa, who is revising the approved House version before the Senate vote, says there is nothing to hide and "predicts the Senate will take up the measure this session," Wiser reports.

If the Senate and House agree on the bill, the final version will go to Republican Gov. Terry Branstad, who "believes undercover filming is a problem that should be addressed," gubernatorial spokesman Tim Albrecht told Wiser. Rebecca Zietlow, visiting professor of constitutional law at the University of Iowa, told Wiser the main constitutional issue with teh bill is prior restraint on publication. "The courts have generally said we should let the speech come out and then let the chips fall where they may," she said. (Read more)

Joplin staffers lose homes but get paper out, start Facebook page for survivors, seek volunteer aid

UPDATE, June 7: The fund for Globe employees has reached $40,000, Joe Pompeo reports on The Cutline for Yahoo! News.

Some employees of the Joplin Globe who lost their homes in the deadliest U.S. Tornado in 58 years yesterday reported to work to remake and get out the Community Newspaper Holdings Inc. paper, publisher Michael Beatty said in a story by CNHI News Service.

Of the paper's 117 employees, 26 "took heavy damage to their homes or lost them completely," the story said. "It was amazing," Beatty said. "Their focus was just to get the news out for the people, in print and online, so that they would have the information they needed about where to go and what to do." To see the paper's front page, click here.

At least 20 of the paper's workers lost their homes, and employees from CNHI's headquarters in Birmingham, are heading to Joplin to help out, reports News & Tech, quoting Keith Ponder, CNHI's senior vice president and Sun Belt Division manager: "The Globe team has done exemplary work under difficult circumstances. In spite of their own losses, several of these amazing people were at The Globe contributing to producing this morning's edition and working to provide vital information to the Joplin community in this difficult time." (Read more) The Missouri Press Association has established a fund for the employees affected by the tornado; information is here, and here is the site to make a tax-deductible contribution.

UPDATE, May 24: The Globe "established a Facebook page to link tornado survivors with their family members and friends," Adam Hochberg of the Poynter Institute reports. "The page encouraged Joplin residents to post a note if they made it through the tornado safely, and it allowed other people to post inquiries about friends and family members they haven’t been able to contact." At least four similar pages have appeared, and "Some emergency management experts warn that the hastily created sites can also foster confusion, especially when so many spring up around the same disaster," Hochberg reports. His colleague Julie Moos wrote about Globe reporter Jeff Lehr's experiences with the storm, including his interview on NBC Nightly News. Ziva Branstetter of the Tulsa World has a story about the use of social media.

Small-town chambers of commerce in Kentucky, Nebraska and N.C. up for national awards

A good chamber of commerce can be an important asset to a small town, and each year the American Chamber of Commerce Executives names up four as Chamber of the Year, in categories based on annual revenue. This year's small-town finalists are the chambers in Laurinburg, N.C. ($450,000 and less), Norfolk, Neb., and Paducah, Ky. (up to $900,000). The winner will be determined by interviewed at the ACCE convention in August. (Read more)

'60 Minutes' looks at child labor on farms

Since 1938, the minimum age for work in most industries in America has been 16, but on farms it's 12, and more children -- as many as 155,000 -- are working the fields these days because of the economic downturn, Byron Pitts reported on tonight's extra edition of CBS's "60 Minutes."

"Farming is a job many families are returning to, entire families, because children are legally alllowed to work here," Pitts said, focusing on the family (one pictured) of a Texas truck driver who lost his job, went back to the fields and took his children into "the migrant stream ... moving north with the harvest" and work that precedes it. Weeding cotton fields in the Texas Panhandle, they work 10 hours a day, six days a week, often in the sun, and when it rains they don't work and don't get paid.

"Outside of school they can work unlimited hours," Pitts noted. He said that in 1938, "Most farms were small, family operations and child labor was considered necessary." Now some disagree. "We feel the age of 12 is really, really young," said Norma Frances Lopez of the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs, who picked corn as a child.

The employers' side was represented by Frank Gasperini of the National Council of Agricultural Employers, who said child labor probably isn't necessary for farm productivity but provides opportunity for work, and western North Carolina vegetable farmer Keith Darnell, who said, "I don't see anything wrong with it. ... I picked when I was 12, worked for $1 an hour. It was hard, but it didn't hurt me." The story's web page is here.

Mississippi River flood: rural invades urban as man battles nature

Joel Achenbach, the author of Why Things Are & Why Things Aren't, is one of our best explanatory journalists, and he shows his stuff in The Washington Post today, describing what could be called a rural invasion of urban territory as the Mississippi River's record or near-record flood crest (depending on location)  moves south:

"The snakes are out. And the bears. The gators. The jumbo rodents known as nutria. The feral hogs. They seek higher ground as the floodwaters advance, and that can mean the top of a levee or in someone’s back yard. Herds of deer have clumped on tiny islands in an ancient swamp that is becoming a lake." (Associated Press photo by Gerald Herbert)

Achenbach's man-vs.-nature story is mainly about the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' efforts to prevent breaches of vulnerable levees, and makes a point that shows his skill for explanation: "A flood exists in four dimensions, including time — because a long-duration flood can be more problematic than one that crests and recedes quickly." (Read more) In a blog item, Achenbach pays tribute to John McPee's The Control of Nature.

One Senate race among several that show Democrats' need to reconnect with rural voters

"Jon Tester, United States senator, is face down in the mud." So begins Andrew Romano for his really good Newsweek story about Tester, who does farm work most weekends as he faces a difficult re-election bid in Montana next year: one that could prove pivotal for the nation and say something about Democrats' relationship to rural America. (Newsweek photo by Aaron Huey)

"His rural constituency will help determine who controls Congress, and perhaps even the presidency, after 2012," Romano writes. "When Rep. Denny Rehberg, Montana’s best-known Republican, launched his own Senate bid in February, Tester’s chances for reelection plummeted. He’s only the tip of the rural iceberg. According to Charlie Cook, the Capitol Hill handicapper, nine Senate races now qualify as 'tossups.' Four will test the staying power of Democratic incumbents: Ben Nelson in Nebraska, Claire McCaskill in Missouri, Joe Manchin in West Virginia, and Tester. Three will take place in states where Democrats are retiring: Virginia, New Mexico, and North Dakota. And all seven of these contests will largely be decided by people more like Jon Tester than Chuck Schumer," the prominent, liberal senator from New York.

"The math is simple," Romano argues. "If Democrats can’t connect with small-town voters, they will lose the Senate next November—and make it difficult for President Obama, who held his own among rural Americans in 2008, to recapture states like North Carolina that put him over the top last time around." In Montana, Tester has trouble from both sides, because liberal Democrats are unhappy with his relatively conservative voting record.

"It’s clear that being a rural Democrat in the age of Obama is much trickier than just acting like one," Romano writes. "In other states, other rural Democrats are facing the same challenge as Tester, or will be soon: a new, wired landscape that lets them draw support from every corner of the country but holds them to a one-size-fits-all standard of urban liberalism in return. It’s Tip O’Neill’s famous axiom in reverse: now all politics is national." (Read more)

Newspaper calls out U.S. Chamber of Commerce for misrepresenting its material in political ad

It has become common for political commercials to attribute their assertions to newspapers, to enhance the ads' often questionable credibility. That was once limited to newspapers' editorial commentary and reporting of verified facts, but now the ad makers are using such attributions to lend credence to candidates' own assertions that the newsapers report, or just making it up. Newspapers should object to these tactics, and the Tonawanda News in New York did just that this week, with what Politico calls "a double-barreled rebuttal."

The paper published an editorial and a news story, the latter done by its sister paper, the Niagra Gazette, "in order to provide a greater measure of objectivity in its reporting," the News said in an editor's note atop the story by Rick Pfeiffer of Greater Niagra Newspapers. The News objected to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce ad for Jane Corwin, a candidate in next week's special congressional election, that attributed the headline “Corwin: End harmful regulations” to the News. "It’s that sourcing the News objects to," Burgess Everett of Politico writes.

“There was nothing ever written by the Tonawanda News that would have supported those claims,” News Managing Editor Eric DuVall told Pfeiffer, who reports that the story that appeared on the date mentioned in the commercial "featured none of the claims or quotes contained in the TV ad." He notes that the Chamber did likewise with other papers: "The snippets of text that are featured so prominently in the ad appear to be taken from the editorial or opinion pages of newspapers ranging from the Daily News to the Tonawanda News."

The News editorial, headlined "Chamber ad a shameful misdirection," said, "The advertisement they produced is a blatant attempt to legitimize her flagging campaign by implying that her policy positions are endorsed by this newspaper, when in reality they are not." (Read more)

Young but accomplished farm broadcaster killed

Lindsay Hill, president of the National Association of Farm Broadcasting, was killed in a traffic accident yesterday. She was driving a pickup truck that collided with an SUV at the intersection of Ohio 41 and 235. "The driver of the other vehicle was treated for non-life threatening injuries," reports Tom Steever of Brownfield Network.

Hill, 31, recently joined Farm Journal Media, which produces "Ag Day" and "U.S. Farm Report" for television. "Until late last year she was co-owner of ABN Radio and the Buckeye Ag Radio Network, based in Columbus," Steever writes.

“She was a leader in the application of social media for agricultural advocacy and was always on the cutting edge of what was happening in the agricultural community. If you’re a farmer in Ohio, you knew and loved Lindsay,” Springfield public-relations executive Melanie Wilt, an Ohio State classmate of Hill's, told Matt Sanctis of the Springfield News-Sun. “She influenced more people and achieved in her young career what few people do in a lifetime.” (Read more)

Elected jailer in Ky. stops sending inmates to do work in districts that he didn't carry

As what some of us call Decoration Day approaches, here's a new twist on local political patronage, from Anders Eld of the Harlan Daily Enterprise in southeastern Kentucky: "With Memorial Day 10 days away, the grass remains high in a lot of cemeteries around the county. (Photo of unnamed, mowed cemetery in the region by Barbara Turner) In recent years the cutting has been done by jail inmates through the work-release program, but something has changed this year."

Myrtle Turner blew the whistle on Jailer Curt Stallard at a meeting of the Fiscal Court, the county's legislative body: “He made the remark to me that he would not send them to mow grass or pick up garbage. All because he lost the vote in our area,” the Big Laurel community on the north side of Pine Mountain. A member of the Fiscal Court said he had heard likewise.

Stallard confirmed the account. He first told Eld, “I’m just cutting what I can. I don’t have as many prisoners as in the past,” but when asked why certain areas of the county are getting left out, he replied, “Because I want to do it that way. And I do believe I lost those districts, and I have said that to some that have called.” (Read more)

Advocate of controls on use of antibiotics in animals reveals most are used in animal feed

A letter from the Food and Drug Administration "indicates 74 percent of the 28.6 million pounds of antibiotics given to food-producing animals in 2009 were distributed through medicated feed," Agri-Pulse reports. "Another 16 percent were disseminated via water, and only 3 percent were sold for use via injection."

Democratic Rep. Louise Slaughter of New York, right, went public with the letter last week, saying "These statistics tell the tale of an industry that is rampantly misusing antibiotics in an attempt to cover up filthy, unsanitary living conditions among animals. As they feed antibiotics to animals to keep them health, they are making our families sicker by spreading these deadly strains of bacteria."

Slaughter, the only microbiologist in Congress (with a degree from the University of Kentucky), believes distributing drugs through feed causes inconsistent dosing which leads to the "development of antimicrobial-resistant microorganisms in cattle, hogs and chickens consumed by humans," Agri-Pulse reports. Slaughter has been pushing "legislation aimed at 'preserving the effectiveness of antibiotics for the treatment of human disease'" since 2007. For Slaughter's news release, click here.

FDA confirmed that 80 percent of antibiotics are sold for agricultural use, adding "the majority of drugs used in animal feed are approved for both therapeutic and production purposes." The agency plans to release updated data that rates the importance of certain antibiotics in human medicine as a companion document to its current guide on antibiotic use in livestock, Agri-Pulse reports. The weekly Washington newsletter is a subscription-only service, but offers a free trial subscription.

Drillers hold on to drinking-water quality data; major Marcellus firm fined for ruining water wells

The gas drilling industry claims Duke University research linking drilling to methane contamination in water has no validity because it lacks baseline information for comparison, but such data does exist. "It just wasn't available to the Duke researchers, or to the public," reports Abrahm Lustgarten of ProPublica, whose reporting has helped focus attention on the issue.

"The industry is sitting on hundreds of thousands of pre- and post-drilling data sets," said Robert Jackson, one of the Duke researchers, told Lustgarten. " I asked them for the data and they wouldn't share it." The industry has been collecting pre-drilling water samples from private wells since late 2008, when drilling in Dimock, Pa., was linked to water contamination for two reasons, Lustgarten reports: "To get to the bottom of water contamination problems" and "to protect itself when people complain that drilling harmed their drinking water."

Chesapeake Energy, which has tested thousands of private water supplies in the Marcellus Shale, right, "says its findings demonstrate that much of the water was contaminated before drilling began," Lustgarten reports. It remains unclear if Pennsylvania environmental officials have access to the industry data, which leaves the validity and usefulness of industry data uncertain. (Read more, subscription required)

The state today fined Chesapeake more than $1 million "for contaminating private water supplies with methane in Bradford County. Officials called it the single largest state fine ever for an oil or gas operator in the state," The Associated Press reports.

First official report blames huge mine disaster on Massey Energy's 'deviate' corporate culture

Faking safety checks and disabling monitors for explosive methane were common practices at the Massey Energy mine where an explosion killed 29 coal miners last April, and the company could have prevented the blast with basic safety procedures, the first official report on the disaster said today. To download a 5 MB PDF of the report, click here.

The report was written by an investigative team working for the state of West Virginia and headed by Davitt McAteer, right, former head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration. It blames the deaths on "a corporate culture in which wrongdoing became acceptable, where deviation became the norm," Howard Berkes of National Public Radio reports.

In his Coal Tattoo blog, Ken Ward Jr. of The Charleston Gazette focuses on a Massey foreman "who it appears didn’t always perform the important mine safety checks required of him." Ward reports that McAteer told the families of the dead miners, "This company ran this mine in a profoundly reckless manner." (Read more) Ward also has a useful roundup of early coverage; here is his breaking-news report.

West Virginians take all three prizes in 'Re-Imagining Appalachia' photography competition

The University of Kentucky's Appalachian Center has announced the winners of its “Re-Imaging Appalachia” photo contest, created to "give exposure to interesting photographs that challenge the negative stereotypical notions of what it means to be Appalachian," UK says in a press release. All the winners were from West Virginia, the only state considered entirely Appalachian.

First place and a $500 prize went to professional photographer Michele N. Coleman of Parkersburg, W.Va., for her photo of a high-school senior posing on a hillside with her cello. "I think the image portrays several emotions," Coleman said. "One would be that she is rugged yet refined, simple yet elegant."

Second place and $150 and went to Toril Lavender of Huntington, W.Va., for her photo of The Huntington Dance Theatre's presentation of "The Nutcracker Ballet." Lavender’s black-and-white photo, all the rights to which are reserved, initially tied with Coleman’s, requiring an additional vote by the judges. Third place and $100 went to Troy Lilly of Cross Lanes, W.Va., for his photo of waterfalls and a swirling pool in Blackwater Falls State Park.

"The photos were judged based on the quality of composition, subject matter, technical skill, creativity, and theme appropriateness," the release says. "Each photo was ranked by these various qualities on a scale from 1 to 5, by each judge independently. An average of scores determined the rankings." To view the photos and the other 150 entries, click here.

Scientists, planners, insurer: Weather extremes are 'global weirding' caused partly by humans

The Union of Concerned Scientists, which was formed to warn of the risks of a global nuclear holocaust, held a conference call with reporters yesterday to sound the alarm bell about global warming. Deborah Zabarenko of Reuters listened and wrote, "Heavy rains, deep snowfalls, monster floods and killing droughts are signs of a 'new normal' of extreme U.S. weather events fueled by climate change, scientists and government planners said on Wednesday."

"It's a new normal and I really do think that global weirding is the best way to describe what we're seeing," said climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe of Texas Tech University. "We are used to certain conditions and there's a lot going on these days that is not what we're used to, that is outside our current frame of reference."

"Hayhoe, other scientists, civic planners and a manager at the giant Swiss Re reinsurance firm all cited human-caused climate change as a factor pushing this shift toward more extreme weather," Zabarenko writes.

Maine poised to let teens work longer hours

The nation's most rural state appears ready to let teenagers work longer hours during school times, partly at the behest of service- and tourism-related industries. Last night the Maine House of Representatives voted 78-69, almost entrely on party lines, to let minors work 24 hours a week during the school term, up from 20, and to let them work until 10:15 p.m. on school nights, up from 10 p.m.

"Bill supporters argued that the current law — the most restrictive in New England — placed unnecessary financial burdens on teens and their families and was unrealistic given the balancing act that many young people already manage," reports Kevin Miller of the Bangor Daily News. "Democrats countered that allowing teens to work up to six hours a day during the school week — up from the current limit of four hours — would barely leave time for them to complete homework and get adequate sleep." (Read more)

Farm subsidy cuts 'only thing that appears to be on the board right now,' Republican senator says

Here's the latest sign that farm subsidies will be cut: a story from Dave Helling in the Kansas City Star, which begins, "Liberals and conservatives aiming to close trillion-dollar federal budget gaps may soon reach a rare consensus on a common target for spending cuts: the American farmer."

Helling notes, "Farm advocates argue that while agriculture is ready to do its part to reduce the deficit, farm programs — cobbled together over many decades since the Great Depression — protect a system that delivers high-quality, safe food at a relatively low cost."

He quotes Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo.: “I don’t think all of the cuts need to come from rural communities and farm families. And that’s the only thing that appears to be on the board right now.” (Read more)

Postal Service again asks to end Saturday mail delivery; big deficit may make it more likely

Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe asked Congress yesterday to let the Postal Service do something Congress has refused for 30 years to let it do: end Saturday mail delivery. "Lawmakers may be ready to grant" the request because the service is expecting a deficit of more than $8 billion, Ledyard King of Gannett News Service reports, noting bipartisan support from some senators.

But some who heard Donahoe at a committee hearing objected. Democratic Sen. Jon Tester of Montana said, "Cutting one day of delivery is a nail in the coffin that only weakens rural and frontier communities, where reliable postal service is a lifeline," King reports. "Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said any move to cut back on delivery days could spark "a death spiral" for the agency," Sean Reilly of Federal Times reports.

"Their constituents would be disproportionately hurt, they say, because they rely heavily on Saturday delivery of medicine, farm equipment and other critical items," King writes. "Those lawmakers also say they are not particularly comforted by the Postal Service's pledge to keep local post offices open on Saturdays because so many residents in rural America live miles away from them."  In testimony before the Postal Regulatory Commission last September, the undersigned said much the same, arguing that the mail is a larger part of the civic infrastructure in rural America, and the Government Accountability Office found likewise. The commission recently told the Postal Service that it needed to study the rural impact before ending Saturday delivery.

Texas lawmakers allow rural hospitals to hire doctors, to help relieve shortages

A new law in Texas will allow rural hospitals to hire doctors, "ending a longstanding ban," Alexandra Wilson Pecci reports for HealthLeaders Media. The law applies to hospitals in counties of 50,000 population or less, sole community hospitals and critical access hospitals, which get slightly lartger Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements in return for limiting beds, admissions and patient stays.

Pecci writes, "Physician recruitment is already a problem in rural communities, so prohibiting employment of physicians was another roadblock for Texas hospitals, especially since nearby states allow physician employment, proponents of the law say."

Don McBeath, director of advocacy of communications for the Texas Organization of Rural and Community Hospitals, told Pecci, "We're very optimistic that this will be huge step toward enhancing access to healthcare in rural Texas by virtue of being able to recruit more physicians into rural areas." (Read more)

Record flood, levee breach lead to talk of relocating river towns and expanding flood plain

Will the record or near-record flooding on the Mississippi River and its tributaries lead to a fundamental change in river management, and relocation of some towns along the river? Yes, if some experts have their way. (NASA photo: Cairo, Ill., at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio; the levee in Missouri was breached to eliminate flood risk to Cairo and other towns)

"Proponents of such a potentially vast undertaking say homeowners and businesses normally resistant to government buyout offers have suddenly become far more receptive, as they begin to assess the damages wrought to their properties," Paul Quinlan of Environment & Energy News reports, quoting Nicholas Pinter, professor of geology and environmental resources and policy at Southern Illinois University: "The main difference is we're going into communities that are still wet. We've heard a lot of enthusiasm for taking opportunities now to move out of the flood plain."

Pinter said Federal Emergency Management Agency representatives spoke with Illinois state officials and other experts in a conference call yesterday to discuss the possibility of buyouts: "They've said that if all the loose ends can be pulled together, they will devote considerable resources and manpower. There are in-state and federal resources waiting to make this happen." (Read more, subscription required)

Rural students' reading levels below suburban counterparts, slightly below urban score

A comparison of reading scores of third graders in rural, suburban and urban areas show rural students are behind. The Carsey Insitute, an applied and policy research organization at the University of New Hampshire, found the average reading score of third-grade rural students on a 212-point scale was 122, almost 8 points lower than the suburban average, Diette Courrege of Education Week reports on the Rural Education blog. "Urban students' scores were an average of six points lower than the suburban average."

Carsey said in its brief, "Although these differences are not large, even small differences in third grade reading achievement can have important effects on later education outcomes." Researchers identified poverty and location as two major factors in the achievement gaps, Courrege reports. They believe availability of preschool, parental education levels, and student and teacher educational opportunities are all influenced by location and affect achievement scores of rural children designated as struggling readers at the beginning of kindergarten. (Read more)

Cheating at fishing could be criminal in Texas

"A bill that would make it a misdemeanor — and in some cases a felony — to misrepresent the size, weight or provenance of a fish in a fishing tournament" recently passed the Texas Senate without dissent, Erica Goode of The New York Times reports. (Bettmann/Corbis photo)

"Some people are literally taking scissors and cutting off the tail of a fish to make it fit into a certain category," Republican Sen. Glenn Hegar, the bill's sponsor, told Goode. "Unfortunately, they're not playing by the rules." This bill is intended to address this sort of cheating found in some high-level bass fishing tournaments.

The bill will extend current "fishing laws to include saltwater and freshwater tournaments" and add "the provisions about misrepresentation," Goode writes. For tournaments under $10,000 a Class A misdemeanor charge would be issued for cheating and in tournaments over $10,000 cheating could land violators two to ten years in prison, a $10,000 fine and a third-degree felony record.

Many anglers like Tommy Hagler of Abilene, who told Goode that large prizes and the difficult economy have made cheating get out of hand, are pleased the bill has passed. (Read more)

Telecommunication deregulation: an economic boost or technology divide for Wisconsin?

The Wisconsin Assembly recently approved a telecommunication deregulation bill that would limit the Public Service Commission's ability to investigate consumer complaints and oversee phone rates. The changes, which mimic business-driven changes in several neighboring states including Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Michigan, "would mark the first updates to Wisconsin's telecommunications statutes in nearly 20 years," Todd Richmond of The Associated Press reports. However, many question whether the law will lead Wisconsin into the telecommunications revolution or create a larger divide between rural and urban communities.

Supporters "insist the plan will eliminate outdated red tape, create more competition and encourage providers to invest in wider access to broadband," Richmond writes. The Wisconsin Technology Council and Wired Wisconsin claim deregulation could create or retain 50,000 jobs and add $2.6 billion to the economy, BizTimes Daily reports.

Opponents believe deregulation would result in "higher phone bills with little in return" and providers would focus broadband efforts in more populated urban areas neglecting rural areas, Richmond reports. Sen. Kathleen Vinehout of Alma said during Senate negotiations, "We're pitting urban against rural. The consumer has absolutely no recourse under this bill." (Read more)

Independent investigative report on mine blast will hit Massey, W.Va's relationship with coal

An independent investigator for the state of West Virginia is expected to release a report as early as tomorrow detailing the causes of the April 2010 disaster that killed 29 coal miners at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia. The report is expected to hit the company hard and question the No. 2 coal-producing state's relationship with the industry, Manuel Quinones of Environment & Energy News reports.

"We kind of hit hard on West Virginia as a state that is a big proponent of coal," said Celeste Monforton, an occupational health expert and former Mine Safety and Health Administration official who worked with former MSHA boss Davitt McAteer on the investigation. "We challenge the state to look introspectively at its relationship with industry."

The report is "expected to include previously unreleased information from numerous witnesses," Quinones writes, and to have "hard hitting" chapters on Massey. The report, which will be made available online, is about 120 pages and details everything from the rescue and recovery efforts to local political support for the industry, Quinones reports.

McAteer's report, unlike those by MSHA and the state Office of Miners Health, Safety and Training, takes a broader look at Massey's safety practices and also "state and federal oversight failures that could have played a role in the disaster," Ken Ward of the Charleston Gazette reports.

Boom times for farmers and agribusinesses don't mean likewise for shrinking small towns

Here's a story that illustrates the increasing disconnect between small towns and the increasingly larger farms that surround them, by Adam Belz in the Des Moines Register: "Aside from some scattered bright spots, the biggest boom in farmland prices in 30 years has done little to reverse the gradual decline of small towns across Iowa. The same is true in agricultural communities across the country, according to scholars who track rural economies."

Belz quotes Iowa State University sociology professor Cornelia Flora, who studies agriculture and rural poverty: "We have this decoupling of farms from their particular small rural communities. We don't have the multiplier effect that we assumed we would always have." He writes from Guthrie Center, above, a county seat of 1,569 souls, near which a square mile of farmland recently sold for $1.3 million, thanks to "near-record corn and soybean prices."

In Guthrie County, "Young people generally leave for college and don't move back," Belz writes. "As farm acreages get bigger and equipment gets better, the connection between farms and nearby towns weakens, Flora said. Farmers might buy their equipment from a dealership in another county, on the Internet, or directly from the manufacturer." And with a Des Moines nall 45 minues away, about half the storefronts on Main Street "are either vacant or don't keep regular hours."

Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. data "statistics show that small-town banks that lend money primarily to farmers have strong balance sheets, but little demand for loans outside of agriculture. Community bankers have resorted to philanthropy when trying to jump-start growth on Main Street. They donate and raise money for fine arts centers, local grocery stores and bowling alleys that wouldn't start up in the free market."

Farmers and agribusinesses are flush, but another Iowa State sociologist, Paul Lasley, told Benz, "Increased individual profitability of a farm or a firm only benefits a community if the profits are reinvested in the community and new jobs are created and wage rates go up, and I'm not sure that it's translated into either of those right now. It may be too early to see the benefits, and in some cases there may not be a lot of local benefit." (Read more)

Vilsack says USDA will follow much advice stemming from study of its bad civil-rights history

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, right, announced that his department would adhere to many of the recommendations found in an independent, "two-year study that looked at USDA's history of discrimination and its ongoing civil-rights failings," Krissah Thompson of The Washington Post reports. The more than 200 recommendations include "suggestions that the agency's chief diversity officer monitor hiring, that farm service officials be required to "thoroughly" explain reasons for denying loans to minorities and women, and that the USDA mount public relations efforts to change the agency's reputation by emphasizing its focus on diversity," Thompson added. (Associated Press photo by Charlie Neibergall)

Since 2009, Vilsack has offered settlements on many "decades-old discrimination claims by Hispanic, female, black and Native American farmers" and has reduced the number of pending equal-employment complaints to 461, which agency officials told Thompson is the lowest ever. But Vilsack's attempt to rectify the situation and start a "zero tolerance" policy leaves many wondering if discrimination in USDA is really going away, she writes. (Read more)

Reduced federal funds for meth-lab cleanups means local agencies have to pay the bills

All over the nation, local and state governments are having to pay for the cleanup of methampheatine labs, a task once funded by a federal program that has been cut back. Collin Binkley of The Columbus Dispatch reports, "The pool of money that Ohio enforcement agencies use to clean up the hazardous waste created by methamphetamine labs will soon run dry" perhaps as early as this week. Ohio has been spending $1,800 a day on meth-lab cleanup. (Read more)

Coal industry's political contributions suggested as reason for failure of mine-safety bill

The defeat of a mine-safety bill, proposed in Congress following the Upper Big Branch coal mine disaster in West Virginia last April, has been linked to the mining industry doubling up its political contributions to legislators before the December 2010 vote, the Los Angeles Times reports. Analyzing data provided by the Federal Election Commission, Doug Smith of the Times found "at least 144 members who voted against the bill received mining industry money, including two members who supported an earlier version." (Read more)

Rural areas sacrificed to prevent city floods

The term "national sacrifice area" is sometimes applied to a place that is or might be drastically changed by government-regulated human activity. The accuracy of that appellation varies, but there can be no question that it applies to the Atchafalaya River basin in Louisiana, which the federal government is flooding today to eliminate the real risk of catastrophic flooding in Louisiana cities on the Mississippi River, such as Baton Rouge and Katrina-devastated New Orleans.

This is not the first time that rural people and communities have been sacrificed for the preservation of urban places. Earlier in this flood, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers blasted levees in Missouri to prevent the flooding of Cairo, Ill., at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. But the phenomenon goes back much farther. (Los Angeles Times map by Lorena I. Elebee)

"There’s a long history here, one that reveals big mistakes by leaders of the conservation movement during the 20th Century. They believed that wise use entailed controlling the nation’s rivers by building levees and draining wetlands to create farmland and promote other development," Timothy Collins, assistant director of the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs at Western Illinois University, wrote recently in the Daily Yonder. "The technological solutions of the past made money for many of our forebears and salved their consciences in terms of their treatment of the Earth. But they also left a legacy of problems for the present. Use trumped wisdom, and now we pay for it." (Read more)

For today's coverage from The Advocate of Baton Rouge, click here; from The Times-Picayune of New Orleans, here; and from The Advertiser of Lafayette, to the west of the flood zone, here.

Rural journalists note the death of bin Laden; at least one points out hatred at home

Many rural weekly newspapers abandoned their local-only policy last week to give notice to the killing of terror mastermind Osama bin Laden. Some did front-page stories with local reaction; the Todd County Standard of Elkton, Ky., gave it no notice on the front, but filled an inside page with the names of all the victims of the 9/11/01 attacks and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, overprinted with a gray image of bin Laden and a quote from President Obama. (Click on image for larger version)

Some rural weeklies ran commentary about the end of the hunt for bin Laden. We especially liked one that appeared this week, in The Woodford Sun of Versailles, Ky., by occasional columnist Susan Dunlap. She wrote that Bin Laden was "the Boogeyman" to her daughter, who turned 16 on 9/11. Then she turned to a local concern, writing:

"Is there an enemy -- a boogeyman or boogeywoman, if you will -- of local threat? A look through the police reports published in last week's Sun prompts me to answer yes. According to an account, someone left a dead raccoon covered in fecal matter on the steps of St. Paul's A.M.E. Church in Versailles. A more colloquial way of stating what happened: A dead 'coon' covered in s#*% was left on the steps of a church traditionally attended by blacks."

Dunlap said the news should have been on the front page. "At the least, it's the sort of news that ought to make us sit up and take notice. . . . In a world that has shifted its concerns toward an anti-Muslim bias, what happened at St. Paul's is a reminder that it's too early, at least in our county, to declare. the war against prejudice against African-Americans a finished effort." She went on to shame the perpetrator, writing, "What happened on Douglas Street is proof that there is a boogeyman among us."

The Sun does not put articles online, but we have scanned the column so you can read it here.

Rural people 5 times likelier than urbanites to be treated for eye injuries in ERs; let's ask why

"Rural Americans were five times more likely than urban residents to be treated in emergency departments for eye injuries in 2008," reports Medical News Today, citing a report from the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Neither source offered a possible reason for this phenomenon, but that's an open invitation for rural reporters to ask emergency-room doctors and nurses about it. When you find out, let us know and we'll tell the world.

UPDATE: AHRQ data show that rural Americans use emergency rooms at a rate 39 percent higher than urban Americans, but that accounts for only part of the disparity in eye treatment.

Rural journalism wins Sigma Delta Chi Awards

The 2010 Sigma Delta Chi Awards for non-deadline reporting by smaller newspapers went to an extetsive series on "The Rural Health Care Gap" by David Wahlberg in the Wisconsin State Journal (circulation 50,000 to 100,000) and Paula Horton of the Tri-City Herald in southern Washington (under 50,000) for a two-part series on domestic violence. The Forecaster, a weekly newspaper in Maine, won the non-daily investigative reporting award for reporting on use of restraints on children in public schools, and The Times of Gainesville, Ga., won the small-daily award for public-service journalism for a series on the Chattahoochee River, above. The awards were announced today by the Society of Professional Journalists, formerly Sigma Delta Chi.

Wahlberg began his first story: "Throughout rural Wisconsin, clinics are struggling to find doctors. Hospitals are dropping nursing homes and doing away with delivering babies. Pharmacies are closing." The newspaper added in a graphic, "Good, consistent health care is hard to come by all across rural America. The consequences can be devastating." The series can be a road map for reporting on rural health in any state, and SPJ has made PDFs of all the pages available here.

The Washington series was prompted by "the recent deaths of two young women, allegedly at the hands of their ex-boyfriends, within two weeks of each other," Horton wrote. The series included short biographies and photos of domestic-violence victims in the Pasco-Kennewick-Richland region. The PDFs are here.

The restraints investigated by The Forecaster's Emily Parkhurst are defined as therapeutic, but have caused injuries to children. The story is available in online segments; links appear after the award's listing on an SPJ web page, here.

The public-service award to The Times came not long after the paper was embarassed by the failure to report its editor's drunk-driving arrest. Ashley Fielding and Sara Guevara did the series on the Chattahoochee, which can be read here.

The award for investigative reporting by daily newspapers of less than 50,000 circulation went to the St. Cloud Times for "Gambling on Growth," a series by Britt Johnsen and Kirsti Mahron on "the public cost of Central Minnesota's housing boom and bust." The public cost? "Government leaders who borrowed money to build utilities and roads that go nowhere are trying to figure out how to pay the bill," the paper said. Its pages are here.

The awards for feature reporting in dailies of less than 50,000 circulation went to Daniel Person and Michael Gibney of the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, for a four-part series on the return of the gray wolf to Montana, Wyoming and Idaho. The PDFs are here.

Mike Tyree and David Miller of Northern Michigan's Traverse City Record-Eagle won the award for editorial writing in small dailies, for editorials about police misconduct. The PDFs are here. Jim Kenyon of the Valley News in Lebanon, N.H. (and White River Junction, Vt.) won the award for general column writing in small dailies. His work is here.

WCHS Radio in Charleston, W.Va., won a breaking-news award for small-market stations for its initial coverage of the Upper Big Branch mine disaster. The small-market award for public service in television journalism went to Rhonda McBride, Jonathan Hartford and Amy Modig of KTUU-TV in Anchorage for "Pandora's Bottle," about the effects of alcohol on the unborn.

You might say there was another rural winner, in a newspaper that is rarely thought of as rural but probably has the best rural coverage of any American paper, because it devotes staff and space to it. Dan Barry of The New York Times won the big-paper award for column writing, for "This Land," a column that often visits rural places. Only one of the columns he entered was rural, but we note the award in order to recognize the good work that he does.

Peabody Energy victim of widespread hoax

The No. 1 U.S. coal company, Peabody Energy, fell victim this week to an Internet hoax staged by the activist group Coal is Killing Kids. The group, which says it is "an environmental and public health group that aims to challenge Big Coal's expensive lobbying against sensible updates to the Clean Air Act," announced a "Coal Cares" initiative and website through a fake news release supposedly from Peabody. The release offered help for asthma sufferers living near coal-fired power plants.

Coal is Killing Kids said in a separate release, responding to the hoax, "that it worked with the Yes Lab, a project of The Yes Men" who aim to publicly humiliate "big corporations who put profits ahead of everything else" by impersonating them, Ashley Haynes of CNN reports.

"Peabody is proud to help hundreds of millions of people live longer and better through coal-fueled electricity," the company said. "A growing collection of studies demonstrate the correlation between electricity fueled by low-cost coal and improvement in health, longevity and quality of life." (Read more)

Feds and wildlife group reach agreement about review of species for endangered list

The federal government plans to "work through a backlog of more than 250 imperiled animal and plant species over the next six years to decide if they need protection under the Endangered Species Act," Matthew Brown of The Associated Press reports in AgWeek. This announcement comes as part of a pending court agreement between the Interior Department and environmental group, WildEarth Guardians. As a part of the agreement, the group has agreed to "limit the number of petitions it files."

The "backlog has been made worse by lawsuits that have bogged down the Fish and Wildlife Service and prevented it from doing needed scientific reviews and restoration work," Brown reports, citing Deputy Interior Secretary David Hayes. (Read more)

Internet connectivity expands educational opportunities in rural communities: one example

Super-fast Internet connections are bridging the gap between rural and urban education. In Redwood Falls, Minn., 19-year-old father Brett Welsh (left) attends college at an Internet learning center inside a former grocery store, the Minnesota Post reports. While some communities still wait for connectivity and opportunity, "Redwood Falls has reached across a divide that defines the new line between poverty and prosperity in rural Minnesota."

"A local bank, the city and Jackpot Junction kicked in $25,000 each" for development of the learning center, local leader Harry Davis told reporter Sharon Schmickle. "Local residents and businesses donated everything from furniture for the lobby to art for the walls."

Through the learning center, Redwood Falls is able "to bring higher education closer to home for the single parents, displaced workers and others who can't or don't want to break small-town ties," Schmickle writes. It also helps the city recruit and maintain dependable employers. "The first thing companies would ask is, 'Where are your higher education opportunities?'," Julie Rath of the Redwood Area Development Corporation told Schmickle. (Read more)

Amid growing climate-change doubts, animals provide evidence, and every state has a story

Animal behavior is providing signs of, and clues to, climate change. That's the point of the final story in a three-part series in the Charlotte Observer, "Climate of change: the reshaping of North Carolina." (National Geographic Society photo)

"Polls show Americans are increasingly dubious about global warming, even as most climate scientists say they're ever more sure that it's real," Bruce Henderson writes. "Oblivious to science and politics, Carolina wrens (above) and cedar waxwings seem to signal climate change with their wings." He reports that 18 of the 20 most common backyard bird species "have shifted their winter ranges northward over the past 40 years, national data show. The average distance was 116 miles." (Read more)

Just about every state and locality has a climate-change story. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is illustrating the state-by-state impacts, and response to them, with a short story about each state. The 50-part series began on April 22, Earth Day Today's is about Ohio. For the stories, click here.

Study finds poorer health in Appalachian coalfield, especially near mountaintop mines

Health is pooer in Appalachian counties where coal is mined, especially those with mountaintop mining, according to a study published in this month's issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

The study, conducted by the West Virginia University School of Medicine, surveyed residents of Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia by telephone and "asked questions about how many poor mental and physical health days they had experienced in the previous 30 days," reports Pam Kasey of The State Journal in West Virginia. "Residents of mountaintop mining counties reported, on average, 18 more unhealthy days per year than did the other populations."

“We don’t know exactly how this (mining) affects the air and water,” co-author Michael Hendryx, associate professor in the medical school's Department of Community Medicine, told Kasey. "Hendryx published a controversial study in 2009 that found better health and greater economic prosperity in Appalachian counties with no coal mining than in those with coal mining operations," Kasey notes. "He and a co-author concluded in that study that the costs of illness and premature death outweigh the economic benefits of the coal industry. A National Mining Association-commissioned an analysis of that 2009 study suggested that it had failed to consider the effects of obesity, diabetes and alcohol consumption." (Read more)

Meth makers invade Amish territory in Ohio

The Amish communities in rural areas of Ohio's Holmes and Wayne counties, about 90 minutes south of Cleveland, are being invaded by methamphetamine manufacturers. "In March, authorities raided a rural home in Holmes County. . . seizing what officials called 'yet another methamphetamine lab'," John Caniglia of The Plain Dealer reports. The Amish are worried.

"I don't profess to be totally cognizant of what is going on, but from observation and following the police blotter, you can see that it is here," Paul Miller, director of the Amish and Mennonite Heritage Center, told Caniglia. Amish church leaders are meeting with law enforcement to learn more about the drug. In Millersburg, over 150 Amish men and women gathered for a meeting, Caniglia reports. Authorities say meth production can go "unnoticed in rural sheds and farm fields," making the Amish community an easy target. (Read more)

Judge throws out one suit aimed at blocking federal coal leasing in Powder River Basin

A judge has ruled in favor of the federal government in a coal leasing case we reported last August. Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly "rejected an attempt by environmentalists to challenge the upcoming sale of federal coal reserves in Wyoming's Powder River Basin," The Associated Press reports.

Defenders of Wildlife, WildEarth Guardians and the Sierra Club filed the lawsuit last August based on "worries that burning the coal could make climate change worse," but Kollar-Kotelly said the groups failed to adequately support their claim of a flaw in the Interior Department's leasing program, AP reports. Another lawsuit by the group is pending. (Read more)

Duke U. study links gas drilling and fracturing to presence of methane in drinking water

"For the first time, a scientific study has linked natural-gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing with a pattern of drinking water contamination," Abram Lustgarten reports for ProPublica. The study, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests "potential for widespread contamination of rural drinking water from drilling in the Marcellus Shale under Pennsylvania, New York and other states," Mike Soraghan writes for Greenwire.

The drilling industry has pooh-poohed the concerns, and is criticizing the study, but "Some of these landowners have a legitimate complaint. It looks like there's a real problem," study author Robert Jackson, an environmental chemist at Duke University, told Greenwire.

"What the study did not find is evidence that hydraulic fracturing fluid or flowback waste is getting into drinking water," Soraghan notes. "The contamination was methane, the principal component in natural gas, which can build up inside houses and cause them to explode. The study found average methane was 17 times higher within 3,000 feet of drilling than water farther away." Industry groups said there is no proof that the methane came from drilling, and noted the lack of before-and-after data. (Read more, subscription required) For the ProPublica story, click here.

Chesapeake Energy delays public release of chemicals used in gas well that blew out

Chesapeake Energy, a leader in drillers' voluntary disclosure of chemicals use in hydraulic fracturing, complied with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection's request for a list of chemicals used at its well that blew out last month in Bradford County, but is reluctant to publicly disclose the information, Mike Soraghan of Greenwire reports for The New York Times.

Chesapeake spokesman Jim Gipson told Soraghan the company has complied with the state's request for a list of the chemicals, but "the company doesn't plan to file a report until it is done with 'completion,' the preparation for production after drilling." It is not clear when or if completion will happen and that bothers the official in charge of the disclosure registry, Soraghan reports. "You have to treat it like one that was completed," Mike Paque, executive director of the Ground Water Protection Council, said in an interview. "The chemicals were down the hole." (Read more)

In negotiations to raise national debt limit, both parties looking at cuts in farm programs

Cuts in farm programs appear to be a common element on which Republicans and Democrats can agree in negotiations to pass a bill increasing the federal debt limit. "Conservatives condemn them as intrusions into the free market, liberals denounce them for encouraging environmentally harmful overfarming, and both sides see them as a form of corporate welfare," Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times writes.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor "attended the first session of debt-limit negotiations on Thursday with a list of areas where he saw a potential agreement between Republicans and the White House, including farm subsidies," Steinhauer reports. While some disagreement exists, both parties tend to agree cuts are necessary, and even some strong supporters of the programs have said farmers should expect cuts.

"The scrutiny of farm programs is stronger than ever," Chuck Conner, president of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives, told Steinhauer. "It's not that farmers don't want to participate in deficit reduction, but at the same time, we hope people appreciate that all other federal programs have skyrocketed, which is why we are in this mess, and farm subsidies have not." (Read more)

Ogallala Aquifer, a vast reservoir that makes the High Plains green, is being depleted

Though "people continue to use" the Ogallala Aquifer, an underground water supply that lies beneath the High Plains ,"as if it were a renewable resource, some geologists fear it could dry up in as soon as 25 or 30 years," Katharine Seelye of The New York Times reports. (Science Daily map)

The aquifer spans 174,000 square miles and supplies water for residential, industrial, and agricultural use in eight states. It supplies the center-pivot irrigation systems that put green circles on the landscape in areas that are usually brown.

"The Ogallala was first pumped 100 years ago to irrigate farms and ranches," Seeyle writes. "It is being drained faster than nature can recharge it, especially in the most arid areas . . . where high winds accelerate the evaporation of what little moisture there is." (Read more)