Pawlenty's opposition to energy subsidies may signal change of attitude in Iowa on ethanol

For decades, presidential candidates have come to Iowa, home of the first presidential voting and thousands of corn growers, and endorsed federal subsidies for ethanol. That appears to be changing "with overall federal spending and deficits becoming such a major issue," reports Don Gonyea of National Public Radio.

The main sign came from former Gov. Tim Pawlenty of adjoining Minnesota, who announced his Republican candidacy in Iowa last week and said "We need to phase out subsidies across all sources of energy and all industries, including ethanol." That put him at odds with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, but in line with Arizona Sen. John McCain, who campaigned little in Iowa in 2008 but still won the nomination.

Pawlenty "believes times have changed enough to allow him to oppose ethanol subsidies," Gonyea reports. "Des Moines Register political columnist Kathie Obradovich says he may be right." Obradovich told him, "Tim Pawlenty is coming in at a time when the ethanol industry is mature — and some people think it may be oversaturated." The key, she said, is that ethanol be treated no differently than similar subsidies. (Read more)

UPDATE, June 6: Politico reports many GOP candidates still favor the subsidy.

At the same time, Republicans in Iowa are wondering whether their caucuses are losing relevance in the nominating process, report Karen Tumulty and Philip Rucker of The Washington Post, asking: "When the rest of the country is focusing on the economy, will Republicans in other states take their lead from the outcome of an eccentric process that has been dominated by social conservatives? And as the GOP looks to defeat an African American president who mobilized record numbers of young and minority voters four years ago, how relevant are the preferences of 200,000 or so caucusgoers in a rural state that is overwhelmingly white and significantly older than average?" (Read more)

Rust Belt states consider abolishing, consolidating or reining in small local jurisdictions

"With shortfalls nationwide that could reach $112 billion in the next fiscal year, states including Ohio, New Jersey, and Michigan are pushing school districts and local governments — each with its own officials and budgets — to share more services and to consolidate for the sake of efficiency and cost," Mark Niquette of Bloomberg News reports.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich "has suggested a bipartisan panel similar to the federal Base Closure and Realignment Commission to analyze consolidations and document the benefits," Niquette writes. Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels has clled for eliminating the state’s 1,008 "venerable but obsolete" township boards, long a target of reformers in the Hoosier State. Niquette's story also mentions a Pennsylvania bill "that would require consolidation among the commonwealth’s 2,652 boroughs — 30 percent of which have 1,000 or fewer residents, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Economic Development." (Read more)

Klan leader sentenced for drug trafficking

The founder of the Imperial Klans of America, which has been active in rural Western Kentucky, has been sentenced to four years in federal prison after being convicted of trafficking in methamphetamine and painkillers. Ron Edwards will have three years of supervised release after his prison term. His girlfriend, Christina Ann Gillette, was sentenced to a year and a day in federal prison and a year of supervised release, Erin Schmitt of the Madisonville Messenger reported. (Subscription required) Early this year, an appeals court overturned Edwards' conviction related to a racially motivated assault at the Meade County Fair.

Arizona town OKs 300-acre solar farm, nixing landowners who fear lower property values

The town council in Chino Valley, Ariz., has approved construction of a 300-acre solar-energy farm over the objection of adjoining landowners. "The meeting marked the end of a contentious debate between the state's largest utility and a group of town residents who have concerns about the farm," reports Jason Soifer of the Daily Courier in Prescott. (MapQuest image locates Chino Valley)

"Arizona Public Service now has the green light to buy 298 acres of the James Deep Well Ranch property for an $88 million solar farm project," Soifer writes. "SunEdison will build the farm, with nearly 81,000 photovoltaic panels, and then hand the keys over to the utility to run over the next 30 years." The utility will plant "trees between the fence and the roughly 70 properties that will eventually watch their serene backyard views turn partially to black." (Read more)

In an editorial, the Courier said, "this is not your typical NIMBY (not-in-my-backyard) drum-beating. By the time SunEdison builds and APS operates the nearly 81,000 photovoltaic panels - a 'sea of black,' in the words of Chino Valley Vice-Mayor Ron Romley - on what is now a wide open section of rural serenity, those homeowners, about 70 properties, will have a much different view of renewable energy's 'benefits.' Property values will likely take a hit - in fact, it's already happening." (Read more)

Latest chapter in threat to rural post offices

Reuters is the latest news outlet to write up the U.S. Postal Service's plan to close rural post offices in an effort to reduce its burgeoning budget deficit. Kevin Murphy writes from Freeport, Kansas: "Six days a week, the small American flag flutters in the shade of a cottonwood tree outside the post office in Freeport, Kansas, population 5. The flag, which means the post office is open, may come down for good later this year because Freeport is among about 2,000 postal outlets eyed for closure by the United States Postal Service. The vast majority are in small towns, officials said." (Read more)

Rural medical training programs have success, but live 'on the edge' of personnel and funding

With the Obama administration offering more funding to improve rural health care, Rural Training Track programs to steer medical students to rural areas are hoping to expand, a move that would benefit underserved areas.

"Over 62 million Americans live in rural America and there is a significant crisis in terms of having access to care for these people," said Amy Elizondo, vice president of program services at the National Rural Health Association. "There is a very uneven distribution of health care professionals and an acute shortage of primary care physicians in rural areas. If we can recruit and retain physicians to serve rural areas, we improve access for rural America." (University of Washington map; click for larger version)

RTT programs aim to educate family physician residents in rural environments with the hope they will continue to practice there, Candi Helseth reports in a deailed article for the Rural Assistance Center. "These residency programs are a proven model for addressing rural family physician workforce shortages, with more than 70 percent of graduates praticing in rural areas," Helseth reports. The first such program started in Colville, Wash., in 1985. There are 25 RTTs in 17 states.

In Caldwell, Idaho, 95 percent of graduates have chosen to practice in rural areas over the past 16 years. "We heavily recruit residents who are rural-oriented," Dr. Samantha Portenier, a practicing physician and director of the Caldwell RTT, told Helseth. "We've had some who were not and we converted them. Part of it was that they really saw where the training we give them and the skills they learn are so needed in rural areas. I emphasize that in rural areas you can specialize in areas that particularly interest you."

Despite the success, 10 RTT programs have closed in the past 10 years. "Every RTT lives on the edge in terms of funding," Dr. Randall Longenecker, who is project director of Rural Training Track Assistance Demonstration Project, told Helseth. "In general RTTs are small, have limited faculty and are vulnerable to personnel changes, a bad year for recruiting, loss of funding and many other factors beyond their control."

Now, RTTs are under a federal microscope. The health care reform law created the Rural Training Track Assistance Demonstration Project, a three-year pilot program that plans to "collect comprehensive information to better understand the collective forces challenging RTT models and develop solutions that will strengthen existing RTTs and encourage development of new RTTs," Helseth reports.

The time is ripe, given that more medical students are choosing to be family medicine physicians, up by 11 percent last year and 8 percent the year before. "We have a real opportunity here to redefine the importance of primary care being foundational in rural workforces," Dr. Ted Epperly, past president and past board chairman of the American Academy of Family Physicians, told Helseth. "Right now, only 9 percent of physicians are choosing to practice in rural areas while 20 percent of the population lives there. RTTs offer a way to give family physicians a broad scope of practice, which they need practicing in a rural area, and to get them to stay in those rural areas." (Read more)

Groups sue to curtail antibiotic use in animals

"A coalition of consumer groups sued the Food and Drug Administration to force it to curtail use of antibiotics in animal agriculture," Julian Pecquet of The Hill reports. "The use of drugs to promote animal growth and prevent illnesses in poultry and livestock kept in crowded conditions is causing concerns about drug-resistant strains. The agriculture and drug lobbies say those concerns are overblown." (Read more)

Shirley Sherrod says proposed contract with USDA insulted her; Vilsack says talks in 'early stages'

Shirley Sherrod, who lost her job as the Department of Agriculture's Rural Development director in Georgia "after media reports misconstrued her statements about white farmers as racially insensitive," said this week that she was insulted by the department's offer of a contract that her spokesman said was worth about $35,000 and didn't include travel expenses, Krissah Thompson reports for The Washington Post. Talks on the contract, part of the agency's "plan to fix longstanding problems with discrimination," are continuing.

UPDATE, June 6: Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told The Hill that journalists are missing the larger point, "that USDA has gone to great lengths to make sure it doesn’t repeat past mistakes," Kevin Bogardus writes. He quotes Vilsack: “The focus shouldn’t be on Shirley, no disrespect to her. The focus should be on the effort of transforming USDA. And Shirley is going to have, I hope, a role in helping oversee that opportunity and that effort.” Vilsack told Bogardus the department’s contract with Sherrod is “in the early stages of discussion.” His remarks appear at the end of a wide-ranging story about his tenure at UDSA.

Last Eastern Kentucky news bureau is closing

First it was The Courier-Journal of Louisville. Then The Associated Press. And now the Lexington Herald-Leader, the main daily newspaper serving Eastern Kentucky, will no longer have a bureau in the region, one of the nation's most rural places but one with more than its share of topics that need coverage, such as "politics and government, corruption, drug abuse, poverty, child welfare, health care, coal and the environment, to name a few," as Publisher Tim Kelly put it in an email to The Rural Blog.

Tomorrow is the last day for Pikeville bureau reporter Dori Hjalmarson, left, whose job was among those in the latest round of cuts for the newspaper, owned by the McClatchy Co., which is burdened by the huge debt it incurred to buy the old Knight-Ridder chain of which the Herald-Leader was a part.

The paper's coverage of Kentucky's Appalachian coalfield will now be done mainly by veteran reporter Bill Estep, who has already been covering coal from his Southern Kentucky hometown of Somerset, just outside the coalfield, which is the most common demarcation of "Eastern Kentucky." The western edge of the coalfield is roughly defined by the western edge of the Daniel Boone National Forest, the dark green diagonal strip on this Google map, the blue line on which shows the 156-mile, three-hour route from Somerset to Pikeville. (Click on image for larger version)

The coalfield's western counties have little if any mining. Most of the small white splotches in the east are strip mines, several just north of Hazard, just east of midway on the route. The Herald-Leader once had a bureau in Hazard, too, and its eastern coverage was supported strongly by Kelly, a native of Ashland, the largest city in the coalfield but far from the heart of it. He is retiring next week. He told us, "I expect that the paper will continue to do enterprise and investigative work on subjects of statewide significance, including the issues significant to Eastern Kentucky . . . regardless of where bureaus are physically located. We have always done that, and it remains central to our journalistic mission. Also, I have no doubt that the editorial page will continue to explore and comment on the issues of importance to Eastern Kentucky."

But there is no replacement for boots on the ground of the coalfield, as former Herald-Leader columnist Bill Bishop suggests in an article for the national Daily Yonder, which he co-edits from Texas. "To understand a place, you have to live there," he writes. "With the bureaus closed, the distance between the cities and the rest of the state will widen. The growing economic inequality between rural and urban in Kentucky will be matched by a social and political distance."

Bishop, a former reporter for The Mountain Eagle in the coalfield town of Whitesburg, recalls the 1960s and 1970s, when "Bureau reporters were gunslinging paladins of the powerless. The reporters covering Eastern Kentucky were able to change the nation from their little offices," with coverage of coal, poverty and other issues. He says it's fitting that Hjalmarson's "last big story" for the Lexington paper was about the population decline in the region, focusing on the valedictorian of Breathitt County High School, who would like to return to the mountains but can't yet see how. "That's what I've been raised in," Emily Tackett said. "That's my home." After tomorrow, one less reporter will call it so.

To hear an interview about this by Alan Lytle of WUKY-FM with the undersigned, the director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, both at the University of Kentucky, click here.

Horse virus spreads in West; events canceled

An outbreak of equine herpes virus-1, a highly contagious airborne virus, has led to the death of at least seven horses in western states, Gale Holland of the Los Angeles Times reports. The horse Powered by Pep (right, with owner David Booth) became infected after an event at Bakersfield, Calif., but intravenous fluids and anti-inflammatory and anti-viral drugs appear to be helping him. (Times photo by Wally Skalij)

Authorities believe the outbreak started in Ogden, Utah, sometime between April 18 and May 3 and has spread to California, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington and four other Western states. "Colorado, which has reported 22 suspected cases and two euthanizings, is requiring health certifications for horses crossing its border," Holland writes. California has had a total of 18 reported cases. Seven of those where euthanized due to severe neurological signs. The survivors are under a state-ordered quarantine and care from private veterinarians, the California Department of Food and Agriculture told Holland.

Since 2000, there has been an increased fear of the EHV-1 strain of equine herpes, which "spreads from horse-to-horse contact — humans are not susceptible — and manifests along a spectrum ranging from cold-like symptoms and fever to hindquarter weakness, coordination dysfunction and finally collapse and paralysis," Holland writes. Horses may even carry the virus and show no symptoms and with no vaccine available, many events have been cancellation to prevent further spreading. (Read more)

Unwilling landowners dislike forced pooling for gas and oil wells; some cite water-well pollution

Gas and oil drillers have long gained access to those minerals through a controversial legal process known as 'forced pooling' which "compels holdout landowners to join . . . agreements with their neighbors" if they own enough property, Marie C. Baca of ProPublica reports. While the specifics vary among states, the general consensus among the 39 states that have some type of forced pooling regulations is "drillers can extract minerals from a large area or 'pool' if leases have been negotiated for a certain percentage of that land." (ProPublica photo by Peter Mantitus)

"Landowners cannot legally opt out," Baca notes. Those who do not choose to contribute to the cost of the well and share in the profits may either receive profits minus a penalty or get a minimum royalty set by the state. Opinions of forced pooling vary among landowners. Supporters say it protects them from companies that drill near their property and "siphon off" oil or gas without payment, Baca reports. But state laws limit wells' distance from property lines, and Joseph Todd, right, a resident of Big Flats, N.Y., sees the other side of forced pooling. He found methane in his well water after forced pooling began near his home, and told Baca, "We never wanted to be a part of the drilling. To have something like this happen is beyond frustrating."

Gas companies argue that new horizontal drilling technology gives them access to more minerals with fewer wells, making for a tidier drilling parcel, Baca writes. "Drillers must notify all the landowners within the prospective drilling area of their right to participate in a hearing before the oil and gas board, or whatever regulatory agency the state has set up for that purpose," she writes. (Read more)

Extinction forecasts may have been overstated

Many ecologists agree that humanity has contributed to extinction through destruction of natural habitats, but a controversial study published in Nature magazine suggests "scientists have made a fundamental mistake in how they reverse-engineer this law, known as the species-area relationship, to extinction estimates," Greenwire reports for The New York Times. This may mean extinction estimates could have bene overstated by double or more.

"This is welcome news in that we have bought a little time for saving species," Stephen Hubbell, ecologist at the University of California, Los Angeles and co-author of the study, told Voosen. "But we have to redo a whole lot of research that was done incorrectly."

"Stuart Pimm, ecologist at Duke University and Michael Rosenzweig, ecologist at the University of Arizona, question the paper's evidence and conclusions, saying that while the researchers "raise an important theoretical point for estimating extinctions -- a notion echoed by several other ecologists -- they do not shake the foundations of ecology," Voosen writes. (Read more)

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.