A digest of events, trends, issues, ideas and journalism from and about rural America, by the Institute for Rural Journalism, based at the University of Kentucky.
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On Tuesday night a Canadian train carrying crude oil and liquefied petroleum gas derailed, with 19 cars coming off the tracks near Plaster Rock, N.B., about 40 miles east of the Maine border. A cracked wheel is being blamed for the crash, which forced 150 homes to be evacuated, Kim Mackrael reports for The Canadian Press. (CP photo by Tom Bateman)The crash comes on the heels of a crude oil one in July in Quebec, west of Maine, which killed 47. "Last week a 106-car BNSF Railway Co crude oil train crashed into a
derailed car carrying grain in North Dakota, causing multiple explosions
and fires," Kristen Hays notes for Reuters.
On Wednesday, William Furman, chief executive of The Greenbrier Companies, said "some 80,000 tank cars that don't meet current industry safety standards need to be replaced or retrofitted," Hays reports. Greenbrier "owns approximately 8,600 railcars, and performs management services for approximately 224,000 railcars," according to its website.
Furman "said 'modest but meaningful' improvements that can be
implemented immediately could reduce major risks of a hazardous
materials leak by as much as 80 percent in derailments," Hays writes. Furman said during Greenbrier's quarterly-earnings conference call with analysts, "We believe a retrofit proposal if adopted can be completed in a
reasonably expedited time frame and do not accept that there is not
adequate capacity in the industry to do so. The concern for public safety here is delay. Delay through the
inability to act on the regulatory front while the public would like to
see something done sooner."
The Railway Supply Institute, a lobby for tank-car owners has urged the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration "to adopt safety standards already embraced in
October 2011 by the Association of American Railroads, the rail
industry's trade group," Hays writes. "Under those standards tank railcars known as DOT-111s built after
October 2011 should have thicker hulls and reinforced valves to better
protect against punctures or leaks in derailments. But those built before that date lack those features and the rail
industry has said it could cost $1 billion to retrofit older railcars.
Furman said on Wednesday that about 80,000 railcars 'that are in
question' were being used." (Read more)
Despite growing an abundance of healthy foods, many farmers lack the time or energy to eat properly, and opt instead for quick, often unhealthy snacks and meals, Leah Koenig reports for Modern Farmer. "Being a farmer today does remarkably little to ensure good eating. As it turns out, many of today’s farmers face the deep irony of producing beautiful fruits and vegetables for consumers while subsisting on a diet that more closely resembles a McDonald's menu than Old MacDonald’s farm."
Finding time to cook a healthy meal, or even any time at all to eat something nutritious, is the main problem, Koenig writes. "During the planting and harvest seasons the days can get extreme, stretching as long as 12 to 16 hours. Farmers who host onsite CSA [community-supported agriculture] pickups or navigate through rush hour
traffic to drop produce off in nearby cities have to cater to their
customer’s own hectic work schedules, which pushes off dinner prep (not
to mention breakfast and lunch for the next day) until 8 or 9 p.m. at the
earliest."
As a result, many farmers are eating on the go, munching on whatever they can consume while in a vehicle or on the job, Koenig writes. Rachel Kaplan, a Massachusetts farmer, told Koenig, “At the height of the season, it is a feat in and
of itself to sustain the energy to work let alone come home and start
preparing food. A lot of the times
cooking comes at the expense of sleep.”
Nick Hagen, a North Dakota farmer
"says eating in the fields also poses logistical challenges.," Koenig writes. He told her, “Throughout
our wheat or sugar beet harvests, there is no time to stop for lunch. I
typically have one hand on the tractor’s steering wheel all day, and
fish around in my lunch box with the other." He said, “You see a lot of running to the gas station for chips, soda and coffee,
which helps farmers stay awake during the crazy hours.”
While the traditional farming family included a family member who stayed in the home preparing meals while others worked the land, that option isn't always available today, Koenig writes. "If a farm is set up so that the whole family works in the fields, or one
spouse works a supplementary job, those systems can break down quickly." And having an immediate or extended family on the farm is not an option for many young farmers who left urban life in order to farm.
Some people, like Washington potato and onion farmers Greg and
Cari Horning, find creative ways to continue to eat healthy by using their tractor as an oven, Koenig writes. Greg told her, “I wrap a spud in foil, or just put it fresh from the ground onto
the exhaust manifold. The manifold can be extremely hot, so
it doesn’t take long to cook.” Others, like Kaplan, are "considering offering a food prep work share
to their CSA members. Instead of volunteering at a CSA distribution or
in the fields, the members would spend a few hours each week during the
season preparing meals for the staff. These innovations help, but it
still takes serious and surprising dedication to eat well as a farmer." (Read more)
Eastern Kentucky has lost more than 5,700 coal jobs in the past two years, and the region has very few if any jobs that pay as well, so its people are leaving in search of a more prosperous future. But as coal companies move west to places like Indiana, Illinois and Wyoming, what's being left behind are dying towns and a fading way of life in Central Appalachia.
Coal fields of the Eastern United States
"Out-of-work miners are leaving Kentucky or heading to the state's
western coal region, which is part of a separate basin that stretches
into Illinois and Indiana," Kris Maher reports for The Wall Street Journal. "The thicker seams of high-sulfur coal there
now can be mined less expensively after lying untouched for decades, and
mines are hiring." And areas like Harlan County, which has an unemployment rate of 16.3 percent, the 13th highest in the nation, have seen the population drop from 45,000 in the 1980s to 28,000 today. While coal jobs keep falling in Eastern Kentucky, Western Kentucky has flourished, with jobs increasing from 2,200 to 4,200 in the past 10 years. Coal jobs in Wyoming, home of large-scale strip mines with thick seams, have risen from 4,800 to 6,660.
Brandon Madon, who moved from Harlan County to the western side of the state for a mining job in Indiana, told Maher,"It'd be real hard to get on anywhere now unless you go out west to
work. We can ride it out up here. (Back home) it's getting worse every day." Wendell Cohelia also left Harlan County for Western Kentucky, where he not only found a secure job in the coal industry, but for nearly twice as much pay. He told Maher, "It's going to be difficult. I feel lucky that I got a job, not just that it increased my pay." (Read more)
By Al Cross
Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues
Some of the best stories to be told in rural news media are those of successful expatriates, those who found success elsewhere but built it on the values, experiences and knowledge they gained growing up in small towns. All too often, their inspiring stories are condensed or even ignored in standard obituaries. But when two remarkable expats from a poor Appalachian foothills county of 10,000 people die in the same week, that's a news peg not to be missed, even if it takes a "citizen journalist" to do it.
William Russell Miller
This week's Clinton County News, in my hometown of Albany, Ky., has a 1,500-word tribute written by my brother, attorney David Cross, to William Russell Miller, who was the first African American vice president of a major rubber company, and John G. Woodrum, who became one of the best-known casino and hotel operators in Las Vegas and first ran electricity to the iconic "Welcome to Las Vegas" sign, across from his business at the end of the Strip.
John G. Woodrum(Las Vegas Sun photo)
They didn't forget their hometown. Woodrum sponsored three reunions of his high-school class; Miller tried to start a small Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. plant in Albany, and after his retirement from the company, established a small factory in the town. "That didn’t work out either, but he tried," my brother writes. "The man who wasn’t allowed to go to high school here [because of segregation] still tried to help his home town, and its people."
He concludes, "Both J.G. Woodrum and Russell Miller used their rural raising in Kentucky as an advantage, not as an escape. They learned how to deal with people, and to appreciate people, big and small, but with a love for the little people. . . . Their success stories, as well as the stories of those who have chosen to return home, should help motivate our young people to see what they too can achieve when they put their mind to it.
"J.G. Woodrum and Russell Miller both came from similar origins: large, poor families that lived at the end of their roads in rural Clinton County. Ironically, both of those roads now bear their family names of Miller Road and Woodrum Road, but those roads were not dead-ends for them. It was the beginning of their separate journeys. They both used it to help them achieve success, and to help others along the way. These are two stories of The American Dream, fulfilled and achieved, by two country boys from Clinton County who never forgot where they came from." (Read more)
This week marks the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon Johnson's
declaration of the War on Poverty as part of his Great Society program,
in his first State of the Union speech. While many stories about poverty in rural America are sad, detailing the struggles people have faced or are still facing, CBS News had an inspiring story Wednesday profiling Eula Hall, an Eastern Kentucky woman who has dedicated her life to fighting to improve health care in rural impoverished Appalachia. Hall's life has also been chronicled in the book Mud Creek Medicine.
Hall, 86, told CBS, "We
didn’t have indoor plumbing, we didn’t have running water. There was no health care for the people who didn’t have any insurance or
money... people died because they didn’t get the proper health care." Hall, who left school after eighth-grade, "began working with community
organizers who taught her how to fight to get things done," Don Dahler writes for CBS. "She eventually
became the driving force in changing her corner of Appalachia."
In Hall's neck of the woods, Floyd County, 90 percent of the wells were contaminated with bacteria, Dahler writes. Hall decided to do something about it. "In the
late 1960s, she got federal funds to have clean water piped in from the closest
water treatment plant. Using
federal grants and private donations, Hall also built the first and only
medical clinic in the county. What began as a shack in 1973 is now a modern
facility with its own doctors, X-rays and pharmacy, serving over 7,000 patients
a year." Hall told CBS, "I
love this place because I know when they open that door and they walk
in, they're going to be treated with respect, and they're going to be
treated with the best we've got to offer." (Read more) (CBS News video)
States like Connecticut and Massachusetts, which account for 70 percent of New England's population, are turning to much larger but less populated Maine to build wind farms. And while it could mean a huge boost in the state's economy, some fear it will destroy Maine's beauty, with a number of residents worrying that "more wind turbines will turn the woodsy state into New England's utility closet," Jon Kamp reports for The Wall Street Journal. (WSJ photo by Craig Dilger)
"Maine already leads the region with more than 400 megawatts of wind
power installed, according to the American Wind Energy Association,
which said 1 megawatt of wind power can cover about 290 homes," Kamp writes. "Recently
signed long-term contracts with utilities in Massachusetts and
Connecticut could more than double that output in the next few years if
the projects all come to fruition."
A 2008 state law "passed under former Democratic Gov. John Baldacci set aggressive goals for adding wind power while simplifying the regulatory process in much of the state," but Republican Gov. Paul LePage is a wind-power critic, Kamp writes. "Larry Dunphy, a Republican state representative for a swath of rural Maine, recently posited a future when 'you won't be able to climb a mountain without seeing blinking red lights and spinning turbines.' Dunphy "sponsored a bill this year that he said would give some sparsely populated unorganized territories, which lack local government, more say over wind projects. The proposed change didn't make it through the Senate."
"The Maine wind buildup also has raised concerns about the eventual need to strengthen transmission links to southern New England, to lessen the risk of curtailing that power due to grid bottlenecks, and debate about who will pay for them," Kamp writes. (Read more)
Reality television continues to dig deep into the well of rural American stereotypes. This time around, a proposed reality show is in the process of trying to re-create the wild west in a modern setting. "Orion Entertainment says it’s looking for a family with at least three
kids 'that are all great looking cowboys and cowgirls' who work in 'stunning ranches with diverse terrain and challenges," Tim Marema reports for the Daily Yonder. "Those challenges
might include 'chasing grizzlies and wolves away from cattle.'” (Still from the Orion show "Wyoming's Call of the Wild")
Orion's ad says, “Members of the family and staff should have fun hobbies and skills like
[the ability to sing], play the guitar or harmonica, write and recite
poetry, cook the best BBQ in the county, make their own clothes, raise
bees or have wild animals as pets, raise bulls, or be an aspiring bull
rider or rodeo participant. ... All members of the family need to have big, strong personalities with
great and unique looks. We’re looking for dynamic, engaging and
uninhibited families that live the lifestyle.”
Orion didn't respond to an interview request from the Yonder, but it doesn't have a history of using reality shows to laugh at rural America, Marema writes. "For example, Orion's “Nightmare Build Rescue” features a builder who helps get construction projects back on track. “Wyoming's Call of the Wild” introduces young people to outdoor sporting activities and was produced with Wyoming's Game and Fish Department." (Read more) To read the casting call for the show click here.
A West Virginia University researcher who led a state-sponsored study to examine potential pollution in natural gas drilling acknowledged that the report failed to include data on all types of wastes from the Marcellus Shale formation, Ken Ward reports for the Charleston Gazette: "Teams performing the legislatively mandated review examined only
materials from the vertical portion of wells, not from the horizontal
drilling at those same sites, which would have included Marcellus Shale
mud and drill cuttings. The omission is important because researchers believe material from the
Marcellus Shale is generally more radioactive, and citizen groups are
expressing growing concern about the risks of handling and disposal of
radioactive drilling wastes."
During a legislative briefing on Sunday, Paul Ziemkiewicz, director of WVU's Water Research Institute, cited lack of access to data for not being able to test horizontal drilling, Ward writes. Ziemkiewicz said the state Department of Environmental Protection tried on three occasions "to obtain Marcellus drilling mud from a Stone Energy site in August 2012," but "were told each time that 'drilling malfunctions' made it impossible for them to do so."
When a second sampling site, this one operated by Chesapeake
Energy, was selected, "poor weather related to Superstorm Sandy
stopped the drilling there prior to reaching to Marcellus, Ziemkiewicz said," Ward writes. "The company indicated it would notify WVDEP and WVU when drilling
resumed. However, when WVDEP followed up with
the company after Hurricane Sandy, the agency and WVU were notified that
the horizontal leg was completed and no samples were available." By then, Ziemkiewicz said, there wasn't enough time to analyze samples to complete the report by the end of 2012. (Read more)
Today, exactly 50 years after then-President Johnson declared war on poverty, President Obama will announce five "Promise Zones" that "will get priority when seeking federal money for job training, education, housing and other programs," Bill Estep reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader.
The zones will be eight chronically poor southeastern Kentucky counties ht hard by a sharp downturn in the Central Appalachian coal industry; the Choctaw Nation in southeastern Oklahoma; and parts of Philadelphia, San Antonio and Los Angeles. Obama announced the program a year ago; these are the first five areas picked for it.
"The federal government has tried a number of ways over decades to revitalize distressed areas, and many of those previous efforts focused on a particular strategy," Chris Casteel reports for the Tulsa World. "Obama's zones are meant to adopt a communitywide approach to improve education, housing and public safety."
Zones must "meet certain poverty levels and have fewer than 200,000 residents," so only part of Whitley County in Kentucky was included, Estep reports. The other counties in the Kentucky zone are Bell, Knox, Clay, Leslie, Perry, Harlan and Letcher, Jerry Rickett of Kentucky Highlands Investment Corp. told Estep.
Rickett is president and CEO of the venture-capital nonprofit, which was created by the War on Poverty in 1969 and serves 22 counties in southeastern Kentucky. It supervised an Empowerment Zone project in Clinton, Wayne and Jackson counties during the Clinton administration and was the lead applicant for the Promise Zone.
The plan "includes a $1.3 million loan fund for small businesses; expanded job and entrepreneurship training; college- and career-readiness programs in high schools; and increased technical-education programs, according to the White House," Estep writes. "The program also envisions working to improve housing and reduce crime."
Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear of Kentucky "said the initiative will complement another called SOAR, for Shaping Our Appalachian Region, that he and Republican U.S. Rep. Harold 'Hal' Rogers set up with the goal of drafting a development strategy for Eastern Kentucky," Estep reports.
The surge in oil and gas drilling in South and West Texas over the past year has brought more money to the region. But heavy truck traffic is damaging roads, causing safety concerns, and has opened the doors for a suddenly prosperous business -- repairing broken windshields, Aman Batheja reports for The Texas Tribune. (Tribune photo by Eddie Seal: Eddie Posselt, right, and Danilo Estaco install a new windshield)
"Bringing a new gas or oil well into production typically requires more
than 1,000 loaded trucks traveling to and from a well site," Batheja writes. As a result, more rocks and debris are kicked into the air, causing more window damage. Sarah Hidalgo-Cook, manager of the Southwest Area Regional Transit
District, which oversees public transportation for eight rural counties
in South Texas, told Batehja, “We’ve replaced more windshields in one year than we have in 10."
John McBeth, district president for the Brazos Transit District, a public
transportation provider covering portions of East and Central Texas, said they were "buying windshields by the dozen because of a spike in incidents," Batheja writes. "The damage occurred most often when one of McBeth’s drivers was
behind a truck that had just exited an oil field site. The truck would
often have debris stuck to its exterior, and that debris would fly
behind it as the vehicle picked up speed." To help reduce damage, "McBeth said his drivers were recently instructed to change lanes and
stay farther back when behind oil field trucks."
While finding cracks in a windshield can be annoying, the real concern is the safety and well-being of other drivers, an issue the Texas Oil & Gas Association says it dealing with, Batheja writes. A spokesperson told Batheja, "The firms drilling in the state’s shale fields emphasize the importance
of safety to oil field truck drivers. Some firms use GPS
technology to track their drivers and ensure that none are speeding or
driving in an unsafe manner."
Still, local entrepreneurs like Eddie Posselt, who quit his job in the oil fields to repair windshields full-time, are cashing in. He told Betheja, “I walked the lots here and noticed that there are many broken
windshields in the area. I saw a
great opportunity to go into business replacing them. The force and also the size of the rocks in this area, they’re
pretty big. Most of the time, the damage is not
repairable." (Read more)
A coal barge moves on the Ohio River, with coal-fired electric plants on both sides(WSJ photo by Jeff Sewnsen)
Even though the coal industry has struggled in some areas in recent years, especially in Central Appalachia,
coal's future in the U.S. still remains bright, thanks to the growing
need for coal in other countries, John Miller and Rebecca Smith report
for The Wall Street Journal: "Coal remains the biggest source of
fuel for generating electricity in
the U.S. and coal exports are growing fast. Even as coal production
plunges in the green hills of Appalachia, it is booming in the open-pit
mines of Wyoming and under the plains of Illinois and Indiana. Overall,
U.S. coal production is projected to remain relatively constant
over the next three decades, according to the U.S. Energy Information
Administration."
Eastern Kentucky and parts of West
Virginia have been hit hard by geological, economic and regulatory forces, losing 120,000 coal jobs over the past 20 years, even though
"production has increased slightly over that time," Miller and Smith report. Coal companies say Appalachia has become too expensive to mine and have left for places like Wyoming, where two counties account for 40 percent of all coal produced in the U.S. In a companion story, Miller and Smith describe the impact of new air-pollution regulations on the industry.
Some areas have prospered, thanks in
large part to China. "Two-thirds of coal's growth will be driven by
demand for electricity in China," according to consulting firm Wood
Mackenzie, which expects coal to become the world's most-used fuel by 2020. The company's head of global markets said in a recent speech:
"China's demand for coal will almost single-handedly propel the growth
of coal." U.S. companies are scoring big with exports, having "shipped out 114.2 million tons in 2012, more than
triple the level a decade earlier. Coal-export revenue meanwhile jumped
to $14.8 billion from $1.6 billion. In 2012, the country's biggest coal
customer was Canada, which consumed
42 percent of U.S. exports. Now the top three customers are the
Netherlands,
Britain and China." (Read more)
UPDATE, Jan. 8: However, the China market may not last. The Chinese government "approved the construction of more than 100 million tonnes of new coal production capacity in 2013 - six times more than a year earlier and equal to 10 percent of U.S. annual usage," David Stanway reports for Reuters. Journal graphic: U.S. coal production by county in 2012; click on it for larger version.
Wednesday is the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon Johnson's declaration of the War on Poverty as part of his Great Society program, in his first State of the Union speech, so it's time for retrospectives.
The latest is an op-ed piece in The New York Times from Jared Bernstein, a senior fellow at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities and former chief economist for Vice President Biden. "Much of what we've done to reduce poverty has been highly successful," but that started with Social Security, which started in the 1930s and was expended in the 1960s, he writes. "Yet I suspect that if I could sit President Johnson down and explain to him all we’ve done to maintain and expand the policy arsenal he helped to introduce half a century ago, he’d be surprised that there’s still so much economic hardship." Bernstein explores the reasons for that: "globalization, deunionization, lower minimum wages, slack labor markets and decreasing returns to lower-end jobs," as well as "not getting enough schooling, single parenthood, or having children out of wedlock." The answer, he says, is strengthening the underlying economy.
Unfortunately, the Times has tripped on some rural nuances of the beginning of the poverty war. Annie Lowrey had a good, relatively short story on Sunday, but it was marred by the line that "parts of Appalachia lacked electricity and indoor plumbing." No parts did, but many homes did. The next day, the newspaper published a written debate about the need for another poverty war, illustrated with a photo of Johnson visiting "the Inez family of Kentucky." That was the family of Tom Fletcher, who lived near Inez.
Poverty is disproportionately rural. "While showing the limits of government intervention to create economic
opportunity, the War on Poverty also changed rural America for the
better," the Daily Yonder says in an introduction to a retrospective by Timothy Collins, assistant director for research, policy, outreach, and
sustainability at the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs at Western
Illinois University in Macomb.
Collins includes excerpts from Johnson's speech and notes that his predecessor, John F. Kennedy, was planning a major effort to fight poverty. Hours before he was assassinated, the White House confirmed for Kentucky officials that he would visit the state in early December. Johnson made the trip, including a visit with the Fletchers, in April 1964. Here's a video of it and other stops on his "poverty tours" from the LBJ Presidential Library:
Apples genetically modified to not turn brown could be on grocery store shelves as early as next year, a move that has upset apple growers across the nation, Michael Doyle reports for The Washington Post. In November, the U.S. Department of Agriculture concluded that the two apple varieties pose no health risks. Since then, the agency has received nearly 80,000 public comments, most of them from those who oppose the apples, as it decides whether to allow them to be sold without further regulation. Among them is the U.S. Apple Association.
The apples were developed by the family-owned Okanagan Specialty Fruits of British Columbia. Across the border in Washington, which grows apples on 146,000 acres, providing 44 percent of the nation's supply, Doyle writes. Christian Schlect, president of the Northwest Horticultural Council, told Doyle, "This is a huge issue, and it has great ramifications for our industry. We’re concerned
about the marketing impact, from consumer impact to the imposition of
additional costs.”
While many businesses fear the impact that genetically modified apples might have on marketing, organic growers fear cross-pollination. Doyle writes, "Unlike some other genetically modified crops, the Arctic apple doesn’t include genes spliced in from an entirely different species," but "from the insertion of a certain genetic sequence taken from an apple." (Read more)
In response to the threat of invasive Asian carp getting into Lake Michigan and the other Great Lakes, where they could damage the region's $7 billion annual fishing industry, the Army Corps of Engineers released a report Monday detailing eight plans that could prevent migration of the fish from the Mississippi River basins through Chicago-area barge canals. The plans could cost more than $18 billion and could take up to 25 years to complete, Michael Hawthorne reports for the Chicago Tribune. (Tribune photo by Scott Strazzante: one variety of Asian carp)
President Obama in July released a $50 million plan to keep silver and bighead carp out of Lake Michigan, but in October researchers said they found evidence that the less damaging grass carp were reproducing in Lake Erie. Another report said some fish have breached an electric barrier meant as a last line of defense, although no carp were found to have done so.
Joel Brammeier, president of the Alliance for the Great Lakes, told Hawthorne, "If you really want to prevent the movement of species and keep Lake
Michigan clean, it's going to cost money. We can't just keep patching over these problems and hoping they
go away." The Corps didn't recommend any one strategy, and Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.) "expressed their disappointment that the report failed to include fully developed project plans and included only 'conceptual-level details'," reports Agri-Pulse, a Washington newsletter. The most expensive and time consuming plans "are those that call for permanent structures to block the carp from entering the Great Lakes." (Read more; subscription may be required; a trial is available)
"Environmental groups and a coalition of mayors from the Great Lakes
states say the most effective option is separating the two watersheds," Hawthorne writes. "They see such a project as part of a larger plan, long discussed by
Chicago-area leaders, to upgrade the region's aging transportation
network with new facilities that quickly transfer freight between
railroads, barges and trucks." David Ullrich, executive director of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative, told Hawthorne, "Whatever we do, let's do it right. The key is to get a
decision sooner rather than later." (Read more)
Rural South Carolina residents fear that a 2010 law, "which was intended to control the
unchecked withdrawal of water from rivers" but included farm exemptions, is being exploited by a corporation that might deplete water sources. And there's growing concern that it will open the door for other companies to do the same thing in other areas, Sammy Fretwell reports for The State in Columbia.
Walther Farms, which is launching a 3,700-acre potato farm near Kitchings Mill (star on map) and has plans for a 1,500-acre site in a state that only uses 150 acres a year to raise potatoes, "is the first new site approved for withdrawals since the law became effective last year," Fretwell writes. "Unlike
other businesses, farm corporations can siphon huge quantities from
rivers without telling the public. And while the state will review plans
to take water for farming, the law doesn’t allow the public an
opportunity to challenge the work before the Department of Health and
Environmental Control board, the agency says. In contrast, other
businesses that want to begin withdrawing large quantities for the first
time will need permits that require public notice and a full review. In
both cases, the law does not apply to anyone withdrawing under 3
million gallons per month."
Walther Farms’ two massive potato-growing
sites could "withdraw up to 9.6 billion gallons from the Edisto [River]’s South
Fork each year," Fretwell writes. "Walther’s plan represents an unprecedented farm
withdrawal from a river that, during the dry months of summer, is less
than 25 feet wide and under four feet deep in places." Critics say "the lack of protection from mega-farms could turn healthy rivers like
the South Fork into water starved channels, killing fish and threatening
drinking water supplies."
South Carolina officials say the potato farms won't harm the water supply, Fretwell writes. "The company said it followed the 2010 water law when it approved the
mega potato farm’s license last spring. DHEC conducted an in-house
study, as required, that found the South Fork of the Edisto has plenty
of water to accommodate Walther Farm’s withdrawals, records show." (Read more)
Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/2013/12/14/3159222/whats-at-stake-huge-potato-farm.html#storylink=cpy
In a great example of reporting on rural areas, Dirk Chatelain writes for the Omaha World-Herald about the fading glory of high-school football in Nebraska, which has seen the number of pigskin programs drop from 355 in 1983 to 282 in 2013. As more people leave rural areas, and populations shrink, more rural football teams fold or downsize, or schools are forced to merge. That leads to greater driving distances to find teams to play, which in turn, costs the school more money for transportation. Still, sports like football are important to small towns, for the pride of students, parents, and everyone who cares about their hometown. (World-Herald photo)
Lindsay Holy Family, a school where enrollment dropped from 336 in 1980 to only 98 this year, including just 16 boys, averaged 23.7 miles to each football game in 1988, but averaged more than 100 miles to each game during their final season this year, including a 368-mile, 19-hour journey for one game, Chatelain writes. The team, which has played eight-man and six-man football, only had 12 boys go out for the team this year, but because of injuries sometimes only dresses seven. The school, which is the only one in Lindsay, Neb., had 32 players in 2000 and 29 in 2004. (World-Herald graphic)
"Population is dwindling on the Nebraska prairie," Chatelain writes. "And football teams are
disappearing. Not in Omaha or Lincoln or Kearney. But out there, off the
Interstate, where the only structures taller than goal posts are water
towers, grain elevators and church steeples. Out there, where Friday
night games still leave the streets empty, and come Saturday morning,
the quarterback is up early, vaccinating cattle."
The state only has 16 teams that play six-man football, most of which are located on the western side of the state, as opposed to Lindsay (right) in eastern Nebraska, Chatelain writes. That led to the 19-hour trip to the panhandle, which forced Holy Family to rent a 47-passenger charter for $2,600 for players, parents, and fans. After the school football account was drained, head coach Bill Mimick covered the rest of the costs out of his own pocket.
And now football stadiums stand empty, and rivalries are dying,
Chatelain writes. "For decades, this two-lane ribbon between Norfolk and
Columbus produced
some of Nebraska's best high school rivalries. Dodge. Howells. Clarkson.
Leigh. Humphrey. St. Francis. All are east of Lindsay, within 45 miles.
Last spring, after one-on-one meetings with parents and an
open meeting of townspeople, Holy Family decided to merge football
programs in 2014 with Humphrey High, 11 miles east. The schools began a
co-op for other sports this year. That decision would've been enough
change for one decade.
But the Bulldogs, coming off a 9-2 season, couldn't make it
to '14. Coaches and parents studied the numbers — including a sophomore
class of two boys and one girl — and made another tough call. They
canceled their eight-man schedule and dropped to six man, even though
most people in town had never seen a game."
(Read more) Here's a video of Chatelain's interview with 93.7 The Ticket in Lincoln:
Residents of some rural areas are not buying into federal health reform. They have expressed doubt and fear about Obamacare because of a lack of primary care physicians, a lack of insurance providers and hospitals, or because they don't qualify for benefits in states not expanding Medicaid. Also, Melissa Nelson-Gabriel reports for The Associated Press, many residents in conservative rural areas are being bombarded with negative viewpoints from friends, neighbors and conservative media, and fear the law based on those opinions.
That has caused problems for people like Christopher Mitchell, a marketing director for a network of nonprofit health clinics in Florida. He told Nelson-Gabriel, "I tell people that I am not here to advocate for the law, I am here to
support the law and empower people to be able to use and understand the
law. But when people are hearing over
and over and over that is bankrupting America, it is hard to break
through." The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the law will save money by reducing health-care costs in the long run.
But it's easy for rural residents to be wary of the act, with all the hurdles they face -- long drives to doctor's offices, lack of broadband to enroll online, and the many stories about people having trouble signing up, Nelson-Gabriel writes. Kathy Bannister, a self-employed beautician, "secured a plan from Blue Cross
Blue Shield of Michigan with a monthly payment of $215 after subsidies.
She now pays $500 for a comparable plan from the same insurer," thanks to some outside help after several failed attempts to do it herself online, Nelson-Gabriel writes. Bannister told her "The whole idea was to make it easier for people. I'd been calling
and calling and calling, and a lot of people would have given up. It's discouraging." (Read more)
UPDATE, Jan. 7: Understanding how Obamacare is working, or not working, is difficult because "We have no central clearing house" for information, writes The Washington Post's Sarah Kliff, who is doing the most consistent and comprehensive tracking of the question. She says that creates "what I like to think of as the battle of the anecdotes," which can illustrate how the law is affecting individual Americans, "but they can also be a really terrible way to gauge whether Obamacare is going great -- or is a complete disaster." (Read more)
An Associated Press investigation found that in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and Texas "hundreds of complaints have been made about well-water contamination
from oil or gas drilling, and pollution was confirmed in a number of
them," Kevin Begos reports for the wire service. That information comes on the heels of a report by the Environmental Protection Agency that analysts say shows the agency is backing off enforcement of pollution from hydraulic fracturing, Valerie Volcovici reports for Reuters.
The AP study found "that Pennsylvania received 398 complaints in 2013 alleging that oil or
natural gas drilling polluted or otherwise affected private water wells,
compared with 499 in 2012," Begos writes. The state "confirmed at least 106 water-well contamination
cases since 2005, out of more than 5,000 new wells. There were five
confirmed cases of water-well contamination in the first nine months of
2012, 18 in all of 2011 and 29 in 2010." Some of the wells were completed with horizontal hydraulic fracturing, but it wasn't clear how many.
"Ohio
had 37 complaints in 2010 and no confirmed contamination of water
supplies; 54 complaints in 2011 and two confirmed cases of
contamination; 59 complaints in 2012 and two confirmed contaminations;
and 40 complaints for the first 11 months of 2013, with two confirmed
contaminations and 14 still under investigation, Department of Natural
Resources spokesman Mark Bruce said in an email," Begos writes. "None of the six
confirmed cases of contamination was related to fracking, Bruce said."
"West Virginia has had about 122 complaints that drilling contaminated
water wells over the past four years, and in four cases the evidence was
strong enough that the driller agreed to take corrective action,
officials said," Begos writes. "A Texas spreadsheet contains more than 2,000
complaints, and 62 of those allege possible well-water contamination
from oil and gas activity, said Ramona Nye, a spokeswoman for the
Railroad Commission of Texas, which oversees drilling. Texas regulators
haven’t confirmed a single case of drilling-related water-well
contamination in the past 10 years, she said." (Read more)
Analysts say the EPA report, released on Dec. 31 by the agency's watchdog, shows that "federal regulators are unlikely to step up enforcement of potential water contamination cases linked to natural gas drilling, despite new concerns about water safety, given a lack of political will and limited resources to pursue such cases," Volcovici writes. "The report said the EPA was justified in issuing an
emergency order in 2011, asking the oil and gas driller Range
Resources to improve monitoring and provide clean water
to a family in Parker County, Texas, whose water supply had been
contaminated with methane as a result of nearby fracking. The EPA inspector general also criticized the agency for
backing off enforcement of the complaint in 2012."
The EPA in 2012 "inspected 870 energy extraction sites and
concluded enforcement actions against just 53," Volcovici writes. "The agency
investigated 836 coal-fired electric units for potential air
pollution incidents and controlled 461 of them." (Read more)
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) introduced a bill last week to replace the controversial new cut in pension benefits for working-age military retirees by ending Saturday delivery of first-class and standard mail, Josh Hicks reports for The Washington Post.
The pension cut "trims one percentage point off the annual
cost-of-living increase for working-age military retirees as part of
the budget deal that Congress and the president approved last month," Hicks writes. "The
change is projected to save an estimated $6 billion over 10 years." The U.S. Postal Service budget is separate, but if it keeps running deficits Congress would have to bail it out. Issa claims his bill would save $17 billion over the next decade.
The bill mirrors proposals from USPS. Post & Parcel reports, "Package delivery and express services would continue to take place
six days per week, while post office opening hours would not be
affected.
The proposals would require five days per week mail delivery even
when a federal holiday takes place, and appear to require six days per
week package delivery for competitive services only, rather than
monopoly services," those only USPS offers. (Read more)
A New Mexico horse slaughter plant has still not opened in New Mexico. On Friday, a state judge extended his temporary restraining order preventing Valley Meat Co. from opening for 10 days until he could hold a hearing in a lawsuit filed by Attorney General Gary King "alleging that the
company's operations would violate state food-safety and water-quality
laws," Daniel Enoch reports for Agri-Pulse, a Washington newsletter.
King filed the lawsuit last month after a federal court lifted an emergency stay on Valley Meat and plants in Missouri and Iowa, paving the way for the companies to begin processing horse meat for export. Rains Natural Meats in Missouri has "horses on site ready to open but
has run into its own roadblocks with its state environmental permits," the companies' attorney said, Jeri Clausing reports for The Associated Press. "The
Iowa company switched to cattle after being blocked from opening in
August by the filing of the lawsuit by The Humane Society of the United
States and other groups."
In a news release, "King said the lawsuit was filed because commercial
horse slaughter 'is a new, untested enterprise that poses health and
environmental risks to New Mexicans,' adding that horses are often
administered drugs that are forbidden for use in food animals," Enoch writes. The Valley Meat attorney said "the horses destined for slaughter are being held in feedlots for about six months to purge any drugs in their systems." (Read more)
If you buy Guns & Ammo magazine or one of its competitors, here's fair warning that you may be getting what advertisers want instead of independent reporting and editing, which is supposed to be an essential hallmark of American journalism: The magazine fired one of the nation's top gun writers after he wrote a column questioning whether certain regulations really infringed the right to keep and bear arms and gun makers threatened to pull their ads unless he was canned. It was no surprise to people who know the trade, The New York Times' Ravi Somaiya reports.
UPDATE, Jan. 14: Metcalf writes for Politico Magazine that the magazine's parent company, Intermedia Outdoors, removed its vice president and editorial director from his position as editor of Guns & Ammo. As for the wild replies and threats made by the "social-media piranha swarm" in response to his column, he writes, "The hijacking of our movement by these radical extremists causes me to
fear for the future of the right I have spent my adult life fighting to
defend. At present, we defenders of the Second Amendment have the
American mainstream voters on our side. . . . When we engage in noisy,
extremist rhetoric rejecting all firearms regulation whatsoever, or
refuse to acknowledge the plain fact that constitutionally validated
regulations and statutes already exist, we risk alienating the American
mainstream. And if we lose that mainstream, we will lose this war." (Read more)
Phil Everly, who with his brother Don made harmonies that influenced a generation of rock, country and folk musicians, died today in Burbank, Calif., of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, his wife Patti told the Los Angeles Times. A lifetime smoker, he was 74.
The Everly Brothers "charted nearly three dozen hits on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart [and] were among the first 10 performers inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame when it got off the ground in 1986," Randy Lewis writes for the Times.
They are also in the Country Music Hall of Fame, note Greg Botelho and Todd Leopold of CNN. "Their style -- a product of their blend of rock 'n' roll with
Appalachian folk, bluegrass and other genres more closely aligned to
their Kentucky roots -- helped them earn inductions in both."
Phil, by two years the younger brother of Don Everly, was born in Chicago, but his roots were in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, where their father, Ike Everly, was a contemporary of fellow singer-guitarist Merle Travis and Mose Rager, who taught Travis the thumb-picking style popular in the West Kentucky Coal Field. The boys sang with their father and mother, Margaret Embry Everly, on a radio show in Shenandoah, Iowa, in the 1940s, and later moved to Indiana, Knoxville and Nashville.
Ike Everly's regular trade was barbering, and one of his customers was Boudleaux Bryant, who had moved to Nashville with his wife Felice to pursue their joint songwriting career. When the brothers signed with Cadence Records in 1957, with the help of Chet Atkins, the Bryants offered them three duet songs: "Bye, Bye, Love," "Wake Up Little Susie," and "All I Have to Do Is Dream." The rest is history.
The Everly Brothers on TV in 1972 (Tony Russell Redferns, Getty Images)
The brothers' singing and songwriting careers faded in the 1960s and they split up when Phil smashed his guitar and walked off stage in 1973 after Don showed up drunk. They reunited a decade later with a concert at London's Royal Albert Hall after Phil's solo album, Phil Everly, had done well in the United Kingdom. They did a reunion concert for HBO. They continued solo work, and Phil often collaborated with other musicians. The brothers sang backup on Linda Ronstadt's 1974-75 version of "When Will I be Loved," written by Phil for the brothers in 1960.
"They had that sibling sound," Ronstadt told the Times. "The
information of your DNA is carried in your voice, and you can get a
sound [with family] that you never get with someone who’s not blood
related to you. And they were both such good singers -- they were one of
the foundations, one of the cornerstones of the new rock 'n' roll
sound." (Read more)
"The roots of the Everly Brothers are very, very deep in the soil of American culture," Paul Simon wrote for Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Artists of All Time," on which they were No. 33. "The Everly Brothers' impact exceeds even their fame. They were a big
influence on John Lennon and Paul McCartney — who called themselves the
Foreverly Brothers early on — and, of course, on Simon and Garfunkel." Rolling Stone called them "the most important vocal duo in rock."
"The gulf between [a] nostalgic view of rural North Carolina and a
growing animal-welfare movement in a state increasingly removed from
its agricultural past seems to be widening," Craig Jarvis reports for the News & Observer in Raleigh. "Traditional
agricultural interests say they are trying to be responsible farmers in
how they treat livestock and poultry, as well as how they treat the
environment. Still, they see the Humane Society[of the United States] as public enemy No. 1,
and have been girding for a fight for years."
"How would you like to spend the rest of your life in a space as small as a bus seat?" asks this Humane Society bus ad. (News & Observer photo by Ethan Hyman)
The Humane Society has bought "graphic ads on the outsides of Raleigh city buses attacking 'Big Pork' for its use of gestation crates, in which sows are restrained nearly
motionless during breeding," Jarvis reports. In the last legislative session, the group "argued for a puppy-mill bill and against
a farm industry-backed bill that would have made undercover
investigations of farming practices illegal, except for law enforcement
officers. . . . Agriculture has also organized to counter what it sees as an emotional campaign by the other side that is not based on facts."
Roberta Wall of Greensboro, who in 2010 won passage of a bill that increased penalties for animal abuse, told Jarvis, “It’s the first time in the history of North Carolina that animals have
had a voice.” The legislature and the governorship went Republican in 2012, but the governor's wife gpot the House to pass the puppy-mill bill. “Animal welfare issues are not Republican or Democrat[ic],” Wall said. “They are not
party issues. That’s not what this is about. We’re just mainstream
people. I’m not radical.” (Read more)
Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/12/27/3488382/agriculture-animal-welfare-groups.html#storylink=cpy
Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/12/27/3488382/agriculture-animal-welfare-groups.html#storylink=cpy
Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/12/27/3488382/agriculture-animal-welfare-groups.html#storylink=cpy
Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/12/27/3488382/agriculture-animal-welfare-groups.html#storylink=cpy
Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/12/27/3488382/agriculture-animal-welfare-groups.html#storylink=cpy
UPDATE: "Five years before a train loaded with crude oil derailed and exploded
last year in Quebec, killing 47 people, another derailment in Oklahoma
should have given federal regulators an early warning that the type of
oil both trains carried was more flammable than authorities realized," Curtis Tate reports for McClatchy Newspapers.
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/01/02/213412/despite-reports-response-slow.html#storylink=cpy
The federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration announced today that "Crude oil produced in North America’s booming Bakken region may be more flammable and therefore more dangerous to ship by rail than crude from other areas," Angela Greiling Keane and Mark Drajem report for Bloomberg News. PHMSA said on its website that it "is reinforcing the requirement to properly
test, characterize, classify, and where appropriate sufficiently
degasify hazardous materials prior to and during
transportation."
The agency had studied the issue for four months, after the catastrophic derailment of an oil train in Quebec, and announced its preliminary conclusion "three days after a BNSF Railway Co. train carrying oil caught fire after a collision in Casselton, N.D.," the reporters note. (Photo by Valley City Times-Record) "The North Dakota accident is the fourth major North
American derailment in six months by trains transporting crude.
Record volumes of oil are moving by rail as production from
North Dakota and Texas pushes U.S. output to the most since 1988
and pipeline capacity has failed to keep up. . . . About three-quarters
of the oil produced in North Dakota is shipped by rail rather
than pipeline."
The train that derailed in Quebec was carrying crude oil from the Bakken shale formation in northwestern North Dakota and eastern Montana. Canada's Transportation Safety Board said it should have been labeled as a middle-hazard crude (PG II), not lower-hazard (PG III). "PHMSA announced that it was establishing new rules for fuel
shipments in September. That agency and the rail-safety
regulator are also considering a rule to require stronger tank
cars. The proposal has the rail industry’s support and is being
challenged by the shippers that own or lease the railcars," Bloomberg reports.
"The energy industry has been reluctant to discuss publicly what might be
causing the problem," Russell Gold and Lynn Cook report for The Wall Street Journal. "It is possible, experts say, that unusually large
amounts of naturally occurring and highly flammable petroleum products
such as propane and ethane are coming out of the ground with the Bakken
crude. Last March, Tesoro Logistics LP reported the Bakken crude it was transporting by rail was increasingly volatile.
"Another possibility is that impurities are
being introduced during hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. That process
involves pumping chemicals or other additives along with water and sand
into a well to free more fossil fuels. One such additive is hydrochloric
acid, a highly caustic material, which federal investigators suspect
could be corroding the inside of rail tank cars, weakening them. Oil from fracked wells can also be laced with benzene and other volatile and highly flammable organic compounds." (Read more)
But there also may be something different about the oil. "In New Town, N.D., where the ill-fated [Quebec] train was loaded with Bakken
crude, locals like to boast that the honey-colored oil is so light they
can take it right from the well and pour it into truck engines because
it requires little refining," Jacquie McNish and Grant Robertson report for The Globe and Mail of Toronto.
Following scandals and highly questionable activity in its disability program, including some widely publicized cases in Central Appalachia and Puerto Rico, the Social Security Administration will give itself "more latitude to crack down on judges who are
awarding disability benefits outside the norm," Damian Paletta reports for The Wall Street Journal. The problem may be more prevalent in rural areas; the rural disability-benefits rate is 80 percent higher than the national rate.
The rules governing the judges are being rewritten so that they will no longer have "complete
individual independence," and will clarify that they are
"subject to the supervision and management" of other officials in the agency, Paletta reports. "In 2011, The Wall Street Journal reported a
widespread disparity in the probability that certain judges would award
benefits" to people who appealed initial denials, with many awarding benefits to 90 percent of claimants and others denying more than 80 percent of their cases. The tried to crack down on such "outliers," but said the "judicial independence" rule kept it from intervening, "even if a judge paid benefits
in more than 95 percent of the cases."
Paletta notes, "The Social Security Disability Insurance
program, funded by payroll taxes, pays monthly benefits—often until
someone receives retirement benefits in their 60s—for people who can no
longer work because of physical or mental health problems. During
the recent economic downturn, the program grew quickly and now has
close to 11 million beneficiaries. It has grown so fast, in fact, that
it is projected to exhaust the reserves in its trust fund by 2016, which
could force all beneficiaries to see an immediate cut in their
payments."
"More than half of the counties in 34 states using the federal health-insurance exchange lack even a bronze plan that's affordable — by the
government's own definition — for 40-year-old couples who make just a
little too much for financial assistance," report Jayne O'Donnell and Paul Overberg of USA Today. "Many of these counties are in rural, less populous areas that already had limited choice and pricey plans . . . More than a third don't offer an affordable plan in the four tiers of
coverage known as bronze, silver, gold or platinum for people buying
individual plans who are 50 or older and ineligible for subsidies."
The newspaper said it "looked at whether premiums for the least expensive plan in any of the
metal levels was more than 8 percent of household income. That's similar to the
affordability test used by the federal government to determine whether
premiums are so expensive consumers aren't required to buy plans under
the Affordable Care Act. The number of people who earn close to the subsidy cutoff and are priced
out of affordable coverage may be a small slice of the estimated 4.4
million people buying their own insurance and ineligible for subsidies.
But the analysis clearly shows how the sticker shock hitting many in the
middle class, including the self-employed and early retirees, isn't
just a perception problem. The lack of counties with affordable plans
means many middle-class people will either opt out of insurance or pay
too much to buy it." (Read more)
The oil and gas boom has also cause a boom in pipeline construction, as sources and markets shift and sometimes trade places. Many Kentucky residents are refusing big money to lease right-of-way to the proposed Bluegrass Pipeline, which would repurpose a gas line from Louisiana and extend it with legs to Pennsylvania and West Virginia to carry up to 16.8 million gallons of natural-gas liquids per day to
Louisiana refineries. They are also fighting tooth and nail to keep the developers from invoking eminent domain to use their land, Natasha Khan reports for Public Source, a nonprofit, investigative news service based in Pennsylvania. (Williams Companies map: Proposed Bluegrass Pipeline)
"Pipeline officials assure Kentuckians the Bluegrass Pipeline will be
constructed and maintained safely. It will bring jobs to the region, add
millions in local tax revenues and contribute to America’s energy
independence, they said," Khan writes. Chuck Taylor, a hydrogeologist with the Kentucky Geological Survey, echoed those words, saying "if the developers design the proper safeguards, the pipeline can be
built and maintained safely."
The story did not explore how much that would cost and what the companies’ plans are in that regard, but said "A pipeline of this size is complicated, said Richard Kuprewicz, president of Accufacts, a pipeline consulting firm." Plus, the route runs through karst topography, which is prone to formation of caves, sinkholes and underground channels. Ralph Ewers, a Kentucky hydrogeologist who specializes in karst
issues, said "Because the rock is porous, karst can affect the stability of the
pipeline. If a leak occurs in the porous rock, there’s the possibility of
groundwater contamination because of the vast underground streams in
Kentucky karst." Kuprewicz told Khan, “You’ve got to be nuts to put a large diameter HVL in a karst terrain. You can have
the best, strongest pipe in the world, but you put it in a bad route, it
could snap the pipeline.”
Despite the opposition, pipeline developers have "signed more than 50 percent of the easements needed in
Kentucky as of early December and are more than 40 percent complete
along the entire route," according to Scott Carney, a spokesman for the Bluegrass Pipeline. (Read more) The company claims it can condemn land to gain access to the route it wants, but many Kentucky officials disagree; for a story on that, from Marcus Green of WDRB-TV in Louisville, click here.
UPDATE, Jan. 2: As EPA, industry representatives and environmental groups negotiated a settlement, a federal judge extended the deadline to Jan. 29.
The Environmental Protection Agency, not known for making quick decisions, is on the clock, having until Sunday to come up with a deadline for new rules on disposal of coal ash from power plants. The deadline comes less than a week after the fifth anniversary of the Tennessee Valley Authority coal-ash disaster in Kingston and Harriman, Tenn., that "destroyed three homes, damaged dozens of others, and poured into two
tributaries of the Tennessee River," requiring "a $1 billion cleanup,
with $200 million more to go," James Bruggers reports for the The Courier-Journal of Louisville. That bill will cost the 9 million residents of the TVA service area, which includes Tennessee and parts of Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia, 69 cents per month per person through 2024, Bruggers reports.
Even after the worst coal-ash disaster on record, EPA has done little to change its rules, Bruggers writes. "After the Kingston disaster, newly appointed EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, who has since left her
post, promised the nation’s first federal regulations to ensure
environmentally safe and structurally sound coal-burning waste storage. But,
so far, the EPA has failed to enact a single regulation — even as the
agency has documented an increasing number of ash sites that have
polluted the environment." The number of sites where groundwater or surface water has been contaminated by coal ash has grown from 50 in 2000 to more than 130 today, according to EPA.
EPA rules would put into place a consistent set of rules to replace inconsistent ones, Bruggers writes. "What has been in place to regulate coal-ash ponds is a hodgepodge of state regulations. Some are more protective than others, but often they fail to require even basic protections such as ash-pond liners to protect groundwater. And without federal rules, utilities were under no obligation to follow the EPA’s safety inspection recommendations."
Most of the worst states are in the South. Texas ranked first in most coal-burning waste in 2012, followed by Kentucky. Earthjustice, a not-for-profit law firm based in San Francisco, issued a report called State of Failure, saying: "Only three states require composite liners for all new coal ash ponds; only five states require composite liners for all new coal-ash landfills; only two states require groundwater monitoring of all coal-ash ponds; only four states require groundwater monitoring of all coal ash landfills; only six states prohibit siting of coal-ash ponds into the water table; and only 17 states require regulatory inspections of the structural integrity of coal-ash ponds."
The report singled out 12 states as posing the most risk, because they produce 50 percent of the annual coal ash, 70.6 millions tons of a year at 217 coal-fired plants, and dispose of their waste in 350 coal ash ponds. The report picked Alabama as the worst state, followed by Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. (Read more)
"The EPA proposed two possible rules in 2010, one that would treat the
waste as hazardous, and another that would consider it solid waste, with
less stringent requirements," Bruggers writes. But still, three years later, no rules are in place. Lisa Evans, a Boston
attorney with Earthjustice, told Bruggers, “Kingston was a watershed event that should have brought quick federal
controls on the disposal of this waste. Instead, it brought on widespread
paralysis at the EPA and within the administration. It’s as if
Hurricane Katrina happened, and they didn’t fix the levees.” (Read more)
The plan to keep invasive Asian carp out of Lake Michigan may have a major hole in it. Researchers have found that fish can get through "the electric barrier on the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal that is
considered the last line of defense to stop an Asian carp invasion," Dan Egan reports for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. A report "by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service reveals that fish can be transported across the
electrified swath of canal when they get trapped in the wake of a barge." Officials say there is no evidence that Asian carp have broken the barrier, or are near it, but scientists have said that if they get into the Great Lakes, they could severely damage the region's $7 billion annual fishing industry. (Journal photo: the barrier is located near the arch)
Cameras found that "entire schools of fish, not believed to be Asian
carp, were recorded swimming through the barrier 61 percent of the time" when a barge came through, Egan writes. The report states: "Initial findings indicate that vessel-induced residual flows can trap
fish and transport them beyond the electrical barriers, and that certain
barge configurations may impact barrier electric field strength.
Additionally, the preliminary (sonar camera) findings identified the
potential for small fish (between 2-4 inches in length) to pass the
barrier array in large groups, or schools." Still, researchers say it's not yet time to panic: "The closest adult Asian carp found in the
Illinois River are about 55 miles from Lake Michigan, and no small
Asian carp have been observed closer than 131 miles from Lake Michigan."
Despite those claims, "Water samples taken at the barrier site and in stretches of canal on
the Lake Michigan side of the barrier have regularly tested positive
for Asian carp DNA during the past four years," Egan writes. "Advocates want the canal physically plugged to stop Asian carp and other
unwanted species from swimming freely between the Great Lakes and
Mississippi basin." (Read more)
