Quick hits: Health benefits of outdoors; dealing with yard pests and winter blahs; can a state have an official aroma?

   "Yellowstone" cast (Paramount Network photo via IMDb)

Get rural-centric with "Yellowstone." Part Western, part soap opera, it's one of the most-watched shows on TV. It’s also the centerpiece of the growing rural entertainment empire.

The smell of roasting chile peppers is what draws people to parking lots across New Mexico. That sweet, spicy aroma that brings watering mouths and nostalgia for home; so it makes sense that lawmakers are weighing whether to make green chile the state’s official aroma. . . . It all began with a classroom of fifth graders. 

Speaking of veggies, the Rural Mom has some tips for supporting your local farmers' markets. They will be coming soon.

Spending time in nature can be relaxing and rejuvenating. It might even lower a person's rate of hospitalization for Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and related dementias, a large study showed.

Rendering from Encyclopedia Britannica

The University of Texas hosts an immersive summer Shakespeare program for rural Fayette County, Texas students to experience the Bard's work first hand. Professor Emeritus “Doc” Ayres at UT and his students are the subject of documentary called “Take Pains, Be Perfect,” which celebrates the half-century of performance and connection fostered in this theater barn in the country.

Fie, fie! Unknit those rows of mounded dirt that once were manicured lawn,
And dart not away from my hose and trap, oh, stealthy moles and voles,
To wound my yard so keenly, untamed shrews!
(Our adaptation of lines from Katherina in Act 5, Scene 1 of The Taming of the Shrew; for actual shrews and other yardly pests, read here on how to deal with them)

Head to the conjunction of folk-and-jazz-for-rock-but-pop that meets up at Western Animation Junction. And there you go. Schoolhouse Rock is 50 years old.

Snort. Whinny. Nicker. Neigh. Bray. Squeal. A visit to a horse barn, usually includes some comments from the four-legged creatures who are known to be curious and opinionated. These native and visiting horses weigh in on Lexington, Kentucky, which calls itself "Horse Capital of the World."

Salt. Sand. Pebbles. Cat litter. Yes, it's still snowing in some regions. "In these parts, driveways can break you or make you into a minor god worshiped by UPS and FedEx drivers, beloved of propane delivery personnel, and heavily recruited by rural volunteer fire departments. Here's how to keep on, keeping on as winter continues.

Science explains seasonal affective disorder, which can occur in both winter and summer. Here's why it happens, and how you might treat it.

Newspaper publisher 'knew it was wrong,' used the law to be her own attorney and won her case

Darla Downs of the Northern Plains Independent in Wolf
Point, Montana. (Photo by Darrell Ehrlick, Daily Montanan)

Follow the law. Seems pretty straightforward, but in many cases, systems need astute citizens to get that job done. Darla Downs, owner and publisher of Montana's Northern Plains Independent, is a determined journalist who "took on the election of now-former Roosevelt County Attorney Frank Piocos. She couldn’t afford an attorney, so she filed a lawsuit pro se," reports Darrell Ehrlick of the Daily Montanan. "After both parties presented their cases, Judge Katherine Bidegaray ruled that Piocos was not a resident of the county when he ran for election in 2022, and therefore, he was ineligible for the office. She also ordered a new special election."

“This was outside my normal wheelhouse," Downs told Ehrlick. "I knew the law was on my side, and I had the help of plenty of county residents who were on my side. I believe in watchdog journalism, and people knew it was wrong and wanted me to do something.”

Ehrlick explains the conflict: "Piocos had previously been an assistant county attorney, which is not elected. Bidegaray’s decision said under the law, a qualified elector meant a person who has residence in a particular county. Residency is determined largely by where the person lives. . . . . Piocos had even rented office space in the county, but the judge said renting space is not the same as establishing residency, and therefore Piocos was not qualified to run for office in 2022. . . . . Piocos defended his win by claiming that Downs had not challenged his election properly. . . . the judge did not find that point persuasive."

Roosevelt County will now plan its special election, but meanwhile, "Roosevelt County Commission Chairman Gordon Oelkers said he’s been surprised at the number of people coming forward to either help in the interim, or consider running." Oelkers told Ehrlick, "There are not a lot of lawyers up here in this corner of the state. But I’m pleasantly surprised by the number who are willing to help provide guidance and move us in a positive direction."

Ehrlick noted that Downs presented and won her case as her own attorney. Downs told Ehrlick, "I wasn’t not surprised. I was relieved."

The Northern Plains Independent's main office is in Wolf Point, Montana, pop., 2,500. The paper reaches Roosevelt, Daniels, Mc-Cone, Valley, Sheridan or Richland counties.

A photographer searches for democracy in rural America and tries to tell us 'what's lost when newspapers close'

Former home of the newspaper in Dodge City, Kansas (Photos by Jonathan Ariaz,, Fourth Estate project)

Ink knives at the Russell County News, Russell, Kan.

In the United States, credible news sources, such as newspapers, function to safeguard democracy by: promoting inclusion and participation, informing the electorate, supporting basic rights and helping citizens manage the agenda. Within that framework, it makes sense that "Leading up to the 2020 presidential election, photographer Jeremiah Ariaz, who wanted to make images that showed what democracy looked like in rural America traveled across the country . . . . visiting campaign offices, main streets, protest sites and sometimes, newspapers," reports Kristen Hare of The Poynter Institute, a nonprofit that supports media literacy and journalism ethics.

Ariaz's first stop was "Main Street in Sublette, Kansas. He was standing with his camera and tripod when a man approached him, asked what he was doing, and invited the photographer to stop by his office," Hare writes. "The man thought he had something Ariaz might be interested in." Ariaz told Hare, “It ended up being the local newspaper office.”

Hare writes: "Kenneth Bell showed Ariaz the newspaper’s archives and the newsroom’s abandoned darkroom. Immediately, Ariaz realized how what he was seeing in the Haskell County Monitor-Chief tied in with the bigger questions he had about democracy and rural America. . . . In 2022, Ariaz took a sabbatical from his full-time job as a professor of art and headed back to his native Kansas. He visited 115 newspapers – closed, moved and still publishing."

Paper rolls at The Morning Sun, Pittsburg, Kansas

Ariaz's tour helped him track and illustrate the history of local newspapers. Noting that the U.S. is losing about two newspapers a week, Hare writes, "While we’ve seen growth in some of the local for-and nonprofit online newsrooms working to fill the gaps left when newspapers close, Ariaz’s project, titled Fourth Estate, offers a different frame for what’s lost when newspapers close."

“I have to feel that something is missing when that ability for a citizen to engage is lost,” Ariaz told Hare. Newspapers that were still alive "were very much a part of the community in both the physical way in their presence but also their ability to engage with the public."

Ariaz's traveled to "publications that were still open and explained what he was trying to capture. Most invited him in. Many worried about what would happen to their archives and the community’s history if they closed," Hare writes. "Ariaz tried to visit bigger newspapers in bigger Kansas towns, but he couldn’t get ahold of anyone inside the newsrooms or inside the buildings themselves. Ariaz said that it felt like the people who own and run them were far away and unconcerned with the communities they were supposed to be serving." In many cases his photos reflect the fact that the newspapers no longer have pressrooms but hang on to their relics.

Loss of 411 kills another way to connect, but emphasizes the need for it; maybe we should start calling up people

(Photo by Rebecca Nelson, Getty Images)

Don't recall someone's phone number? Call 411, and get it. Not anymore. "AT&T announced late last year that 411, the operator and directory assistance service, would end around January 1, 2023," reports Keith Roysdone of The Daily Yonder. "It would no longer be possible to call an operator to place a call and no longer possible to reach directory assistance for information about names and numbers. . . . CNN reported that in 2019, about 71 million calls to 411 were placed each year."

That's 71 million phone numbers people couldn't remember, and possibly 71 connections people didn't make. But as Roysdone points out, "The need to know is timeless; within a single lifetime, some rural communities have gone from switchboards to fiber-optic internet." Roysdone notes that rural Americans needs to "keep up" because now, more than ever rural communities need to strive for the connections that were once made through party lines.

Dennis Hall, a telephone switchboard operator in California wine country in the 1970s, told Roysdone, "Being a rural area, we had a lot of farmers.” Hall added that a single line might connect three farms. “That was called a 'farmer’s line.' Someone would dial the operator and tell them they wanted Farmer Jones. All three lines could ring, but the operator would make the (ring) different. Farmer Jones would be two shorts and a long, but inevitably all three would pick it up."

Roysdone asked Hall, "How has the telephone experience changed for rural customers?" Hall responded, "The sense of community is severely diminished. There’s not really any sense of community.”
 
The lack of community can be hard to replace. "In the past year, I’ve been on a mission to pester as many people in my life as possible. The first victim was my editor, whom I abruptly asked one morning to stop messaging me about story ideas. Instead, I said, let’s talk the ideas out over the phone," reports Amanda Mull of The Atlantic. "I soon did the same thing to a friend who’d texted to discuss a job offer he’d just received. A few weeks later, when another friend texted me for New York City apartment-hunting tips, I asked her my new favorite question in return: Do you want to give me a call?"

Ah-ha. Now, here we go. "The phone call has lost its primacy in American communication. By 2014, texting had become more common for Americans under 50," Mull explains. "People currently in their 20s and 30s, in particular, have developed a reputation for being allergic to phone calls. . . . True to this generational stereotype, I sent my own mother to voicemail and texted her to ask what she wanted. . . . I ask forgiveness from all those whose voicemails I have not listened to. To fully repent, I must make clear what I now know to be the truth: Phone calls are good, actually."

Whatever would make you think that? "I wanted to hear my editor’s reactions to my story ideas and work them out in real time, not watch a 'Paul is typing …' graphic linger ominously for 30 seconds before I knew the verdict," Mull writes. "With friends, too, I wanted to rekindle the energy of live conversation. I wanted to crack a joke and hear someone laugh."

Mull points out: "Chatting on the phone provides the bliss of unreviewable, unforwardable, unsearchable speech. If you misunderstand something, there’s no day-long email chain correcting your error. . . Snapchat sent photos between users that disappeared 10 seconds after being viewed; talking to someone on the phone has provided the same freedom in verbal form since the days of Alexander Graham Bell." 

Roysdone writes: "Telephone users are happy to not share 'farmer lines' or 'party lines,' Hall agreed. And he noted that it’s possible to mourn the loss of the one-time telephone community and appreciate the improvements." 

Maybe it's possible to have the best of both worlds. Pick up the phone and see.

Everyone is invited to the bird-counting party! The annual Great Backyard Bird Count is coming up Feb. 17-20

A Steller's sea eagle was spotted in Maine
during the 2022 Great Backyard Bird Count.

The 26th annual Great Backyard Bird Count will be held Friday, Feb. 17, through Monday, Feb. 20.

How? For as little as 15 minutes, perch yourself and participate in this free, fun and easy event that engages bird watchers of all ages in counting birds to create a real-time snapshot of bird populations.

Participants are asked to count birds on one or more days of the four-day event and report their sightings online at birdcount.org. Anyone can take part in the count, from beginning bird watchers to experts, and you can participate from your backyard, or anywhere in the world. Count birds for 15 minutes or as long as you want.

Each checklist submitted during the GBBC helps researchers at the  National Audubon Society, Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Birds Canada learn more about how birds are doing, and how to protect them and the environment we share. Recently, more than 300,000 participants submitted their bird observations online, creating the largest instantaneous snapshot of global bird populations ever recorded.

Visit the official website at birdcount.org for more information and be sure to check out the latest educational and promotional resources. On the program website participants can explore real-time maps that show what others are reporting during and after the count.

Birds can surprise us! During the 2022 GBBC more than 300,000 snow geese turned up in Missouri. A surprise sighting of a Steller’s sea eagle was a rare treat in 2022 for Maine residents. This large, distinctly marked raptor is a regular resident of coastal regions in Japan, North and South Korea, Mongolia and parts of Russia during breeding season. For more on the results of the latest GBBC, take a look at the GBBC results.

"This count is so fun because anyone can take part — whether you are an expert, novice, or feeder watcher. I enjoy discovering the birds that occur in my own back yard and on my block and then comparing with others. Get involved and see how your favorite spot stacks up."  —Chad Wilsey, vice president and chief scientist of Audubon

Opinion: Legislators in Iowa [and other states] deny human nature with bills aimed at children who aren't like others

By Art Cullen
Storm Lake (Iowa) Times Pilot

If there were one thing Iowa could agree on, you would hope it would be compassion for everyone. This life is complicated and confusing. Some boys like to play with GI Joe. Some like to play with Barbie. The discerning parent or teacher leaves them be and makes certain they do their arithmetic homework. They advise the boys with the GI Joes to be nice to the boys playing with the Barbies. Don’t bully them. People are different.

Art Cullen

Iowa Republicans controlling the legislature are in a mood to hassle people who may be different from them. All sorts of bills float around. This week, a legislator had to tell parents of transgender children that he doesn’t agree that this is right. Queer has no place in the classroom, the committee voted.

Under this law, a teacher would not be able to tell the boys that the boy in the corner is different, it is not his choice or the choice of his parents, and that people have been different from each other for time immemorial. The art teacher might remind the legislature to look up those Italian sculptors and their heroic nude males — hello in there! Or, the art teacher might remind us that the greatest artist in Iowa history, Grant Wood, hung out with other great artists and writers whose sexuality would draw rebuke from the morality police then and now. That’s why they hung out in Stone City. The bankers in Cedar Rapids looked the other way, thank goodness.

The reality is, and always has been, that human beings are not strictly heterosexual. Some people view reality through a moral prism predicated on the shame of St. Augustine or some other tortured soul. Recall that Augustine lived a playboy’s life of debauchery, saw the shallowness of it, and went on to saddle Catholic moral theology with an obsessive sexual predilection. Unfortunately, it finds its way into the legislature, where people forget the New Commandment: to love your neighbor as yourself.

If you loathe yourself, in a Calvinist sort of way, you are compelled to heap it on your neighbor. A little bit of that is going on in Des Moines. Iowa should be a place where we can approach each other with an attempt at understanding — especially in the classroom, where children need every bit of support as they sort out a confusing and mean world. Don’t lock Grant Wood in the closet. Don’t rebuke the goodwill that writer Tennessee Williams brought to the University of Iowa. Don’t shun that boy to the corner and deny his reality. It is possible to take a different point of view without being a heretic against God.

Too bad that this is how we have to learn. A lot of innocent children take the lumps. A lot of lives get traumatized. Eventually, we will appreciate the reality of a reckoning for cruelty. That’s a sin in anybody’s book.

States try to fill EMT and paramedic shortages; filling rural crews, which are often volunteer, is a bigger challenge

A Teton County EMS volunteer heads into a hospital in Choteau,
 Montana, pop. 1,700. (Photo by Aaron Bolton for Kaiser Health News)

A tractor accident, an arm broken in a grocery slip-and-fall, an unfortunate meeting with a hornet's nest -- or a heart attack. Call 911! What if there isn't anyone to respond?

As the nationwide EMT and paramedic shortage deepens, states are taking a combined approach to meet current staffing gaps and train new employees, reports Marsha Mercer of Stateline, an initiative of The Pew Charitable Trusts.  Dia Gainor, executive director of the National Association of State EMS Officials, told Mercer, “The public doesn’t see where there’s no one in the station, and volunteer services are trying to muster a crew."

Mercer reports, "Workforce challenges are particularly acute in rural areas that rely on volunteers to respond to 911 ambulance calls. . . . States also are studying how to maintain EMS systems. A commission in Maine, the country's second most rural state, recommended the state spend $70 million annually for five years to avert an emergency medical crisis that stems in part from a lack of volunteers. . . . A federal study projected a need for 40,000 more full-time emergency medical personnel from 2016 to 2030."

In response to growing personnel shortages, some states are expanding their eligible workforces. "At least six states have lowered the minimum age for EMT training to 16 or 17, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures," Mercer reports. "In rural Louisiana, many EMS agencies and fire departments will hire people over the age of 18, according to the state EMS report. New Jersey, for example, allows 16-year-olds to enroll in training with parental consent."

Kelly Grayson, a critical care paramedic and owner of the consulting business MEDIC Training Solutions, told Stateline, “Getting high school kids into the training program hasn’t alleviated the shortage, but it’s a start. The idea is to start them young and keep them in EMS for a longer period of time.”  Stateline notes: "Last year, the turnover rate for full-time emergency medical technicians, was 36% and for full-time paramedics, it was 27%, according to an American Ambulance Association survey. More than one-third of new hires don’t last through their first year, the survey found."

Biden's rural points were on broadband, other infrastructure; on some other topics he exaggerated or lacked context

President Biden spoke in front of Vice President Kamala Harris and
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. (Pool photo by Jacquelyn Martin)

Did President Biden have anything for rural America in his State of the Union speech? And how closely did he stick to the facts?

He used the word "rural" once, in saying the bipartisan infrastructure law is funding projects in all kinds of places: “Urban. Suburban. Rural. Tribal.” Just before that, he mentioned “high-speed internet across America,” and later he said “We're making sure every community in America has access to high-speed internet.” He also announced that all materials in federal construction projects will have to be made in America, including fiber-optic cable that is the standard for high-speed internet.

Another line could be taken as a rural reference: “My economic plan is about investing in places and people that have been forgotten. Amid the economic upheaval of the past four decades, too many people have been left behind or treated like they’re invisible.”

Rural America is the home of extractive industries, and Biden slammed oil companies, noting their record profits and saying “They invested too little of that profit to increase domestic production and keep gas prices down. Instead, they used those record profits to buy back their own stock, rewarding their CEOs and shareholders.” An ad-lib about oil brought derisive laughter from Republicans: “We’re gonna need oil for at least another decade.” Longer than that.

"Some of Biden's claims in the speech were false, misleading or lacking critical context," CNN's Daniel Dale writes. Biden claimed the infrastructre law "funded 700,000 major construction projects," but the actual number is 7,000. The New York Times' analysis repeatedly cited lack of context.

In his Fact Checker column for The Washington Post, Glenn Kessler writes that Biden exaggerated several points, including deficit reduction, U.S. exports, the nation's infrastructure ranking. the effect of recent tax legislation and the number of jobs being created.

Kessler also looks at Biden's claim that "some Republicans want Medicare and Social Security to sunset," explaining that word is "inside-the-Beltway lingo for programs terminating automatically on a periodic basis unless explicitly renewed by law. Last year, Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, released a 60-page “11-point plan to rescue America” that offered 128 proposals. Buried on Page 39, in a section on government restructuring, was one sentence: 'All federal legislation sunsets in 5 years. If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again.' Scott’s write-up — which offered few details and had no proposed legislative language — was almost immediately rejected by most Senate Republicans. Scott also said he was being misinterpreted. 'No one that I know of wants to sunset Medicare or Social Security, but what we’re doing is we don’t even talk about it. Medicare goes bankrupt in four years. Social Security goes bankrupt in 12 years,” Scott said on Fox News last March. 'I think we ought to figure out how we preserve those programs. Every program that we care about, we ought to stop and take the time to preserve those programs.'"

Veterans turned farmers and ranchers find 'another mission'

Garrett Dwyer learned modern farm management and
business skills from the Farmer Veteran Coalition.

The metamorphosis of a soldier to civilian can be a stressful shift. "The Farmer Veteran Coalition, a national nonprofit initiative, is attempting to bend that trend line while helping service members transition to a post-military career," reports Adam Biga of the Nebraska-based Flatwater Free Press.

Garrett Dwyer is a veteran who "runs about 500 head of Hereford and Angus cattle on his Bartlett ranch on the east edge of the Sandhills in Texas. The land he’s on today has been in his family since 1894," Biga writes. "But Dwyer didn’t take over this ranch until he served in the U.S. Marine Corps, including two combat tours in Iraq. Now, he’s taking advantage of the Farmer Veteran Coalition, which aims to re-energize small agriculture by supporting military veterans who want to work the land."

Wikipedia map

Each veteran has their own special background. "Some veterans, like Dwyer, 36, grew up on a farm and left to enlist, always intending to come back. Other farm-kids-turned-veterans have been lured back by the opportunity to carry on a legacy or to start one of their own," Biga explains. "And still others with no farm or ranch background are grabbing the chance to get trained to farm for the first time." Dwyer told Biga, “It’s pretty special to have something like this that enables me to continue to work and ranch the same land as my early grandparents."

A side benefit for some veterans is that working the land can be therapy. Biga writes, "Dwyer found that the lifestyle helps ward off the demons that can come with PTSD, which he was diagnosed with upon his return stateside. His own PTSD has eased in severity, he said, in part because he feels fortunate to have 'another mission' to give him purpose. Others haven’t been as fortunate – Dwyer has lost friends to suicide."

With several years under his belt, "Dwyer has become his own rancher, and more support for veterans in agriculture has emerged. One, the AgVets program, is a three-year training program for veterans interested in, or already involved with, agriculture," Biga reports. "The federal program includes workshops, field demonstrations, business planning and mentoring – much of it led by military veterans who now farm. . . . Dwyer is glad to see new resources for veterans re-entering agriculture or entering it for the first time."

In a surprising shift, younger people are moving to Maine, but many of them struggle to find affordable housing

Maine's long winters could reverse population
gains.(Photo by Tristan Spinski, The New York Times)

In 2019, no one could have predicted a population swing into Maine, a state where deaths had long outnumbered births, reports Jenna Russell of The New York Times. "Population shifts — even small ones — carry high stakes in this rural, sparsely populated state. . . . . Maine had the oldest population in the nation in 2020. . . . But the latest census numbers suggest Maine has been thrown an unexpected lifeline. In a milestone few would have imagined, it was the only state in the country where the median age declined from 2020 to 2021, the state economist said, largely the result of younger people moving in."

That's good news for Maine, but here's the snag: "In every Maine county except one, 'the average house price is unaffordable to the average income household,' according to a report last fall by the state housing authority," Russell reports. "In Searsport, Maine, pop. 2,700, the effects of the influx have been far-reaching. Housing prices were already on the rise, but the sudden surge in interest from outsiders cranked up new pressure on the market. . . . The squeeze affects a wide spectrum of workers."

Russell writes: "The latest state budget proposed by Gov. Janet Mills includes $30 million for new affordable housing, targeting rural areas, on top of $70 million in new investments last year. . . . Experts say it is too soon to know if pandemic-driven population gains will continue, hold steady or dwindle . . . . Andrew Crawley, an economist at the University of Maine said school enrollment may be ticking up, but so far, the results are inconclusive." Crawley told Russell, "For now, it’s a blip, not a trend — but even as a blip, it’s incredible, and if it holds steady, then it’s huge. For those arguing we need more people, more nurses, more teachers, more plumbers, this is good news; the question is if it will continue."

New York Times map

Chris Gardner, a county commissioner who hopes the state will seize the moment and send recruiters nationwide to tout Maine’s charms, told Russell, “Rural America has been found again, and it’s an opportunity for us.” Russell opines, "New businesses bring new jobs, but the lack of housing can make workers hard to keep. Frustrated by job vacancies, one restaurant owner in Lincolnville, 20 miles south of Searsport, bought an inn last year to house employees — a solution few here can afford."

Fauna and flora quick clicks: Meet the 'inflation chicken' and the fast-spreading nine-banded armadillo

A chicken breeding farm in Missouri.
(Photo by Neeta Satam, The New York Times)

Exhausted by the search for affordable eggs, some Americans have decided raising their own chickens is a more productive pursuit. Dubbed the 'inflation chicken,' we can learn how much it costs to raise an egg-laying chicken and what egg prices say about our economy.

This is chicken that isn't exactly chicken. It's lab-grown from cultured chicken cells. The Food and Drug Administration gave its first approval to a slaughter-free company, Upside Foods. The product is known as "cultivated meat," or by other names, as it evolves.

Pigs, swine, hogs, boars. Wild, feral, invasive, non-native. Whatever words you use, these tusked omnivores are destroying crops and preying on endangered species. But the most serious threat they pose is to humans.

The nine-banded armadillo is expanding northward.
(Photo by Jay Butifiloski)

Attracted by the promise of a temperate and warming climate, vast tracts of diggable land, room to expand, and a nearly endless supply of fire ants − armadillos are moving into states like North Carolina.

Slated to be completed in 2025, some might enjoy viewing progress at the US 101 freeway wildlife crossing near Agoura Hill, Calif.  The overpass will connect the Santa Monica Mountains to the Simi Hills over 10 lanes of highway and will allow the animals to mix with other, unrelated mountain lions. When completed, the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing will be the largest in the world.

More ways to make way for wildlife: As spring migration begins it bears repeating that more than 600,000 miles of fences criss-cross the American West, blocking animal migration. Outside Yellowstone National Park, volunteers dismantled a few. 

Are you kidding? What the best cheese from 2022? Goat's cheese from Port Washington, Wisconsin, pop. 13,000. Founded in 2020, Blakesville Creamery makes all its cheeses from its herd of 900 goats, comprised largely of Saanens.

It's not too late for a Zoom training on winter blooms. Feb. 14: A Valentine's Day webinar will covers all aspects of cut-flower production.

U.S. count of rural homeless is 'a seemingly simple task that isn't that simple,' but it determines local aid allotments

The rural homeless live in autos, abandoned buildings and friends'
couches. (Photo by Michael S. Williamson, The Washington Post)

Rural America has homelss people, but they are further apart and harder to find, reports Justin Wm. Moyer of The Washinton Post. Moyer points to Beth Kempf, executive director of the homeless services nonprofit Community Cares, in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania: "Kemp was among about two dozen advocates and volunteers seeking out the unhoused in a recent 'point-in-time' count — a nationwide census of homeless people conducted each January that helps advocates track demographic data, which the federal government can use to decide where funds meant to combat homelessness should be spent."

The sheer area that rural advocates had to cover compared to urban counters made the task daunting. "In Washington, D.C., for example, advocates must search a jurisdiction of about 68 square miles to find thousands of homeless people. Homelessness is visible," Moyer writes. "Cumberland County is a 555-square-mile region about 120 miles west of Philadelphia. Here, a much smaller number of homeless people — fewer than 100 in 2022 — are dotted across a great swath of land in locations unlike urban underpasses and encampments. Small towns. Woodlands. State parks. Farms. Truck stops. Abandoned motels. . . . If unhoused people aren’t counted, they won’t count."

The rural homeless have often been ignored. "Biden’s December plan said homeless people living outside cities are 'historically undercounted," Moyer reports. "On Thursday, the Department of Housing and Urban Development announced $315 million in grants to address homelessness among people in unsheltered and rural settings in 46 communities." HUD Secretary Marcia L. Fudge said in a statement, "For the first time the federal government is deploying targeted resources to meet the needs of people experiencing homelessness in unsheltered settings or in rural areas."

For advocates like Kempf that meant "Counting people — a seemingly simple task that wasn’t that simple," Moyer reports. Regional homeless-systems manager Chris Kapp explained that the point-in-time count was not just a census, but also a search: “You’re not going to see people with a neon light that says, ‘I’m homeless.’”

Point-in-time counters had to identify possible homeless individuals and approach them. "Some people didn’t want to be found. Those who refused to talk or wouldn’t acknowledge that they were homeless became 'observational' counts — counters would record why they suspected a person was unhoused along with the person’s location and estimated age, then move on," Moyer reports. "Those who did consent to an interview would be peppered with, depending on their patience, dozens of questions," and and the counters faced risks: "They were reaching out to those who had been exiled or exiled themselves to society’s fringes. The vast majority were harmless. Some weren’t."

Moyer writes, "Advocates counted about 80 homeless people, including about 10 children, in Cumberland County that night — about 10 percent higher than the number last year — and everyone in the tally had the same problem:" poverty. Kempf said, “Poverty is poverty.”

Farming is latest flashpoint between U.S. and China; Grand Forks drops support of Chinese mill after Air Force objects

Grand Forks, N.D., officials had previously backed plans for a
Chinese-owned corn mill. (WSJ photo by Lewis Ableidinger)

Adding new jobs, increasing tax revenue and providing a possible "perch for spying;" that last one is not something Grand Forks, North Dakota, will be offering: "The mayor of this city near the Minnesota border backed a Chinese company’s plans to build a $700 million corn mill on the outskirts of town," reports Kristina Peterson and Anthony DeBarros of The Wall Street Journal. "Then last week Brandon Bochenski reversed course, hours after the release of a letter from an Air Force official declaring the corn-mill project a security risk because of its proximity to the Grand Forks Air Force Base 12 miles away."

Bochenski, a former professional hockey player who previously played in Russia and was elected mayor in 2020, told Peterson and DeBarros, “When it comes to national security, I don’t think the economics matter. You’ve got to draw a hard line there.”

They write: "Bochenski said he and other officials who had supported the project would now block the development by the U.S. branch of Fufeng Group Ltd., which still owns the 370 acres of land . . . . The episode reflects intensifying concerns over whether the U.S. should be restricting the ability of foreigners, particularly from China, to buy American farmland. Lawmakers and others say they want to make sure the U.S. food-supply chain is protected. . . . Worries about China’s espionage deepened after a suspected Chinese spy balloon was identified in U.S. airspace and later shot down over the Atlantic on Saturday."

“Grand Forks and Fufeng became a flashpoint for a much broader discussion. The country collectively realized we had not been keeping our eye on the ball,” North Dakota Sen. Kevin Cramer told the Journal. In response, a Chinese Embassy spokesperson, said, "We oppose the malicious generalization of the concept of national security and the obstruction and sabotage of normal exchanges and mutually beneficial cooperation between the two countries."

The Journal adds: "China remains the biggest market for U.S. agricultural exports, buying almost $36 billion worth of agricultural goods in 2021, according to the Department of Agriculture. . . . In Congress, lawmakers have introduced bipartisan bills to tighten federal oversight of foreigners’ proposed purchases or outright block the ability of buyers from China, Russia, North Korea and Iran to buy U.S. farmland or agricultural businesses."

Rural Montanans were the first civilians to report the Chinese spy balloon; why are such balloons still used?

One of Larry Mayer's photos for the Gazette

Rural Americans were the first civilians to spy China's "weather balloon" escapade. "The president of the United States knew about the presence of the Chinese spy balloon for several days before it was spotted drifting over Montana. But the White House wanted to keep it secret fearing news of the surveillance balloon would sabotage Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s planned diplomatic trip to China, Bloomberg News reported. . .That changed when on Feb. 1 when Billings Gazette photographer Larry Mayer, responding to vague reports that the airspace around Billings had been closed, photographed an odd glowing orb high in the sky," the Gazette reports.

"Using a large telephoto lens, Mayer discovered it was a high-altitude balloon powered by a large solar array. ... The Gazette’s publication of those photos, connecting them to the closed airspace and the fighter jets being scrambled to track the balloon, was quickly picked up by other media around the world — and the White House," the Gazette notes. "The White House was especially alarmed the balloon was hovering over a part of Montana that houses intercontinental nuclear missile silos."

Thank you, curious Montanans. So, what is a spy balloon? "A spy balloon is literally a gas-filled balloon that is flying quite high in the sky . . . It has some sophisticated cameras and imaging technology on it, and it’s pointing all of those instruments down at the ground. It’s collecting information through photography and other imaging of whatever is going on down on the ground below it," reports Iain Boyd of The Conversation, an independent source of news and views from the academic and research community.

How and why do spy balloons work? Spying satellites give us clues, but have built-in disadvantages. In low Earth orbit, Boyd writes, "It takes them about 90 minutes to do one orbit around the Earth. That's pretty fast to take clear photographs." In geosynchronous orbit, satellites stay in one place above the ground to capture images continuously but are much farther away. "A balloon in some ways gets the best of those. These balloons are much, much closer to the ground than satellites, so they can see even more clearly. The balloons are moving, but they’re moving relatively slowly, so they also have a degree of persistence."

What was it doing up there? "It’s likely to be different kinds of cameras collecting different types of information," Boyd writes. "The broad interest in this incident illustrates its unusual nature. Few people would expect any country to be actively using spy balloons these days." UPDATE: The Washington Post reports that the balloon is part of "a vast aerial surveilance program" that "has for years collected information on military assets in several countries, U.S. officials said."

 

Think tank sends 8,000 middle and high-school teachers books that it says shows we are not in a 'climate crisis'

Photo by RJ Sangosti, The Denver Post

It's taken decades of public debate, scientific research and misinformation discussions, but "Nearly three-quarters of Americans now accept that climate change is happening; not only that, more than half understand it is caused by human activity," reports Blanca Begert of Grist, a nonprofit that covers climate issues. "This shift has forced fossil-fuel companies — and the organizations they fund — to alter their tactics to avoid regulation. Where they once denied climate science outright, companies now engage in 'discourses of delay,' publicly accepting the science but working to stall climate policy."

The latest on that front: The Heartland Institute, a free-market think tank that has long debated climate science, says it sent its new book, Climate at a Glance, to 8,000 middle- and high-school teachers across the country, and that the book "provides the data to show the earth is not experiencing a climate crisis."

Glenn Branch, deputy director of the non-profit National Center for Science Education, told Begert that the book uses a good-cop, bad-cop style by admitting some scientific facts and "adding some commentary that’s wildly exaggerated or a completely false interpretation." For example, "A page on sea-level rise says 'levels have been rising at a fairly steady pace since at least the mid-1800s,' but the rate has actually more than doubled in the 2000s when compared to most of the 20th century."

About the institute: "Founded in Chicago in 1984, the Heartland Institute received hundreds of thousands of dollars from fossil fuel companies and industrial billionaires," Begert writes. "Climate misinformation has historically been funded and spread through a network of front groups, and Heartland no longer discloses its major supporters." Branch said, “What Heartland is hoping for is to catch those who haven’t been equipped to understand climate science well enough to realize the highly misleading nature of the materials."

Opinion: Ignoring celebrities and giving 'reality of personal relationships' a chance could help heal communities

Prior to tonight's State of the Union address, a top-down sort of thing, Andy Stanton-Henry of Mt. Gilead, Ohio, argues in The Daily Yonder: "We are going to have to flip the conventional wisdom of top-down change and give bottom-up another try."

Stanton-Henry, a community navigator for a United Way, begins by looking at how we pick our leaders: "Don’t meet your heroes, we are told. It’s not the worst advice, since they so often let us down. Interreacting with anyone is a humanizing act, and meeting our heroes reveals that they are human just like us. And that’s not always a pleasant experience. But most of the time, we don’t have to meet our heroes to be disappointed by them. We only have to watch what they do and listen to what they say. . . . They should be held accountable and we deserve leaders with integrity and courage. But, if we are honest, it’s partly our fault. We have placed too much hope in celebrities."

Rural Americans can also fall for celebrity glitz, Stanton-Henry warns: "Rural folks like to think we are not susceptible to celebrity, but recent national elections have reminded us that this is not always the case. We value self-reliance and local community but sometimes we turn to 'strong man' leaders who promise to save us. . . . The truth is, however, no politician can 'make America great again.'"

What can leaders do, and what can average Americans do? "They can lead by example, work to pass helpful legislation, and inspire the nation by word and deed," Stanton-Henry writes. "But none of those, by themselves, are enough to heal our communities or create pathways out of poverty. The work of repair and rebuilding that our historical moment requires includes all of us. We can’t do it by ourselves but neither can it be done without us."

Stanton-Henry theorizes: "Maybe part of the problem is our fixation on charismatic leaders coming to save us. If we are going to heal and if our communities have a chance at thriving, we are going to have to rethink some things. To do this, we are going to have to disinvest our hope in powerful, public heroes and reinvest it in hidden ones. . . . I’ve come to believe that most real heroes are hidden. Most saints are unseen. You probably know some. You may even be one of them. Whether our communities fail or thrive has a lot to do with sustaining and celebrating the work of hidden heroes and unseen saint."

Thomas Merton (Christian Book photo)

He offers a rural example: "Kentucky writer and monk Thomas Merton wrote a letter to peace activists telling them to 'not depend on the hope of results.' They were bound to be let down by conventional definitions of 'success' and 'effectiveness.' Instead, he suggested they find fulfillment in the rightness of the work itself. When they let go of their hope in results, they would 'gradually struggle less and less for an idea and more and more for specific people. In the end, it is the reality of personal relationship that saves everything.'"

He reminds us again that rural Americans know how to apply Merton's teachings. "At our best, rural and small-town folks model this principle. We don’t get caught up in the topics and trends that make national news. We don’t obsess over traditional metrics of success. Instead, we focus on doing our work well, loving our families and neighbors well, and leaving a legacy for our kids or community. Country life is all about 'the reality of personal relationship.' But I fear that many of us have forgotten or neglected this. Some of us have even outright rejected this. It’s time to remember and reclaim it." 

House Republicans consider making Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps) part of debt-limit fight

House Republicans are "considering new work requirements or general cuts to federal food assistance in the brewing debt limit fight," Politico reports. That could complicate work on the new five-year Farm Bill, in which the big ticket is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

House Appropriations Committeee Chair Kay Granger confirmed to Politico's Weekly Agriculture that the ideas are being considered. “We're still looking at it. Haven't made a decision yet,” Granger said when asked if food assistance spending cuts or new SNAP work requirements are on the table.

"Some Republicans think they’ll have a better chance of pursuing their yearslong effort to cut back on SNAP spending and add work requirements in debt negotiations rather than in the Farm Bill, where Democrats are likely to strip it out," Meredith Lee Hill and Garrett Downs report.

But Agriculture Committee Chair G.T. Thompson told Politico that he would be “shocked” if SNAP is touched in the debt-ceiling battle. "He wants to leave any SNAP discussions for the Farm Bill talks," Hill and Downs report. "Emergency pandemic-era SNAP benefits are ending this month. And, work requirements that had been paused during the pandemic are returning as well as the public health emergency is set to end in May."

Thompson, who was on food stamps (now SNAP) as a young adult, said, “I don't think it's appropriate, especially given the fact that so many families are struggling under this Biden inflation . . . which makes it tough.”

But the talk of work requirements "is sure to bring back congressional debate over able-bodied adults without dependents," Hill and Downs write. "ABAWDs are usually the target of imposed work requirements, but vulnerable populations might not be able to verify their work."

FBI offers rewards on top of those N.C. officials offered for intel on substation saboteurs; security a national concern

Rural substations are particularly vulnerable.
(Photo by Kate Medley, The New York Times)

The FBI is offering $25,000 apiece "for information that leads to the arrest of whoever shot up two electric substations in North Carolina on Dec. 3." Soon after the incidents, "A $75,000 reward was posted jointly by the Moore County Sheriff’s Office, the state and county governments for . . . information 'leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible'," Jonathan Bym reports for The Pilot in Southern Pines, N.C. "Along with the attacks in Moore County that left approximately 45,000 Duke Energy customers without power, a shooting that occurred in Randolph County that damaged an EnergyUnited substation in the western part of the county on Jan. 17 is also being investigated by the FBI."

"The authorities have not arrested anyone or identified any motive," reports Michael Levenson of The New York Times. "Over the last three months, at least nine substations have been attacked in North Carolina, Washington State and Oregon, cutting power to tens of thousands. . . . After those attacks, federal regulators ordered a review of security standards for the electrical system. . . . John Wellinghoff, a former chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, said that smaller substations in rural areas remain protected by little more than chain-link fencing, security cameras and lighting. That leaves them vulnerable to rifle attacks. . . . Larger plots against a 'finite number' of substations nationwide, which, if disabled, would knock out power in half the country." Wellinghoff pointed out, "Lives are at stake," because of threats to heating and medical equipment.

Attack motivations could be a complex blend. Lewis reports: "From 2016 to 2022, white-supremacist plots targeting energy systems 'dramatically increased in frequency,' according to a study released in September by researchers at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University. The study attributed the targeting of the energy sector to the rise of 'accelerationism,' a term white supremacists have adopted to describe their desire to hasten the collapse of society. . . . While most of the warnings have focused on right-wing extremists, a man who was convicted of firing a rifle at a Utah substation in 2016 told a confidential witness that he wanted to 'destroy industrial capitalism.'"

Manny Cancel, chief executive of the Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center, a clearinghouse for information about threats against the electrical system, told Lewis that cyberattacks were more likely to cause widespread outages than guns and explosives. Cancel noted to Lewis: “I do think there is a level of protection, of resilience, that’s built into the grid." The question is “Is there more that we should do?”

 

UPDATE, Feb. 7: Two Neo-Nazis, including the founder of Atomwaffen, have been accused of plotting an attack on the Maryland power grid, report Rachel Weiner, Jasmine Hilton and Dan Morse of The Washington Post. "The charges come amid a spate of sabotage targeting power stations across the country. . . . Most of the cases remain unsolved, but authorities and experts say they follow increased interest among white supremacists in targeting electric infrastructure."

Covid-19 death rates in rural and urban America seem to be reaching 'tentative equilibrium', Daily Yonder reports

Percentage difference between rural and urban death rates, by week
(Graph by The Daily Yonder)

As the pandemic moves into its fourth year, its ultimate impact on rural America seems to be leveling off.  "Weekly death rates are still higher in rural America than in metropolitan America, but the difference is nothing like it was in earlier phases of the pandemic," reports Sarah Melotte of The Daily Yonder. "Rural America has borne a disproportionately large share of the Covid-19 deaths. . . . But after years of sharply divergent death rates, rural and urban America have reached a tentative equilibrium."

In rural areas, surges of infection were often to blame for "the large gap between the cumulative death rates in rural and urban areas," Melotte writes. "Earlier in the pandemic, the weekly rural death rate was more than two times higher than the urban rate for months. In the last year, however, the gap – while still significant – has stabilized. . . . . Health experts say, the smaller gap between urban and rural death rates is reassuring because it means the nationwide death rate is relatively stable."

The cumulative impact of Covid in rural America tells a story. "By the first week of December 2020, rural and metropolitan counties had about the same number of cumulative deaths proportionately. . . . Since the initial coronavirus surge, which concentrated in New York, the rural death rate has been higher than the metro death rate during every single surge, including the current small surge."

That's explained partly by lower vaccination rates, Melotte reports: "Only 56% of rural residents are fully vaccinated today, compared to 67% of their urban counterparts. . . . Rural areas are, on average, poorer, older, and sicker than their urban counterparts."

Dr. Randy Wykoff, dean of the College of Public Health at East Tennessee State University, told Melotte: “For two years we saw massive spikes. But for the last 10 months, we haven’t. The question everybody is asking is, are we going to keep seeing the spikes?" Wykoff noted the prospect of annual vaccinations "that are targeted at the currently dominant strains of the coronavirus, similar to the way flu vaccines are developed," Melotte reports.

'Right to repair' gets strong pushback from tech industries

Photo by Mark Lennihan, The Associated Press

When "Right to repair" legislation passed in Colorado and New York in late 2022, the movement gained traction, but an uphill climb remains: "The tech industry, despite making some concessions, has maintained its furious opposition to the measures, making it difficult for tinkerers and small businesses to get instructions and components," reports Elaine Povich of Stateline. "Given the resistance from industry on broader actions and a last-minute effort last year that weakened the New York law, repair advocates are skeptical that new state laws will make much of a difference."

Movement leaders are trying to build on their limited successes to push right-to-repair legislation in other states. Nathan Proctor, a senior director at the Public Interest Research Group, a left-leaning advocacy group that has been a leader in the movement, told Stateline, "'There’s an inherent momentum in proof of concept when you get across the finish line." Stateline reports, "According to Proctor and other legislative trackers, bills have been introduced, or held over from last year, in 17 states, including California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont and Washington."

Stateline notes: "A Consumer Reports survey conducted in 2021 found that 84% of the U.S. adults polled said they agreed with a policy that would require manufacturers to make repair information and parts available either to independent repairers or to product owners." In response, some manufactures have lessened their grip, "taking some limited steps toward allowing more self-repairs. Apple recently added more desktop Macs to the devices covered by its self-service repair program, for example, while Samsung did the same with certain phones and laptops . . . . but given the resistance from industry, repair advocates say manufacturers are trying to open loopholes."

Many tech-industry coalitions remain opposed to the movement's efforts. Chris Gilrein, Northeastern executive director for TechNet, told Stateline, "We still have concerns with the final legislation [in New York]. At its core, the law remains a state-mandated transfer of intellectual property that is unwarranted at a time when consumers have access to more repair options than ever before. We do not encourage other states to follow New York’s lead."

Elizabeth Chamberlain, director of sustainability at iFixit, an independent technology repair company, told Stateline that while momentum is building, the New York case shows that right to repair advocates need to be vigilant about all the legislation. “We recognize there will be narrowings [of legislation],” she said in a phone interview. “We are going to have to fight on.”

Joe Edwards, a Corn Belt native who went on to chronicle country music in Nashville for The Associated Press, dies

Loretta Lynn and Joe Edwards (AP photo, undated)

Joe Edwards, who "documented the ascent of country music through interviews with stars ranging from Dolly Parton to Taylor Swift," died Friday in Nashville after a lengthy illness, reports The Associated Press, for which he worked for 42 years, retiring in 2012. He was 75.

Edwards was a product of rural America who worked his way south. Born in Crawfordsville, Indiana, in the Eastern Corn Belt, he worked in Vincennes and Cincinnati before graduating from Eastern Kentucky University and joining AP in Nashville in 1970, working most of the jobs in the bureau. But his byline soon became familiar to country-music fans, and he had superb entré into the music industry.

Edwards had influence in Tennessee. "In 1982, a story Edwards wrote about the popularity of the song 'Rocky Top' led the General Assembly to declare it a state song," AP reports. "He got the ball rolling," said Boudleaux Bryant, who wrote the song in 1967 with his wife Felice at The Gatlinburg Inn (Rocky Top is a peak in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, not the Tennessee town that adopted its name 50 years later). It was first recorded by the Osborne Brothers, a Kentucky-born duo; a more mainstream version by Lynn Anderson in 1970 led to its adoption by the University of Tennessee band and finally to Edwards' September 1981 story, which said the song "has become as beloved in Tennessee as the immortal, but more sedate, 'Tennessee Waltz'."

Edwards "specialized in writing obituaries, including those for music stars Johnny Cash, Porter Wagoner, Roy Orbison, Bill Monroe and Carl Perkins," AP reports. "In 2010, he wrote extensively about the Nashville flooding that left much of the city submerged for several days. But he preferred reporting about more light-hearted topics, such as the taster at the Jack Daniel’s distillery in Lynchburg, Tennessee."

UPDATE, Feb. 7: Former AP Tennessee staffer Beth Miller tells Connecting, the newsletter for AP retirees and friends: "I cannot even begin to stress how huge of a force Joe Edwards was for the AP both in Tennessee and afar, even in his always unassuming demeanor. He was a masterful interviewer, and he could tell a story like none other (and boy, did he have the stories!)"

Sturgeon outlived dinosaurs and the Chicxulub asteroid; now they must contend with mankind, will they survive?

Atlantic sturgeon were once plentiful, but now may face extinction.
(Photograph by Joel Sartore, National Geographic Photo Ark)

Atlantic sturgeon have been swimming in North American waters for the past 10 to 15 million years. Sixty-six million years ago, when the Chicxulub asteroid hit, eliminating about 70 percent of species on Earth, Acipenser oxyrinchus oxyrinchus survived, reports Andrew S. Lewis of The New York Times. "Last year, however, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature called sturgeon "the animal group most at risk of extinction in the world," adding, "Humanity has reduced this ancient and enduring fish to such a fragile state speaks to the force of the latest impact event to remake the Earth — our own presence."

The North Atlantic sturgeon's demise began on the lower Delaware River estuary in the mid-1800s: "During the spring spawn, an estimated 360,000 adults thronged the reach that marked the brackish threshold between bay and river," Lewis writes. "Theirs was the roe prized by the Russian czars, whose brokers at one point paid more than $1,400 in today’s dollars for a single female Atlantic sturgeon. During the fishery’s peak, in 1888, 16,500 Atlantic sturgeon — they can live 60 years and grow to 14 feet and 800 pounds — were 'harvested,' or killed. Most were female, and the millions of eggs that each could produce during a spawn never made it into the water within which they were meant to hatch."

Lewis reports: "Because individuals from different rivers do not commonly interbreed, their homing instinct has produced populations whose genetics are unique to the waterways of their birth. In 2012, the species became protected under the Endangered Species Act. At the time, researchers estimated that the Delaware population consisted of 300 or fewer spawning adults per year."

In the Delaware estuary, "strikes by vessel hulls and propellers are a threat to Atlantic sturgeon across their range but responsible for half of all adult deaths . . . dredging is known to be especially harmful for Atlantic sturgeon," Lewis reports. A study by Dewayne Fox, a fisheries biologist at Delaware State University used Delaware’s data on vessel strikes to "calculate how many additional fatalities were going unnoticed," and his estimates were unsettling.
  
"In a population with so few adults, it signaled an alarmingly high rate of deaths," Lewis writes, adding that the study results were held for review by the Northeast Fisheries Science Center: In June 2021, a National Marine Fisheries Service biologist who was writing the biological opinion on proposed port projects "said he was considering using Fox’s study as part of the best available information on vessel strikes. . . . . but when the BiOps were released, Fox learned that NMFS had instead relied on a decade-old study from the James River in Virginia."

Meanwhile, dredging began for a "wind port" to serve turbines planned off the coast, "and would continue to do so for several months," Lewis writes. "While there were no reports of sturgeon killed during the work, the new port would mean more ship traffic for years to come."