It burns: the Humboldt pepper spray case

I apologize for the length of this post, but it's too complex a topic to put in a short blurb.

I learned about the use of pepper spray against protestors on the UC Davis on Facebook. Many people were linking to the first Youtube video of Lieutenant John Pike pacing back and forth spraying the protestors with a large can of pepper spray. It was disturbing and upsetting to say the least. Shortly after the original video came out some of my Facebook friends began posting a case I was very familiar with: Headwaters Forest Defense v. County of Humboldt.

Seeing that case name again gave me a burning feeling of my own. I felt intense shame, anger, and sorrow because the case was a subject of a difficult time in Humboldt county. The overall outcome of that period has had a negative impact on my family. The case came about due to the Timber Wars that occurred in Humboldt over the fate of the old growth redwoods in Headwaters Forest specifically, and the fate of the timber industry in Humboldt generally. It's a difficult subject that needs a lot of context.

The logging and milling of redwood and Douglas-fir trees has been one of the main industries of Humboldt county since its founding. One of the most important timber companies was Pacific Lumber Company, better known locally as PL.

PL was a good corporation originally. It wasn't the largest private land owner in California (that title goes to Sierra Pacific Industries), but it did hold the largest amount of privately held old growth redwood. Old-growth has a coveted tight grain when cut, and the wood is pest and fire resistant. It is popular for fences, decks, and other outdoor objects because it stands against the elements so well. These factors make redwood very valuable, and PL had a lot of it.

The old PL was owned and operated by the Murphy family, a timber family in every sense. They planned on slowly harvesting the old growth, managing the forests so that PL could operate for as long as there was a demand for lumber. But they made a fatal mistake, in the 1980s the family decided to make PL a publicly traded company. In 1985 PL was the victim of a hostile takeover, bought out by Charles Hurwitz and his company based in Texas, Maxxam. Maxxam was not a timber company, it was a vampire that took over companies with valuable assets and bled them dry.

Almost immediately lines started to be drawn. Three belligerent groups formed: Timber people, Environmentalists, and Maxxam. Maxxam began over logging PL's lands and running the company into the ground. Timber people were mostly from families that had been living in Humboldt before World War II and were very conservative. They hated Maxxam, but the burst in logging created jobs and it was felt that what Maxxam did to the company it owned was up to Maxxam. They thought that after PL collapsed there would still be the other mills of Humboldt to provide jobs.

Environmentalists were mostly people that had either come to live in Humboldt after World War II or came specifically for the protests and had no other connection to the county. They tended to be very liberal. The Environmentalists hated Maxxam for the damage being done by the intense logging.

You would think that the mutual hatred of Maxxam would provide an alliance between timber people and environmentalists, but both sides despised each other. Political and cultural leanings got in the way. Some militant environmental protestors further inflamed the conflict by pulling stunts like pouring sugar into logging tractor gas tanks, cutting fuel lines for loggers pickups, spitting on timber workers, and hammering in metal spikes into trees so when cut the saws would break (putting loggers at risk).

Some loggers would kick and punch protestors that tried to block their way into the forest. Protestors also accused loggers of intentionally falling trees near them when the protestors went into the woods to try and stop operations [after the pepper spray case, a protestor was killed when a tree fell by a logger brought down another tree that in turn fell directly onto the protestor. It was ruled an accident, though some protestors claimed it was intentional].

This is the environment that Headwaters Forest Defense v. County of Humboldt came to be in. Some environmentalists trying to stop the logging in the Headwaters Forest decided to do sit ins at the offices of PL and the then Congressman for Humboldt, Frank Riggs. Police responded to both scenes, and were confronted by chanting (sometimes screaming) protestors who had placed their arms in metal sleeves to prevent their removal. The sleeves were made so the protestor could lock their arms inside the metal tube so it could only be safely unlocked from the inside with the wearers help. Cutting into the sleeve would have risked serious harm to the protestors.

The police didn't really know what to do; the protestors refused to leave both offices. At some point the decision had been made to use pepper spray. The idea was that the protestors, once exposed, would want to release themselves in order to get relief from the burning. Additionally the decision was made not to spray the protestors. Instead Q-Tips were dipped into cans of spray that had been opened, and the Q-Tips were rubbed on each protestors eyes in a highly concentrated dose. The result was horrible (the police begin to use the spray at 6:30 in the video).

The protestors would sue the county for unnecessary use of force. And the case would become the topic de jour of Humboldt, stirring intense feelings. Many were angry at the police for the harm they caused, but there was also anger directed at the protestors by timber people. Who are these outsiders to come to our county to harm our way of life and then turn around and sue us? The case would become a focal point of the use of pepper spray by police on protestors, especially restrained protestors.

After several appeals and trials ending in hung juries, the third and final jury found the county liable for the excessive harm caused to the protestors and awarded them damages. The total of those damages? One dollar. The protestors claimed that this was fine as they were trying to make a larger point about police force. The jury could have awarded more to the protestors, but there were rumors that the jurors that came from timber families, while angry at the police for using such brute force against the protestors, were also angry at the protestors for all the trouble they'd stirred up in Humboldt. The one dollar award was for them a chance to give the protestors a middle finger. Again, this is just a rumor.

The case would be just one of the first of many events that would be a watershed of change for Humboldt. Politics was swept up in the fervor and Maxxam intensified it's efforts to strip everything of value from PL. The Headwaters Forest was given to the state in a land swap that was meant to make PL look good in the court of public opinion while at the same time minimizing the impact on Maxxam's profits. PL was left a bankrupt shell that was later bought at severely reduced function by Mendocino Redwood Company in 2008.

And PL is not the only victim from the Timber Wars. Many of the major mills either shut down or limited operations in Humboldt in part due to the increased regulation (spurred on by the Environmentalists efforts to stop Maxxam) and from the lost value of timber caused by Maxxam's massive sell off of lumber flooding the market.

This has hurt many timber families including my own. Our trucking fleet went from a high of sixty trucks (with about fifteen of those working two shifts) at the height of the 1990s to twenty-five today with talk of cutting it down to twelve or fifteen, maybe more. This is the same story for all trucking fleets and logging operations in Humboldt. We can all mark the downfall back to the events leading up to the pepper spray case.

So you can imagine the pain I felt at seeing the title Headwaters Forest Defense v. County of Humboldt start popping up all over Facebook. "Look" my friends were saying "Look, what UCPD did was wrong! Humboldt already had a similar incident! There's precedent." What they didn't know they were also saying "Look Scott, look! We found something painful from your childhood. We found the beginning of the end of your family's way of life."

Some people have been calling the UC Davis incident the "Spray heard around the world." I don't know how sure we can be of its impact quite yet, though it's created to opportunity for a slew of internet memes. But I can say that the Humboldt County incident was the "Spray heard around Humboldt county." And it sounded like a once proud industry dying.

Rural suicide

A few weeks ago the town of Emington, Illinois was shocked by a murder-suicide. The county sheriff issued a statement this past Monday stating that Sara McMeen, 30, was the sole shooter of her 29 year-old live in boyfriend, Daniel Warren, and her three children, 10-month-old Maggie, 8-year-old Skyler Lemke, and 7-year-old Ian.

Emington is a small speck of a town with about 117 residents. McMeen and Warren had recently moved into town and their kids were attending the local school. And while events like these don't comport with rural ideals--of happy homes in small towns, where children lives tranquil lives--the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention tells a different story.

On their website the AFSP releases statistics and rural states are consistently in the top ten. So what makes suicide so popular in these states? Part of it could be spending of suicide prevention. Idaho, which recently cracked the top ten, spends among the lowest in suicide prevention. Treatment for depression or any other type of disorder can be very hard to get in a town of 117 people.

And the sources of depression can be exacerbated in small towns. Larger economical effects can have more meaning in some towns. Where the recently unemployed urbanite can go apply for a number of different jobs, the same isn't true for those in rural areas. The lack anonymity can make social situations even more awkward. Consider that in Idaho the second-leading cause of death for boys ages 10-14 is suicide. These aren't boys that are being laid-off from their jobs, these are boys where their social anxiety has gripped their lives. Why? Part of the answer might be their rural culture.

But outside of infrastructure and institutional spending, part of the reasoning could lie in the culture. A big topic in rural studies is rural self-help, the idea that the rural people can do things for themselves. In one vein, this indicates that they would be the last to commit suicide, but in another it might push the issue. Suicide can also be thought of as the extreme version of self-help.

Or consider isolationism. While social scientists often talk about the lack of anonymity in rural environments, there is also a degree of isolation. Growing up in a rural area myself I can tell you that some rural environments can be completely isolationist. Consider one of the accounts of the Emington murder-suicide: one neighbor heard shots and ran outside to see Ms. McMeen holding her baby and a gun. The neighbor then asked her if something was wrong. McMeen replied of course there was something wrong, shot the baby, and then ran away. One article explains that there wasn't a single thing wrong in the children's lives, that they were happy and full of life. The community had no idea.

A recent study called Rural suicide--people or place effects? sought to unravel these same questions. At least people are asking.

South Fulton, Tennessee to rural residents: Pay up or watch your house burn

What should happen when you see your house burning down? Most people would probably answer that you should call 911 and wait for the fire department to arrive. Then, the fire department should try to save your property.

If you live on the outskirts of South Fulton, Tennessee (population 2,354), taking those steps might not be enough. That's because those residents who live outside the city limits do not receive fire protection unless they pay an annual $75 subscription. And, the punishment for failing to pay your subscription, is to watch your house burn.

As reported by the Associated Press, earlier this month, a couple watched their mobile home go up in flames while firefighters parked down the street and observed. And this isn't the first time this has happened. Last year, national media outlets reported when the South Fulton Fire Department refused to show up to a burning house until a subscribed neighbor called to make sure the fire did not spread to their property. The homeowner who lost his house in that fire claims he simply forgot to pay the fee that year and even offered to pay whatever amount the fire department wanted to put out his house. The fire department refused and he lost everything.

According to ABC News, the city of South Fulton has had the "pay to spray" arrangement in place for more than 20 years. David Crocker, South Fulton's mayor, says that a strict refusal to put out fires for non-subscribers is the only way to ensure that the subscription fees are paid. And the subscription fees are the only way the city can afford to assist rural residents who live outside the city limits. If a single exception is made he argues, nobody will pay their subscription fees.

Although Mayor Crocker might have a valid point, the fire earlier this month was allowed to burn for an entirely different reason. Vicky Bell said she and her boyfriend intentionally did not pay their subscription fee this year because they did not think their house would ever catch fire. For that reason, they also did not have fire insurance on the property. They did not refuse to pay their subscription fee based on a belief that the fire department would show up and put out the fire anyway. Instead, they took a chance and lost.

Mayor Crocker's tough stance might convince some people to pay their fire subscription, but others will continue to play the odds and refuse to pay. If those homes happen to catch fire though, everyone loses. The homeowners themselves will have lost all of their property and nearby neighbors, including those who paid the subscription fee, will be left with a smoldering mess next door. Property values will decrease, insurance rates will go up, and people who once owned a home will be left homeless.

In an era of tight municipal budgets, there does not seem to be an easy solution. Perhaps the city could impose a fine on those who require fire services but are not subscribed to the service. If the fine is sufficiently high, it would prevent people from taking the calculated risk of refusing to pay the subscription fee in favor of picking up the tab if the fire department is ever needed. For instance, if the fine is 20 times the amount of the annual subscription fee, someone would have to decide that they were unlikely to need fire services in the next twenty years in order for it to make financial sense not to pay the fee. The higher the fine, the more likely it is that people will subscribe.

Another alternative would be for the rural residents to quit relying on South Fulton's services altogether and establish their own fire department. As discussed recently on this blog, volunteer fire departments can provide fire services to people in rural areas. The startup cost might make such a move prohibitive however, as fire equipment is not likely to be cheap. The annual cost for residents might not be any cheaper than the system currently in place either.

As governments continue to face budget problems and contract services, it is more and more likely that rural places will face these types of problems. Rural residents are faced with the prospect of less access to government services if they refuse, forget, or are unable to pay subscription fees. If the problem becomes more widespread and the costs are prohibitively high, it seems likely that people will leave their rural homes to avoid the hazards associated with having no fire coverage.

Blood quantum, delisting Indians, and the Indian casino boom

A few weeks ago, the New York Times ran this piece on the trend among American Indian tribes to de-list members based on insufficient Indian blood, if you will. The tribes' motivation seems to be thinning their numbers so that fewer will share in some tribes' newfound wealth, mostly from gaming enterprises. This trend is especially prevalent in California, which has many small tribes, most of which were "decimated, scattered and reconstituted, often out of ethnically mixed Indians." Here's an excerpt from that story, dateline Coarsegold, California, a Census Designated Place in Madera County.

At least 2,500 Indians have been disenrolled by at least two dozen California tribes in the past decade, according to estimates by Indian advocates and academics. In almost all of those cases, tribal governments--exercising authority recognized by the federal government--have determined that the ousted Indians did not have the proper ancestry.

A great deal is at stake for these Indians--now former Indians/tribe members in many cases--because tribes provide many benefits to members: college tuition, housing, tribal schools and--more recently--a share of casino profits. The 58-year-old woman featured in the Times story, Nancy Dondero, had been a member of the Picayune Rancheria of the Chukchansi Indians her entire life--until, that is, she was recently disenrolled, along with 50 of her relatives. Now, Dondero's daughter has pulled out of a master's degree program because she cannot afford it without her tribe's assistance.

This op-ed in today's Times comments on the trend and situates it in historical legal perspective. The op-ed is by David Treuer, an Ojibwe member, who notes the irony that many Indian tribes use "a system of blood membership that was imposed upon us in violation of our sovereignty," and he recounts the ways in which the U.S. government used blood quantum laws during the 19th and into the 20th Century to deprive Indians of land and other Indian entitlements. Treuer asserts that blood quantum laws served the interest of the federal government because they permitted the government to circumvent restrictions on, for example, Indians selling tribal lands. That is, if the land owner was deemed not to be an Indian, the restriction on selling was relaxed, making it easier to get the land into the hands of whites.

Treuer asserts, "Blood quantum laws have always been about 'the stuff,' and they have always been about exclusion." These days, the "stuff" is more valuable than it's been in awhile, thanks to Indian gaming profits.

"Rustic chic": homage or insult?

Earlier this year, the Lifetime TV network debuted a new show called "Picker Sisters," in which two interior designers (Tanya McQueen and Tracy Hutson) travel around the country buying up junk that their contractor transforms into art or furniture to be sold in the Los Angeles store. The show's website explains it this way:

With keen eyes for style and intuitive design instincts, they travel far and wide to find jaw-dropping bargains on any interesting materials they discover before driving back to California and transforming them into pieces that will fetch top dollar. Whether it's a tarnished file tank sitting in a junk yard, mangled barbed wire, rusty tire wheels or the weathered wood from an entire barn, Hutson and McQueen meet and negotiation with some of the country's most interesting people willing to part with their belongings...for the right price.

Jackie Cooper, a film critic for The Huffington Post, describes the premise as a "horror film waiting to happen." In most cases, the well-coiffed and fashionable women (often wearing short-shorts) arrive at a property in the "middle of nowhere" and begin bargaining with strangers for junk. Mr. Cooper's review of the show, while positive, is loaded with troubling stereotypes of rural America.

In fact, my first impression of the show was laced with similar stereotypes. I admit that when I saw a preview for "Picker Sisters," I worried that it would be an unfortunate example of "big city" designers talking down to (and ripping off) the "rural folk." I couldn't get past the image of these well-dressed women waltzing onto these rural properties. Videos on the website feature banjo-fueled country music in the background. I imagined uncomfortable culture clashes between the LA-based Hutson and McQueen and the individuals they met in Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Or the kind of dumbing-down of (Southern) rural America as described in this New York Times piece and this blog's related post.

I approached the show with suspicion, but my fears of exploitation and stereotyping were quickly allayed. According to the show's website, Hutson and McQueen both grew up in rural Texas. In the three episodes I watched, they were extremely courteous and paid fair prices for their purchases. All of the people they dealt with were smart, savvy individuals who drove a hard bargain because they seemed to understand that the women would resell the pieces for huge sums of money.

However, it is the reselling of the pieces that brought up me to another question: what is with the popularity (particularly among urban and suburban dwellers) of "rustic chic" design? In the second half of every episode of "Picker Sisters," the women return to Los Angeles and viewers get to see the finished product of their picking efforts: an old sign turned into a headboard, rusty tractor fenders turned into chairs, or a log turned into an end table. Beautiful, if not entirely practical, pieces. Rustic chic with big price tags. At this point, I started to wonder, "Who really buys this stuff?"

Despite my incredulity, "rustic chic" design seems here to stay, for a little while at least. Take, for example, West Elm catalog's Thanksgiving table setting (complete with reclaimed wood and hay bales) featured on the design blog Decor Arts Now, pictured at left.

There is an entire website devoted to rustic weddings, Rustic Wedding Chic. Another similar wedding blog is called Sparkle & Hay. Yet another blog, Rustic Chic, is curated by "an interior designer with feet in both urbane Manhattan and rural New Jersey."

The trend continues beyond the blogosphere. Martha Stewart's New York-based former assistant was married in a field in Tennessee and had her reception in a barn. Her wedding was featured on Martha Stewart's website, show, and in her magazine. A hip new bar near downtown Washington, DC called "American Ice Co." advertises itself as "beers, steers and picnic tables," and serves drinks in mason jars.

Words and materials usually reserved for a country house, cabin, or other non-urban dwelling suddenly seem to be everywhere. A March 2011 article from the New York Times describes some followers of the American Rustic ideal:

It is a simpler, more rustic and American-inflected style that is more general store than taxidermy appointed lodge, and that emphasizes objects that are well-made, durable and useful: wire storage baskets, machine-age metal tools, leather couches, canvas bags, colorful woolen blankets and interiors made of barn wood.

In my personal life, I'm no stranger to the phenomenon. My parents live in suburbia, but in a home full of reclaimed barn wood, old windows, and distressed and "rustic" materials strategically used to make the house look much older than it is.

But after a semester in this course and writing and reading this blog, I'm now looking at "rustic chic" through a new lens. Where is this style coming from? Is fueled by nostalgia, a yearning for a "simpler time"? Is there any real connection between rural and rustic? How much of it is tongue-in-cheek and how much is in earnest? Is based in respect, or in co-opting an other's lifestyle? These are all useful questions to consider as I wait to see if "Picker Sisters" is renewed for a second season!

Lawlessness in the Georgia pecan orchards

A story in today's New York Times about pecan theft in Georgia highlights the ways in which spatiality disables or defeats law and those who are its agents or enforcers. The gist of the story is that, with pecan prices very high ($1.50/pound), pecan theft has become increasingly appealing--and is therefore a burgeoning problem in the state's pecan belt. This is creating big problems for growers.

Kim Severson's story, dateline Fort Valley, Georgia, population 8,106, makes several references to the opportunity presented by the nuts because the orchards are "unpatrolled"--because of the difficulties spatiality poses to protecting them from theft. Here is an excerpt:

To protect themselves, growers have installed security cameras. But since most thefts happen at night, it's hard to identify the culprits. The growers have hired security guards and added fences topped with barbed wire. But the orchards are too large to patrol effectively, and thieves cut through the chain-link fence almost as soon as it goes up.

In spite of these challenges, 50 people have been caught stealing pecans from the 2600 acres that comprise Lane's Southern Orchard in Fort Valley this year. More than 30 people have been arrested for pecan theft in Peach County, population 26,019 (of which Fort Valley is the county seat), while 16 have been arrested in Mitchell County, population 23,808, which has seen 37 reports of pecan theft.

What do MF Global and ranchers in Kansas have to do with one another?

Well, according to this NPR story, many farmers and ranchers "were major clients of MF Global, buying futures contracts to hedge against swings in the value of their crops and livestock." More than a billion dollars of the cash of MF Global's clients was declared missing when the giant trading company went belly up a few weeks ago. Journalist Lynn Neary interviewed rancher Tim Rietzke, who has spent some time trying to reach MF Global by phone to determine the status of his funds that were held in a brokerage account there.

Rietzke is a well-spoken rancher from nonmetropolitan Comanche County, Kansas, population 1,891. In particular, Neary introduced him as from the county seat, Coldwater, population 828. Rietzke explained the consequences of his missing $30,000 that was being held by MF Global:

Well, much like a household budget, if you had $30,000 in the bank and all of a sudden that money disappeared, it would change your personal life. And it changes your business life much the same. Let's say in the ranching business you wanted to buy some replacement females or breeding stock or a pickup, now you're not sure what should I do. I don't want to put myself in a bind and have to borrow more money.

Also striking to me was Rietzke's response to Neary's question about the size of his operation. He answered instead with this description of where he lives:

Of course, we're prejudiced, but we think we have a beautiful ranch. The cattle are handled just like they were a lot of years ago, all by horseback. Really, I guess if you came out here, you would think that you had gone back in time, but in our county, there are only 1,900 people. There is no stoplight. It's an hour to fast food any direction. It's an hour to Wal-Mart in any direction, but we like that.

That strikes me as quite an expression of rural attachment to place.

The next long quote from Rietzke's suggests something akin to the informal order and general absence of law typically associated with rural places, with the final bit suggesting discomfort with the web of fiscal globalization that links his life to Wall Street and European debt.

[A]lot of people out here still do business with a handshake. So in other words, I'm going to buy hay from somebody and he said, okay, I'll see you hay for $100 a ton and you shake hands, they deliver the hay and you write them a check.

And I don't need to give him down money. I don't need to write a contract. And there's still an enormous amount of business done in our area just like that. So this is really a different part of the world.  When I had a hedge account to protect my prices, I didn't want to invest in European sovereign debt.  I didn't want to invest in MF Global.  I had nothing to do with their business.

Four angles on fracking

In just the last few weeks, the New York Times has published four stories on hydraulic fracturing. The stories' angles on this increasingly controversial technique for releasing natural gas from shale formations range from the legal to the environmental to the political.

One was this story in the New York Times, which highlighted the disappointment of many landowners who have leased their land for natural gas exploration. Here is a brief except from the story by Ian Urbina and Jo Craven McGinty:

Americans have signed millions of leases allowing companies to drill for oil and natural gas on their land in recent years. But some of these landowners--often in rural areas, and eager for quick payouts--are finding out too late what is, and what is not, in the fine print.

Elsewhere, the journalists again pick up the rural economics theme, stating that many of the lessor/landowners are "residents of rural areas where jobs are scarce and farmers and ranchers have struggled to stay afloat."

Energy companies assert that standard leases include language that protects landowners, but the Times story goes on to list trends regarding what is in the leased, based on the Times analysis of 111,000 leases and related documents.

• Fewer than half require the energy company lessees to compensate landowners for groundwater contamination.
• Most leases grant gas companies broad rights regarding where they can cut down trees, store chemicals, build roads, and drill.
• Most leases do not describe to landowners the environmental and other risks associated with fracking, though these risks must be described to investors under federal law.
• While most leases are for three to five years, two third include provisions permitting the lessee to unilaterally extend the lease for two years, without additional compensation to the landowner.

Urbina and McGinty note that some landowners have joined class action lawsuits against energy companies. The journalists' use of the descriptor "rural" to describe many of the landowner/lessors and their attention to the economic duress of many of these landowners may suggest that landowners are less savvy than their urban counterparts when it comes to negotiating with corporations. On there other hand, their attention to the economic duress which many of these landowners are experiencing may suggest an unfortunate of some judicial decisions I cited in my Rural Rhetoric article, decisions that linked rural gullibility to the need for law's solicitude to their low level of education. Here is my string cite (footnote 39) from that article:

Adkins v. Adkins, 186 Cal. Rptr. 818, 820 (Cal. Ct. App. 1982) (describing respondent as having been “raised in an isolated rural background and [having] received only a third grade education” as partial justification for releasing him from a marital settlement agreement into which he entered without advice of counsel); People v. Vigil, 489 P.2d 588, 589–90 (Colo. 1971) (stating that a criminal defendant from a poor, rural family, who spoke broken English, required “solicitude” of legal system, including more explicit Miranda rights); Lacour v. Sanders, 442 So. 2d 1280, 1283 (La. Ct. App. 1983) (trial court referred to both defendants as “uneducated” men who lived in a rural community); State v. Hamrick, 236 S.E.2d 247, 247 (W. Va. 1977) (describing defendant as “a poor, uneducated, non-verbal resident of rural West Virginia”).

Another is this story regarding the EPA's finding that hydraulic fracturing in Wyoming has caused contamination of groundwater in the so-called Pavillion field. Here's the lede to Kirk Johnson's story:

Chemicals used to hydraulically fracture rocks in drilling for natural gas in a remote valley in central Wyoming are the likely cause of contaminated local water supplies, federal regulators said Thursday.

The draft report, after a three-year study by the Environmental Protection Agency represents a new scientific and political skirmish line over whether fracking, as it is more commonly known, poses a threat in the dozens of places around the nation where it is being used to extract previously unreachable energy resources locked within rock.

The study, which was prompted by complaints from local residents about the smell and taste of their water, stressed that local conditions were unusual at the site ... in that gas wells were far shallower than in many other drilling areas around the country.

The Pavillion fields are located predominantly in vast and sparsely populated Fremont County. The county's population is about 40,000, and the population density is a mere 4.4 persons per square mile.

This December 14 story by Sabrina Tavernise discusses political conflicts that have arisen in southwestern Pennsylvania over what government entities should regulate energy companies exploring for natural gas. The dateline is South Fayette, Pennsylvania, population 13,042--apparently exurban Pittsburgh--and the story highlights the conflict between municipal officials who wish to regulate hydraulic fracturing--to zone it out--and state lawmakers who would allow it more liberally. The story's lede follows:

As energy companies move to drill in densely populated areas from Pennsylvania to Texas, battles are breaking out over who will have the final say in managing the shale gas boom.

The fight, which pits towns and cities against the energy companies and states eager for growth, has raised a fundamental question about the role of local government: How much authority should communities have over the use of their land?

The battle is playing out in Pennsylvania as the Republican-controlled legislature considers bills that would in their current form sharply limit a community's right to control where gas companies can operate on private property.

This quote from Brian Coppola, a self-identified conservative Republican who is an elected official in Robinson Township, west of Pittsburgh, sums up the conflict. He states that the pending state legislation "goes against all my principles. [The legislation] is an enormous land grab on the part of the industry. Our property rights are being trampled." Tavernise's story further details the proliferation of local regulation of the drilling industries, much of which is in conflict with state regulation.

Finally, this story, dateline Youngstown, Ohio, discusses whether fracking and related waste disposal practices are causing seismic activity in places like Youngstown, which had never experienced a quake until March, 2011. Read earlier posts about this phenomenon in central Arkansas here and here.

Calculating distances and closing post offices

I've written a lot this fall about the U.S. Post Offices of Newton County--and in particular the proposal to close six of the ten. Other posts are here and here. One issue that has arisen at various meetings between district Post Office officials and local patrons is the distance from each post office slated for closure to the nearest remaining post office. At recent meetings, local postal patrons have challenged the district official announcing this information about the distances in the official U.S. Post Office reports. I have yet to see a report of a distance that the U.S. Post Office has gotten right--at least no correct distances have been reported in the paper's coverage. Needless to say the distances announced by the post office official are usually shorter than the actual driving distances. My best guess is that the post office is providing "as the crow flies" distances. I know these are available on Internet sites--as, of course, are driving distances.

A patron at the meeting regarding the Vendor facility challenged the Post Office study statement that Jasper is just 5 - 6 miles from Vendor, asserting that the distance is in fact 11 miles. That patron elaborated that it is "five miles up hill and five miles down hill, with just one passing lane on that stretch of road." The patron asserted that the elevation goes from a low of 1,200 feet at Vendor to a high of 2,000 feet, before the road descends into Jasper.

Vendor residents also noted that if the post offices at Hasty, Vendor, and Mt. Judea (pictured above) are all closed, no post office would exist between Western Grove and Dover. That's a distance of about 65 miles. What the resident and the journalist do not mention is that the Vender and Mt. Judea post offices are less than 3 miles apart, which suggests to me that one of these two is sure to be closed. The Vendor patron also doesn't note that other post offices--like the ones at Jasper and Deer--are as little as 10-12 miles from points along the line between Western Grove and Dover that is currently dotted with post offices. So, no one in that service range is actually going to be quite as far from a post office as the 65 mile figure suggests.

Controversy like that at Vendor arose in Compton regarding the distance of the community and its post office from the nearest other post office. In Compton, part of the debate was over whether Compton is 14 miles or 22 miles from the post office at Harrison, and part of it was about the post office's distance from the post office at Marble Falls, which the district official said was 17 miles. The patrons' correction in this case related to passable roads, as the patron noted that Google details on the route indicated that it required travel on a closed road. As the patron noted, if you want to get from Compton to the Marble Falls post office, you have to go via Harrison or Jasper--in which case you might as well conduct your business at the Jasper or Harrison post office.

Postal patrons at those most recent meetings are also seeking information from Postal Service district representatives about why some post offices in the region have been taken off the list of those slated for closure. District officials have explained that the Witts Springs post office has been taken off the closure list because it has space to absorb the neighboring facility at Tilly, which is located within a grocery store, where space is tight. Presumably, then, the facility at Tilly will be closed.

The reasons stated for taking the St. Paul post office off the closure list are somewhat less clear. The Nov. 9, 2011 issue of the Newton County Times explains that the St. Paul facility is "one of seven offices along a stretch of highway. It was taken off the study list because it is centrally located and has adequate space. Closing it would not be reasonable, [the official] said." I see that St. Paul is on joint Hwy 16/23, but other communities on these highways in southern Madison (e.g., Witter, above left and Pettigrew above right) and northern Franklin and Johnson Counties are many miles away. So, the "one of seven offices along a stretch of highway" is not very illuminating.

One thing is clear in relation to these controversies. The U.S. Post Office should to be able to figure out this distance-to-the-nearest-post office issue. The data it has used in some cases in Newton County makes the institution look ignorant at best, dishonest at worst. And it ought to use distances that relate to passable roads--not "as the crow flies"--unless, that is, it plans to start using carrier pigeons.

Pulling out all the stops to save a rural school (Part V): Economies of scale or empire building?

This post follows up on a prior one regarding the skirmish between the Jasper School District and the Deer-Mt. Judea School District. The skirmish--if you could call it that--is about which should district should include the school at Oark, which until a massive round of school consolidation in Arkansas in 2004 was its own district. Oark is a tiny school with about 150 students K-12 in remote northwest Johnson County. The earlier post described the school and its situation in more detail. That post reported that a number of Oark patrons are seeking to leave the Jasper District and to have their campus join the Deer-Mt. Judea District. Among other things, these Oark residents have called for an "independent financial audit of the Jasper School District's expenditures related to the territory of the former Oark School."

So, as I wrote in my earlier post, Deer-Mt. Judea needs Oark in order to survive, but the Jasper District is unwilling to let go of the isolated school. Why? Is it as simple as empire building on the part of the Jasper District? Is it down to the Jasper school's longtime rivalry with Deer and Mt. Judea--the same reasons those schools didn't want to join a Jasper District back in 2004?

The reasons are not self-evident, but we can get a sense of some of them in comments that several members of the Jasper Board of Education have articulated recently in the local press. Board of Education member Todd Scarborough doesn't reveal much in his comments. He said only, "We've heard from these people in the past and it seemed to me everyone there voted to stay [in the Jasper District]. I certainly think we should talk to them, but I don't know what difference it would make, at least to me."

Several of the other Board members' comments at the Nov. 14 meeting focused on the request for a financial audit, which would apparently be aimed at seeing how much money the Oark campus garners for the District. Rex Van Buren, who is the Oark campus's member on the Board of Education, said he was "opposed to separating money or anything else by campus" and asserted that the board has "done a good job of addressing needs where they are." Board Member Randy Treat asked the Superintendent to be sure that the names on the petition are Oark residents, not Deer-Mt. Judea residents. In a similar vein, Treat suggested that "somebody from Deer-Mt. Judea [District] wants to know how much money is being brought in. Not the people of Oark."

An article in the Johnson County newspaper, The Graphic, provides more extensive quotes from Van Buren on the matter:

I am completely opposed to the Oark campus leaving the Jasper School District and joining Deer. There is not benefit for Oark going to Deer. We have been in the Jasper School District awhile now, and I know we have gone through growing pains, but I don't think that's something we want to have to go through all over again.

Van Buren went on to comment for that story that the Jasper District offers many benefits to Oark patrons, including a recently passed 0.9 mill property tax increase that is paying for new classrooms in Oark, classrooms he suggest come with a $1 million price tag. He noted that all of the Jasper District campuses are getting improvements thanks to the tax increase. Kingston will get a new cafeteria, and Jasper will get new electrical systems.

At the November meeting, District Superintendent Kerry Saylors opined thought the Board should talk to the petitioners, even if only a few of them prove to be patrons of the Oark school. I note that Saylors, who has been superintendent of the Jasper District for several years now, has taken the District in a direction different to his predecessors. It is a direction that suggests taking good advantage of economies of scale--or empire building--depending on your perspective. He has, for example, brought in two assistant superintendents, a layer of management previously absent. These assistant superintendents oversee "curriculum, instruction and accountability" and "federal programs and professional development," respectively. It would probably be much harder to justify these if the District lost Oark and was left with only two campuses. It would be easier to justify these positions if the Jasper District winds up absorbing Deer-Mt. Judea.

In my next post on this topic, I will discuss what it is about Arkansas's school funding scheme that makes Oark so attractive to both the Deer-Mt. Judea and Jasper Districts.

What's in a name? "country" versus "bountiful"?

The California Farm Bureau recently announced a change in the name of its "award-winning" magazine and television show. What has for years been known as "California Country" has become "California Bountiful." Here's what the California Farm Bureau said about the change:

CFBF President Paul Wenger said the new title reflects the diversity of farming in California today, and the fact that all Californians benefit from a vibrant, sustainable agriculture.

"Food is typically grown in the country, but it involves people in every part of the state. California Bountiful introduces readers and viewers to the people, places and products that make up the fabric of our rich agricultural environment," Wenger said.

* * *

Under its new name, the California Bountiful television program will reach more viewers thanks to a grant that supports the show's goal of connecting urban and rural California.

I agree that California is bountiful--and I'm all for pointing out to folks the web of connections between rural and urban. Still, I'm wondering if the change reflects the organization's perception that it needs to distance itself from the, well, countrified image associated with the word "country."

Here's a link to the Farm Bureau's press release about the name change.