An Inconvenient Choice: stay poor or stay sick?

For me, the terms “smog,” “particulate matter,” and “air pollution” all bring to mind images of the bustling city, urban factories, and gas-guzzling SUVs in bumper-to-bumper traffic on giant freeways. I imagine that many urbanites see the same imagery when they think of pollution, which might explain why urban areas receive the majority of pollution-related monitoring systems and health assessments.

The health and environmental impacts of air pollution in rural places, however, are often overlooked. When we think of rural areas, we think of clear, pristine skies and bright green hillsides—places where people breathe easy, and where we can go to escape the grime of the city. However, these idyllic visions of the countryside are often more myth than reality, as rural areas often get both the secondary effects of air pollution from the cities, as well as the primary effects of pollution from rural industrial activities such as mining and drilling. The fact that urban-based policymakers are overlooking rural pollution can be problematic for rural residents, as they may be suffering from the effects of air pollution and yet not getting the health assessments and treatments they need.

For example, the New York Times reports that last week in Pinedale, Wyoming (population 2,087), State officials declared an “ozone alert” and warned residents not to spend too much time outdoors, as air quality was expected to deteriorate drastically over the weekend. Residents and local environmental experts explained that their beloved county was prone to air pollution because of its geography, a high-altitude valley that creates an atmospheric inversion, acting like a “lid on a pot” that locks in pollutants, and because of its economy, which is primarily based on natural gas drilling.

Although the existence of rural pollution may be shocking for their urban counterparts just 180 miles away in Salt Lake City, Utah, Pinedale residents are no strangers to ozone alerts. Yet, residents also say they would never leave their town, and would not want to change their drilling-based economy. As one resident said, “If poor air quality is what I have to live with, then that’s a choice I make.” Another resident, whose house is a mere 300 yards from a gas well, reminded readers that interfering with the drilling industry is simply not an option in Pinedale. “It’s our livelihood,” she said.

Furthermore, despite the ozone alerts and anecdotal evidence of pollution-related health symptoms such as a high incidence of asthma and other pulmonary conditions, a Pinedale medical clinic director admits that even he is unsure of the link between health risks and the drill rigs. Apparently the town is considered too small for a valid scientific study.

Without the proper implementation of health assessments and treatment programs, rural residents are put in the harrowing position of having to choose between their livelihoods, often based on heavily-polluting industries, and their health. In Pinedale, residents don’t even see it as a choice at all. This no-win situation would not be acceptable to policymakers in urban areas, and it should not be acceptable in rural places either.

Somewhere to hide

One of my favorite scenes in any movie, ever, is the culminating moment in 1994's The Shawshank Redemption in which Red (played by Morgan Freeman), recently released from prison, meets his friend Andy Dufresne (played by Tim Robbins) in the small Mexican coastal town of Zihuatanejo (2005 Population: 104,609, but its population boomed from 6,000 or so in the 1990s).

Pictured in the film as an idyllic, small town where Andy fulfills his dreams of buying a small house on the beach and a boat on which he can take tourists out on the crystalline blue waters of the Mexican Pacific Coast. Zihuatanejo was the place Andy insisted Red meet him after Red was released from prison in Maine.

Andy fled to the town after escaping from prison--after being wrongly convicted for murder. He took with him the money he laundered for the prison administrators, who had earned it through less-than-acceptable means and then used Andy's skills as an accountant to hide it from the government. As an escaped convict, Andy knew that if he were to make it down to such a small, rural, halcyon Mexican town like Zihuatenejo, he would be free to live out his life without worrying he would be caught and sent back to prison. In a way, Andy used the wide open space of the beach in rural coastal Mexico to hide from his previous life in the United States.

It seems that many people use rural places--where anonymity or fresh starts can be relatively easy--to hide from their past. On March 10th, the New York Times reporter William Yardley reported that a Boston gangster, Enrico Ponzo, who disappeared in 1994 after he and 14 others were indicted on federal racketeering charges, was brought in by Federal Marshals on February 7th of this year after living as a rancher in Idaho for the past decade.

People in the town where Ponzo--who went by Jeffrey John Shaw--lived knew that he wasn't from there, and that he had no previous experience with ranching when he arrived.

The accent from back East and his inexperience with cattle gave him away quickly as another newcomer reinventing himself in the West. 'He wore bib overalls and straw hats,' said Brodie Clapier, a neighbor and a longtime rancher. 'People did wear bib overalls here — in the 1930s.'

Rural communities often see newcomers, either former city-dwellers or other people seeking work or a new beginning, in their communities. The lack of governmental regulation seems like a great reason for criminals, such as Andy Dufresne or Enrico Ponzo, to move out to the country and hide in plain view. As described in the article, Ponzo was heavily involved in his Idaho community, and his friends in Idaho were absolutely stunned when Ponzo's true identity as a hardened leader of organized crime was revealed.

Ponzo was not hiding in the country; federal marshals, through undisclosed means, learned of Ponzo's location and surveilled him for only one week before taking him into custody.

And yet, the popular perception persists that rural places are safe places. Safer, surely, than cities like Boston, from which Ponzo came. It seems much more likely that one's neighbor in a rural place is a child molester, even if he lives much further away, than the person in the apartment next door in the City. There is obviously no lack of press coverage about people like Ponzo being brought to justice, and yet the perception persists.

While we may never know how many people who have mysteriously disappeared from law enforcement over the years have just been the victims of crime, it seems likely that a few, if not many, have managed to escape to relative obscurity and safety by moving in to small, rural, insular communities. While Ponzo surely missed some of the creature comforts easily accessible in Boston (such as, pizza delivered at 3am), he became completely enmeshed in his new identity and still identifies himself as a rancher from Idaho, despite being outed as "Enrico Ponzo," rather than "Jeffrey Jay Shaw."

And one must wonder how federal marshalls actually tracked him down. Was it newly expanding broadband internet that tipped them off? Or Shaws notoriety in his Idaho community? We may never know.

Military Town, USA

The United States spends an astronomical amount of money on defense. In 2010, the military budget represented nearly 6% of GDP. That accounts for 19% of the federal budget, 28% of tax revenues, and 40% of total spending on arms worldwide. Despite Mark Twain’s warning against “lies, damn lies, and statistics,” these numbers really only point in one direction regarding our country’s allocation of funds between guns and butter. When you’re spending six times more on defense than China, you’re spending a lot.

In general, then, it’s reasonable to suggest that we spend too much on our military, and this reasonableness only increases during a budget crisis. Jim Wallis and Pete Stark have both argued that any cuts in federal spending must extend to the Department of Defense. Congressmen Barney Frank and Ron Paul agree, adding a bipartisan flavor to the argument. Indeed, the Secretary of Defense himself has already announced considerable reductions in the Army and Marine Corps.

I take no position in this blog on the wisdom of reducing defense spending – or even of scaling back from the expansion associated with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. For the moment, I simply wish to make a point about the potential impact of defense cuts on rural and small-town America.

Tom Green County is one of the relatively sparsely populated, largely rectangular counties that constitute the region west of Dallas and San Antonio. The county seat is San Angelo, a city whose population (91,880 as of July 2008) belies cultural and psychological touchstones that make it feel more rural than urban. This is West Texas, after all. On the southeast side of San Angelo is Goodfellow Air Force Base, where many airmen receive training before taking on jobs in intelligence. Beyond the military personnel stationed at Goodfellow, many civilians work on the base in positions ranging from food servers to administrators.

Goodfellow is easily the largest employer in San Angelo and all of Tom Green County. With 4,990 employees, it provides jobs to roughly twice as many people as the area’s second largest employer. San Angelo is a military town, with businesses going out of their way to cater to their uniformed clientele.

In short, the military industrial complex is not limited to weapons manufacturers and mercenaries. For every Blackwater, there is also a San Angelo. In this and many other places, military installations are the foundation in the economies that have grown around them. Removing or shrinking a base may thus have an effect similar to closing the saw mill or coal mine that once defined a rural community. Even when the best policy is shutting down that mill or mine, we create whole new policy challenges in the aftermath.

Tohoku Earthquake and tsunami and rural Japan

Many of us have been glued to coverage of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan over the last week. The images coming out of the country are both devastating and amazing, in the sense that they are a reminder of nature's force. Having spent time living in Japan, and being from California, I have experienced my share of earthquakes, but I cannot wrap my head around what a 9.0 magnitude earthquake would feel like, not to mention a tsunami. While there are so many facets of the tragedy in Japan that are mind-boggling and heartbreaking, especially with the developments at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, the juxtaposition of a couple of images has really stuck with me: (1) the video of the Tokyo skyscrapers swaying during the earthquake, and (2) the before and after photos of the countryside in the Tohoku region of Japan.

The way buildings in Tokyo withstood the 9.0 Tohoku earthquake, is evidence of the advanced engineering Japan is capable of. After the Kobe earthquake in 1995, a significant amount of money was put into retrofitting old buildings and researching ways to protect structures during earthquakes and tsunamis. There have also been significant resources pumped into construction projects throughout rural areas of Japan, much of it receiving criticism as being poorly allocated.

Earthquake and emergency drills are also commonplace throughout Japan and serve as another indicator of the preparedness that Japan has strived for. Having lived in a coastal town in Wakayama prefecture, well south of the affected areas of the Tohoku earthquake, I can speak to the construction on many of the roadways I traveled, as well as to the drills (in addition to earthquake drills, there were also extensive drills to prepare for a school shooting situation). One of the precautions taken in coastal towns, are large concrete boulders (shaped like jacks) lining the shores. Viewed as an eyesore to many, they serve to hold back waters during typhoons and mild tsunamis.

Setting aside views on the aesthetics of the construction and arguments over the management of money, a recent New York Times article explains how the strict building codes and numerous drills saved lives in Japan. Clearly, from the evidence, Tokyo withstood this recent earthquake incredibly well. However, the bulk of the devastation hit more rural locations. As the article explains, while money has been pumped into stabilizing some buildings, many of the older structures in rural areas, are made of light wood, not strong enough to withstand strong earthquakes let alone large tsunamis. I don't know whether stronger structures would have withstood the fast-moving waters of the tsunami, or the extent of the earthquake damage prior to the tsunami, but the reality is that entire towns and villages were swept away and it appears that a large amount of the affected areas were rural farming communities. The disaster in Japan in not the type of natural event that a country can completely prepare against. That said, watching images of the city and the countryside, it is difficult not to wonder whether the same attention to building codes and infrastructure in cities was being paid to the rural areas of Japan.

An Associate Press article brings attention to another consideration in the aftermath of the quake and tsunami -- the impact on Japan's already declining population, specifically the population of rural Japan. Much of rural Japan is older. Part of this is due to the migration of young people from the countryside to the cities. Time will tell what the effects on the population will be (which until very recently was declining), and for now we can just hope that the nuclear situation becomes stable and the millions of dollars in aid reaches those most in need. What is clear, and what has been reported widely, is that the Japanese are a resilient people and hopefully this tragedy will bring people together and they will grow stronger as they rebuild.

Law and Order in the Ozarks (Part LXXVI): Woman sentenced to 20 years in boyfriend's death

The March 9, 2011 issue of the Newton County Times leads with the headline, "Guilty plea to murder; 20-year sentence." The story tells of 36-year-old Kerry Breedlove's guilty plea to second-degree murder in the shooting death of her boyfriend, 39-year-old Shannon Price, in December, 2009. I wrote about this crime earlier, here and here. The woman's trial, initially set for December 2010, was continued until this month so that her public defender could find an expert to testify that she "suffered from Battered Women's Syndrome." This news story does not report the results of that effort, only that the defendant pleaded guilty to the lesser charge. Breedlove will be eligible for parole in 5 years. Once released, she must begin reimbursing the county for the $5000 it has paid to house her in the Boone County Jail since her arrest. She will also be liable for $200 in court costs. Almost two years ago, another woman, this one aged 34, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for killing her husband in the heat of a domestic dispute.

In other news, a front-page story reports that two 18-year-old Harrison residents were arrested in a meth house bust in the community of Liberty, in the far northwest part of the county, near the Madison and Carroll County lines. A third person escaped the bust by fleeing on foot, but he has been identified as 38-year-old Richard Dacheff III of Green Forest.

The third big front-page story regards a public meeting about how to raise revenues to better support county functions--particularly the Sheriff's Office, which suffered deep cuts in the 2011 budget recently passed by the Quorum Court, the county's governing body. The Feb. 16, 2011 issue of the paper had reported that the sheriff's office "suffer[ed] the bulk of the effect of a $45,000 reduction in anticipated revenues in 2011." The Sheriff announced then that he would likely have to lay off two of the county's six deputies and that he might not be able to "meet the constitutional requirements of his job," including "following directives from the judicial courts within the county."

A letter to the editor in the March 9 issue suggests that the new Republican county judge (chief administrative officers) and the Quorum Court made deep cuts in the budget of the Sheriff's Office, while maintaining funding levels to the County Clerk and County Assessor, because the Sheriff is an Independent while the other two county officials are Republicans. The author of the letter, R. C. Horn of Western Grove, self-identifies as a Republican but asserts that the Quorum Court should have cut funding to the Assessor and Clerk and let them turn to volunteer help to make ends meet, rather than causing the Sheriff's Office to bear the brunt of the shortfall. I note the contrast with 2008, when the Sheriff's Office, along with the road fund, was the only county department not to be hit with a spending freeze.

Invoking rural values and virtues to defend farm subsidies

Those are two issues that Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack brought together this week in a conversation he had with Washington Post columnist Ezra Klein. The dialogue between the two appears to have been prompted by a column Klein wrote about Edward Glaeser's new book, The Triumph of the City (subject of this earlier blog post). Klein's post book mostly waxed poetic about cities and said little about rurality. But Klein closed his column with this:

[I]t would of course be political suicide for President Obama to say that part of winning the future is ending the raft of subsidies we devote to sustaining rural living. And the U.S. Senate is literally set up to ensure that such a policy never becomes politically plausible.

I find it interesting that this little jab in particular got Vilsack's back up because, frankly, so much rural bashing goes on in the media. (See posts here and here). Maybe it was the mention of subsidies that did the trick, evoking Vilsack's ire. Klein referred to subsidies in relation to "rural living," but Vilsack may have read it as regarding farm subsidies because he talked about the latter in his response.

In fact, Vilsack responded with various arguments about the value of rural places and, in particular, rural culture. Here is part of Klein's report of what Vilsack said to him:

I took it as a slam on rural America. Rural America is a unique and interesting place that I don’t think a lot of folks fully appreciate and understand. They don’t understand that that while it represents 16 percent of America’s population, 44 percent of the military comes from rural America. It’s the source of our food, fiber and feed, and 88 percent of our renewable water resources. One of every 12 jobs in the American economy is connected in some way to what happens in rural America. It’s one of the few parts of our economy that still has a trade surplus. And sometimes people don’t realize that 90 percent of the persistent poverty counties are located in rural America.

Interesting data and arguments, no? In summary, Vilsack

• stood up for the needs of persistent poverty counties.
• argued that we should value rural places because they supply a lot of soldiers (Vilsack subsequently argues that this phenomenon is linked to rural culture)
  
• pointed out the significance of agriculture to the American economy
  
• claimed rural America as the source of "food, fiber, and feed," as well as "renewable water resources."
  

The first item in the list there struck me as rather disingenuous because the USDA's budget is so disproportionately devoted to agriculture. As a fellow blogger pointed out last week, the USDA includes a Department of Rural Development, but its budget comprises a tiny part of the USDA's overall budget. I wish Vilsack and the USDA were as concerned about persistent poverty in rural America as the comment suggests, but I don't see evidence to prove it.

I also found of interest Vilsack's argument that the disproportionate number of rural folks doing military service is related to rural culture. Vilsack said:

They send their children to the military not just because it’s an opportunity, but because they have a value system from the farm: They have to give something back to the land that sustains them.

Again, I find this interesting, but not convincing. Call me cynical, but I think many young rural folks join the military because of lack of other opportunities. This is not to say they are not patriotic--just that there's more to the disproportionate rate at which rural kids are the proverbial cannon fodder than patriotism.

On the other hand, I think Vilsack was spot on when he said, "And small-town folks in rural America don’t feel appreciated." I have written about that here.

Klein, on the other hand, struck me as an arrogant urbanite, as when he replied to Vilsack's comment about persistent poverty: "Are 90 percent of the people in persistent poverty in rural America? Or just 90 percent of the counties?" Is Klein suggesting that we shouldn't care about the links between place and poverty just because relatively few people are affected? Is he saying that rural people--especially poor rural people--aren't worthy of government attention and assistance? If we look at sheer numbers, of course, urban areas will always look more important and more worthy of our concern and intervention. But doesn't every person count? I am reminded of Martha Nussbaum's assertion that "problems cannot be ignored or postponed on the grounds that they affect only a small number of people." (Frontiers of Justice, p. 100)

Here's another recent piece about farm subsidies and their downsides, this one by Mark Bittman of the New York Times. In his call to change, but not end, agricultural subsidies, Bittman leads with this powerful paragraph:

Agricultural subsidies have helped bring us high-fructose corn syrup, factory farming, fast food, a two-soda-a-day habit and its accompanying obesity, the near-demise of family farms, monoculture and a host of other ills.

He goes on to argue that farm subsidy funds could be more sensibly spent to:

• Fund research and innovation in sustainable agriculture, so that in the long run we can get the system on track.

• Provide necessary incentives to attract the 100,000 new farmers Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack claims we need.

• Save more farmland from development.

• Provide support for farmers who grow currently unsubsidized fruits, vegetables and beans, while providing incentives for monoculture commodity farmers to convert some of their operations to these more desirable foods.

• Level the playing field so that medium-sized farms — big enough to supply local supermarkets but small enough to care what and how they grow — can become more competitive with agribusiness.

Bittman contends that spending this way could "encourage the development of the kind of agriculture we need, one that prioritizes caring for the land, the people who work it and the people who need the real food that’s grown on it."

Sounds like a win-win to me. Here's a related story about a new generation of youngish farmers oriented to small farms and sustainable practices. They sound like just the sort of folks I'd like the USDA to be supporting, not least in order to make the fruits of their labor affordable to those outside the upper middle class.

Population loss and gain in the Ozarks

The Newton County Times reported a few weeks ago on what the 2010 Census tells us about changing demographics in the county. The Feb. 16, 2011 headline is "Census: County lost 3.2%," and the story indicates that the county's population dropped from 8,608 in 2000 to 8,330 in 2010. The 2005-2009 ACS estimate for the county, at 8,311, was surprisingly close to the 2010 actual count.

The 2005-2009 ACS estimates for the county's two incorporated areas were less accurate. Jasper's population fell from 498 to 466 between 2000 and 2010, though the 2005-2009 ACS estimate put it at a much lower 357. Western Grove's population fell from 407 to 384 between 2000 and 2010, while the 2005-2009 ACS estimate has indicated a 20% increase, to 518.

The only neighboring county whose population also fell was Searcy County, which dropped less than 1%, from 8,261 to 8,195. Other surrounding counties saw relatively robust growth:

Pope County: a rise of 13.4% from 54,469 to 61,754
Johnson County: a 12.1% rise from 22,781 to 25,540
Madison County: a 10.3% rise from 14,243 to 15,717
Boone County: an 8.7% rise from 33,948 to 36,903

Data for neighboring Carrol County, which had a 2000 population of 25,357, was not provided. Carroll County has experienced an influx of Latina/o immigrants in the past few decades, and I would be surprised if its population fell between 2000 and 2010. Its 2005-2009 ACS estimate was 27,321.

The differences among these counties may be explained by their economies. Newton and Searcy counties are persistent poverty counties with very small populations, while surrounding counties tend to be micropolitan and to have more robust and diversified economies. Surrounding counties are also more likely to be economically entangled with even larger and more prosperous neighboring counties, in some cases serving as exurbs to metropolitan areas such as those in Washington and Sebastian counties.

This story also indicates that Newton County's participation rate in the Census was particularly low, at 60% for the entire county and 67% for the city of Jasper. This low participation rate, the story notes, results in a significant loss of federal funding for "schools, parks and other public facilities." Sadly, this may reflect the locals' distrust of the government.

Handling dog poop, from a ruralist’s perspective

Having grown up in the unincorporated areas of Humboldt County, I always saw dogs as having certain natural freedoms. Chief among those natural rights was the right for canines to poop wherever they deemed necessary. I was never aware of any special rules governing dog poop in my town. As a child attending my elementary school, accidentally stepping in dog poop during recess twice a year was almost like a right of passage. I think that growing up I chalked it up to just another way one learns to pay attention to one’s surroundings. If you don’t watch where you’re going, you might just step in shit, literally. Similarly, leashes were really only for big scary dogs like Dobermans or Rotwilers. Most dog owners in my area, including myself (back when my Labrador “Bo Bo” was still alive) viewed leashes only as means to get said dog from the back of the pickup to the park entrance. And when my dog had to poop, he did it, usually in an appropriately chosen spot such as in the weeds or somewhere else located off the main path.

You can imagine my surprise when I moved to San Francisco and witnessed one of the weirdest human behaviors I had ever seen. People were walking their dogs down the street with a plastic glove on one hand, a leash in the other, and a plastic baggie in their pocket. I watched in amusement as these people waited anxiously for the dog to do it’s “business” so they could eagerly scoop up the warm poop with their free hand for collection. The dog owners would then hang on to their little present until they found a public trashcan or in some instance a special receptacle made for dog poop collection. “Dumbfounded” is the only word that can accurately describe my reaction to this bizarre urban ritual. These people must really, really, want a dog in their life, I thought.

I can remember a stand-up routine where the comedian was elaborating on the same basic scene. I will do my best to paraphrase from my hazy recollection of this part of the routine:

If an alien race suddenly landed on earth and the first two earth beings they encountered, were a man and a dog. A big dog was leading a man on a leash. Every once in a while the man stoops over to pick up the dog poop with his hand. Who do you think the aliens would assume was in charge of the world, the big hairy beast leading the way, or the little pink man who is in charge of doo-doo collection?

The longer I lived in San Francisco, the more I realized how commonplace this behavior was. In fact the San Francisco Municipal code states that:

It shall be unlawful for any person owning or having control or custody of any dog to permit the animal to defecate upon the public property of this City or upon the private property of another unless the person immediately remove the feces and properly dispose of it. 

It shall be unlawful for any person to walk a dog on public property of this City or upon the private property of another without carrying at all times a suitable container or other suitable instrument for the removal and disposal of dog feces.

Upon comparing the Municipal code of rural Crescent City California, I saw that it was similar in the first part, but did not contain the language about the “suitable container.”

Then I thought about the town in which I grew up. There is no municipal code, because our town is unincorporated. I have never heard of anyone receiving a citation or a ticket over dog poop. I believe that the reason for this discrepancy is obviously the spaciousness of rural towns compared to that of the city. In a city people must already watch out for numerous hazards as they walk down the street without having to worry about stepping in doo-doo. It makes sense, but then why all the dogs? It’s funny to me how people who hold themselves as being so sophisticated are the first ones to volunteer pick dog crap off the sidewalk with their hand. As for me, I don’t think I need a dog in my life that bad.

Another post about post offices

Others have blogged recently (here and here) about the trend to close small, rural U.S. Post Offices around the country. A much older post about the topic is here. Not surprisingly, I am very sympathetic to communities' desire--even need-- to keep their post offices for more reasons than the opportunity to buy stamps and dispatch packages. These post offices are community gathering places, especially where local schools, grocery stores, and gas stations have closed.

I was somewhat surprised to read in a recent issue of the Newton County Times that Newton County, my home county, (still) has (just) 11 post offices. (This item is part of the paper's series: 52 Reasons We Love Newton County). S0, 11 rural post offices serve a county with a population of 8,330 (in the 2010 Census, down about 3% from the 2000 Census, when it was 8,608) and a population density of 10.5 persons per square mile. That is one U.S. Post Office for about every 760 residents. That may may seem like a lot of post offices for not very many folks, but bear in mind that the county covers 823 square miles, leaving a lot of territory for some patrons to cover to reach a post office.

The communities of Compton, Deer, Hasty, Jasper, Marble Falls (previously Dogpatch!), Mount Judea, Parthenon, Pelsor, Ponca, Vendor and Western Grove currently have post offices. Four of these communities also have schools: Jasper, Western Grove, Deer, and Mount Judea. Only Jasper and Western Grove are incorporated entities; none of the other post offices is linked even to a Census Designated Place. Sadly, some of these 11 post offices may soon disappear under the U.S. Postal Service's 10-year plan to respond to declines in mail volume.

One of the most interesting things about this little feature in the Newton County Times is its mention that the county has had as many as 50 post offices since the first was established in 1827. That's right: 50! I don't believe the county's population has ever been significantly greater than it is now, which suggests that the per capita rate of post offices has been higher in the past. To be clear, not all of these post offices were ever open at one time.

In any event, reading through the history of which communities had post offices during what years sheds light on when the various communities waxed and waned. Jasper, the county seat, has had a post office since 1843. Some post offices were open only for a few years during the the 1880s, e.g., Cold Mountain (1879-1881); Beech Woods (1867-1881); and Cave Creek (1855-1895). Some places went from having a post office to having a "Rur. Sta."--whatever that is. One of these was Boxley, home to the famous Boxley church, which had the Boxley Post Office from 1883 to 1955 but then the "Boxley Rur. Sta." from 1955 to 1969. There was a post office at Pruitt from 1925-1975, when it became Pruitt Rur. Sta. and survived another five years. Pruitt is on the Buffalo National River, and I remember when the old post office building by the Hwy. 7 bridge there became the Pruitt Ranger Station--and the "town" itself dried up. I was intrigued to see that Ryker, a wide spot in the road (with an extensive junk yard on either side) on Cave Mountain, which I stumbled upon last year, once had a post office: 1891-1937.

Some of the more recent closures of county post offices include these:

Bass: 1902-1998
Ben Hur: 1908-1975
Cavecreek: 1895-1973 (presumably the successor to Cave Creek, noted above)
Cowell: 1902-1955
Fallsville: 1883-1955
Low Gap: 1952-1970
Lurton: 1916-1967
Mossville: 1889-1981
Mount Sherman: 1934-1955
Murray: 1884-1961 (followed by Murray Rur. Sta. 1961-1963)
Nail: 1915-1989
Piercetown: 1946-1955
Redrock: 1884-1955 (preceded by Red Rock: 1875-1882)

I've included a photo of the post office at Ponca. I also have one of the post office at Parthenon, but it looks just like the one at Ponca, so there's no reason to post both. Presumably like some others in the county, they are relatively recent, government-issue, modular buildings that replaced the earlier ones with local character and charm. My personal favorite was the old post office on the square in Jasper, where Scenic Hwy. 7 bends. The building was made of massive stones, just like the courthouse across the street. It featured a huge window that separated the room with the postal counter from the sidewalk outside. Sadly, that historic building was destroyed when a new brown brick post office was built in the 1970s, a few blocks away.

Fracking and its environmental consequences

Fracking--the extraction of natural gas from beneath the earth's surface--has been very much in the news in recent days. Indeed, it's been on the minds of we law and rural livelihoods folks for some time. A student wrote about it here in the fall of 2009.

This week, Ian Urbina did a two-part series on its environmental consequences in the New York Times. The first was headlined, "Regulation Lax as Gas Wells' Tainted Water Hits Rivers," and in it Urbina describes why hydrofracking has become more widespread in recent years and how it works:

The gas has always been there, of course, trapped deep underground in countless tiny bubbles, like frozen spills of seltzer water between thin layers of shale rock. But drilling companies have only in recent years developed techniques to unlock the enormous reserves, thought to be enough to supply the country with gas for heating buildings, generating electricity and powering vehicles for up to a hundred years.

* * *

But the relatively new drilling method — known as high-volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing, or hydrofracking — carries significant environmental risks. It involves injecting huge amounts of water, mixed with sand and chemicals, at high pressures to break up rock formations and release the gas.

The second story, "Pressure Limits Efforts to Police Drilling for Gas," reports on the lax federal regulation of oil and gas waste, dating back to the 1980s. That lax regulation has carried over to this era of increased natural gas extraction, and it results in a double standard among industries. Urbina illustrates his point:

Coal mine operators that want to inject toxic wastewater into the ground must get permission from the federal authorities. But when natural gas companies want to inject chemical-laced water and sand into the ground during hydrofracking, they do not have to follow the same rules.

Both of Urbina's stories note concerns about the impact of the fracking waste on water supplies--especially city water supplies.

In addition to these environmental and water waste disposal issues, concerns about geological stability have also arisen in relation to hydrofracking. Going back a month or so, the New York Times has given quite a bit coverage to an "earthquake swarm" in north central Arkansas, near a place named Guy, population 557. The Times published this story back in early February. The headline speaks the proverbial volumes about the insignificance of rural places--until things start to go clearly awry there (especially when the things going awry might have an impact on urban places--that is, diminish energy supplies): "A Dot on the Map, Until the Earth Started Shaking." In it, Campbell Brown reports on the thousands of earthquakes--all of them quite small--that have struck the Guy area since early fall, 2010. Brown observes that the Guy "earthquake storm" has been "followed by the Guy media swarm, with reporters pouring in through the surrounding orchards and cow pastures to ask residents what the quakes feel like." Brown observed in the early February story that the "only documented damage is a cracked window in the snack bar at Woolly Hollow State Park."

But that was as of a month ago. On March 1, a larger quake struck Guy, one measuring 4.7 on the Richter scale. It was the largest quake in Arkansas in 35 years. (Bear in mind that the New Madrid fault runs through northeast Arkansas, but not near Guy).

Turns out, hydrofracking may be the cause of the quakes. The rush to drill for natural gas in the so-called Fayetteville shale--which encompasses the Guy area--intensified a few years ago. Now, because of this latest quake, the State Oil & Gas Commission yesterday asked the companies doing the drilling to close the wells used for the wastewater byproduct of the fracking.

I'm especially keen to know if good science will ultimately establish a link between the quakes and the hydrofracking. (An apparently related story out of California is here; another quake was recently recorded nearby). As for the consequences of fracking waste in our water supply and other environmental harms, I can only hope that the federal government steps up to the plate soon with appropriate regulation.

Missing the bus

Countless words can describe the recent uprisings in the Arab world. Historic, exciting, sobering, tragic, triumphant; all are fitting. But, without intending to diminish the cultural and political significance of these events, I must say that another apt term is “expensive.”

Libya may be heading towards a civil war, and although the troubled nation is not a major supplier of oil to the United States, the market uncertainty and attendant speculation has pushed the price of oil back over $100 per barrel. Gasoline is now $3.29 per gallon on average, up from $3.11 only a month ago, and we may see prices hit $4 per gallon if unrest spreads more broadly in the region, according to the New York Times.

A people's right to self-determination should not be denied in the name of cheap gas. But it is important to consider the impact of gas price increases in the context of rural places and their unique vulnerability to high fuel costs: longer commutes, lower incomes, and greater ownership of inefficient vehicles such as trucks and SUVs.

Of course, the solution is simple- rural people can just take the bus to work right? We have all probably heard arguments that Americans need to follow the European model and embrace public transportation. But, as Paul Krugman noted two years ago in an article titled “Stranded in Suburbia," public transportation "faces a chicken-and-egg problem: it's hard to justify transit systems unless there's sufficient population density, yet it's hard to persuade people to live in denser neighborhoods unless they come with the advantage of transit access."

If Dr. Krugman is correct, and public transit is hard to justify in suburbia, it must be doubly difficult in rural areas. According to the Federal Highway Administration, some 38 percent of the nation's rural residents live in areas without any public transportation, and less than 10 percent of federal spending for public transportation goes to rural communities. 28 percent of rural counties that do offer public transportation only do so on a limited basis.

Unfortunately, any significant creation or expansion of rural public transportation networks is unlikely. The current House budget bill would cut transit programs by more than $1 billion. The Senate Democrat bill would maintain our current investments in public transport, but eliminates $150 million from a program that funds new transit services. And efforts by individual states to expand programs are probably not forthcoming given their collective budget problems.

As lamentable as this situation is, not everyone is frowning. Exxon Mobil for example recently posted a fourth-quarter earnings surge of 53 percent, which followed earlier reports of "soaring profits by fellow oil giants Chevron and ConocoPhillips," as reported by the Wall Street Journal. Exxon reported $9.25 billion in profits last quarter, a level not seen since the third-quarter of 2008, where profits totaled $14.83 billion.

Seems a little unfair. Is there something we can do? Well, it's too late to emulate Norway, where the government is the majority shareholder in the country's two oil companies (and where, coincidentally, people have the highest living standards in the world), so how about a windfall tax? I realize that would be socialist and all, but can't Big Oil share some of those sweet Libyan uprising profits with the rest of us? I think I even remember a senator from Illinois who promised a windfall tax if he became president. Oh that's right, he changed his mind after he was elected. But Mr. Obama said that was just because prices had returned to below $80 per barrel. So now that they're back up, the President will push for the tax again right? Nope, prices hit $80 per barrel last January and we haven't heard a peep.

So it looks like everything has turned out pretty well for the oil companies and their wealthy executives. But they forgot one thing. If the rural poor can't afford to drive to work, who will clean their resort hotel rooms?