Moving backwards - Australia votes no for the indigenous voice to parliament

On Saturday 14 October, Australia was faced with a monumental opportunity to amend their Constitution with the nation's 45th referendum. The proposal was to recognise Australia's indigenous people - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders - through a constitutionally enshrined body that provides non-binding advice to Parliament. This body is known as 'The Voice'. 

The Voice has been a project in the works since 2017, when the Uluru Statement from the Heart was presented to Australian's. The Statement was devised by a 16-member Referendum Council that travelled around Australia to consult with indigenous Australian's in regional areas, about what they believed would be the best step forward in creating a more equal future. The purpose of the Statement is for indigenous Australian's to actually be given the opportunity to have input over policies that directly effect on them. 

In the Referendum Council's final report released in 2017, they put forward two recommendations:

1. Constitutional reform to implement an advisory body that represents Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders; and

2. An extra-constitutional Declaration of Recognition enacted by legislation. 

After seven years of discussion, the first recommendation has finally been acted upon - but not in the way it was intended.

For what could ultimately be deemed as the most important referendum in Australian history, the 'Yes' campaign has been provided an immensely disappointing lack of promotion by the Australian government, while also having to battle against a wave of false information disseminated through various media platforms. The failure to adequately promote The Voice has left a frightening portion of the Australian population completely unaware of what it is, where it came from and most importantly, why it's desperately needed. 

To my absolute shock and horror, an alarming number of those unaware to The Voice are indigenous Australian's living in rural and remote areas. Yes, you read that correctly. The knowledge of The Voice that has been devised as an incredibly important mechanism to represent indigenous Australian's, has not been provided to Indigenous Australian's in remote areas. If this doesn't illustrate the inequality of the urban- rural divide, I really don't know what will. 

For a population that is already disadvantaged with basic, fundamental human rights such as access to health care and education, it appears that the remote Indigenous population is being further discriminated against based on their geographical location. While it can be argued this is not an intentional form of discrimination, it also demonstrates the lack of access to basic resources that rural populations face. 

Paul Kabai, an environmental activist based in Torres Strait, explained that access to any source of reliable information regarding The Voice was an extreme challenge.  

Nothing has been explained to the elders here on the [Sabai] Island ... talking with people about voting, it's all 'what is this referendum vote all about? What is the no, what is the yes?' Voting is just around the corner and there is nothing. 

The burden of seeking information was placed upon the remote communities, but with some of these areas not even having knowledge of The Voice's existence in the first place, there wasn't even the option to self-educate. As a young, white woman, with both a tertiary and private school education, I have come to realise the absolute privilege I have to be informed about national politics. For what I thought was just a factor of everyday life, is actually something I have taken completely for granted - and for this I feel completely ashamed and embarrassed. 

The idea that a constitutionally recognised body, devised to represent me, as an attempt to create a more equal future after centuries of intergenerational trauma and discrimination, was not even brought to my knowledge is simply beyond comprehension. This is not only an example of geographical discrimination, this is a shameful representation of Australia and its care towards remote populations. 

The result of the referendum was released in the late hours Saturday evening - an overwhelming 60.05% vote against The Voice resulted from a majority no vote within all six states and one territory. The one territory to have a majority vote for yes was the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), the home to the seat of the Australian government, and Australia's capital city, Canberra. 

I think it would be completely ignorant to believe that this is merely coincidental. At this point, it is well known that The Voice was not well promoted by the government and the push from the Yes campaign came far too late. The fact that the ACT has the easiest access to any parliamentary based information - with more than half of the population within the ACT are government workers - speaks volumes about what could have happened if every state and territory received the same amount of education. 

The ACT is known as Australia's only city-state. Almost all of its 472,000 population live within urban areas and its agricultural industry provides an insignificant input to the economy. As can be seen below, geographically, information doesn't have very far to travel within the ACT, which places them in a serious point of advantage when it comes to being educated on governmental based issues and incentives. 

Australian Capital Territory marked out on an Australian map. 

Image sourced from Getty Images.

While I strongly believe that self-education is the responsible thing to do when it comes to exercising your right to vote, the reality is, the majority of Australian's are lazy. If they are not spoon fed exactly what they need to know, they simply will not attempt anything further. The fact that the ACT voted yes isn't because they are most progressive out of all states and territories, its because they have the easiest access to all the relevant information.

A further factor of concern around the dissemination of information to rural areas, is that indigenous Australian's make up the majority of rural and remote populations. The lack of engagement with these remote communities has been expressed by Mulgyin Jaru-Kitja and Gooniyandi woman, Corina Martin, in what can only be described as an accurate, yet heart breaking summary:

That's a problem with anything to do with Aboriginal people, we are the last lot to get information on ourselves.

While there are strong arguments that The Voice wasn’t the best solution to centuries of abuse and oppression, it was going to be a step in the right direction and the platform for future development. The Australian government and politics has never been a perfect system. So why all of sudden are we wanting a perfect solution? 

As explored in a previous blog post, the theory of 'interest convergence' coined by an American law professor seems to be applicable in this circumstance. Black people only achieve civil rights victories only where white and black interests converge. White Australia has demonstrated in this referendum, that indigenous rights are not within their interests. 

Australia is allegedly the country of giving everyone a ‘fair go’; but this decision has showcased anything but. Just like the kangaroo and emu (our national animal and bird, which can only physically move forwards, not backwards) on the coat of arms, we are meant to be a nation that has the ability to only move forwards. Yet here we are, running back to our white, conservative origins.

Rural responses to corporate utility disasters (Part III): Building local power through community choice aggregation and microgrids

In this series on rural responses to corporate utilities, I have used the August 10 Butte Creek PG&E canal failure as a spring board for examining both investor-owned utility harms and community response. My first post talks about the failure’s devastating ecosystem impacts and the immediate community response. In my second post, I examined how the Klamath Dam removal project could provide a blueprint for Butte Creek Canyon and Chico community members to succeed in removing the Centerville dam and associated hydroelectric project. In this third and final installment, I turn to the topic of local electricity options.

Residents of Butte Creek Canyon and others in the Chico area frequently express justified frustration with PG&E, the large investor-owned utility that serves Butte County and much of the rest of California. After looking at local alternatives to PG&E, I see a path forward via community choice aggregation (CCA) and microgrids.

Butte County residents’ feelings, largely spurred by PG&E-caused fires, ecosystem threats, and blackouts, are not unique. In 2019, when PG&E was more frequently in the news, public dissatisfaction throughout the utility’s service areas rose from 49% to 61% in just 9 months. Around the same time, some state leaders, including Gov. Gavin Newsom considered replacing PG&E with a large public utility (you can read more about the debate to do so here). However, the state ultimately approved PG&E’s reorganization plan, more or less ending the immediate chance of a state government takeover.

This has largely left PG&E alternatives in the hands of regional and local governments.

Public utility districts are one option for local governments.They are municipalities or municipal corporations that provide and distribute energy for their residents.

While public utilities operating their own distribution infrastructure can offer community members a high level of oversight and energy resiliency, as well as lower energy rates, creating them can be time and resource intensive. The history of the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) is illustrative of this. Voters elected to create SMUD as a customer-owned, not-for-profit electric service in 1926, but operation didn’t begin until 20 years later. This Courthouse News Service article explains the sequence of events:

In 1934, Sacramento voters approved a $12 million bond to acquire PG&E's assets. What followed was a 12-year legal battle. The Railroad Commission, predecessor to the California Public Utilities Commission [CPUC], approved Sacramento's bid to take PG&E's wires and equipment by eminent domain for $11.6 million. PG&E challenged that decision in federal and state court, eventually losing when a state appeals court ruled against it in 1946.

PG&E’s resistance to public utilities didn’t end in the ’40s. In 2006, it spent millions of dollars to defeat a Yolo County ballot measure that would have allowed SMUD to take 77,000 customers from PG&E; and it has met San Francisco with significant resistance over its ongoing efforts to purchase PG&E’s power infrastructure within the city.

The barriers to creating a public utility district are high even for larger cities. They are exacerbated in rural places, where voters are less likely to approve local bond measures and communities often have less capital and fewer legal resources. It can also place the burden of improving poorly maintained infrastructure on communities. Enter community choice aggregation.

CCAs are local, not-for-profit programs through which communities can purchase their own electricity in place of investor-owned utilities. The existing investor-owned utility still operates the transmission lines and provides customer service. While this doesn’t give the community full electric autonomy, it can make local power more feasible in rural places. Under this model, communities don’t enter costly legal battles to acquire PG&E’s equipment and don’t take on the liability and costs of managing an aging grid that requires extensive maintenance and repair.

Communities in Humboldt County launched a CCA program through Redwood Coast Energy Authority (RCEA) in 2017. Their model is one that Butte Creek Canyon and Butte County residents might look to. (For another example of rural microgrids, see this blog post.)

In this episode of the Local Energy Rules podcast, RCEA Executive Director Matthew Marshall talks about the authority’s climate resiliency projects, which include using local logging byproducts of biomass to create renewable energy in the region and solar microgrid projects.

The Blue Lake Rancheria, a federally recognized tribe and member of the RCEA created a solar microgrid in 2018. In 2020, its microgrid allowed the tribe to continue providing onsite power during a county-wide public safety shut-off. This increased energy resiliency directly benefited community health as the tribe provided hotel rooms with continued access to power to community members who relied on electric medical equipment.

In 2022, RCEA opened the state’s first 100% renewable, multi-customer microgrid. The microgrid powers the regional airport and U.S. Coast Guard Air Station, both important facilities during emergencies. In the podcast episode, Marshall said this first multi-customer project can lead the way for other microgrid opportunities:

One of the things that’s very exciting about this, and we’ve gotten a lot of support and funding for this project from the California Energy Commission, is the opportunity to do this kind of a multi-customer microgrid setup [that] really opens up the opportunity to look at neighborhoods or areas where maybe there’s multiple hospitals or other kinds of situations where [... we may] be able to operate a whole section of the grid that includes multiple customers. [That] really will hopefully broaden the range of opportunities where you could deploy micro grids to provide resiliency and emergency response capabilities.

As another rural(ish), northern California region that also faces wildfire and other natural disaster threats, Butte Creek Canyon and Butte County as a whole could greatly benefit from implementing CCA and microgrids in a similar way. While obtaining full control of the grid would also be beneficial (and could still be pursued down the road), a CCA and microgrids offer a more immediate opportunity to create energy resiliency during wildfires and make more renewable energy-based choices within the community. 

And, the community might be able to obtain substantial assistance with funding a project like this. As I finished writing this, I discovered that just today, PG&E launched its portion of a CPUC Microgrid Incentive Program, which will provide grants to disadvantaged and vulnerable communities for installation of clean-energy microgrids. 

Amtrak: carrying more than passengers

Last week, Tony Pipa spoke at the UC Davis School of Law in a talk titled "Creating Sustainable, Equitable Rural Prosperity in the U.S.: Opportunities and Challenges for Federal Policy." Part of the conversation was about transportation to rural communities. You can read more about rural transportation here and here.

Transportation inequality is stark for those living in rural places in the U.S. "Federal transportation policy and funding programs heavily favor new highway and interchange construction." While this type of investment can make it easier for people to get to rural places and engage in ecotourism, for example, it doesn't encourage spending time in the rural communities themselves. 

Those living in rural communities are more reliant on cars to get around compared to those living in urban places. For instance, in 2019 rural residents drove 33% more miles than urban residents as 1,200 counties in the U.S. do not have access to public transportation. As a result, rural fatalities accounted for 49% of all traffic fatalities nationwide. 

Since airlines and bus companies have been cutting services to small towns for decades, the value of Amtrak in these rural communities cannot be overstated. Amtrak provides numerous benefits to residents and travelers regarding ease of use, safe transport, and economic prosperity. In 2015, Amtrak's long-distance services transported 4.5 million passengers, many of whom lived in places without other reliable transportation options. Over 2.5 million people say they can only travel with Amtrak services. 

From 1972 (Amtrak's first full year of operation) to 2019, passenger numbers went from 16.6 million to 32.5 million, even with route mileage shrinking by 1600 during the same period. Recently, Amtrak trains serving rural Virginia have had a 13% increase in riders between 2013 and 2019. In 2019, Montana mayors were asked what effect losing their Amtrak service, the Empire Builder, would have on their people, and all responded "devastating." 

Previously, Amtrak considered a plan to break up their Southwest Chief Service (which travels from Chicago to Los Angeles over a 40-hour journey). If the plan to break up this service had gone through, 32 universities would have lost train service along with 47 hospitals. Another way of expressing the impact is to note that 130,000 auto trips would have been added— and on roads four times more dangerous than the national average. These roads run alongside rural and small communities with the lowest median income across the entire corridor. 

Amtrak services often benefit rural communities economically. A Rail Passengers Association study reported in 2019 that the Southwest Chief brings in $180 million in direct and indirect activity to Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico.   

In Cut Bank, Montana, population 3,056, all together, residents pay $12,000 via federal income tax for their Amtrak service. That $12,000 investment results in $327,000 in benefits for the town.

This economic prosperity is partly due to the jobs Amtrak brings to rural places. Amtrak directly employs thousands of workers who reside in rural areas, which in turn provides millions of dollars in wages. Amtrak also employs subcontractors in these areas for manufacturing, equipment, and infrastructure work. 

In addition to employment, Amtrak services allow people to visit isolated places like those in Northwestern Montana, which boosts these regions' tourism economy. Even if people are just traveling through small towns on their way from Chicago to Los Angeles, for example, the nature of train service draws people towards new areas where passengers can wander around during long stops, supporting local vendors. 

Rural towns are aware of the benefits train travel has on their small communities and have invested in it. Meridan, Mississippi, population 39,000, invested $7.5 million on a new Amtrak station with another $200 million invested within the 3 blocks surrounding the station in the last 20 years. In Normal, Illinois, a $49.5 million grant created $220 million. However, due to shortages in funding for grants, "the burden frequently falls on towns for infrastructure and station costs."

Providing rural towns with reliable public transportation has ripple effects that benefit people in them, the economic health of the area, and even those living in urban areas who have an opportunity to visit places they might not have ever heard about. While Amtrak service in the U.S. has a long way to go before its positive impact can reach all of America, it currently provides a lifeline to many rural communities. 

UAW leader conflates rural and working class as he declares class warfare

I was fascinated to hear over the weekend an audio clip by Shawn Fain, leader of the United Auto Workers Union, that did something you hear more and more these days:  a conflation of working class--specifically the striking UAW workers--with rural concepts like rednecks.  Here's what Fain said:  

"They look at me and they see some redneck from Indiana," he added. "They look at you and see somebody they would never have over for dinner or let ride on their yacht or fly on their private jet." ....

Fain was also eager to reassure UAW members that the union's unprecedented strike strategy is working. The union struck all three companies at once, but started with just a handful of plants.

"They think they know us, but us autoworkers know better," he said. "We may be foul mouthed, but we're strategic. We may get fired up, but we're disciplined. And we may get rowdy. But we're organized."

While making these comments, Fain was wearing a t-shirt that said "Eat the Rich."

I very much appreciate what some would characterize as Fain's open class warfare.  I think it's necessary.  And I think it's honest.  And I believe he is accurate in stating that the corporate leadership of GM and the other automobile manufacturers would not, in fact, rub elbows with the UAW's rank and file.   

Cross-posted to Working-Class Whites and the Law. 

Wall Street Journal takes up the rural lawyer shortage, sorta'

Shannon Najmabadi's story in this weekend's Wall Street Journal was headlined, "Courts Come to Order with Judges, Litigants--but No Lawyers."  The dateline is Pittsburg, Kansas, population 20,646, and here's the lede:  

A court day with no lawyers used to be rare for many Kansas judges, but Judge Lori Bolton Fleming now regularly presides over hearings similar to the divorce case she heard in late September.

The man showed up with no lawyer and no paperwork, when he was supposed to bring a completed divorce decree with him. Bolton Fleming pulled out the necessary form and began filling it out.

“What year were you married?” she asked.

Across the U.S., more people are forgoing lawyers in state civil courts. Some can’t afford an attorney, have had bad experiences with them or prefer to take advantage of advice and tools posted online. Unlike criminal defendants, who have a right to a public defender, people appearing in civil court for cases including housing, debt collection or protections from abuse have no such guarantee.

Najmabadi doesn't mention until the next paragraph that his partly--perhaps largely--a rural phenomenon: 

Some rural areas, such as the counties Bolton Fleming oversees, have an added challenge: Few or no lawyers practice nearby. Those who remain can be choosy; they might, for example, limit their acceptance of domestic cases that can be lengthy and emotionally involved.

Najmabadi quotes Judge Bolton Fleming, 

It's just supply and demand--they will take paying clients. 

This is, then, a story about both the market--but in particular the rural market.  It's a story about the rural lawyer shortage--but in disguise.  Nevertheless, the feature is worth a read in its entirety, for the deep dive into what's happening not just in Kansas--and not just in rural places--but more and more across the country as pro se litigants show up to court and judges must figure out how to mete out justice.  

A prior WSJ story about the rural lawyer shortage, this one by Erin Mulvaney, appeared a few months ago.  It discusses the use of paralegals to help alleviate problems associated with the rural lawyer shortage, with a focus on a new Minnesota proposal.  

Going beyond the CALL for rural foster youth

In previous posts, I have addressed the structural barriers to adeqquate rural foster care systems, singling out the shortcomings of generalized child welfare reforms for rural communities and acknowledging the value of previous governmental efforts at rural specific foster care reform. This post turns to the issue of what institutions can do today to prop up these ailing systems with rural children in mind?

An online seach fo current rural child welfare reforms first brought me to "the CALL," which stands for "Children of Arkansas Loved for a Lifetime."

In 2007, Arkansan churchgoers formed the CALL after recognizing the steep barriers to family foster placements, for both the state and potential foster parents. The CALL leverages the pulpit in 45 of Arkansas’s 75 counties to encourage domestic foster adoption, train foster-parents-to-be, and operate offices for county foster care needs. They act as an intermediary between the State and the foster families to break down the bureaucratic, informational, and resource barriers of the foster system.

Between 2007 and 2018, the CALL claims it trained “half of new foster families in [Arkansas] and that families it has trained cared for more than 10,000 children and provided permanent homes for 800.” By all accounts, this is an amazing effort assumed on behalf of the State and Arkansan foster youth.

But this begs the question: should a volunteer group have to shoulder this immense burden?

Moreover, are there reforms that can be established today to set rural child welfare on track? This concern has already been addressed on the blog, from a variety of angles, here, here, and here. 

The unfortunate reality is that most social work programs, including child welfare, continue to be situated in urban areas and social work training focuses on urban issues, which is a chief concern highlighted by social work scholars Joanne Riebschleger, Debra Norris, Barbara Pierce, Debora Pond, and Cristy Cummings in their 2015 article "Preparing Social Work Students for Rural Child Welfare Practice: Emerging Curriculum Competencies." 

Riebschleger et. al. pave a path for not only acquiring but retaining competent rural child welfare workers.

First, rural issues must be infused into the social work curriculum to bring awareness to the field, its needs, and its challenges. Riebschleger et. al shape rural-specific social work education around the “three R’s,” which entail (1) dealing with increased remoteness, (2) working with lower levels of resources, and (3) putting strong emphasis on relationships.

A great deal of rural child welfare work relies on personal knowledge of the community. Riebschleger et. al. describes lack of anonymity as a tool, through proper knowledge, for effective rural child welfare work: the rural social worker can “engage in informal networks, and they can sometimes make use of informal resources and relationship skills to create resources for clients and families.”

Feasible case plans--that provide rural parents opportunities to succeed--rely on the child welfare worker’s knowledge of both the parents and the community’s resources. It is the case worker’s awareness of and reliance on the community that allow them to be effective in rural settings.

In general, Riebschleger et. al. document competencies for rural child welfare workers that confront rural issues and enable the worker to provide effective and sustainable care in rural communities.

Nevertheless, real hurdles that remain. Riebschleger et. al.’s research found child welfare workers identified professional and geographic isolation, inadequate access to formal community services, traversing dual relationships, multiple job roles, and lack of personal anonymity as major barriers to rural child welfare work. Several of Riebschleger et. al.’s suggestions confront such issues and advise structuring child welfare work around them.

Several barriers to choosing rural child welfare work persist, even for competent child welfare workers. Often, a rural child welfare worker may be the only professional trained in trauma-informed practice (tailoring interactions with an individual in recognition of their trauma and avoiding re-traumatization). They end up being relied upon in other capacities and may need to train other community professionals in this practice.

One solution Riebschleger et. al. posed was for universities to create partnerships with rural organizations and recruit potential social workers from rural areas. Students from rural areas already have an investment in the rural lifestyle and an understanding of the rural social work issues.

Educational institutions should be taking these steps by providing more curricular and clinical opportunities that center around rural issues. Broadening efforts for adequate rural social service workers generally can begin to remedy the persistent lack of services with a stable and competent work force.

In my next post, I hope to identify particular reforms that legal actors, including attorneys, can initiate in the interest of rural child welfare.

California struggles to provide its rural residents with safe drinking water

Last week, a Los Angeles Times story detailed how rural California residents often consume contaminated drinking water, with 400 (or about 25%) of the state's water systems failing to provide safe drinking water to residents.

The article explained how California cannot provide clean water to residents in California's Central Valley. In particular, the article found Kern County's water systems do not function effectively. Almost 80% of the county's water supply (65 systems) have been categorized as failing for three years. 

Kern County is home to around 900,00 residents, of whom 18.5% live in poverty.  The county's economy is primarily based on agriculture and petroleum extraction industries and its median household income is $58,000 is significantly less than California's median household income of $86,000. 

The Central Valley, a vast agricultural region of California and ranks among the United State's most polluted areas, due to heavy vehicle traffic, diesel-burning locomotives, tractors and irrigation pumps, and wood-burning stoves and fireplaces. 

Despite its booming agricultural industry, Central Valley residents are among California's poorest. About 24% of the Valley's population lives below the poverty line. While suburbs like Elk Grove and cities like Fresno sprawl out of the region, the Central Valley's agricultural communities are classified as rural according to CivicWell, a Sacramento-based nonprofit. 

Overall, the region covers more than 20,000 square miles and is home to around 2 million people. For comparison, Los Angeles County covers 4,084 square miles and is home to almost 10 million residents.

According to the American Bar Association, water supplies in farming areas (like the Central Valley) often contain high nitrate levels because the nitrates seep into the groundwater from fertilizer and manure. 

Ingesting too much nitrate can affect how the blood moves oxygen through the bloodstream and can cause methemoglobinemia (also known as blue baby syndrome), which can result in serious injury or death. In adults, high nitrate exposure can potentially lead to an increased risk of cancers like gastric cancer, although there is yet to be a scientific consensus on causation. 

Despite these data, 85% of the communities with nitrate-contaminated drinking water have no treatment systems in place to remove the chemical.

Madison Condon of Boston University School of Law wrote a piece for the American Bar Association and further explained that rural residents are those most likely to face poor water quality and unsafe drinking water: 

All across rural America, small community water systems are failing to protect public health due to a perfect storm of forces. Poor regulation of agricultural waste and other pollutants, shrinking populations, and aging infrastructure all contribute to the increasing incidents of water quality violations dotting the rural landscape.

It is troubling that the Central Valley experiences a lack of clean and safe drinking water, especially because the water used produces 25% of the U.S.'s food and 40% of American fruits and nuts. The region is a major agricultural output not just for California, but for the entire county.  

Water contamination in farming and industrial communities is unfortunately typical. 

In 2017,  environmental lawyer Rob Billot reached a $631 million settlement with chemical corporation DuPont for releasing 7,100 sludge tons of perfluorooctanoic acid (also known as PFOAs or C-8) into a landfill in Parkersburg, West Virginia. The chemicals ended up in the town's waterways, leading to deleterious health effects in the Parkersburg community.  Many residents suffered cancers, thyroid disease, high cholesterol, pre-eclampsia and ulcerative colitis–– all verified scientific effects from exposure to PFOA. A few years after the settlement, Focus Features made a film about the Billot's story called Dark Waters, starring actor and environmental activist Mark Ruffalo. 

Having access to reliable and safe drinking water is not merely a rural phenomenon, and happens in urban settings as well.   

In 2014, Flint, Michigan switched its water supply from Detroit’s system to the Flint River to save costs without the proper testing. Flint residents complained of a foul-smelling odor and suffered numerous health effects, but they were ignored for years. The Michigan Civil Rights Commission deemed the poor governmental response to the Flint crisis a “result of systemic racism.”

Having access to safe drinking water is essential for our health and wellbeing, according to The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While EPA regulations require federal and state agencies to regulate public water systems, those regulations do not apply to privately owned wells. This can be a problem in rural communities like those in the Central Valley, where most private wells are the source of many landowners' water.

In a 2019 paper posted in Environmental Health, Schaider et al. studied the link between low-income communities and drinking water contamination. They found that: 

Low-income and minority communities often face disproportionately high pollutant exposures. [...] Small water supplies, particularly those that serve low-income and minority communities, may have poorer source water quality due to closer proximity to pollution sources.

Rural residents suffer higher rates of poverty than their urban counterparts. According to Circle of Blue, a nonprofit aimed to educate and inform about the problems plagued by climate change, found that many rural towns have neglected their drinking water systems for decades:

As some rural towns lose population and government funds shrink, some drinking water systems are one failure away from crisis.

With the lack of affordable housing and the rise in housing prices in the Bay Area and Southern California, the Central Valley's population is expected to increase by five million people by the year 2060. Lawmakers, politicians, and policymakers should ensure safe access to drinking water in rural communities, despite the region's low population density.

Regardless of the size of a population cluster in an area, where one's water comes from, and what a town's primary industry is should not impact safe and reliable access to drinking water. 

You read more about water contamination on the blog here and here. You can read more about California's Central Valley here and here.

Rural Disaster Legal Services Fellow sought

This notice about seeking to hire a rural legal fellow went out from Legal Services of Northern California recently: 

Legal Services of Northern California (LSNC) announces its inaugural Rural Disaster Legal Services Fellowship - a limited and unique opportunity for a current third-year law student to launch their legal career by providing vital legal services, advocacy and education to the most vulnerable individuals impacted by natural disasters. The fellow will focus on legal services and advocacy that will build resilience and help impacted communities to recover and prepare for future events. The fellow will provide direct legal assistance to individuals impacted by disasters, coordinate with disaster services providers, attend specialized disaster law training, collaborate with leaders in the state and national disaster legal services network, prepare and present community legal education, conduct targeted efforts to reach the most vulnerable communities, and assist in legal response work to current or future disasters throughout LSNC’s service area. 

The fellow will be based in LSNC's Shasta office, located in Redding.  Here's a further description of the 

Under supervision of the Shasta Regional Office Managing Attorney, the fellow will participate in all aspects of advocacy and litigation including, but not limited to: client interviews, factual investigation, legal research, discovery, preparation of legal documents, negotiations, trials, and appellate work in both state and federal courts; appear at administrative hearings; provide legal advice to individual clients, and general legal information to eligible community groups as well as to the public in general. Engagement with the broader statewide and national disaster legal services community, including attendance at specialized training and conferences. Travel throughout LSNC’s service area, to areas impacted by or at risk for significant disaster events is required. Interaction with people who have experienced the impacts of disaster events, including trauma and loss, is a central function of the position.

Read more about the role of legal aid in responding to disasters here.  

The return of California's phantom lake: hubris and hostility as Tulare Lake floods the San Joaquin Valley

More than six months after the historic flooding that threatened the city of Corcoran and inundated farming communities in the lower San Joaquin Valley, Tulare Lake remains. Spurred on by massive precipitation during California’s atmospheric river last winter and unusually deep snowpacks high in the Sierras, Tulare Lake returned for the first time in decades.

Tulare Lake used to be the largest freshwater lake in the West. Fed by the Kaweah, Kern, Kings, and Tule rivers, it covered an area of 690 miles at its peak. As California’s Anglo-American settlers laid down roots in the Central Valley, agricultural use, drainage projects, and new dams emptied the lake. A complex series of levees, dams, and earthworks made the empty lakebed one of the most engineered landscapes of the early 20^th century.

The area is now a thriving agricultural hotspot. Tulare County produced $7.5 billion worth of commodities in 2019. Now, many of those farms are underwater. Flooding has caused over $4 billion in damage across the Central Valley. Homes, crops, and shops have all been destroyed. Fertilizer, industrial chemicals, diesel fuel, and rusting machinery have polluted the water.

Tulare Lake has not gone down without a fight. During extremely wet years, it has returned. The lake returned in 1938, 1955, 1969, 1983 and 1997. Because of this pattern of reappearance, some have called Tulare Lake a “zombie lake,” “ghost lake,” or “phantom lake.”

This year is one such year. At the peak of the flooding in March, Tulare Lake covered approximately 120,000 acres – about the size of Lake Tahoe. As a result of dedicated efforts by state and local officials to drain the lake and redirect its water, it covered only 50,000 acres in September.

Tulare Lake will continue to linger. Some scientists and researchers predict that it won’t recede entirely until 2024. And as climate change continues to result in more extreme weather, this won’t be the last time that Lake Tulare returns with a vengeance.

Tensions ran high as livelihoods were swept away. Farmers fought over whose fields should flood first. Some accused agribusiness barons of intentionally redirecting the water to flood their neighbor’s fields. A special meeting of the county’s board of supervisors was filled with outrage and hostility.

These losses are the result of human hubris and greed. Try as we might, we cannot change the landscape entirely. The land is still low, the earth filled with impermeable clay, and the rivers still feed into the valley. The natural conditions that created Lake Tulare still exist, lying in wait with the immortal patience of a world that existed long before men and will continue to exist long after.

For thousands of years, the Yokuts people lived along the shallow shores of Tulare Lake, which they called Pa’ashi. The lake sustained a vibrant ecosystem, with a rhythmic pattern of expansion and regression during the wet and dry seasons that remain the subject of native songs passed down through the generations. While the farmers and county supervisors mourn losses and struggle to combat the flooding, the Yokuts have celebrated the return of their beloved Pa’ashi. The Tachi Yokut Tribe has asked California to let Pa’ashi stay.

California has a tough choice to make. They can continue to build levees and dams and farm the lakebed, betting against nature that their fields won’t be destroyed again. Or California could encourage communities to relocate, mitigate the damage of future floods, and stop interfering in the natural process.

California could rewild Tulare Lake. The term “rewilding” has a long history, going back to the 1990s when conservationists and scholars Michael Soulé and Reed Noss called for an ambitious, continent-wide program of restoring connected wilderness landscapes large enough to support wide-ranging mammals. Rewilding has since grown into a global conservation movement focused on the restoration of self-regulating natural landscapes. Conservationists Carlos Carroll and Reed F. Noss now argue that rewilding can be used as a potential way to reduce the harm of the climate crisis.

It could be worth a shot. California would avoid future flood losses, the Yokuts would have access to their beloved Pa’ashi once more, and the state would be more climate resilient as a whole. Maybe that would be a more desirable outcome than waiting to restart the cycle of disappearance, development, and destruction again.

You can find more information on Tulare Lake’s resurgence on the blog here and here. You can read more about Tulare County here and here.

Rising evictions in rural America during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond

This past summer, while doing eviction defense work for a legal aid in Los Angeles, I often heard the statistic—90% of landlords have legal representation, while only 10% of tenants do. This statistic, however, only accounts for metropolitan areas where the data is collected. In rural areas, where there is a lack of legal access, representation for both tenants and landlords is likely to be much lower. 

The lack of legal access in rural areas stems from a shortage of lawyers and the underfunding of legal aid organizations. These factors coupled with the lack of affordable housing have fueled the rise of rural evictions during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. 

Rural areas face some of the highest eviction rates in the country. According to research by Cornell University, evictions in many rural counties now exceed pre-pandemic rates. During the pandemic, there was an influx of people moving from cities to rural areas as work increasingly became remote and rural living became more appealing. The added pressure on rural housing markets caused the supply of low-income rentals to decrease and the number of evictions to skyrocket. 

Rural tenants have increasingly been unable to keep up with their rent, and as the affordable housing supply decreases, the need for legal representation is becoming more important. Tenants oftentimes are not informed of their rights and the protections in place. Without legal representation, most tenants lose their cases and are evicted. This drives locals to leave for more affordable towns, or often to become housing insecure as evidenced by the increase in rural homelessness in recent years. 

On the other hand, many rural tenants have been reluctant to use eviction protections or fight their evictions. Brett Thompson, executive director for East River Legal Services in South Dakota, said, "We've developed a culture where people don't tend to avail themselves of protections afforded to them. This isn't a new problem. It's a problem that's been magnified by the pandemic and reaching a crisis point because of the pandemic." In South Dakota when there was a national eviction moratorium in place, people tended to move elsewhere when they received an eviction notice rather than fight for their right to stay. 

One key hurdle in providing support for rural tenants is the lack of data collected in rural areas. Most statistics on evictions in states come from data collected from cities and metropolitan areas. State governments therefore overlook the scope of the problem in rural areas and are unable to make fully informed decisions. For instance, California passed eviction protections during the pandemic, however, the only way to use these protections was to assert them as defenses in court in response to an unlawful detainer action. Considering the lack of legal access and low level of legal representation in rural areas, many tenants were not equipped to fight their evictions and use these protections.  

While moving forward, it is necessary to be mindful of rural areas when discussing the lack of affordable housing and the rise in evictions. States need to begin with making more inclusive decisions where data from rural areas is collected and considered. We further need to advocate for greater tenant protections which include rent caps, just-cause eviction protections, and a right to counsel. Lastly, there needs to be a push for increased funding for legal aids operating in rural areas—rural places need lawyers. Maybe then will rural attitudes toward seeking legal assistance begin to shift. 

Read more about the lack of legal access in rural America here and here. 

The changing lawscape: Impact of recent legislation on rural Californians

California, known for its diverse landscapes and vibrant urban centers, is also home to a significant rural population— 4.9% of California's population is rural. Recently, the California Assembly passed several bills that will have disparate impacts on rural Californians.

On September 12, the California Assembly passed SB-244, a Right to Repair Act, with a 50-0 vote. SB-244 will require device manufacturers to allow consumers to bypass digital locks, which have previously prevented consumers from accessing and fixing a device's software. SB-244 will also make repair manuals publicly available and require manufacturers to sell replacement parts to consumers. Parts and materials for electronic or appliance products costing between $50-$99.99 will be kept by manufacturers for three years, while manufacturers will keep parts and materials for products costing $100 or more for seven years.

SB-244 is good news for those in rural areas. Repair is critical for local economies and rural areas, which generally house independent repair shops rather than authorized Toyota and John Deere dealers. Over the past two decades, as tractors have become more advanced with GPS, 360-degree cameras, and smartphone controls, manufacturers have limited farmers’ repair options to authorized dealers. Right-to-repair legislation seeks to safeguard consumers from anti-competitive practices by ensuring they have the freedom to repair products themselves or choose independent repair services. Read more about the ongoing “right to repair” battle and its disproportionate impact on rural America here and here. 

Meanwhile, California lawmakers have voted to restrict the use of hand-counted election ballots by local governments, which is aimed at addressing a  situation that has arisen in Shasta County. The new law, AB 969, permits hand counting only in specific situations: regularly scheduled elections with fewer than 1,000 registered voters and special elections with fewer than 5,000 eligible voters. 

This move comes after Shasta County, with approximately 112,000 voters, canceled its contract with Dominion Voting Systems. The county made that decision based on unfounded fraud claims pushed by former President Donald Trump and his supporters. Read more about Northern California’s election disputes and insurrection plans here, here and here. 

Shasta County officials, including County Clerk Cathy Darling Allen, supported the bill as a "commonsense protection for all California voters." However, County Board of Supervisors Chair Patrick Henry Jones has vowed to sue if the bill is signed. Jones argues that state officials cannot ensure the security of voting machines.

In other news, after years of unsuccessful attempts, the California Legislature has finally passed AB-28, which aims to impose an 11% excise tax on firearms and ammunition sales. Funds generated will be used to support gun violence prevention efforts. This legislation, sponsored by Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, a Democrat from Woodland Hills (greater Los Angeles), is modeled after a similar federal tax used for wildlife conservation. The annual revenue from this tax is estimated at around $160 million, which will be allocated to violence intervention programs, school safety enhancements, and law enforcement actions to seize firearms from individuals prohibited from owning them. 

Critics of the new law argue that businesses may pass the cost onto customers, which will have a disproportionate impact on rural Californians, who participate in sport shooting, hunting, or using firearms for personal protection. This extra financial burden could discourage firearm owners from maintaining their guns or participating in hunting or competitive shooting. Read more posts on hunting and ammunition bans here, here and here. 

To remedy the disproportionate effects the guns and ammunition law might have on rural Californians, the state might consider “rural proofing.” Rural proofing is a practice where lawmakers consider rural community circumstances and needs when developing and implementing policies.

A “rural proofing” approach involves considering factors like rural spatiality, access to essential services, compliance costs, and the potential disproportionate impact on rural communities when creating laws. Rural proofing in California could help mitigate negative consequences of laws on rural areas, foster trust between the government and rural populations, and provide a voice for rural communities in the legislative process. In essence, rural proofing offers a constructive avenue for lawmakers to consider rural communities' unique needs and traditions in their decision-making processes. Read more about rural proofing here.