My brain feels scattered these days, like I'm trying to process too many things at once, like time is flying by but also crawling. So this week, thought I'd just note a few scattered things I've been thinking about.
1. This afternoon at 3 p.m. EST, I'm doing a Facebook Live with John Hammontree, co-founder of Reckon at AL.com in Alabama. We'll talk about Southerly stories, the pandemic's impact on the South, and journalism. Join us! I'd love to answer your questions.
2. As rain from a tropical storm lingers over North Carolina this week, hurricane season — which officially starts June 1 — is top of mind. The Federal Emergency Management Agency just released a guide for hurricane response and recovery during the pandemic; Carly Berlin noted it was coming in her recent story about how emergency managers along the Gulf Coast are preparing. (The Biloxi Sun Herald republished the story last week, which we love to see.)
This week, Carly wrote about a more evergreen issue: the risks of flooding and pollution at an Alabama Power coal ash pond next to the Mobile River near the coast of Alabama. Instead of excavating the coal ash like many utilities in the region are doing, Alabama Power is draining the water and capping the coal ash in place. The site has already been fined for polluting groundwater, and nearby residents worry about what might happen if a hurricane hits or the dam breaks. Read the story here.
Alabama Power’s coal ash pond near Mobile is separated from the Mobile River by an earthen dam. Photo courtesy Mobile Baykeeper
3. Speaking of dams, it's been devastating to watch the two dam breaches in Michigan, which forced at least 10,000 people to evacuate in the middle of a pandemic. The flooding also threatens a Dow chemical complex and Superfund site nearby. One of the dams had a permit revoked in the past over its inability to withstand a flood event. It brings home how quickly dams can fail with no warning. Last month, we had a story about the lack of regulations in Tennessee on private — often earthen — dams and their emergency action plans, and this AP story from 2019 shows how many dams across the U.S. are at risk of failing.
4. North Carolina leads the number of COVID-19 outbreaks in meat packing plants nationwide, according to the latest data from the Food and Environment Reporting Network, which is tracking the numbers. FERN data for the U.S. shows that "the cumulative total on May 19 was over 16,400 — a more than eight-fold increase in less than a month. In that time, 66 workers have died of the disease." Enlace Latino NC reported this week on the specifics of the North Carolina plants. A couple of weeks ago we published a story with Enlace Latino NC about COVID-19 cases at the Butterball poultry plant in Mount Olive, and the company still hasn't confirmed the number of cases. Facing South has a great explainer on where the outbreaks are happening in the rural South: counties with prisons and meatpacking plants, and majority-Black counties. Now, there are also reports of outbreaks at crawfish processing facilities in Louisiana, raising concerns about other food processing plants as states reopen restaurants and businesses.
Whew, that's a lot to think about. The one constant is the reminder of how connected we all are — that everything we do to the land, to the water, and to each other, affects everything else.
Stay safe and healthy, especially as places open back up this weekend. Thinking of y'all.
—Lyndsey Gilpin, Founder, Editor, Publisher
Stories worth your time
In 1935, Florida’s first Black millionaire, Abraham Lincoln Lewis, purchased a stretch of oceanfront property on Amelia Island off the coast of Jacksonville to provide “a place for recreation and relaxation, without humiliation” for African American people. Bitter Southerner has the story of how American Beach came to be — and what it symbolizes for Black communities.
After St. Augustine, Florida, was battered by Hurricanes Matthew and Irma, historic preservationists have been working to figure out how to save historic sites from sea flood damage. As Hakai Magazine notes: "What they do now may help chart a course for many other North American coastal cities—and determine how much of the past they salvage and how much they relinquish."
Many of my family members have retired from the U.S. Postal Service, so I loved this story by Boyce Upholt for National Geographic about the history of the agency and how it's constantly fighting for survival.
Taylor Barnes has been covering the defense industry during the coronavirus pandemic for In These Times. In April, she wrote about how Alabama defense industry employees were wrestling with being deemed "essential," and their worries about health and safety. This week, she looked at how the federal government quietly defined a new category of essential workers: defense industry personnel employed in foreign arms sales.
Emergency managers work nonstop to prepare communities for hurricanes during pandemic
How a coastal Louisiana tribe is using generations of resilience to handle the pandemic
The Grand Caillou/Dulac Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw have long practiced self-isolation and sustainable food production. Read the story.
News flying under the radar
Last year, Kevin Beaty reported a story for us about cancer clusters in Huntersville and Mooresville, North Carolina, where several Duke Energy coal ash facilities reside. Now, as NC Policy Watch reports, a Senate bill and its House companion would enact recommendations to better monitor these, budgeting "$566,000 for six additional full-time staff, including a cancer epidemiologist and updated software. It would also strengthen oversight of doctors who fail to report cancer diagnoses, which is required by state law."
A proposed federal tax on water bottling companies that tap into public water supplies now has the backing of Miami-Dade County commissioners. Florida water bottling companies that supply international conglomerate Nestlé currently pay a one-time, $115 permitting fee to extract up to 1.15 million gallons per day of groundwater. The bill would impose a "6-cent-per-gallon tax on water bottled for resale from springs or underground water sources," according to Miami Today.
Earther reported this week on a new study showing that Black communities in Cancer Alley — a stretch of communities near petrochemical plants along the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans— are facing higher death rates from COVID-19.
America’s rural transportation faces a $211 billion backlog in repairs that contributes to high fatality rates, according to a report from transportation non-profit TRIP. Daily Yonder has a story about the research, which shows West Virginia ranked in the top five states with the largest percentage of rural bridges in poor condition and the most rural roads in poor condition.
NC Policy Watch's Lisa Sorg reported this week that chemical company Chemours will not be criminally charged in a Clean Water Act case involving its Fayetteville Works plant, according to the company and federal officials. For decades, Chemours and former parent company DuPont discharged millions of gallons of wastewater contaminated with GenX, a type of perfluorinated compound that causes serious health issues, into the Cape Fear River.
A proposed pollution permit would, for the first time, allow water seeping from a 5,900-acre network of cooling canals at Florida Power & Light’s Turkey Point nuclear plant to move beyond plant boundaries in southern Miami-Dade County. As WLRN reports, folks are none too happy about it.
‘They didn’t tell us anything’: North Carolina poultry plant workers say Butterball isn’t protecting them from COVID-19
As the virus spreads through meatpacking plants across the U.S., immigrant communities struggle to get answers from the company or state about cases at a Mount Olive facility. Read the story.
Do you find value in this newsletter? Share it with your family, friends, neighbors, and coworkers! Tell them to subscribe and read our stories on our website.
