A U.S. District Court judge ruled Thursday that federal agencies illegally fired tens of thousands of employees over President’s Day weekend.

At the end of a March 13 hearing of American Federal of Government Employees v. U.S. Office of Personnel Management (AFGE v. OPM), Judge William Alsup placed a preliminary injunction on federal agencies, ordering them to immediately reinstate the employees that were fired per an OPM directive from President Donald Trump in February. The defendants swiftly filed an appeal, but unless another judge intervenes, Alsup’s ruling stands as the default.

The basis of his ruling, Alsup declared in scathing language, was that the government deliberately went after the workers with the least amount of appeal power, making them the easy targets of an unfair and arbitrary government slash.

“I got goosebumps,” said Don Neubacher after the judge issued his decision. He’s a former superintendent of Yosemite National Park and a board member of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, one of the plaintiffs in the case. “We’re very happy with the ruling. We’re going to celebrate it.”

Alsup’s order rang like a takedown of the federal government. It came from his review of the evidence: On Jan. 20, the OPM instructed federal agencies to compile a list of all their workers who had been hired within the past two years or had recently received a promotion, officially called probationary workers. Then, on Feb. 13 and over President’s Day weekend, the OPM ordered agencies to fire that group. In a template email, the OPM cited the employees’ poor work performance, even though many of the workers had earned stellar performance reviews.

Labor unions, including the AFGE, quickly challenged the OPM. At the first hearing of AFGE v. OPM on Feb. 27, Alsup granted a temporary restraining order and said the federal government’s efforts to expunge its employees were “unlawful, invalid, and must be stopped and rescinded.”

Alsup used nearly the same language Thursday morning. Ahead of the hearing, the plaintiffs had sought an injunction against an expanded list of defendants that included all 23 federal agencies that dismissed probationary staff. Alsup applied his ruling to the departments of Veteran Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, Interior and the Treasury, where the record of the unlawful OPM action “was the strongest,” he said. But he invited the plaintiffs to submit briefs making the case for tacking on other agencies.

“It’s a very conservative ruling, and a very strongly worded ruling by the judge,” said Peter Jenkins, a senior counsel for the nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility who wasn’t involved in the case. “It was a great ruling.”

The lawsuit is arguably the most successful one so far among the suits that labor unions, nonprofits and states have hurled at the OPM. In one lawsuit filed in the District of Columbia, a judge decreed that fired workers should direct their complaints to internal labor committees, such as the Merit System Protection Board (MSPB), rather than resolve their grievances in court. In a legal challenge against another OPM initiative, a program that incentivized resignations, a Massachusetts judge ruled against the unions that brought the suit, declaring that they were not directly impacted by the OPM actions and thus did not have standing.

During the Thursday hearing, the federal government’s lawyers repeated their arguments, insisting that the plaintiffs’ case lacked standing. As part of its defense, the OPM also asserted that the agencies’ leadership had called the shots rather than simply obeying the OPM’s orders to lay off their probationary employees. The OPM revised its initial memo after Alsup’s restraining order, adding a disclaimer that OPM was “not directing agencies” to terminate employees. But during the second hearing, Alsup rejected the defendant’s claim. “It’s illustrative of the manipulation by the OPM to orchestrate this government lie,” he said.

At first, Alsup concurred with the rulings in previous lawsuits that he lacked the jurisdiction to hear the unions’ case, because fired workers should seek relief from their oversight boards rather than go through court.

But in the March 13 hearing, new arguments presented by the plaintiffs on how Trump has dismantled those independent groups made him reconsider.

President Trump targeted one Office of Special Counsel leader in particular, Hampton Dellinger, who was planning to restore all terminated probationary workers before he himself was fired, reinstated and then fired again. Trump also attempted to boot one of the chairs of the MSPB but was foiled by a judge. Had he succeeded, it would have left the board bereft of the minimum number of staff to vote on petitions. This erosion of the official channels of appeal made Alsup decide not to rule out litigation.

Alsup called the top-down firings a “watchdog cannibalization” during the hearing. “I have a feeling that’s where we’re headed now, that there’s no relief” for fired employees, he said.

“It is a sad, sad day, when our government would fire some good employees and say that it was based on performance. Well, that’s a lie.”

In addition, the plaintiffs in AFGE v. OPM include organizations other than unions, such as the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, Western Watersheds and the state of Washington, to name a few. Since the first hearing, Alsup has concurred with those organizations that they have suffered concrete injury from the sweeping dismissals, to the point where they could no longer carry out their organizations’ missions.

The vast public outcry against the federal firings has already sparked some reversals. The National Park Service, National Science Foundation, Environmental Protection Agency and other agencies have rehired some of their terminated staff members. Three weeks after the Department of Agriculture dismissed nearly 6,000 probationary workers — including some 3,400 Forest Service employees, per AFGE’s recent legal filings — the MSPB issued an order to reinstate all terminated staff members for 45 days following Alsup’s Feb. 28 memorandum opinion. But as of March 13, many fired workers were still awaiting word from their supervisors about their employment.

People brace for impacts on land, water and wildlife after feds fire thousands over holiday weekend

Meanwhile, the MSPB is wading through the thousands of new complaints that have been filed each week — as much as a 21-fold jump since Trump took office — from federal workers who believe they were terminated unjustly.

Even after Alsup’s ruling, the judicial jousting between Trump’s government and federal workers continues. Following the government’s notice to appeal the federal court order, the case will now go to the 9th Circuit Appellate Court for further adjudication. “The bottom line is, there’s a lot of litigating still to be done here,” said Dave Owen, a law professor at the University of California Law San Francisco.

AS A CHILD, Riley Rackliffe dressed as a park ranger for Halloween. He carried his interest in the National Park Service into adulthood, giving up a university teaching position to become an aquatic biologist at Nevada’s Lake Mead National Recreation Area last year. Now, Rackliffe is on the job market once more, his dream job snatched away even before the afterglow of landing it wore off.

Rackliffe is one of the thousand National Park Service workers in the OPM’s crosshairs. But since the court rulings, he and his supervisor are still in the dark about whether Lake Mead’s sole aquatic biologist can get back to doing the work he loved.

“I am definitely still holding onto hope,” he said. But he can’t afford to wait, he said: “I’ve got a mortgage and two kids and bills to pay, so hope isn’t a good financial strategy.” As he hunts for a new job, he’s not banking on landing another aquatic ecologist position in a state that receives only 4 inches of rain annually. “I got fired from the one lake in town,” he said.

More than just individuals’ lives and livelihoods turned upside down, a severely culled staff — not to mention a demoralized one — will challenge the ability of federal agencies to provide the crucial public services they are mandated to perform. In the case of the departments of Interior and Agriculture, the mass firings threaten the management of public lands, both now and in the future. Experts already predict a chaotic recreational season ahead, filled with unkempt campgrounds, heightened wildfire risk and unsafe trail conditions.

“Visitations are going up, but staffing and budgets are going down,” Neubacher said. “At some point something has to give, and we’re pretty close to that.”

Even if agencies comply immediately with the March 13 ruling, that might not be enough to prevent looming damage to public lands and more. Alsup acknowledged that the government could still legally pursue other mechanisms to pare back the workforce, to similar effect. For example, it could undertake a reduction in force, an official process to reorganize and reduce the number of federal employees. In fact, the Trump administration has already repeatedly promised to do so. March 13 is also the deadline that Trump set for agencies to submit plans for drastic downsizing, with another round to come in April.

Still, the Trump administration may not need to win in court to get its way. Legal experts suspect that it’s gambling on stirring up so much uncertainty that federal employees will simply choose to leave. Even if Rackliffe is reinstated, he said, the prospect of future cuts and the turbulent political climate might not make it worth returning.

And while Alsup’s latest court order halts what he concluded to be a hasty reduction in force in disguise, and an illegal one at that, there may be little to celebrate in the long run. “It is a sad, sad day, when our government would fire some good employees and say that it was based on performance. Well, that’s a lie,” Alsup said. “That should not have been done in our country.”

The post Judge rules federal job cuts ‘unlawful’ appeared first on High Country News.

MENDOCINO CO., 3/14/25 – On Tuesday, swarms of social media posts indicated that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were seen near the Holiday Inn and the Costco on Airport Park Boulevard in Ukiah.

However, according to Mendocino County Sheriff Matt Kendall, there have been no reports of ICE agents enacting raids in the county, but he can confirm that federal agents were in town for a separate investigation.

In a statement to The Mendocino Voice, Kendall noted that federal agents did use the interview room at the Sheriff’s Office to investigate a crime, but it was not related to immigration.

“People were here from a federal agency to use our offices,” Kendall said. “But I checked with the agents to make sure it had nothing to do with immigration.” 

He also noted that Senate Bill 54, known as the California Values Act, prohibits law enforcement and public institutions in the state from sharing information or coordinating with ICE agents on deportations.

Before Kendall verified and informed the public that there were no ICE agents organizing deportations, several social media posts were published by community members, inciting fear and anxiety in the local immigrant community.

Even though federal agents were conducting an investigation in the county, both the Ukiah Police Department and the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office said there have been no reports of ICE agents conducting raids. The agents, according to Kendall, were part of a special response team investigation and were not involved in immigration enforcement.

According to Richard Beam, a communications officer for ICE’s Los Angeles office, although SRT agents operate under ICE’s jurisdiction, they often handle investigations involving criminal records, drug cartels, or other gang activity. SRT agents must have specific search warrants to conduct investigations. These specialized teams rarely enter communities to carry out immigration enforcement without a warrant or a specific criminal history tied to an individual or group.

The confusion and surge of social media posts about immigration raids have been common since President Donald Trump issued executive orders to increase deportations across the U.S., and the spread of misinformation has been increasing in California.

According to Berkeley immigration attorney Cara Jobson, while the information can be confusing, there are key indicators to consider before assuming an ICE agent is in the area.

“Usually their uniforms will say ‘ICE police’ or something like that,” Jobson said in an interview. “The vehicles will usually have a federal government logo and be white with a large blue stripe.”

Jobson said that before jumping to conclusions, people should contact local authorities or the nearest rapid response network, which is an organization of volunteers that assist in verifying the presence of ICE agents in local communities. These organizations can also assist with legal questions and educating immigrants about their rights. Before immediately posting on social media that ICE agents are in town, Jobson recommends that you contact one of these networks.

“You don’t want to create unnecessary panic, but you want people to have good information,” Jobson said. “It doesn’t hurt to call a couple places like a rapid response network and say I’m on this street and I see a bunch of ICE trucks or vans. That is reasonable.”

Jobson also said it’s crucial to know your rights if you encounter an ICE agent and find yourself in a difficult situation. She emphasized that, whether you’re an immigrant with or without legal status, you should carry a “red card” describing your rights, which can be downloaded and printed online.

“These cards are available to citizens and non-citizens alike, you’re not outing yourself as having any particular status by presenting the card,” she said. “Many people are ordering them and they’re in lots of different languages like English and Spanish. The importance of the card is so if someone gets stopped by ICE or approached on the street or wherever the location is they know exactly what to do.”

If you or someone you know has seen or heard that there is an ICE agent in your county, several organizations in Northern California can help verify the information before you report it to your local community.

Here is a list of places you can contact to verify if there are ICE agents in your area:

• The North Bay Rapid Response Network, though centered in Napa, Sonoma and Solano counties, can still help verify information and review photos or videos to determine whether they show ICE agents or other federal officials. You can contact them at (707) 800-4544.

• Catholic Charities of Santa Rosa has an immigration department that can be contacted if you believe ICE agents are in your area. You can reach them at (707) 578-6000.

• You can also contact Nuestra Alianza de Willits, located in Willits, to report any possible sightings of ICE agents and ask them to help verify your photos or videos. Reach them at (707) 456-9418.

• Legal Services of Northern California, which has an office in Ukiah, can assist with immigration paperwork and explain your rights as an immigrant. You can contact them if you have questions about what to do if you see an ICE agent in your area. Reach them at (707) 462-1471.

The post How to combat misinformation and fact-check ICE sightings in Mendocino County appeared first on The Mendocino Voice | Mendocino County, CA.

Following the world’s hottest year on record and a series of increasingly intense and damaging environmental disasters, including a historically bad year for wildfires in Wyoming, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Wednesday it is rolling back dozens of climate rules and fossil fuel regulations in an effort to “usher in the golden age of American success.”

The agency, as part of President Donald Trump’s “Unleashing American Energy” initiative, will eliminate or otherwise “reconsider” the Clean Power Plan, along with the landmark 2009 “endangerment finding” that greenhouse gases cause harm. Also on the chopping block are “Mercury and Air Toxics Standards” for coal-fired power plants, regulatory greenhouse gas reporting, a risk management program for oil and gas refineries and dozens of other federal pollution control measures.

“Today is the greatest day of deregulation our nation has seen,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in a prepared statement that was accompanied by a video message. “We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion to drive down cost of living for American families, unleash American energy, bring auto jobs back to the U.S. and more.”

The actions have major implications in Wyoming, where both fossil fuel extraction and a large federal land footprint play major economic roles and touch almost every aspect of life in the state.

Many industry officials, conservation groups and politicos in Wyoming were still absorbing the possible implications Thursday, noting the sprawling actions trigger myriad legal and logistical questions.

Compounding those questions is general uncertainty and chaos surrounding the Elon Musk-led federal employee purge, Trump’s freeze on federal funding and grant programs, as well as an ever-evolving tariff war. Further complicating the EPA’s regulatory rollback: How Wyoming, which maintains primacy over many federal emissions programs and sometimes implements more stringent requirements, might respond to the new initiatives.

From Zeldin’s perspective, the EPA’s efforts to undo “flawed” and “suffocating rules” implemented under past Democratic administrations that “restrict nearly every sector of our economy and cost Americans trillions of dollars” will make it “more affordable to purchase a car, heat homes, and operate a business.”

Asked whether oil and gas companies in Wyoming might respond by relaxing environmental mitigation efforts, Petroleum Association of Wyoming Vice President and Director of Communications Ryan McConnaughey said that’s not the intention of industry.

“If you look at the announcements that were made [this week] from their leadership, they did not say a word about the environment or protection of air or water or waste — nothing.”

John Burrows, Wyoming Outdoor Council

“Wyoming’s natural gas and oil producers have long been leaders in emissions reductions, and we have no intention of backing away from that commitment,” McConnaughey told WyoFile via email. “Throughout the Biden administration, PAW consistently sought to engage with the EPA, offering constructive feedback and voicing concerns that the regulatory approach could lead to unnecessary closures and significant increases in energy costs for American consumers.

“Unfortunately,” McConnaughey continued, “these concerns were repeatedly ignored. By ensuring regulations align with on-the-ground technological and economic realities, we can achieve emissions goals in a cost-effective and practical manner without imposing undue burdens on American businesses or households.”

Whatever the intention, the EPA’s regulatory rollbacks are sure to have negative impacts regarding the climate, as well as the health of Wyoming landscapes and wildlife, and “on people, ultimately,” Wyoming Outdoor Council Energy and Climate Policy Director John Burrows told WyoFile.

Zeldin’s announcement, Burrows said, appears to reveal a fundamental shift in mission at EPA, he added.

“The mission of the EPA is to protect human health and the environment — that is their mission,” Burrows said. “If you look at the announcements that were made [this week] from their leadership, they did not say a word about the environment or protection of air or water or waste — nothing.”

Reached for comment, Gov. Mark Gordon’s Communications Director Michael Pearlman lauded the rollback effort. Gordon has repeatedly sued the Biden administration over policies tied to the energy industry and climate change.

“These are highly impactful actions, particularly the endangerment finding, that could be extremely beneficial to Wyoming energy producers,” Pearlman said. “This is yet another step that the Trump administration has taken to relieve the stranglehold on industry created by the Biden administration’s regulations.”

The post Wyomingites both fear and cheer EPA move to slash fossil fuel, climate regulations appeared first on WyoFile .

Funding aimed at making a struggling Williamstown farm more resilient has been paused. A program that distributes local, free food has been canceled. The Department of Environmental Conservation is missing $10.7 million for clean water quality projects. 

In the last few months, the new administration of President Donald Trump has pulled back federal funding related to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, climate change and the Inflation Reduction Act, signed in 2022 by his predecessor Joe Biden. 

Around Vermont, those funding changes are affecting farmers and the organizations that support them, prompting alarm and confusion. Altogether, the federal government has paused or canceled tens of millions of dollars in funding for agricultural programs across the state. 

“Farmers thrive on predictability,” said Anson Tebbetts, secretary of the Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets. “But we’re not in that space right now. So I think everyone is taking it day to day.”

The most recent axe fell last Friday on two U.S. Department of Agriculture programs that support local farms by paying them to provide food for specific local markets.

One supported 80 local farms, which in turn produced food that was distributed to people experiencing poverty in 13 Vermont counties through free CSA programs, pop-up markets and food shelves, according to the Vermont Agency of Agriculture. The other focused on getting more local food into schools and child care centers. 

The state agency learned on March 7 that the two programs — the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program and the Local Food for Schools and Child Care Cooperative Agreement, respectively — would be canceled in 60 days. 

Nationally, the programs cost about $1 billion, and in Vermont, the USDA will no longer award roughly $1.7 million that it had previously pledged, the agency said.

“It was a successful program, because it was essentially doing two things,” Tebbetts said. “It was supporting farmers. They were growing or producing something, and that was being distributed to cafeterias, homes, etc. So it was a great program because it was helping our farmers, but it was also getting that local product to a bigger audience.”

The Intervale Center in Burlington distributed about $45,000 of the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program funding to around 700 families, according to Kristen McDowell, food hub manager at the Intervale. 

The people who receive the benefits are often Black, Indigenous, people of color, single-family households and elderly people who “don’t have access to federal benefits, like Snap or EBT, so they’re technically on the benefits cliff,” she said. 

While the organization already distributed free food for people in need before the assistance program started, the federal funding allowed them to continue it in the winter months. Without the funding, the program will likely be restricted to only summer months, McDowell said.

Kayla Strom, the Farm to School Program manager at Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont, or NOFA, said in an email the organization was “devastated” to hear that the Local Food for Schools and Child Care program was canceled. Vermont had worked to convene “dozens of partners to determine the most effective use of these funds.” 

The cancellation comes at a time “when food costs are expected to rise, and the funding would have expanded local purchasing, supported Vermont farmers, and strengthened our farm to school programs,” Strom said. 

Plug pulled

After Bear Roots Farm, located in Williamstown and Barre, experienced floods and prolonged wet weather in 2023, farmers Jon Wagner and Karin Bellemare were looking for financial resources to recover. 

Before the flood, they had borrowed money to grow crops, only to have those crops wiped out by a torrent of water. The pandemic, flooding and rising expenses have contributed to unmanageable costs for the farm, and debt that’s becoming increasingly unwieldy. 

“Almost every year there’s some extreme thing that’s going on,” Wagner said. 

Last spring, the farmers sat down with staff at NOFA to develop a new business model “that would help us rebuild, and sustain us through future environmental impacts, like flooding,” Wagner said in an interview. 

They planned to construct a nursery, which would be more weather resilient, and put up a fence to keep deer out. 

After helping the farmers think through big-picture questions about the future of their business, NOFA assisted in putting Bear Roots Farm on a path to receive roughly $60,000 through a program called Climate Smart Farming and Marketing. 

The program is funded directly through the federal Inflation Reduction Act and distributed through the Agricultural Marketing Service, which is part of the United States Department of Agriculture.

The program was intended to help “farms mitigate the risks of climate change” and
“analyze the vulnerabilities in their business,” said Eric Boatti, who manages the program for NOFA. 

“The verbal communication was, ‘We don’t have the funds until April 1. They need to be signed off on.’ But the plants are all on sale in the winter. You have to buy them now,” Wagner said.

They bought the plants, which put the farm in a tight financial position. They expected to be reimbursed, and they needed the money. 

Then, Wagner received notice from Pasa — an organization that doles out the funds to farms from Maine to South Carolina — that the federal government had paused the program. While there hasn’t explicitly been a stop-work order, Pasa has been filing reimbursement requests that haven’t been fulfilled.

“I’ve got a long list of expenses coming up, and I’m kind of scratching my head and saying, ‘Well, I guess I can put it on a credit card,’” Wagner said. 

Some contracts with Vermont farms had already been finalized when the freeze started, and those farmers have been able to move forward with projects, Boatti said. But around 40 to 50 farms needed an environmental review, a process that takes more time, and now they’re stuck in limbo, he said. In addition, the federal government has terminated a contract with the company that performed the environmental reviews, the Clark Group. 

According to Pasa, 12 Vermont farmers have already received almost $117,00 in funding through the program. Over the next three years, the organization estimates that almost $1.5 million would be available through the program to Vermont farmers, the organization’s director, Hannah Smith-Brubaker, said in a memo about the funding freeze. 

The technical assistance and business planning side of the Climate Smart Farming and Marketing program can still exist without the funding, Boatti said, but it won’t offer farms the same opportunities. 

“We can go out and do risk assessments and help farms make adaptation plans, but this funding was allowing us to then pay them for the implementation of those adaptation practices, and that is now no longer an option, with this funding being pulled,” he said. 

That has left Bear Roots Farm facing an even more precarious financial future. 

If the grant hadn’t been available in the first place, Wagner said, the farmers would have figured something else out, or pointed their business in a different direction. 

“But to set us up and then pull the plug, that’s put us in a much worse situation,” he said. 

Support for farms

The state’s Department of Environmental Conservation, too, recently received notice that a $10.7 million grant to assist farmers with installing often-expensive water quality projects, has been paused. It was also funded through the Inflation Reduction Act. 

The program was set to deliver $8 million directly to farmers for water quality and flood resilience projects ranging from no-till practices to stream restoration to forest management plans that can help stop soil erosion, according to Marli Rupe, the agricultural water quality section chief at the Department of Environmental Conservation. Another $2.7 million was going to be directed toward technical assistance programs for the farmers. 

While farmers had already applied for the funding, the money had not yet been awarded, Rupe said. 

The projects are “also really good for their farm sustainability and their ability to be financially sound,” Rupe said. “Not having these funds is definitely going to have an impact on what they can do.”

The agriculture industry is the largest contributor to Lake Champlain’s water quality problems, but farmers have also been responsible for more success in water quality restoration than any other sector, according to a recent performance report from the Department of Environmental Conservation. Farmers are required to adhere to certain statewide water quality practices, and the resulting projects are often expensive and difficult for farmers to take on without financial assistance. 

“The (loss of the) Inflation Reduction Act money is going to start seriously impacting the ability of organizations like Vermont Association of Conservation Districts, like the Department of Environmental Conservation, to actually help farmers get practices on the ground that protect water quality and that do this work,” said Michelle Monroe, executive director of the Vermont Association of Conservation Districts.

Her organization, too, is waiting for $500,000 in already-awarded funding through the Natural Resources Conservation Service, a federal program that funds water quality projects on farms. That money, which partially comes from the Inflation Reduction Act, funds salaries for several Natural Resources Conservation Service employees whose responsibilities span both organizations, she said. 

Previously paused

The federal government previously froze some money that is now thawed and flowing to farmers and supporting organizations. 

Some money that was already contracted to farms through the Natural Resources Conservation Service for on-farm conservation programs was stopped, but is now flowing again, according to Monroe. 

Some farms had invested “a lot of money” to employ practices on their farms that are “good for the environment and good for their farm,” Monroe said, while expecting to be reimbursed.

“For some farms that did a lot of projects, it was a real financial burden to have this money frozen,” she said. But now that the money is flowing again, the Natural Resources Conservation Service “has been approving those (reimbursement requests) as quickly as they can,” she said. 

Separately, federal funding going to the Northeast Dairy Business Innovation Center — which pays for all six of the center’s staff members, along with their programs and contracts — had been paused, according to Laura Ginsburg, who leads the center. The paused money totaled more than $9.5 million, she said.

The center is funded through the USDA, and it stopped processing payments after Jan. 19, Ginsburg said. The center’s staff never received any communication from the federal government “about the funds being unavailable or frozen,” Ginsburg said.

“The only response we would get when we asked for a status update was, ‘We are awaiting further guidance,’” she said. 

Four similar organizations exist across the country, all funded through the farm bill. They each represent a region, and though they all operate a bit differently, “the core” of the programming “is to provide grant funds to dairy businesses, and for us, that means farmers, processors and technical assistance providers,” Ginsburg said. 

“We do lots of different kinds of grants, from processor expansion and modernization to food safety and marketing and branding to farm focused grants for farm modernization, for milk handling and storage and for technical assistance and research as well,” she said. 

In early March, the center learned that the funding was unfrozen. 

During the time the center could not access the funding, Ginsburg said farmers experienced “a lot of anxiety” and “a lot of uncertainty.”

“There were a few teary phone calls that we had with recipients who just didn’t know what they should do,” she said. 

For many farmers, she said, this specific uncertainty came on top of many others: paused Natural Resources Conservation Service funding, a lack of communication from local USDA offices, questions about potential tariffs and the increased prices or supply chain issues that might arise as a result. 

“It’s just a lot for one person to try to figure out how to navigate, especially when they have tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line,” she said. 

Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermont agriculture community reels from federal funding changes .

A Canadian mining company behind a massive new lithium mine in northern Nevada has received a $250 million investment to complete construction of the new mine — a project that aims to accelerate America’s shift from fossil fuel-powered cars but that has come under fierce criticism from neighboring tribal nations and watchdog groups for its proximity to a burial site.

Lithium Americas is developing the mine in an area known as Thacker Pass where it plans to unearth lithium carbonate that can be used to make batteries for electric vehicles. The area, known as Peehee Mu’huh in the Numu language of the Northern Paiute, is home to what could be the largest supply of lithium in the United States and is also a site that tribal citizens visit every year to honor dozens of Native men, women, and children who fled American soldiers in an 1865 unprovoked attack at dawn. 

The funding from Orion Resources Partners LP, a global investment firm specializing in metals and materials, will enable the first phase of construction to be completed by late 2027. The investment firm is also considering giving an additional $500 million to support later phases of the mine’s development. 

The critical financial investment comes just weeks after a report from the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch called for a halt to the construction of the mine after concluding its approval violates the rights of Indigenous peoples whose ancestors are buried there. 

“Orion’s commitment to this project highlights the strategic importance of Thacker Pass to national security and developing a domestic supply chain as we work to reduce American dependence on foreign suppliers for critical minerals,” said Jonathan Evans, Lithium Americas’ president and chief executive officer, in a press release.

Lithium Americas said that research indicates the actual burial site is located several miles away from the project site, and a federal judge agreed with the company, citing a cultural inventory study that did not uncover any human remains. Gary McKinney disagrees. He is a spokesperson for the group People of Red Mountain and is a descendant of one of the survivors of the September 12, 1865, massacre.

He and many others believe the project area to be a graveyard for his ancestors, in part due to Indigenous oral histories and a 1929 autobiography describing the massacre there. 

“What that mine is doing is desecrating,” McKinney said. “They’re erasing parts of the history of the Northern Paiute and Western Shoshone people.” 

He said the mine was approved during the COVID-19 pandemic when reservations were shut down, Indigenous communities were grappling with high rates of the virus, and few realized the project was moving forward. 

“Our tribal chairman at that time, he died of COVID,” said McKinney, who is an enrolled member of the Duck Valley Shoshone Paiute Tribe. “What I’m saying is this whole thing wasn’t done with the best of morals or intentions of honoring and respecting those cultural sites.” 

His organization, People of Red Mountain, sued to stop the mine along with four tribes — Reno-Sparks Indian Colony, Burns Paiute Tribe, Summit Lake Paiute Tribe, and Winnemucca Indian Colony — but no court challenges have been successful. The Duck Valley Shoshone-Paiute Tribe also criticized the mine in an appeal to the United Nations special rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous peoples.

The American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch report from last month concluded the mine violates Indigenous peoples’ right to free, prior and informed consent to projects that affect their territories. The report notes tribes have raised concerns about the risk of toxic waste from the mine polluting their water and about their cultural practices being curtailed by limited access to the area.

In a letter to Human Rights Watch, Tim Crowley, vice president of government and external affairs at Lithium Americas, emphasized that the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which contains the right to free, prior, and informed consent, is not binding. At the same time, the U.S. government believes consulting with tribes is sufficient without achieving support from all tribes, he said. 

“Further, the Treaty of Ruby Valley, which is the treaty that pertains to Western Shoshone peoples in the Thacker Pass area, does not reserve rights to access off-reservation public land,” Crowley wrote. “The Thacker Pass Project is not in a federally recognized Native American territory. If it were, mining could not happen without the express consent and approval of that tribe.”

The new investment in Lithium Americas from Orion Resources Partners LP helps fulfill the terms of a $2.26 billion loan that Lithium Americas received last fall from the U.S. Department of Energy to support the project. 

Abbey Koenning-Rutherford from the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch said the Thacker Pass mine is symbolic of the broader risks of mining to Indigenous peoples and underscores why there’s a need to reform a 1872 U.S. mining law that enables companies to claim mineral rights on federal lands, including land stolen from tribal nations.

“The United States should respect Indigenous peoples’ centuries-long connections to Peehee Mu’huh and act to prevent further harm at Thacker Pass,” Koenning-Rutherford said.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline A $250M investment will help this lithium mine get up and running. That’s bad news for these tribes. on Mar 13, 2025.

After several years of sustained – and in some cases, explosive growth – farm real estate values in the U.S. are showing signs of slowing. 

Key ag states such as Kansas, Iowa, and Nebraska saw double-digit percentage increases between 2021 and 2022, driven by high commodity prices and strong investor interest. 

However, the most recent USDA data suggests that the growth rate is stabilizing in several key ag states:

Kansas farmland values surged by 22.8% in 2021-2022, before dropping to 13.6% in 2022-2023, and further slowing to 8.0% in 2023-2024. The per-acre price in Kansas rose to $2,970 in 2023-2024.

Iowa’s rate of increase dropped from a peak of 19.7% in 2021-2022 to 4.2% in 2023-2024.  The per-acre price in Iowa rose to $9,420 in 2024.

Nebraska saw a sharp rise of 18.6% in 2021-2022 but has since cooled to 10.7% in 2022-2023 and 6.8% in 2023-2024. The per-acre price in Nebraska rose to $4,110 in 2024.

California’s farmland value increased 12.2% in 2020-2021 before slowing to 2.3% in 2023-2024. The per-acre price in California rose to $13,400 in 2024.

Wisconsin, a top dairy producer, peaked at 10% that same year, and had a 0% gain between 2023-2024. The per-acre price in Wisconsin rose to $6,120 in 2024.

Minnesota saw a 15.6% from 2021-2022 compared to a 5.6% increase from 2023-2024. The per-acre price in Minnesota rose to $6,450 in 2024.

Oklahoma’s growth peaked at 12.1% in 2020-2021 and 11.2% in 2021-2022, with growth slowing to 6.3% in 2023-2024.

The data shows Oklahoma’s decline was less dramatic than in most key ag Midwest states, but the trend suggests a broader cooling in the farm real estate market. The per-acre value in Oklahoma rose from $2,950 in 2021 to $3,720 in 2024.

The average price per acre across the U.S. in 2024 ranged from roughly $1,000 in parts of the Mountain and Appalachian regions to well above $10,000 in coastal states​.

From 2018 to 2023, farmland values soared in key ag states — Kansas saw a staggering 60% increase, Oklahoma jumped 53%, and Nebraska climbed 48%, according to an analysis of USDA data. 

Several factors contributed to the sharp increases beginning in 2021. A tight supply of available farmland, high commodity prices and growing investor interest fueled competition in the market. Local farmers, who have traditionally driven demand, are now competing with institutional investors, hedge funds, and pension funds for available land.

Some experts warned that a sustained slowdown was inevitable due to high-rising interest rates and higher operational costs. 

Who owns the land? 

According to the American Farmland Trust, more than 40% of U.S. farmland is owned by individuals over age 65, raising concerns about the future of land ownership. The AFT estimates that 300 million acres of farmland —, more than one-third of the 880 million acres of farm and ranch land in the U.S. — will change hands in the next 20 years.

A 2020 report from AgIS Capital, a Boston-based agricultural investment firm, found that institutional investment in farmland grew from $2.3 billion to $11.7 billion over the last decade. However, the report notes that large investors still control only a relatively small share — less than 2% — compared to individual landowners.

A July 2024 report by Investigate Midwest found that between 2017 and 2022, the U.S. saw a decline of 141,733 farms, with 80% of those closures involving operations generating less than $2,500 in annual sales. However, USDA data reveals a more nuanced shift: while the country lost 10,537 farms with annual sales between $100,000 and $499,999, the number of farms earning over $500,000 increased by more than 26,000.

Why are institutional investors buying up land? Because farmland is seen as a safe investment. Land tends to hold its value well, especially during economic uncertainty. It’s also an inflation hedge, meaning that as prices rise, farmland usually becomes more valuable, according to a May 2024 report by Financial Times. 

Additional factors contributing to this shift include government incentives for wind and solar energy and population growth in rural towns driving the conversion of farmland into residential properties. Projections by American Farmland Trust indicate that 18.4 million acres could be lost to development by 2040, further tightening supply.

The post Farmland values lose steam after years of rapid growth appeared first on Investigate Midwest.

Kansas has money to help mental health centers offset their losses from treating uninsured patients. But those funds are failing to meet the demand as more uninsured Kansans seek help.

The mental health care business is already not very profitable. But it is even harder for centers like the Wyandot Behavioral Health Network in Kansas City, Kansas, to sustain its programs because 40% of its patients have no insurance.

The health network can’t turn people away for inability to pay. So when someone without insurance needs a psychiatrist, a specialized and expensive staff position, Wyandot offers that care even though Medicaid reimbursement rates don’t pay them enough for the visit. 

“It’s just a money loser,” said Randy Callstrom, executive director of the Wyandot Behavioral Health Network. 

Mental health centers in Kansas say the number of patients who don’t have insurance to cover the cost of their visits is rising. That’s hurting their bottom lines and forcing these community centers to pull money from other parts of the budget to cover basic costs. The state does reimburse centers for these costs, but providers say that funding is stagnant. 

“Our cost is continuing to go up considerably every year,” Callstrom said. “So those grant dollars that we received are not really covering the level of care that they once did.”

Kansas lawmakers are trying to fix that, though. The budget, which has passed the House, includes a $6 million funding increase to help centers treat uninsured Kansans. That money would help centers like Wyandot.

The Senate could still change that, but the request for additional funding has already passed the House when plenty of other proposed funding increases have been shot down. 

Patrick Schmitz, president and CEO of the Lawrence mental health center Bert Nash, said this is a perfect storm. Mental health needs are increasing and coverage is being reduced.   

There’s an increase in mental health issues across the country.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data from 2023 found that 40% of high school students persistently felt sad or hopeless and 20% have seriously considered suicide. In 2011, only 28% felt hopeless and 16% considered suicide. 

The Kaiser Family Foundation reported that 23% of adults were getting mental health care in 2022, an increase from the 19% of adults getting help in 2019.

Schmitz said he’s seeing more private therapists not taking insurance. Some patients may have insurance, but won’t hit their deductible by going through therapy, so they are paying out of pocket. 

“We have to provide care,” he said. “So we put them on a sliding fee schedule, or find some other ways for them to be covered so they can get the care they need.”

And pandemic-era programs that expanded Medicaid coverage ended. 

At Bert Nash in Lawrence, a failure to expand state support would threaten future raises for staff. It would mean equipment would be replaced less often and services won’t expand. The Wyandot center said building repairs — like a leaky roof — could get put off in addition to stagnant wages. 

Centers have dealt with similar situations before.

Callstrom remembers when reimbursement rates were stagnant. That meant there was a decade-long period where staff rarely got raises. Those reimbursement rates were changed and the center could afford to give some staff raises of up to 40%. 

Schmitz said he knows there are times where clinics lose money in the mental health care business. But serving more people who are unable to pay for services through insurance isn’t sustainable, unless the legislature acts. 

“The dream that we have in terms of expanding behavioral health care in Kansas will be halted,” he said. 

The post A surge in mental health care needs for uninsured Kansans could lead to cuts in services appeared first on The Beacon.

Four years ago, family practitioner Dr. Jeff Chappell retired from his post as medical director of the Wayne Community Health Center in Bicknell, Utah. He was excited to undertake a new medical mission, through the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to South America where he served as area medical director for Peru, Colombia, Bolivia and Venezuela.

But when he returned to Utah, then 63-year-old Chappell was not ready to swap his medical career for the life of a retiree.

“I was 61 when we accepted the mission and I thought, ‘Well, if we’re going to do it, this is the time to do it,’” he recalled. “But when we returned, I found out that I was not ready to fully retire.”

Instead Chappell, now age 65, came out of retirement to accept a part time position on the staff of the Kazan Health Center located in the rural community of Escalante, Utah.

“I wouldn’t want to work in a busy ER, but working a couple of days a week works for me,” he says. “Besides, there is a nurse [at the clinic] who is pursuing a PA designation and my being here gives her more hours to do that – also I think the patients are happy to have me here.”

In its March 2024 report, the Association of Medical Colleges predicted that the U.S. is likely to face a shortage of as many as 86,000 physicians by 2036, compounding the dearth of medical services that is already hitting rural communities hardest.

In response, some retired physicians like Chappell are coming out of full time retirement to mitigate the shortage.

Even so, the current shortfall remains critical, says Dr. Nancy Babbitt who is a director for the Wayne County Utah Health Centers, and the Torrey Utah representative to the Robert Graham Center Steering Committee, which provides advice on policy issues facing primary care providers.

According to Babbitt, rural health care centers are particularly vulnerable to problems connected to medical services shortages because those networks can cover communities that are located miles apart, and are likely to serve patients that are older, perhaps requiring more specialized care than urban counterparts.

“For example, our Wayne County Health Centers cover 7,600-square miles, and we are one to two hours’ drive from an emergency room and three hours away from a tertiary hospital [a hospital that provides specialists],” she says. “And a high percentage of rural residents are older and maybe sicker.”

For Dr. Douglas DeLong, 73, those rural realities have been facts of life throughout his medical career.

“I have never practiced in any area where there is more than one traffic light,” he says. “When I was in Ladysmith, Wisconsin, I might be the only doctor in the [Rusk] county on duty at the hospital that night – I saw it all.”

These days, DeLong practices in Cooperstown, New York, population around 1,853. He tried full time retirement but returned on a limited schedule.

“I retired from full time practice when I was 70 years old, but about a year ago, I unretired,” he explains. “Now I work two or three days a week partly to provide access for patients and because I really enjoy being around these bright young people – but most of them are on their way somewhere else.”

That’s a switch from the time when DeLong was beginning his practice and made a conscious decision to practice medicine in a rural setting.

“I wanted to be a family physician because I didn’t know there was anything else,” he recalls. Also, I grew up in rural settings in Pennsylvania and Washington state – it was a lifestyle choice for me – today though, [rural practice] is a tougher sell.”

That’s because there are economic and other personal factors pressing young physicians to either establish their practices in urban settings, or to forgo family practice altogether for specialty medicine.

“These days, young physicians are racking up educational debt in excess of a couple thousand dollars and that’s on their minds, too and they’re wondering ‘how do I lay these mega debts’?” DeLong points out. “Also your wife has to be happy – something that’s not easy if she is an urban planner for instance.”

At the same time, Babbitt believes that young doctors are not even aware that rural family practice is a career option. So she’s heading to Washington D.C. to tell medical students at Georgetown University that rural practice is a possibility and what it means to establish such a practice.

“Of course there are larger issues facing rural medical providers ranging from state funding resources to insurance costs, but many of them have never even considered it because it’s not something that ‘s even considered by [medical] residents,” she says.

She also plans to tell them that while rural practice is challenging, doctors must be prepared to treat patients for everything from broken bones to heart conditions, and that hours are long, there are perks too.

“You are part of a community – you know the people who come into your clinic and you create long term connections,” she says. “I just got a graduation invitation from a kid that I delivered years ago, and I get wedding invitations all the time – you can’t put a price tag on that.”

While Babbitt makes the case for rural medicine to a new generation of doctors, Chappell says he’s happy that his age and experience allow him to do what he does best and help his community, too.

“You don’t have to run after an IRA, we don’t have the debts we had when we were young and I don’t have to work the massive number of hours, and can do what I enjoy,” he says. “Life is good.”

The post Retired Doctors Step Up in the Face of a Rural Health Care Crisis appeared first on The Daily Yonder.

A previous version of this article appeared on Working Class Storytelling, a Substack by the author.

Courtney McCary-Squyres was going a bit stir-crazy. It was the pandemic and she was a mom of four, including newborn twins. She had to get outside.

She set her eyes on container gardening, figuring that she could be out in the New Mexico sunshine and “put some seeds in a pot with the kids.”

What she and her children put into those first pots grew, but so did Courtney’s understanding of food, food systems and politics. Fast forward to today, this is how she and a group of neighbors ended up at New Mexico’s State Capitol building in Santa Fe with folders of policy memos under their arms.

A food desert

Courtney taught herself about gardening the way many of us now learn things: the internet. She read and researched, and as her front and back yards slowly turned into a small farm, she became familiar with terms like “soil health” and “cultivars.” She documented her progress on Instagram.

As her interest grew, she headed to her local farmer’s market in Alamogordo, a desert town of 31,000 in the Tularosa Basin and the Otero County seat. The Holloman Air Force Base had brought Courtney and her husband here, and the area was so beautiful that they decided to stay.

The farmer’s market was “smaller than expected, and consisted of more craft than food vendors,” says Courtney. She began to wonder why, in this rural area, it was so hard to find fresh, locally grown food. The next time she visited the market, she brought five bundles of bok choy from her garden to share.

Alamogordo is a working-class town. Because of its proximity to three military bases, lots of veterans live here. Like many places in New Mexico, housing costs have skyrocketed and rent is taking up a bigger portion of locals’ paychecks, making family’s food purchases—and particularly the quality of food—dwindle. As a result, 16.5% of Otero County’s population is food insecure, higher than both the state and national averages. In the county, 19% of residents live below the poverty line, including 28% of those under age 18 and 13% of those 65 or older.

Food is often the first thing a family skimps on when facing tough budgets; you can’t pay half the light bill, but you can cut back on groceries.

Courtney also saw that Alamogordo neighborhoods had a lot of empty lots. “I think a lot of people bought here when things were less expensive, and just left the houses when they moved away. Or maybe they left houses to family members who didn’t end up utilizing them,” she says, pointing out that houses frequently catch fire or fall into disrepair, leaving the city to bulldoze them.

Seeing the blight and witnessing the food insecurity around her, Courtney thought: Is there anything more our local government could do to address these needs?

Public land for food

Courtney set out to get the Alamogordo city government to respond. In late 2022, she created a petition asking the city to dedicate empty land for fresh food production and help foot the bill. She started with her friends, asking them to sign on, and then asked her growing Facebook following to do so as well. She tackled the petition drive systematically, the way you might lay out a garden bed.

“We set a goal of 500 signatures, because that feels big and representative in a small town,” she says. “I asked my friends to share it, then they asked theirs. We formed a committee and started knocking on doors and going to local events to get signatures.”

They called themselves With Many Hands and they called the campaign Public Land for Food. They set up meetings with the local government and asked for commitments to the project. By October 2023, petition in hand, she and the team were ready to ask the Alamogordo Parks & Recreation department to provide the land.

With Many Hands formed a leadership committee of people closest to the problem: Working-class people who live in the neighborhoods that were food deserts.  Courtney knew from growing a garden at home that food production—like community organizing—wasn’t something she could do alone. So she began calling the people who had signed the petition, asking them to volunteer, attend meetings and get involved.

“Through the petition, a lot of meetings, and persistent emails, we got our garden,” Courtney says. “We got our public land.”

Chihuahuita

The first garden is now growing on Maryland Avenue in the Chihuahuita neighborhood—an under-resourced, historically Black and Brown neighborhood just south of downtown Alamogordo. In January 2024, With Many Hands celebrated a ribbon cutting ceremony at the site, and a few weeks later hosted their first community planting day.

Importantly, the group secured a Memorandum of Understanding with the city, allowing them to share expenses like the water bill and other infrastructure needs. They host regular community workdays and open meetings to organize and plan. “We are not a budget line in the parks and recreation budget yet, but hopefully soon,” says Courtney. (Full disclosure: the author is employed by Addition Collective Action Fund, which supports community organizing efforts across the country, including With Many Hands.)

The project has rapidly expanded since. A church offered up an additional lot. Alamogordo MainStreet, a local downtown economic development nonprofit, contributed raised beds to garden in a downtown alleyway. They even secured a corner of a public park in Tularosa, 15 miles up U.S. Route 54. Today, they have developed three community gardens in Alamogordo and one in Tularosa, with about 100 volunteers participating in some way throughout the year.

The group refuses to lock the gardens or have limitations on who or how much someone can harvest. Volunteers also deliver produce to the homes of people unable to access the gardens. “Sometimes people ask me if they can harvest vegetables even if they haven’t volunteered,” says Courtney, “And I tell them that harvesting is volunteering, because it’s all a cycle and all the parts matter. If we don’t pick the fruit, the plant will die.”

Growing politics

“People say: I thought you all were gardening,” says Courtney, laughing, “And I say: We are!”

But tending a garden meant to address food insecurity takes more than just weeding and watering. In Alamogordo, it means organizing people and power, too.

“I never imagined myself getting involved in political work,” Courtney says. “I was really jaded, like a lot of Americans.”

In just five years, her journey from wanting to learn how to garden to drive three and a half hours to the state capital to meet with her representatives has been a whirlwind.

On February 21, with her family and other With Many Hands volunteers, Courtney joined about 150 hunger advocates from across the state for Hunger Action Day at the Roundhouse (the nickname for the state capitol building).

It was their moment to make their case to state representatives about passing H.B.229—the New Mexico Grown Approved Supplier Program—which would provide $430,000 in state funds to help working-class households in New Mexico become small-scale food producers—even allowing them to sell their harvests to the Alamogordo Public Schools or at the local farmer’s market. She wasn’t able to get meetings with her lawmakers, but she did manage to track them down in the halls of the Roundhouse. “I told them about how small-scale farmers in Otero County could be the key to reducing food insecurity and increasing fresh, local food, but that we need their help.”

Courtney has learned that all soil can be regenerated with a little work and everything needs cultivation. She started off seeing a community problem and dug around to find other people who also cared, planting the seeds for how their local government could help.

Through this organizing she has experienced both the limitations—the red tape, the bureaucracy—and the possibilities of government. Turning those blighted properties into thriving green community spaces has made her even more sure that, with persistence and elbow grease, regular people could get the government to work for them.

Last fall, With Many Hands held a Food and Housing Summit to get working-class people together to talk about food, housing and other local every-day-people needs.

The group made endorsements of candidates running for local office and U.S. Congress, and then canvassed for these candidates across their communities. Their support helped push Rep. Gabe Vasquez (D-02) and State Rep. Sarah Silva (D-53) to victories in narrow-margin races.

“We had learned that we need to have people in office who are going to support what we need and help us with the solutions,” says Courtney. She and her fellow gardeners felt that they needed to help set the agenda for what they want their elected officials to address, otherwise “they’ll never talk about food or food systems.”

When met with skepticism about mixing politics with gardening, she reminds her neighbors of the successful petition drive they held to leverage their people power and show their ability to their local government—and how they now have four overflowing gardens. “We’ve shown that with enough people, enough pressure, things can get done.”

Cucumbers, zucchini, basil, figs and nectarines. It just takes a group of people and a bit of work. Many hands.

The post The New Mexico Mom Growing Political Power From a Community Garden appeared first on Barn Raiser.

Despite recent political momentum, the tiny Tulare County community of East Orosi remains without a clear path forward to solving its decades-long struggle with contaminated drinking water.

Disputes between local and state officials, coupled with deep divisions and infighting among local district water board members have thwarted efforts to clear up the community’s water for many years.

Formal efforts to consolidate East Orosi’s water system with the Orosi system have been underway since at least 2018, but little progress has been made.

The slow crawl towards a solution has left East Orosi residents in fear of their own tap water. Many rely on bottled water deliveries, despite living less than a mile from Orosi and its safe, clean water.

“Imagine children knowing that water only comes from a bottle and not from their own tap,” said Eddie Valero, a native of Cutler-Orosi who now represents District 4 of the Tulare County Board of Supervisors.

“People are just tired; East Orosi residents go to Orosi, they frequent the restaurants, the supermarkets [and] also take their kids to schools in Orosi, they are part of the fabric of our communities.” 

What’s wrong with East Orosi’s water?

Since 2003, state and federal authorities have cited East Orosi for at least 99 clean water-related violations, according to online state water board records, including numerous nitrate-related violations.

Nitrates disrupt a blood cell’s capacity to carry oxygen through the body. Infants are most vulnerable as nitrates can be absorbed into their bloodstream and cause “blue baby syndrome.”

Self-Help Enterprises, a nonprofit organization, has helped the East Orosi and surrounding communities by delivering bottled water to residents through the use of a state grant, even going as far as installing plastic water tanks in homes that they refill every two weeks. They have even reimbursed homeowners who qualify for a new private water well.

However, this is not nearly enough to keep up with the demand for water. In 2022, Self-Help Enterprises estimated that around 8,000 wells would dry up in just a couple of years, with the cost to remedy this estimated clean-up cost of to be around $1 billion over the next 20 years.

How did we get here?

East Orosi’s long struggle for clean water has been fueled by years of political clashing between the neighboring Orosi Public Utility District (OPUD) and the California State Water Resources Control Board (CSWRCB), dysfunction by the East Orosi Community Services District (EOCSD) and, most recently, resistance from three OPUD board members who refused to leave office for several weeks, despite losing their reelection campaigns last year.

A new study, that was expected to be released Friday by the California State Water Board, examines the feasibility of consolidating seven rural water districts in Tulare County, including Orosi and East Orosi. Public comments can be submitted until March 13.

The feasibility study drops at a time when the state water board’s Office of Public Engagement, Equity, and Tribal Affairs (OPEETA) have begun hosting meetings between seven water districts and their constituencies to discuss potential long-term and sustainable water solutions for rural communities in northern Tulare County.

The meetings will take place between Orosi, East Orosi, Cutler, Yettem, Monsoon, Seville and Sultana’s water districts.

The meetings are being held to get community and local government feedback on the individual water issues affecting the seven communities to determine a potential regional water solution and is a part of the Safe and Affordable Funding for Equity and Resilience (SAFER) program.

At the first meeting on Feb. 26 at the Monson-Sultana School Cafeteria, Laurel Firestone, a member of the state water board, explained that while a regional water system solution is possible, it would require all seven communities to collaborate together to attract the most amount of funding from the state.

“In order to be able to be competitive for the kind of funding that’s needed to develop a bigger regional infrastructure, we need the region to have a vision for what that looks like,” Firestone said. “Not just be a band aid, but be something that lifts the whole region.”

But bringing the various groups together under a united vision has proven easier said than done.

Particularly in East Orosi where recent political disputes and internal fighting grew loud enough to draw the attention of California’s top law enforcement official, Attorney General Rob Bonta.

Three East Orosi board members made headlines earlier this year when they refused to accept their re-election losses and tried to force Tulare County to hold new elections. They continued to serve on the board even after the three candidates elected by voters were sworn in Dec. 6. 

Bonta stepped in, ordering the members — Reynaldo Rivas, Maria C. Gonzalez and Johnny Sandoval — to step down under threat of legal action.

The board members quickly relented, stepping down in mid-January, but not before making some controversial changes to the board’s rules and bylaws. According to the three candidates that defeated the incumbents — Alejandro Brito, Nancy Cerda Serna and Angela Ruiz-Alvarez — the changes added new requirements for elected members to serve in leadership positions.

“You tied our hands before we even got here and I don’t understand why,” said Serna during the Feb. 11 meeting. “I don’t believe there was a need for an ordinance like that.”

Both Serna and Ruiz-Alvarez called for the ordinance to be reviewed by a third-party counsel and questioned both the legality of the ordinance and the reasoning behind its implementation.

During a special meeting on Feb. 25, Board President Alex Marroquin said that the previous board passed the ordinance because they felt the three new incoming members were “coming in with maybe other desires.”

Both Serna and Ruiz-Alvarez explained that they entered the election out of a desire to better represent the community and not because of ulterior motives.

“I want to be on this board, there’s no hidden agenda, I want to do it because I wanted to give back to my community,” Cerna said.

Board members agreed to revisit the issue at a still unscheduled meeting.
But despite the effort’s long track record of political gridlock, many involved remain hopeful that things will be different this time around.

“Thankfully, these conversations are coming back,” Valero said, “hopefully to unite us once again in order to see a solution to the problems that exist.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported the release of a new feasibility study. The study was expected Friday, but had not been released as of Monday, March 10, 2025.

The post After years of political clashes, is this Central Valley community finally on a path to clean water? appeared first on Fresnoland.