Why Should Delaware Care?
About a quarter of Delaware adults live with a disability and, while voting accessibility in Delaware has improved, many still face barriers to exercising their right to vote privately and in person.

Emmanuel Jenkins drove past a dimly lit school on Election Day in November. His assigned polling place, the Woodbridge Early Childhood Education Center in Greenwood, had no signs, few cars and even less people — it was probably closed, he thought. 

Jenkins, a community relations officer with the Delaware Developmental Disabilities Council, drove to the nearest polling place, a fire station, where he was told he had to return to the school and drive around the back, toward the gymnasium, where voting was taking place. 

There were no signs directing people to the gymnasium and, if there were, people living with low vision would have difficulties finding the polls, he added. It would be difficult for a voter with limited mobility to find and travel to the gymnasium if paratransit dropped them off in the front of the building, Jenkins said. 

“Voting should be at least the one thing that we have no barriers to,” said Jenkins, who lives with cerebral palsy. “It is our right; it is our responsibility, and if we cannot exercise, are we really part of the United States of America?”

About one in four adults in Delaware live with a disability and physical or environmental barriers at polling places are encroaching on their most fundamental civil right — voting. Physical barriers around parking, entrances and exterior pathways may discourage people living with disabilities from exercising their right to privately vote in person, according to advocates. 

In 2024, some voters with disabilities reported improvements in accessibility at polling places compared to past elections, but accessibility issues still persist.

Nationwide, among in-person voters in 2022, the rate of difficulties was over three times higher among people with disabilities than those without disabilities, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission 2022 Disability and Voting Accessibility Survey. 

About 20% of in-person voters with disabilities reported difficulties, compared to 6% of voters without disabilities, the survey found. 

During the 2024 elections, the Community Legal Aid Society Inc. (CLASI) continued its years-long effort to survey polling places to ensure they’re accessible to Delawareans living with disabilities. 

Monitors from CLASI surveyed over 90% of all polling locations statewide and over 93% in Kent and Sussex counties, covering 258 locations overall, according to Joann Kingsley, a voting rights advocate with CLASI’s Disabilities Law Program. 

While the final survey results have not been published, the organization is “pleased that preliminary figures suggest improvements in accessibility,” she added. 

Voting should be at least the one thing that we have no barriers to.

Emmanuel jenkins, delaware development disabilities council

John Nanni, who is living with post-polio syndrome and uses a wheelchair, had a “great” experience voting in the 2024 election compared to 2020. On Election Day 2020, a line of voters wrapped around the Crossroads Presbyterian Church in Middletown, Nanni’s assigned voting place. 

Poll workers didn’t pull elderly folks or people living with disabilities out of line to avoid the wait then. But in 2024, workers pulled people living with disabilities out of the long lines and had them enter the building to vote first. 

“I know they don’t do that in a lot of places, but they did at this polling center, which was great,” Nanni said. 

By law, all voting places must be accessible to people with disabilities. All voting places are equipped with a Universal Voting Console, a headset and audio-tactile ballot handheld device that allows voters with low vision and others with disabilities to vote unassisted. 

As a result of CLASI’s 2022 report, the DOE removed 11 locations due to accessibility issues for the 2024 election, according to Cathleen Hartsky-Carter, community relations officer with the Delaware Department of Elections.

Seven locations were removed in Sussex County and four were removed in New Castle County. Polling places are removed from the list if appropriate accessibility changes cannot be made and new locations are added. 

Polling places are open to making accessibility adjustments, but the buildings often don’t have the needed funding to make the facilities accessible on a regular basis outside of Election Day, Hartsky-Carter added.

Accessibility monitored across Delaware 

Joann Kingsley looked down at her phone as the screen lit up her face amid the November election night. She looked up and counted the blue accessible parking spaces at the First Baptist Church of Milford, a bustling polling place she was monitoring for compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). 

Her eyes darted around the parking lot as she rapidly read out criteria for which she was looking.

There was no significant slope, potholes or identifiable cracks in the lot — good. There were over a dozen handicapped parking spaces near the entrance, but they were not identified by vertical signs — not good. 

Kingsley would later find that the church entryway wasn’t wide enough for a wheelchair to fit through without both doors needing to be held open.

Monitors survey parking entrances, accessible parking spaces, exterior pathways, building entrances and the interior voting area for ADA compliance. They then enter their findings into an online survey tool. 

CLASI compiles its findings and presents them to the DOE in order to improve voting accessibility for future elections. 

Signage was a widespread issue at Delaware polls during the 2022 election, especially for directing voters with disabilities to accessible parking, routes and entrances, according to CLASI’s 2022 report. 

Monitors found polling locations without any directional signs, while others had signs pointing voters in the wrong or opposite directions, the report found. Additionally, nearly a third of monitored locations in 2022 had inaccessible parking issues. 

“It is not OK for people to just find a reason not to make change,” Emmanuel Jenkins said. “Voting with barriers will discourage people, and already does.”

Nancy Lemus was impressed by the accessibility capability of her son’s polling place. 

Lemus, a member of the Delaware Developmental Disabilities Council, accompanied her 19-year-old son, Christopher Garcia, who is living with disabilities, to vote for the first time during the 2024 election. 

She didn’t expect the New Castle polling place to have accessible equipment that would help her son be able to make his selections on the voting screen. She went into the polling place to ask if they had the needed accessibility control before she took her son out of the car. 

“I was surprised, I was impressed,” Lemus said. “I went in there with expectations that they wouldn’t have it.”

Lemus said she hoped the accessibility control would be made available at local libraries for people with disabilities to become familiarized with technology before elections.

The post Delaware poll accessibility improved for voters with disabilities in 2024 appeared first on Spotlight Delaware.

Every morning, for years, Josana Pinto da Costa would venture out onto the waterways lining Óbidos, Brazil, in a small fishing boat. She would glide over the murky, churning currents of the Amazon River Basin, her flat nets bringing in writhing hauls as the sun ascended into the cerulean skies above.

Scorching temperatures in the Brazilian state of Pará have now made that routine unsafe. The heat has “been really intense” this year, said Pinto da Costa in Portuguese. It feels as if the “sun has gotten stronger,” so much so that it’s led her to shift her working hours from daytime to the dead of night.

Abandoning the practice that defined most of her days, she now sets off to the river in the pitch dark to chase what fish are also awake before dawn. It’s taken a toll on her catch, and her life. But it’s the only way she can continue her work in the face of increasingly dangerous temperatures.

“A lot of our fishing communities have shifted to fishing in the nighttime,” said Pinto da Costa, who advocates nationally for fisherfolk communities like hers through the Movimento de Pescadores e Pescadoras Artesanais do Brasil, or the Movement of Artisanal Fishermen and Fisherwomen of Brazil.

Moving from daytime to overnight work is often presented as the most practical solution for agricultural laborers struggling with rising temperatures as a result of climate change. But it is no longer simply a proposal: This shift is already underway among many of the communities that catch, grow, and harvest the world’s food supply, from Brazil to India to the United States. Studies show the most common means of adapting to rising temperatures in most crop-growing regions has been to start working when it’s still dark out, or even to shift to a fully overnight schedule.

“The obvious piece of advice that you’ll see given is, ‘Work at night. Give workers head torches,’ and so on,” said Zia Mehrabi, a food security and climate researcher at the University of Colorado, Boulder. “But the reality is, that can lead to other rights violations, other negative impacts.”

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That’s been the case for Pinto da Costa and her fishing community in Brazil. Nighttime work has been an additional hardship for a community already struggling with the impacts of climate change. The region has experienced decades of severe drought conditions, causing fish to die off and physically isolating people as waterways dried up.

Research shows that regularly working during the night is physically and mentally disruptive and can lead to long-term health complications. Nighttime fishing is also threatening social and communal routines among the fisherfolk. A daytime sleep schedule can curb quality time spent with loved ones, as well as limit when wares can be sold or traded in local markets.

It’s also impacting their ability to support themselves and their families through a generations-old trade. “We’ve actually been working more hours with less food, with less production,” said Pinto da Costa, noting that working at night has made their work less efficient and led them to find less fish. “This is across all regions of Brazil,” she added.

The impact of a shift to nighttime hours is an understudied piece of the puzzle of how climate change and rising temperatures threaten the world’s food supply and its workforce. But for many experts, and those on the front lines, one thing is clear: Overnight work is far from a straightforward solution.

“It’s a very scary time for us,” said Pinto da Costa.

Outdoor workers, with their typical midday hours and limited access to shade, face some of the most perilous health risks during periods of extreme heat. A forthcoming analysis — previewed exclusively by Grist — found that, on average, the amount of time considered unsafe to work outside during a typical 9-to-5 workday will increase 8 percent by 2050, assuming greenhouse gas emissions stay on their current trajectory.

Led by Naia Ormaza Zulueta, a Ph.D. student at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and Mehrabi, the analysis measures the number of extreme heat days by geographic region, and then breaks down daily and hourly temperatures by the estimated amount of population exposed. The research reveals that an estimated 21 percent of the global population already faces dangerous levels of heat stress during typical workday hours for more than a third of the year. By 2050, without cuts to planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions (known as the “business-as-usual” scenario), that portion will jump to 39 percent.

“The number of days that people will experience a violation of their rights to a safe climate is going to substantially increase, but then also the number of possible working hours in a season, and productivity, is going to be substantially reduced,” said Mehrabi. “It’s a massive lose-lose situation.”

Their analysis finds that outdoor agricultural workers will encounter the largest health-related risks, with laborers in some areas being hit harder than others.

India, in particular, is projected to be one of the countries whose workforce will be most exposed to heat stress under the business-as-usual climate scenario. There are roughly 260 million agricultural workers in India. By 2050, 94 percent of the country’s population could face more than 100 days in a year when at least one daytime working hour exceeds a wet-bulb temperature of 28 degrees Celsius, or 82.4 degrees Fahrenheit — a conservative threshold of what is considered safe for acclimatized workers experiencing moderate rates of work. (Unacclimatized workers, or those unaccustomed to working in such environments, will face greater levels of heat risk at the same temperature and amount of work.)

In Brazil, another of the world’s top agricultural suppliers, heat risk is not as dire, but still poses a substantial risk for outdoor workers, including Pinto da Costa’s community of fisherfolk. By 2050, roughly 41 percent of the country’s population could experience more than 100 days a year when wet-bulb temperatures exceed the recommended threshold for at least one hour a day, according to the Boulder team’s analysis.

Mary Jo Dudley, the director of Cornell University’s Farmworker Program and the chair of the U.S. National Advisory Council of Migrant Health, said that the analysis is significant for what it reveals about the human health consequences of extreme heat, particularly as it relates to the world’s agricultural laborers. She’s seeing more and more outdoor agricultural workers in the U.S. adopt overnight schedules, which is only adding to the burdens and inequities the wider workforce already suffers from. This is poised to get worse. Zulueta and Mehrabi found that 35 percent of the total U.S. population will experience more than 100 days of wet-bulb temperatures exceeding 28 degrees C, or 82.4 degrees F, for at least one hour a day every year by 2050.

“This transition to a nighttime schedule pushes an extremely vulnerable population into more difficult work conditions that have significant mental and physical health impacts,” said Dudley.

Rebuking the human body’s circadian rhythms — that 24-hour internal clock that regulates when you sleep and wake — ramps up a person’s risk of health complications, such as cardiovascular disease and types of cancer, and diminishes their body’s ability to handle injury and stress. Working untraditional hours also can reduce a person’s ability to socialize or participate in cultural, communal activities, which are associated with positive impacts on brain and body health.

Women are particularly vulnerable to the social and economic impacts of transitioning to nighttime schedules. Despite making up nearly 45 percent of artisanal fishers in Brazil, women receive lower pay than their male counterparts. That means that when harvests decline with nighttime fishing, their margins are even smaller.

In the Brazilian state of Bahia, tens of thousands of women fishers work to collect shellfish en masse, while in Maranhão, women fisherfolk herd shrimp to the shore using small nets. Clam harvesting in Brazil’s northeast is also dominated by women. Because these jobs traditionally happened during the day and close to home, they allowed women to balance cultural or gendered family roles, including managing the household and being the caregiver to children. Shifting to evening hours to avoid extreme heat “poses a fundamental challenge,” said Mehrabi. “When you talk about changing working hours, you talk about disrupting families.”

Overnight work comes with other risks too. In many areas of Brazil, nighttime work is “either impossible” or “very complicated” because there are procedures and regulations as to when fisherfolk in different regions can fish, said Pinto da Costa. Nighttime fishing is regulated in some parts of Brazil — measures that have been shown to disproportionately impact artisanal fishers.

Even so, says Pinto da Costa, many are braving the risks “just to reduce the amount of exposure to the sun.”

“Honestly, when I saw that this was accepted in the literature, that people were giving this advice of changing their working shifts to the night, I was shocked,” said Zulueta, the author of the Boulder study, citing a paper published earlier this year where overnight work is recommended as an adaptation tool to reduce agricultural productivity losses to heat exposure. Under a policy of “avoiding unsafe working hours,” shifting those hours to the nighttime “is not a universally applicable solution,” she said.

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Growing up a pastoralist in Ahmedabad, India, Bhavana Rabari has spent much of her life helping tend to her family’s herd of buffalo. Although she now spends her days advocating for pastoralists across the Indian state of Gujarat, the routine of her childhood is still ingrained in her: Wake up, feed and milk the herd, and then tend to the fields that surround their home.

But extreme heat threatens to change that, as well as the preservation of her community. When temperatures soar past 90 degrees F in Ahmedabad — now a regular occurrence — Rabari worries about her mom, who hand-collects feed for their buffalo to graze on. Other pastoralists are nomadic, walking at least 10 miles a day herding cattle from region to region in the hunt for pastureland.

“If we lose our livestock, we lose our culture, our dignity,” said Rabari. “If we continue our occupations, then we are dignified. We live with the dignity of our work.”

But rapidly rising temperatures are making it hard to hold on to that dignity of work. “The heat affects every life, every thing,” said Rabari.

Working overnight is a tactic Rabari has heard of other agricultural workers trying. But the idea of tending to the herd in the dark isn’t something she sees as safe or accessible for either her family or other pastoralists in her community. It’s less efficient and more dangerous to work outdoors with animals in the dark, and it would require them to overhaul daily lives and traditions.

“We are not working at night,” said Rabari. But what the family is already doing is waking up at 5 a.m. to beat the heat, collecting milk from their buffalo and preparing products to sell in the market during the dusky hours of the morning.

Rabari’s family and other pastoralists across Gujarat are increasingly in an untenable position. Hotter temperatures have already caused pastureland to wither, meaning animals are grazing less and producing less milk. More unsafe working hours means lost work time on top of that, which, in turn, changes how much income pastoralist families are able to take home.

The result has been not adaptation, but an exodus. Most pastoralists Rabari knows, particularly younger generations, are leaving the trade, seeking employment instead as drivers or cleaners in Ahmedabad. Rabari, who organizes for women pastoralists through the Maldhari Mahila Sangathan, or the Pastoral Women Alliance, says women are most often the ones left behind to tend to the herds.

They “have to take care of their children, they have to take care of the food, and they have to take care of the water,” she said. “They face the heat, they face the floods, or the excess rain.”

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Halfway across the world, April Hemmes is facing off against unrelenting bouts of heat amid verdant fields of soybeans and corn in Hampton, north-central Iowa. A fourth-generation small Midwestern farmer, Hemmes works more than 900 acres entirely on her own — year in and year out.

The Midwest is the largest agricultural area in the United States, as well as one of the leading agricultural producers in the world. It’s also an area that has been battered by human-caused climate change. In fact, scientists just recently declared an end to the drought that had devastated the region for a whopping 203 weeks. The conditions impacted crop yields, livestock, the transportation of goods, and the larger supply chain.

Hemmes has the luxury of not having to face the same degree of heat stress that Rabari and Pinto da Costa are confronting elsewhere in the world, per the Boulder analysis. When compared to India and Brazil, the U.S. is on the lowest end of the worker health impact scale for extreme heat. And yet, heat is also already the deadliest extreme weather event in the U.S., responsible for more deaths every year than hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes combined.

A few years back, while building a fence on her farmland, Hemmes suffered her first bout of on-the-job heat exhaustion. Suddenly, her heart started to race and her body felt as if it began to boil from within, forcing her to abandon her task and head indoors, away from the menacing heat. It was a wake-up call: Ever since, she’s been hyper-cautious with how she feels when tending to her fields.

This past summer, the heat index repeatedly soared past 100 degrees in Hemmes’ corner of Iowa. She found herself needing to be extra careful, not only pacing herself while working and taking more frequent breaks, but also making sure to get the bulk of the day’s work done in the morning. She even began starting her day in the fields an hour or so earlier to avoid searing temperatures compounding with brutal humidity throughout the afternoon.

“This [farm] has been in my family for over 125 years,” she said. “I do everything from banking to planting to spraying, everything. So it’s all on me, and it’s my family farm. I’m very proud of that.” In 1993, her dad and grandfather both retired, and she took over operations. She’s been more or less “a one-woman show” since. Keeping her farm well-managed is a responsibility she doesn’t take lightly. “You do what’s best for the soil. Because that’s the inheritance of future generations,” she said.

When Hemmes looks at how to prepare for a future with hotter working conditions, she knows one thing: Nighttime work is out of the question.

Not only are summertime mosquitoes in Iowa “terrible after dark,” but Hemmes says some of the chemicals she uses are regulated, restricting her from spraying them during the nighttime. In addition, she would need to get lights installed throughout the fields to alleviate the risk of injury when she uses equipment, and she would be even more fearful of that equipment breaking down.

“It would take more energy to work at night,” said Hemmes. “I think it would be far more dangerous … to work after the daylight was gone.”

Like Pinto da Costa and Rabari, Hemmes is involved in advocacy for her community. With the United Soybean Board, Hemmes advocates for women in agriculture. With more resources at her disposal than Pinto da Costa and Rabari, Hemmes is focused on how to ensure solo-farming operations like hers have access to the technology they need to overcome heat spells — and never have to seriously consider an overnight harvest schedule.

On her own farm, she’s invested in “expensive” autonomous agriculture technology that allows her to take breaks when she needs to from the blistering sun. And she would like to see more precision technology and autonomous agriculture tools readily applied and accessible for farmers. She currently uses a tractor with an automatic steering system that improves planting and plowing efficiency and requires much less work, which she credits as one of the pivotal reasons she’s able to successfully manage her hundreds of acres of fields on her own.

She also hopes to see farmers tapping into their inherent flexibility. “What farmers are is adaptable,” she said. “I don’t have an orchard on my farm, but if I did, and I saw this thing [climate change] coming, you know, maybe you look at tearing the trees out and starting to plant what I can in those fields. Maybe the Corn Belt will move up to North Dakota. Who knows, if this keeps progressing?”

In Gujarat, Rabari and the Maldhari Mahila Sangathan are working to secure better representation for pastoralists in policymakers’ decisions about land use. The hope is for these communities to inform policies that would allow pastoralists job security and financial safety nets as climbing temperatures make it difficult to work and turn a profit.

Women pastoralists in particular are entirely left out of these policy spaces, said Rabari, which isn’t just an issue of exclusion but means their unique ecological knowledge is lost, too. “We have a traditional knowledge of which grass is good for our animals, which grass they need to eat so we get the most meals, how [they] can be used for medical treatment,” she said.

Pinto da Costa and the Movimento de Pescadores e Pescadoras Artesanais do Brasil are also advocating for monetary relief from the Brazilian government to offset the losses her fisherfolk community has faced from climate change and shifting work hours. In addition, she is looking for technical support to improve fisherfolk’s resources and equipment.

“I have maintained my energy and motivation to continue to fight for our rights,” said Pinto da Costa.

For all, it’s a race against time. Eventually, even working at night may not be enough to keep outdoor agricultural work viable. The Boulder researchers found that an overnight working schedule will not significantly alleviate dangerous heat stress exposure risk in key agricultural regions of the world — particularly across India. After all, heat waves don’t only happen during the day, but also take place at night, with overnight minimum temperatures rising even more rapidly than daytime highs.

Zachary Zobel, a scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center who has separately researched the impact of overnight work adaptations on global agricultural productivity levels, said the Boulder team’s analysis has a “novel” result, and lines up with what his team has found.

“Warming past 2 degrees C, which we will experience over the next 30 years, would mean that even overnight shifts wouldn’t recover productivity,” said Zobel.

“How do you solve a problem like that?” Mehrabi said. “The reality is that the workers most at risk are the people contributing least to the climate change problem. That’s not to say that we can’t have better policies around hydration, shading, health. But it’s just kind of trying to put a BandAid on a problem. It doesn’t actually deal with the problem at its root cause, which comes down to this trajectory of fossil fuel consumption and emissions.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Extreme heat is forcing farmers to work overnight, an adaptation that comes with a cost on Dec 11, 2024.

By Will Atwater

People use single-use plastics multiple times every day — shopping bags, fast-food containers, disposable forks and spoons, sandwich wrappers and countless other items. Given the abundance of these items, it’s not a surprise to find increasing amounts of plastic debris in the environment. 

However, a recent study examining the types and origins of microplastics in a western North Carolina watershed found that some particles are also hanging out in the air.

Jerry Miller, lead researcher and environmental science professor in the Department of Geosciences and Natural Resources at Western Carolina University, said his research has revealed that a big source for microplastics is in the atmosphere. 

“The atmospheric particles end up in the water, they get into the sediment […], and then they can be transferred up the food chain,” he said. 

Miller shared the research earlier this week at a North Carolina Water Resources Association event at Raleigh’s McKimmon Center.

The research focus was Haywood County’s Richland Creek watershed and two tributaries. One of the research goals is to fill in information gaps about the impact of microplastics in freshwater rivers and streams in the southeastern U.S., Miller said.

“We’re catching up with what’s been done in marine environments and coastal environments, but we still have a ways to go.”

Researchers discovered that roughly 90 percent of the microplastics were fibers, with three primary types of plastic present: polystyrene, polyamides and polyethylene. These plastics are used to make items such as sportswear and other types of clothing, takeout food containers, foam packaging and water bottles.

The study also revealed that the quantity of microplastics, as well as large pieces of plastic debris, increased in parts of the watershed that were closer to development, implying that  human activity is likely the primary source of the contamination. 

But the report noted that “microplastics concentrations were also elevated” in remote parts of the tributaries with limited development, “suggesting atmospheric deposition was an important microplastics source.” 

Miller’s discussion of the sources and distribution of microplastics in this western North Carolina watershed comes at a time when efforts to curb plastic pollution have stalled.  

The fifth session of the international Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution closed in South Korea earlier this month without a treaty. More than 100 major countries failed to reach any consensus on the terms of an agreement to curb worldwide plastic pollution. 

Here in North Carolina, efforts by groups and municipalities across the state to establish single-use plastic bag ordinances have also been stymied as the General Assembly signaled that it doesn’t support such moves.

Meanwhile environmentalists say that recycling — which is what opponents of reducing plastic production point to as the fix for the global crisis of plastic pollution — is a profoundly broken system that doesn’t work.

A growing problem

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, microplastic compounds are fragments smaller than 5 mm in length, roughly the size of an eraser on the end of a pencil. However, microplastics can break down into smaller particles, some invisible to the naked eye, known as nanoplastics. These substances are believed to be able to last hundreds, even thousands, of years in the environment.

Globally, more than 430 million tons of plastic is produced annually. Some plastics break down into these microplastic particles, and a significant amount of them ends up in the ocean, where marine animals swallow them. That’s one way they enter the food chain, according to a report by the United Nations Environment Programme.

In 2021, the United States alone generated between 40.1 million and 51 million tons of plastic waste. Of that amount, somewhere between 32 million and 43 million tons ended up in landfills, according to data provided by Statista, a research and marketing firm. 

In 2023, Duke researchers led a study that revealed a possible link between nanoplastic particles and a brain protein that may result in increased risk for Parkinson’s disease and some forms of dementia.

Previous studies have revealed that humans ingest about a credit card-size amount of microplastics weekly and suggested links between microplastic ingestion in people and inflammatory bowel disease. There’s also some suggestion that microplastics can alter how hormones function in the body. A study published in 2019 estimates that humans may inhale 74,000 to 121,000 microplastic particles annually.

“We ingest microplastics all the time,” said Anna Alsobrook, watershed science and policy manager at MountainTrue, an environmental advocacy group based in western North Carolina.

“The more plastics that get produced, the more microplastics we ingest. We are continuing to see more and more linkages of microplastics to chronic health problems.”

‘Culture of convenience’

Despite the mounting evidence that plastic pollution poses a risk to the environment, animals and humans, getting people to curb dependence on single-use plastics has proven to be a challenge.

“We live in a culture of convenience,” said Jason Love, one of the co-contributors of the watershed research and associate director of Western Carolina University’s Highlands Biological Center. “Instead of going and getting tap water, why not get a plastic bottle out of the fridge?”

He noted, “All these things contribute to the issues we’re having now. It’s going to take some deep discussion about what we want as humans and what’s most important.”

Further complicating the discussion about the dangers of microplastics is the fact that they are  hard to detect in the environment, said Annika Willis, a UNC Chapel Hill undergraduate majoring in environmental science. Willis is one of several UNC students involved in research projects at the Highlands Biological Center.

“Even though I was aware of microplastics, until doing this research, they weren’t really on the top of my concerns because I was never really visually interacting with them,” Willis said. 

“This research is really important to educate the public on the fact that these particles are in our bodies and they are having impacts,” she said. “But I feel like that’s not necessarily common knowledge or knowledge that people want to take into consideration when enacting policy.”

Where do we go from here?

Part of the conversation society needs to have about plastics has to include an economic perspective, said Erin Flanagan, an undergraduate environmental studies major at UNC Chapel Hill. She is also part of the group conducting research at the Highlands Biological Center.

“With a lot of environmental pollution, I think you can’t talk about mitigation and policy without talking about classism,” Flanagan said. “If you can’t afford a nice glass water bottle or to wear all natural fibers, [or ] to not eat frozen dinners in a plastic container every night…”

“There’s the issue of people not being able to afford more safe alternatives to plastic and the influence that plastic companies or corporations that use plastic to package their products have,” she said.

Textile fibers were part of the microplastics researchers found in the Richland Creek watershed.  When clothes are washed, they release microfibers and contribute microplastics that end up in the environment and the food chain. 

There are some bags on the market that are designed to limit the release of microfibers when washing clothes. One item on the market is the GUPPYFRIEND. Priced at around $35, the instructions say to place “synthetics and other delicate clothes” into the bag during the laundry process. The microfibers are trapped in the bag and can be discarded into the trash. 

Requiring plastic producers to take responsibility is the only way to create lasting change when it comes to reducing plastic waste, environmental advocates say. They argue that multinational petroleum companies, such as Shell, should be required to help fund recycling programs and mitigation strategies like installing microfiber filtration systems at municipal wastewater treatment facilities.

Given the complexity of the problem, it’s going to take multiple strategies to resolve it, Alsobrook said. Engaging local elected officials is an essential first step.

“The best thing we can do as a society is to produce less plastic, and to start that yesterday,” she said. “To do that, we need policies that limit single-use plastic production and their products. Contact your state legislators today and tell them to enact policies that protect us from plastics and their toxins.”

The post Nowhere to hide: Microplastics are polluting western North Carolina watersheds appeared first on North Carolina Health News.

LIVINGSTON — From the hillside above her home on Suce Creek, Maggie McGuane has a clear view of the property a Miami-based investment firm is eyeing for a luxury resort development. 

The lower boundary of the empty three-lot parcel is easily identifiable. It’s been planted in winter wheat, highlighting the right angles that form the property’s lower edge. The upper lot has more relief, stretching up a pine-dotted hillside.

McGuane has climbed above the cottonwoods that shelter her house from Park County’s infamous wind — blowing moderately on a late October day — to explain why she finds a proposal to put 100 cabins, a restaurant and a spa in this tucked-away slice of Paradise Valley a “uniquely mysterious” prospect. 

The mystery pertains to peculiarities of the 90-acre property, which is still listed for sale, and the inscrutability of the parties involved: an out-of-state landowner named Robert Pappert whom McGuane has been unable to reach outside of communications with his attorney and realtor, and Flex Capital Group, an out-of-state real estate developer that’s an unknown quantity in Montana.  

McGuane has been unofficially appointed by her neighbors to lead the charge against the development, which has generated difficult conversations about zoning in the two months since the proposal came to light via an email exchange unearthed by a local nonprofit. McGuane and others argue that the development is out of alignment with the area’s predominantly rural character, and a poor fit for a community eager to avoid the breakneck development that’s reshaping nearby Bozeman, a rapidly growing college town of 57,000 that was recently crowned one of the country’s “coolest” small cities. 

Though McGuane is well aware of an outpouring of interest in the amenities Paradise Valley has to offer, aesthetic and otherwise, several features of Flex’s plan have challenged her understanding of the voracity of the land lust transforming Paradise Valley, the place she scattered the ashes of her mother, actress Margot Kidder, and the home she said she can’t imagine leaving.

Suce Creek is a relatively tight drainage perpendicular to Paradise Valley, a wider valley that has long been a thoroughfare for ranchers raising cattle, anglers casting for trout in the Yellowstone River, and tourists eager to spot geysers, grizzlies, wolves and bison in nearby Yellowstone National Park. Even without a zoning district precluding the type of commercial resort development Flex has in mind, McGuane finds it hard to imagine more than 100 structures and 400 parking spaces packed into a 90-acre property with so much slope. “It just doesn’t make any sense,” McGuane said, going on to describe the land as “rattlesnake-crusted, barren [and] windblown.”

“Barren” pertains to water availability, which McGuane said is “core to this battle,” especially given an active lawsuit between Pappert and neighboring landowners and the fact that several of her neighbors have had to redrill their wells in recent years in search of a reliable water supply. 

Pappert, a North Carolina-based dentist, acquired a right to some of Suce Creek’s water when he purchased the property in 2014. Since it’s not a particularly senior right, scant water is available to the property owner during the dry months of the year. A three-year legal battle produced a recent water court ruling finding that Pappert is entitled to 40 miner’s inches of water (roughly 450 gallons per minute), but whether he has access to that water via an easement across his neighbor’s property remains legally unresolved.

Another access issue pertains to roads. Though the property is just a few miles from two major north-south routes — Highway 89 and its cousin to the east, East River Road — Suce Creek Road is a gravel road prone to drifting in with snow when Park County’s winter winds kick up in earnest. 

Finally, there are concerns of the horned, hooved, furred and fanged variety. On a recent fall day, dozens of cattle roamed above a cattle guard posted with an “open range” sign. The Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, just a couple of miles up-drainage from Pappert’s property, supports the kinds of large mammals that need distance from people to thrive, including moose and rarer animals. In 2006, a trio of teenage hikers spent nearly two hours tucked into the fetal position to protect themselves from a charging grizzly bear. 

Up on the hillside, McGuane takes a break from throwing a stuffed octopus for Penny, her copper-colored mutt, to relate the story of a black bear that frequented the drainage from 2018 to 2022. He was first seen as a small cub near her house. Her husband dubbed the bear Darren. 

McGuane’s not sure what happened to the bear, but she suspects a neighbor shot him. She knows plenty of people in Park County don’t share her views about large carnivores — or any number of natural resource issues, for that matter — which is part of the reason she’s been so struck by what she describes as consensus around the Suce Creek development.

“It’s amazing to see everyone in agreement — and this is Park County-wide. I have grown up around these things being huge battles. This is my first experience with a proposal that, across the board, everyone thinks this is a bad idea,” she said. “This development has challenged all of our notions of how far things could go, how nonsensical the growth could be.” 

‘THE Z WORD’

Like other residents of southwestern Montana, McGuane learned about the development from the Park County Environmental Council, a 34-year-old nonprofit perhaps best known for a successful multiyear campaign to fend off an exploratory gold-mining operation in nearby Emigrant Gulch that state environmental regulators permitted in 2017. Curious if murmurs about a new development in Suce Creek were founded, the group submitted a record request to the county planning department in early October.

“This is my first experience with a proposal that, across the board, everyone thinks this is a bad idea.”

Suce Creek resident Maggie McGuane

The request produced about a dozen emails between Park County Planning Director Mike Inman and Nir Balboa, one of Flex’s managing partners. Balboa described the property’s location and inquired about what sort of environmental reviews would be required for a 100-cabin development sketched out in renderings for Flex projects in Utah and North Carolina that he described as “identical to” the company’s plans for Paradise Valley. The documents show small, flat-roofed cabins with lots of right angles and glass situated near 27,000 square feet of shared amenities: an airy 200-seat restaurant, a pair of indoor pools with a view into surrounding green space, an event space and a storefront for recreational gear.

The renderings generated an immediate stir on social media. (“Tell these derivative traders that don’t give a flying damn about this place that they are not welcome here,” software executive and local lodge owner Jeff Reed wrote on his Facebook page shortly after Park County Environmental Council shared the renderings. “Make this an election issue for our county commissioners.”)

Park County fields inquiries from developers trying to understand the regulatory lay of the land in the county “fairly frequently,” Inman told Montana Free Press in a recent interview. It doesn’t take long to give interested parties the broad outlines: There is a sign ordinance along Highway 89 as well as five smaller citizen-initiated zoning districts scattered throughout the county, but there is no county-wide zoning. Local review requirements for most commercial projects — including those like Flex’s — are therefore extremely limited, he said. Substantive project reviews would instead go through state agencies such as the Montana Department of Natural Resource and Conservation, which would examine the water-availability piece of the equation, and the Montana Department of Environmental Quality, which would review project components pertaining to wastewater management and public waterworks. 

“Nobody wants things in their backyard, which we hear a lot, but there are no guardrails,” he said. Inman and the appointed, volunteer-staffed county planning board he works with spent several years developing a proposal for an agricultural and residential preservation zoning district (previously dubbed a “conflict mitigation zoning district”) that would have allowed local elected officials to weigh in on proposals like Flex’s, as well as other commercial enterprises such as tire dumps, asphalt plants, wind farms, chicken processing facilities and shooting ranges. 

County commissioners voted to put that proposal on ice in 2022, partly due to the logistical challenges of taking public comment during the COVID-19 pandemic. It generated intense interest: 226 pages of comments regarding the zoning proposal landed in county employee inboxes. In an interesting twist, anti-zoning and pro-zoning contingents banded together to halt it. One side argued that it went too far, and the other said it didn’t go far enough.

“Fear runs both sides,” Inman said of the two camps’ unusual cooperation. “When you are operating out of fear, it is really difficult to have consensus and productive conversations.”

The community fears that county planners are grappling with now underscore why it’s better to discuss growth before conflict around a specific proposal sharpens the debate, Inman said. “I’m really amazed at how [the Suce Creek proposal] has blown up, for something that may not even get built.”

Whether Flex is casually interested in Pappert’s property or fully committed to pursuing a Paradise Valley development is a source of widespread speculation in Park County seat Livingston and beyond. Billed as an “innovation-oriented real estate investment firm with fully integrated acquisition, development and property management expertise,” Flex was founded in 2020 by real estate and hospitality executives with experience in the Miami and New York City real estate markets. The company did not respond to emails and calls seeking comment. 

Property owner Pappert declined to be interviewed, but the realtor representing him told MTFP on Dec. 3 that Pappert is still accepting offers for the property, which has been listed intermittently since 2021. It’s currently listed for $3.9 million. In 2014, the year Pappert bought it, it was listed for $800,000.

Park County Environmental Council Co-Director Max Hjortsberg said the Suce Creek proposal strikes him as a “very Big Sky-esque” development slated for an area that has retained its agricultural foundation and “quiet social fabric.” “This is indicative of a new type of development,” he said. “[We’re] being sought after by a different level of developer and investor.”

Since the nonprofit received its record request, Hjortsberg said, it’s learned that Flex has approached at least two other Park County property owners with purchase offers. (They were declined.) “They’re doing their due diligence, so we think they’re very serious and definitely making a play at this development opportunity,” Hjortsberg said.

Erica Lighthiser, Hjortsberg’s co-director, said she doesn’t particularly relish the marathon time commitment involved with zoning questions — “the ‘Z’ word,” she calls it — but she’s grateful that the Suce Creek prospect has reignited conversations about community planning.

“We need something, because otherwise it’s this slow erosion of this ecosystem and this area where there’s a little development here, a little development there. And all of a sudden, we’re like everywhere else.”

NEXT STEPS

To Lighthiser’s relief, conversations about the Suce Creek development aren’t confined to social media — they’ve spilled over into the City-County Complex, the nexus of local government for the 18,000 people who live in Park County. 

Lighthiser said she’s encouraged that county residents voted in June to deny Referendum One, which would have repealed the county’s existing growth plan and effectively kneecapped a county-wide zoning initiative. To the chagrin of planning proponents, a sister initiative, Referendum Two, did pass. As a result, any new county growth policies — or amendments to the existing one passed in 2017 — won’t be implemented unless they garner the approval of voters living outside of Livingston and Clyde Park, Park County’s only incorporated communities. 

On Nov. 20, the commission held a workshop on growth before a standing-room-only crowd in the City-County Complex’s Community Room. Though the workshop wasn’t explicitly about the Suce Creek proposal — the county attorney advised against discussing developments that may eventually come before the commission — the project came up frequently in public remarks during the hour-long meeting. 

“We need something, because otherwise it’s this slow erosion of this ecosystem and this area where there’s a little development here, a little development there. And all of a sudden, we’re like everywhere else.”

Park County Environmental Council co-director Erica Lighthiser

First up to the microphone was Suce Creek resident Richard Walker, who said Flex’s project would jeopardize his water and, by extension, his property value. He said five of the “dozen or so” families living in the drainage have had to drill deeper wells in the decade since he moved into the area, and he’s heard of similar issues in more southerly drainages. “If this property goes in at Suce Creek, the water usage is going to render our properties worthless,” he told commissioners. “We won’t have water.”

A couple of attendees advised commissioners to consider their legacies, and to act proactively and swiftly to initiate county-wide zoning. Kevin Johnson, who described himself as living “within eyeshot of the Suce Creek project,” implored the commission to preserve Livingston and Park County’s “old-school charm.” Still others cautioned that without guardrails, the area is destined for the growth-related issues that have afflicted other communities like Bozeman and Big Sky.

Leslie Fiegel with the Livingston Chamber of Commerce and It’s My Land, a landowner rights organization, offered a different view. Park County residents have had lots of opportunities to participate in planning discussions, she said, and the outcome “has played out the way that it should.”

“This is not a time for political division. This is not a time for blaming others or companies that want to start a new business,” she told commissioners. “Thank you for what you’ve done up to this point. … We have your back.”

Park County’s three commissioners stayed quiet through most of the meeting. Toward the end, though, they opened a window into their views about where one person’s property rights end and another person’s start — the tension at the heart of so many land-use debates, both locally and West-wide.

Mike Story, who is midway through his term, described the Suce Creek development and the discussions it’s engendered as “an ongoing thing” and encouraged Park County residents to keep reaching out for conversations. He said he’d like to see similarly packed meetings in Park County’s less populous areas — places like Clyde Park, Emigrant and Gardiner — “just [to] have ideas out there that we can look at.”

Commission Chair Clint Tinsley, whose term is up at the end of this year, said there are options the commission can pursue now, but they’ll require a lot of hard conversations — a nod to how “beat up” commissioners have gotten in meetings about previous zoning proposals.

“If the majority of this community wants zoning, that’s probably where we need to go,” said Tinsley, who formerly led Livingston’s public works department. His seat will be assumed by Jennifer Vermillion, a Shields Valley hay and pig farmer, in January.

Brian Wells, an Emigrant business owner appointed to fill a commission vacancy in 2023 and recently elected to serve a four-year term, said in his careful drawl that he would like the planning department to evaluate growth-wrangling options that other counties with similar populations and political leanings have pursued.

“We’re a pretty diverse and divided community,” he said, “but one thing we have in common [is] most everybody I talked to would like to see some kind of guardrails, some kind of protection.”

MONTANA MICROCOSM

For nearly two months, McGuane has made it her mission to learn the public and private tools Suce Creek residents can use to protect their drainage. They’ve mulled over county-wide zoning and citizen-initiated zoning, purchasing the property outright or encouraging a land trust to make an offer. 

No solution is perfect, McGuane says, so they’ve also hired an attorney to represent their interests if the sale goes through and Flex forwards their proposal to state regulators. (DEQ spokesperson Rebecca Harbage told MTFP on Dec. 3 that DEQ hasn’t fielded any proposals or outreach from Flex.)

In the meantime, McGuane said she and her neighbors are “in a weird state of limbo.” But that status hasn’t been without benefits, she said. 

“This is the most perfect tiny example of the conflict all over the state. So much of it is just the conflict between people from remarkably varying backgrounds with big financial losses and gains on the line,” she said. “If we can do a good job working through this, I would love for this to be a good example for the rest of the state.”

The post Unpacking a ‘uniquely mysterious’ development proposal in Paradise Valley  appeared first on Montana Free Press.

Earlier this year, a consultant issued a report recommending sweeping changes to the state’s health care system — proposals that ranged from building more housing to cutting certain services at specific hospitals.

At a meeting of lawmakers and state health officials late last week, Sen. Ginny Lyons, D-Chittenden Southeast, questioned Green Mountain Care Board Chair Owen Foster and Secretary of Human Services Jenney Samuelson on that report.

Of the scores of recommendations, Lyons, the chair of the Senate Committee on Health and Welfare, asked what would be the simplest for the Legislature to implement: “Which is the low-hanging fruit?” she said at the Friday meeting.

The officials’ answers — which included proposed reforms to hospital regulations, state emergency medical services and electronic medical records — now seem poised to form key planks of the health care agenda in the upcoming legislative biennium.

As Vermont’s population has aged, the state’s health care system has appeared increasingly unsustainable. Private health insurance premiums are among the most expensive and fastest-growing in the country. Many hospitals and other health clinics are operating at a loss. Appointments for primary and specialty care can be few and far-between.

Those challenges and others were brought to the forefront by the 144-page report issued in September by the New York-based consulting firm Oliver Wyman.

The report issued a series of recommendations that amounted to a broad redesign of the state’s health care apparatus. Hospitals should consolidate services at different regional locations, the firm recommended, and the state should invest in housing, emergency medical services and internet connectivity in rural areas of the state.

Now, legislators say they hope to follow through on at least some of those recommendations.

Lawmakers are already working on legislation to simplify the approval process for new health care facilities, Lyons said in an interview. That process, by which providers must apply to the Green Mountain Care Board for what’s called a certificate of need, is notoriously costly and time-consuming.

“There is a bill,” Lyons said. “I’m working on it with another senator. So we will have that.”

Lyons said she also expects to examine another problem identified by the consultant’s report: that hospitals’ and clinics’ electronic medical records systems are not always compatible with those used by other providers.

“I’ll probably put a bill in that gets the discussion started there,” she said. “Nothing that causes an explosion, I hope.”

Lawmakers are also planning to examine the state’s emergency medical services, a subject that was a topic of legislation in the last legislative session, said Rep. Lori Houghton, D-Essex Junction, the outgoing chair of the House Health Care Committee.

Last spring, Gov. Phil Scott signed a bill that bolsters emergency medical services training and increases funding for Medicaid reimbursement for EMS services.

So some reforms to the state’s emergency medical services system are already “in process,” Houghton said in an interview. But in the upcoming session, the topic is “something we’ll also focus on and see if we can make the transformation go quicker,” she said.

Houghton, who was recently elected House majority leader, will no longer chair the health care committee come January, due to longstanding practice that prevents majority leaders from being chairs. “But I think I can speak to what is going to be on the table,” she said.

The speaker of the House will appoint chairs once the legislative session begins in January, so it’s not yet clear who will lead the House’s health care committee. But Houghton mentioned Rep. Alyssa Black, D-Essex, the committee’s ranking member, as a possible successor.

Black declined to comment Tuesday, saying, “I have no knowledge that I want to pass on.”

The “low-hanging fruit” currently under consideration does not cover many of the recommendations from the consultancy’s report, however. Some of the report’s proposals — such as limiting how much hospitals can bill for care and ending certain procedures at some facilities — are either outside of the Legislature’s purview or would likely entail fierce and lengthy Statehouse battles.

Devon Green, a lobbyist for the Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Systems, expressed support for many of the proposals from Lyons and Houghton, including investments in emergency medical services and streamlining the certificate of need process. Some Vermont hospitals are already making changes in response to the report, Green said.

“Hospitals are here doing the work, and we want to work in partnership with other healthcare providers and our state leaders,” she said.

Lyons, of the Senate health committee, also wants to reexamine how health care is regulated in the state, echoing a bill she backed in the 2024 session that would have shifted some of the oversight powers of the Green Mountain Care Board to the Agency of Human Services.

“We’ll probably see some discussion about authority, regulatory gaps. You know, who’s in charge of what, where and when?” she said. “I don’t want to go back to the bill that I had put in (this year), but it’ll be a discussion.”

And as the cost of providing and paying for health care has grown increasingly unsustainable, Houghton said, the legislature needs to understand whether earlier health care initiatives, such as mental health urgent care and the Blueprint for Care program, for example, are actually paying off.

“There’s going to be a concerted effort to call people in and say, this is what we’re doing: We need to really understand how these programs are working, and then fixing them or changing them or scrapping them if they’re not working,” Houghton said.

But both Houghton and Lyons acknowledged that there is little the Legislature can do that will make care and insurance more affordable for Vermonters in the short term.

“I don’t have a silver bullet,” Lyons said.

Read the story on VTDigger here: In wake of landmark hospital report, Vermont lawmakers look toward health care reforms.

ATHENS, Ohio — Local school districts and colleges are scrambling to determine how they will implement recent state legislation that requires transgender people to use the bathroom of the sex they were assigned at birth. 

In late November, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed Senate Bill 104 into law. In addition to prescribing bathroom use for all persons using school restrooms, the statute also prohibits public and private educational institutions from constructing multi-person, multi-gender restrooms.  

Ohio’s law brings the number of states with bathroom bills to an even dozen. 

Legislation targeting transgender people has exploded across the country in the past 10 years, limiting access to public restrooms and healthcare and participation in sports, among other measures. In 2024 alone, Ohio legislators passed three anti-trans bills — out of 14 that were introduced.

Both of Athens County’s state legislators voted for SB 104; Sen. Brian Chavez (R-Marietta) sponsored the bill. 

As Jay Edwards (R-Nelsonville) is term-limited, Kevin Ritter of Marietta will replace him next year. In an email, Ritter said, “I appreciate Representative Edwards voting to ensure the privacy of Ohio’s students.”

The law takes effect on Feb. 24, 2025; 90 days after DeWine signed the bill on the day before Thanksgiving. 

SB 104 puts school districts in a “tenuous” situation, Athens City School District Superintendent Tom Gibbs told the Independent. 

“Currently, there is some disagreement between the Federal Department of Education and guidance we have been provided and what is included in this new statute,” Gibbs said in an email. 

The district is consulting legal counsel about “to determine how best to move forward,” Gibbs wrote.

“District employees will be directed to continue to support and protect the rights of all students for the next 90 days while we await guidance from our legal counsel,” Gibbs said in an email. 

Federal Hocking Local Schools Superintendent Jason Spencer declined to comment, saying that he had not yet discussed the bill with the Federal-Hocking Board of Education. Alexander, Nelsonville-York and Trimble local school district superintendents did not respond to requests for comments.

Potential conflict with federal law

SB 104 presents Ohio educators with a Catch-22, Gibbs explained. Employees who don’t follow the new requirements can be reported for violating state law; if they do follow it, they risk violating federal anti-discrimination laws, including Title IX. 

Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in “any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” 

Title IX “applies to transgender students in public schools and universities,” Gibbs said, citing the U.S. Department of Justice. Athens City Schools’ Title IX coordinator is Director of Curriculum & Development Sommer McCorkle.

SB 104 does not contain any language about enforcement or penalties for violations of its restrictions. Similar bills in other states include fines and jail time as sanctions for violations, The Buckeye Flame reported. 

Gibbs noted that the district has standing policies “that specifically call for protecting student rights based on gender identity.” But SB 104 will force the district to “change or modify multiple policies to be in line with the state statute,” he said.

“And, District employees will be faced with the daily task of ascertaining when to follow Federal Title IX Guidance and when to follow the State Statutes related to transgender students,” Gibbs said. “It is difficult to say on one hand that we do not discriminate based on gender identity and then on the other to limit student’s participation in athletics or even where they can use the bathroom.”

The implied changes from SB 104 are “especially frustrating because we’ve had these policies and procedures in place for years without any complaint and before this even became the Federal guidance on the matter,” Gibbs said in an email.

“The complete lack of any nod towards the ‘local control’ that state legislators frequently espouse in regards to schools and municipalities apparently goes out the window in relation to how we address and protect the rights of transgender students,” Gibbs stated.

Gibbs also pointed to ongoing Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals case Doe v. Bethel, in which parents and students are suing Bethel Local School District for allowing a transgender child to use the restroom that matches her gender, the Ohio Capital Journal reported. 

“I am hopeful that case will come to [a] conclusion soon, as it would provide some additional context to the legal landscape surrounding this issue,” Gibbs said in an email.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Education declined to comment on SB 104, but did note that federal laws supersede state laws.

Higher education

In an email, an Ohio University spokesperson said that OU “is aware that Senate Bill 104 has been formally signed into law, and we are currently reviewing the final version of the bill and its potential impact on established University processes and procedures.”

The spokesperson added, “OHIO has long been committed to fostering an inclusive, respectful environment for all students, staff and visitors, and we will continue to work to ensure that our public restroom signage and accommodations continue to meet the needs of our University community and remain compliant with all applicable state and federal laws.”

Casey Plett, an assistant professor of English and film at OU, said the university has not yet provided her with any guidance regarding the new law. 

“Anecdotally, from what I can see … it is increasing stress levels,” Plett said of her students. “I would worry very much about students who might be in the closet, who … might keep their identities secret … or keep their gender secret because of this, which is just a shame, and something that most other students don’t have to do.” 

For Plett, the “boogeyman” nature of anti-trans bathroom bills is not founded in reality.

“The opponents of trans youth, specifically, in public life — it’s always called an ‘experience of experimentation,’ and that is not true,” Plett said. “I think that it is bills like this that are the experimentation … It is making these kinds of draconian laws that — none of these laws existed four years ago. It is this kind of legislative activity that is the experiment, and I am very doubtful it was going to have good effects.”

Ohio University senior Rey De Spain, who is transgender, echoed Plett’s sentiments.

“I think it’s a massive overreach into the private lives of citizens and especially students,” they said.

De Spain said that in Athens, “I’ve never really encountered any problems using the public restrooms here.” However, since their freshman year, “I definitely think that transphobia has become a lot more visible.” 

In De Spain’s experience, “People are a lot more comfortable being openly transphobic … A lot of people feel more comfortable than I would like, verbally harassing others on the streets, especially when they’re drunk … I expect a little bit of that, but I do feel like this campus has become a lot less friendly already in the past couple years, when I compare it to my freshman year. I felt like it was an extremely safe place, and I was never really hassled.”

Overall, though, De Spain said they feel “very fortunate that I live in an area where people mostly mind their own business.”

De Spain believes that bathrooms already operate on a “good faith” system in which legal documents aren’t required to attend to bodily functions.

 “What all of us want in the bathroom is privacy, and a place to do our business and then wash our hands and leave,” De Spain said. “I think that a lot of the people pushing legislation like this don’t seem to understand how public restrooms function in the real world, and they think they’re protecting people, when really they’re putting people in danger.”

Hocking College Vice President of Student Affairs Hannah Guadda, who is the school’s Title IX coordinator, said in an email the institution “is currently reviewing the legislation to ensure compliance while maintaining our commitment to a safe, inclusive environment for all students. As we assess the bill’s impact, we remain dedicated to supporting our diverse student body.”

Resources: LGBTQ+ youths in crisis may contact the Trevor Project at 866-4-U-Trevor for assistance; adults in crisis, contact the National Trans Lifeline: 877-565-8860. The 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is also available; in case of emergency, always call 911.

The post Local schools, colleges respond to Ohio’s bathroom bill appeared first on Athens County Independent.

Damakant Jayshi

An elementary school task force evaluating the future of the 13 elementary schools in the Wausau School District recommends closing Hewitt-Texas, Hawthorn Hills, Grant and Lincoln Elementary Schools, one of two potential options the board will now consider.

The proposed closures, outlined as part of “Bundle 1,” would impact approximately 700 students in grades 4K through 5, according to the district’s September 2024 demographics report. In addition, 180 teachers and staff would be affected. While plans for relocating students have been identified, the fate of teachers and staff remains uncertain though the district says it would make efforts to accommodate them.

Under “Bundle 2,” described as a “more modest, incremental solution,” Lincoln Elementary, with about 200 students and roughly 50 staff members, would remain open. This alternate option would affect about 14% of students, but the offer reduces financial savings.

While both bundles have variations, the committee’s voting record indicates greater support for the base version of Bundle 1.

The 45-member task force, formed in June, included 15 district parents, 15 community members without children currently in district schools, and 15 teachers and staff. The Wausau School Board outlined five evaluation criteria for the group in August, emphasizing fiscal viability as a top priority. The task force has convened nine times since its first meeting on June 17.

Projected savings and staffing impacts

Under the first plan, the district expects an annual staff expense reduction of $1.6 million to $1.8 million over three years through attrition, primarily retirements and resignations. A Dec. 6 note by Diana White, the district’s communications coordinator, stated that staff reductions, if necessary, would likely occur through transfers to vacant positions resulting from attrition.

After this story appeared, the district sent an updated response.

“In reality, most of the staff impacted will be shifted to locations where the students are shifted because we will need more staff to serve the students that move,” White said. This was in addition to her previous comment in which she said that depending on the position and how critical it is, staff may be transferred from their current role into that vacant position. “In some cases, the position may not be filled. In any given year, we hire approximately 70 to 100 new staff, which provides lots of opportunity to do just this.”

The plan is also projected to avoid $4.1 million in maintenance costs over 10 years, with an additional half a million dollars in operational cost savings. These figures exclude busing costs.

There are discrepancies in the number of students being impacted under Bundle 1. The presentation shared with the board by the task force’s coordinator, Mark Roffers of MD Roffers Consulting, on Monday said that the number of impacted pre-K to fifth-grade students is 679, or 20% of elementary school students.

Roffers, through White, said the numbers were an estimate based on Spring 2024 enrollment at the affected schools.

“The actual number and percentage of K-5 students affected will depend on the actual number of K-5 students in the schools that will be closed or repurposed as of September of whatever year the schools close,” he told Wausau Pilot & Review.

Another change would occur related to busing, with at least six to seven new routes required, each costing $40,000 annually.

Next steps

The board will also have to approve an updated attendance map to reflect the new boundaries. The one attached with the recommendation shows the changes.

Board members praised the recommendations, saying they were thorough and data-driven, unlike past endeavors. At Interim Superintendent Cale Bushman’s request, a Dec. 18 special meeting will be postponed until January. That date and time will now be used for an additional task force meeting to discuss new data regarding Achievement Gap Reduction (AGR) funding. 

White said the task force will convene to review new information about AGR funding that was not available on or prior to the Dec. 4 task force meeting.

“There’s also additional information about elementary capacities – and we’d like an opportunity to map the buildings to ensure students fit,”  White said.

No decision yet but ‘do not lose momentum’ mood

Based on comments by board and task force members, the plan could be approved as soon as early next year and implemented by the 2026-27 school year – a timeline that Bushman mentioned several times. The implementation year has not been finalized yet, though.

One of the committee members said watching the group come together and the process revealed an “Aha moment.”

The group went from “that’s my school” to “that’s my district,” she said, with people having productive conversations about the future.

“I would hate to lose that momentum,” she said.

Roffers, during his presentation, said all task force members agreed that some schools would eventually need to close and recognized that keeping all schools open wasn’t a viable option.

The proposed changes

The closure of the four schools, if approved by the board, leads to other changes, including those related to pre-K:

• Hewitt-Texas Elementary closes and shifts its students to Riverview Elementary.
• Hawthorn Hills students move to John Marshall and Franklin elementaries. Additionally, Hawthorn Hills’ pre-K Academy shifts to Riverview Elementary.
• Grant students shift to Thomas Jefferson, and Thomas Jefferson’s pre-K Academy moves to Lincoln Elementary.
• Lincoln Elementary is closed and repurposed into a pre-K Academy. Lincoln’s K-5 grades shift to G.D. Jones Elementary. G.D. Jones’ pre-K Academy shifts to Lincoln.

While “receivers” are suitable to take students from the closed schools, two of them, John Marshall and Franklin, require HVAC upgrades, including air conditioning.

The task force also considered the option of closing Rib Mountain and shifting students to South Mountain, but that discussion and decision have been left for the future.

There was some discussion about the pros and cons of maintaining a single pre-K academy.

Replying to a question from board member Sarah Brock on the impact on curriculum and students by having a consolidated versus different K-5 grades, Director of Elementary Education Julie Schell said it would not have a major impact since the students and teachers will use the same curriculum and resources.

Declining enrollment, varying class sizes, increasing deficit

District and board officials have said over the years that retaining 13 elementary schools in the face of declining enrollment, lopsided class sizes, and projected increasing budget deficits is not sustainable. Consolidation has been discussed intermittently for years.

In November 2023, the Wausau School Board reversed a decision to combine Wausau East and West and move fifth-grade students from elementary into middle schools. As part of the original restructuring plan, at least five of the 13 elementary schools would have been either merged or closed. But that plan was shelved after fierce opposition from the community.

According to the figures shared by consultant Roffers on Monday, the 13 elementary schools currently have about 1,100 empty seats, a number that is projected to grow to 1,300 by 2027 if no changes are made. In addition to the projected annual deficit of $2 million to $3 million, the schools have aging buildings, requiring nearly $25 million in 10-year deferred maintenance needs, the presentation showed.

The district plans to engage the community and seek its input on the recommendations, and the public will have the opportunity to participate in the upcoming events.

On Monday, Dec. 16, Cooperative Educational Service Agency 10 is scheduled to present the results of their Elementary Facility Assessment to the Wausau School Board. Two days later, the task force will meet for the final time.

ITHACA, N.Y. — It’s been two weeks since Tompkins County opened its temporary winter homeless shelter in a converted bank in downtown Ithaca. In the shelter’s first week of operation, fewer than half the people seeking shelter county-wide were housed there.

The temporary facility is part of a state-mandated program called “Code Blue” that requires counties to provide shelter, no questions asked, on nights when the temperature dips below freezing. 

The newly opened facility is the result of a major last-minute effort to stand up Code Blue services after the county was unable to hire a non-profit organization to manage the program, as it had in the past.

Tompkins County Administrator Lisa Holmes said on average, about 38 people sought shelter under Code Blue per night — roughly equal to the same period last year. Of those people, between 7-15 people a night stayed in the shelter.

The rest were housed in motels, as they had been prior to the opening of the temporary shelter on Nov. 25.

County officials have said one of their goals for the Code Blue program this year was to shift away from usage of motel rooms, citing concerns over cost and safety. Officials have also expressed a desire to encourage people to get shelter via a separate program that requires participation in job training and addiction treatment, among other prerequisites.

In prior years, the non-profit that operated Code Blue chose to house people almost exclusively in motel rooms during the winter months.

The county’s approach to the Code Blue program is decidedly spartan compared to last year. The former bank is set up as a congregate shelter, where beds are laid out in an open room with little privacy. 

People staying there must check their belongings in plastic storage bins and cannot bring any bags into the main shelter. There are restrooms but no shower facilities, and there are strict limitations on who can enter the building and when.

Some advocates and elected officials have questioned whether the county’s “tough love” approach will dissuade people from seeking shelter from dangerously cold weather.

Last week, a man died sleeping outside, just one block away from the new emergency shelter. A county spokesperson could not confirm or deny if the man, Roland Hoyt, visited the shelter that night, but said that if he did, he would not have been turned away.

Tompkins County Department of Social Services Commissioner Kit Kephart said while housing people in motel rooms may be more compassionate, doing so comes with additional costs and risks.

“[One] challenge with hotels is that once the door closes, you don’t know if that person is safe,” Kephart said at a recent press event. “They might be using substances and overdose.”

The county likely will not be able to fully phase out the use of motels any time soon. Many traditional, congregate shelter facilities are not able to accommodate certain people, like families with children, people with certain disabilities and those convicted of certain crimes. 

Ultimately, Kephart said, the goal is to have people apply for shelter through the more rigorous application system that is in place year-round — known as Temporary Housing Assistance (THA) — rather than through Code Blue. 

Currently, the people who apply and qualify for shelter through THA are almost exclusively housed in motel rooms. The county’s only year-round homeless shelter shut its doors in November after the county was unable to renegotiate a contract renewal with its non-profit operator.

While day-to-day numbers vary, the number of people who got shelter through THA was roughly double that of those seeking shelter through the lower-barrier Code Blue program. Some 74 people received shelter through THA, including four children.

When people seek shelter through Code Blue, they do not need to meet requirements they’d ordinarily face during the rest of the year. Such requirements may include limits on income, sobriety or participation in addiction recovery counseling. People also need to show that they’ve exhausted all other options for housing. 

Some advocates have said the requirements can be difficult to navigate, even with assistance from a caseworker.

Kephart said that while the THA program has more hurdles, it provides more comprehensive assistance than Code Blue.

“There’s much greater services that go along with the THA sheltering than there are Code Blue,” Kephart said. “Code Blue [sheltering] is really a mechanism to keep people off the street and warm and to get them through the night, whereas THA is really about building people’s ability to get into permanent housing.”

If you anticipate you may need to access emergency shelter, you can find more information and resources here or by calling or texting 2-1-1. During normal business hours, visit the Department of Social Services at 320 W. State Street, Ithaca, NY. After 5 p.m., go directly to the shelter, located at 300 N. Tioga Street, Ithaca, N.Y.

New York State requires counties to provide shelter to anyone who asks when evening temperatures drop below 32 degrees Fahrenheit, regardless of disability status, income, sobriety or other factors.

The post County still reliant on motel rooms to shelter homeless this winter appeared first on The Ithaca Voice.

Republican legislators are planning to bring at least four bills to Wyoming’s 2025 general session aimed at restricting transgender people’s participation in certain sports and access to public bathrooms and other spaces. 

Lawmakers’ increasing focus on transgender issues comes on the heels of controversy at the University of Wyoming involving its women’s volleyball team and an alleged transgender player on an opposing team. It also follows an expensive and hard-fought campaign season that saw the Wyoming Freedom Caucus win control of the House and move the body further to the right. 

The exact details of the legislation remain to be seen — none of the bills had been published by press time — but they vary in scope, according to several lawmakers who spoke with WyoFile. They are being drafted less than a year after Wyoming banned gender-affirming care for minors including puberty blockers and hormone therapy.

Rep. Martha Lawley (R-Worland), who announced in an op-ed plans to bring both a sports bill and a private spaces bill, said she sees the legislation as an opportunity for lawmakers to unify around a single issue. 

“I would like this to become something that’s more about the cooperation that we can engage in when we really want to,” Lawley told WyoFile. “And if there’s one place that we could showcase that it would be on an issue like this.”

One of Lawley’s bills would expand Wyoming’s transgender athlete ban beyond its current limitation on middle and high school girls sports to include elementary school and intercollegiate competition. The second measure would prohibit transgender girls and women from using women’s public bathrooms, locker rooms, showers and correctional facilities. 

Lawley defeated a Freedom Caucus-backed opponent in the primary election. Whether the group brings its own legislation on the two related matters is not yet clear. Freedom Caucus Chair Rep. Rachel Rodriguez-Williams (R-Cody) told WyoFile, “We haven’t seen [Lawley’s bills] yet, but we are pleased to see her being more responsive to the will of the people of Wyoming.” 

Meanwhile, Sen. Wendy Schuler (R-Evanston) — the lead sponsor of the 2023 sports bill that became law without Gov. Mark Gordon’s signature — told WyoFile she’ll also bring legislation to extend sports ban to the collegiate level. Plus, Park County lawmakers are expected to bring a bathroom bill in support of a resolution passed by Powell’s school board last month. 

Rep. Karlee Provenza (D-Laramie) told WyoFile she’s saddened by the forthcoming slate of legislation. 

“I know that my colleagues are good people. I know that we all want to solve issues and problems, and so when I see this divergence from what I believe are our shared values, it’s just disappointing,” she said, adding that she’d prefer to see lawmakers coalesce around other issues like wildfires, affordable housing and recent trona mine layoffs in southwest Wyoming. 

“We have real problems here,” Provenza said. “I thought I was coming [to the Legislature] to solve problems and not attack people in my district, because that’s who this impacts — it’s my district.”

Sports bans

The University of Wyoming women’s volleyball team forfeited an Oct. 5 match against San José State University because the rival team is alleged to have a transgender player. 

Wyoming’s players were split 9-9, with one abstention in their team vote on whether to play the Spartans. Records indicate the decision to forfeit was ultimately made for them by higher-ups after pressure mounted from the public and elected officials.The circumstances in part inspired Lawley’s legislation. 

“What happened with the volleyball was very eye-opening, I think, for a lot of people in Wyoming,” Lawley said. “I had a lot of response from constituents about that when it was happening. They were very appreciative of the decision made by the University of Wyoming. They felt it was the right decision. Honestly, their only criticism was, ‘Why did it take so long? Why was that so hard to do or figure out?’”

Lawley said her bill would provide clarity in future situations by requiring eligibility standards for intercollegiate sports at UW and Wyoming’s community colleges to be based on biological sex. It would also prohibit teams from competing against out-of-state transgender players. 

“This isn’t about shutting anyone out—it’s about giving every young woman the chance to compete on a level playing field,” Lawley wrote in her op-ed. “The amendment provides legal remedies to hold institutions accountable if those rights are violated.” 

The legislation also extends the ban already on the books to include all grade levels in the K-12 system. As written, the law only applies to middle and high school girls sports. 

While Schuler said she’ll likely support Lawley’s bill, she’s also planning to bring a version that would only include intercollegiate sports. 

“Mine is just a little bit more simple,” Schuler said. 

When Schuler first brought legislation in 2023 to impose the ban, she originally included collegiate sports. She eased off that, however, when UW asked her to allow the National Collegiate Athletic Association to sort things out instead. 

But the NCAA, “they just haven’t done that,” Schuler said. This time, Schuler hasn’t gotten approval from UW, she said, but “they didn’t try to discourage me. Let’s just put it that way.”

Private spaces 

In November, the Park County School District #1 Board of Trustees voted unanimously for a resolution that calls on lawmakers to pass legislation related to restroom use, the Powell-Tribune reported. 

“Due to conflicting case law and legal authority, the current legal and legislative landscape of the United States and Wyoming does not provide a clear foundation for individual school districts to set policy surrounding the issue of sex-based restroom use,” the resolution reads. 

“The district will advocate in the 2025 legislative session and support the passage of legislation similar to Oklahoma Statute 70-1-125 ‘Restrooms in Public Schools’ which will clarify the issue of restroom use for all Wyoming school districts,” the resolution states. 

The 2022 Oklahoma law requires restrooms or locker rooms in public schools to be designated exclusively based on biological sex. 

Lawley said she’s heard Park County lawmakers are planning to bring their own legislation to account for the resolution. Meanwhile, her legislation would cast a wider net than Oklahoma’s, applying the law to not just public schools but other public buildings such as correctional facilities. 

“We have all heard stories of discomfort and fear when policies aren’t clear, leaving institutions scrambling to balance privacy concerns with the risk of lawsuits,” Lawley wrote in her op-ed. “It’s time for the Legislature to act.”

As for enforcement, Lawley said her private spaces bill would give anyone legal standing in court should they sue a school district or other public entity for not complying with the law — also known as a private right of action. Similarly in Texas, a private right of action allows private individuals to sue abortion providers or anyone who “aids and abets” an abortion in a Texas court. 

“Other states have used funding as a motivation, and that could be something we look at again,” Lawley said. That could prove to be complicated, however, since the state is constitutionally obligated to fully fund public education. 

The Wyoming Legislature’s general session starts Jan. 14. 

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The post Wyoming lawmakers pursue transgender bathroom, sports restrictions in 2025 session appeared first on WyoFile .

Amidst a nationwide shortage of pediatric specialists, families caring for children with special health care needs in rural areas are often forced to travel long distances for care.

Physicians and parents agree that on top of bringing more specialists to rural areas, increasing the flow of information between agencies and making travel reimbursements easier to attain would ease some of this burden on families.

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How Rural Communities Can Fill Care Gaps for Children with Disabilities was first posted on December 6, 2024 at 8:00 am.
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