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.

Over 100 years. That’s how long the Lumbee have been denied federal recognition. Now, President Donald Trump is pushing for that to change.

For Lumbee tribe, ‘the time has come’ to finally be federally recognized is a story from Carolina Public Press, an award-winning independent newsroom. Our breakthrough journalism shines a light on the critical overlooked and under-reported issues facing North Carolina’s 10.4 million residents. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

The measles outbreak in rural Texas has exposed how hospital buildings are ill-equipped. Meanwhile, long distances between providers makes testing people and transporting samples difficult.

Borderlands Restoration Network, Tucson Bird Alliance and other local nonprofits are scrambling to understand the impact of the January federal funding freeze imposed by the Trump administration on their programs.

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Kevin Leavitt was just days away from getting reimbursed by the U.S. government for $48,000 when the Trump administration signed an executive order freezing federal funding and stopping payments to farmers across the country. 

Leavitt, who owns Farmer Kev’s Organic in West Gardiner, Maine, was authorized to receive money through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Energy for America Program (REAP). The funding was approved to help with costs attached to a $140,000 project to generate efficient electricity on the small vegetable farm. 

The project has been up and running since December, and Leavitt told the Daily Yonder he was on track to get his reimbursement at the end of January. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, or USDA, requires a 30-day waiting period between project completion and reimbursement to verify that the project has been completed, Leavitt said. Since the executive order was signed, he has not heard anything from the USDA about when he can expect to receive the payment.

“It’s getting to be over a month now, and every day that passes, we lose faith in the money coming through,” Leavitt said.

Leavitt is one of approximately 2,252 farmers waiting to be paid by the government for 2024 REAP awards. The amount owed totals $410 million, according to data compiled by Jeremy Fisher using information from USA spending, a government website that tracks federal dollars. Of that outstanding $410 million in REAP payments, just under $300 million is set to go to Republican-led Congressional districts, according to Fisher, who works as a senior strategy and technical advisor with the Sierra Club’s Environmental Law Program. 

“This isn’t something that shakes out cleanly along blue or red lines,” Fisher said. “And, this is not large corporations who are making these decisions, these are individual farmers, small businesses that have to put their own money down on the table in order to be able to make this happen.”

If the REAP money Leavitt is expecting doesn’t come through, he will have to foot the bill for the entire project. He said that doing so could put his farm in a vulnerable position to continue operating.

On February 20th, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced that the USDA would release $20 million in contracts that had been paused due to a review of funding in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the legislation Congress passed in 2022 that appropriated billions of dollars for clean energy projects across the country. That $20 million represents less than 1% of all USDA funding, according to the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

REAP predates the IRA by several decades, though Congress added $1 billion in funding to the program when it passed the piece of legislation in 2022. The purpose of REAP, according to its landing page, is to guarantee loan financing and grant funding to agricultural producers and rural small businesses for energy efficiency improvements and renewable energy systems. Legally, farmers and small businesses are entitled to the money that has already been obligated to them by the USDA for REAP projects.

“These are programs that are meant to save people money, make their lives easier, provide stability and certainty,” Fisher said. “People are entitled to the money that Congress has allocated to this purpose, irrespective of what the administration thinks about any particular recipient.”

Funding from the USDA also supports smaller farms and younger farmers trying to get into the industry, like Leavitt, who is 33. 

“To be able to start producing food and do something sustainable, you do need some assistance — farming is a very capital-intensive industry to get into,” Leavitt said.

REAP is just one program under the USDA’s Rural Development umbrella, which encompasses billions of dollars appropriated by Congress for federal spending for rural programs in the form of grants and low-interest loans. 

Across the country, Fisher said grant and loan recipients are waiting to hear from the USDA on payments for projects approved under other programs, including the Empowering Rural America (New ERA) program. 

Payments Across USDA Programs

Established by the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, the New ERA program provides $9.7 billion in loan and grant financing for rural electric cooperatives to transition to clean, affordable, and reliable energy. It is the largest investment in rural electrification since President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Rural Electrification Act into law in 1936. 

Before the USDA’s funds were frozen, approximately $9.4 billion had been obligated to rural electric cooperatives in 24 states. Overall, the Sierra Club estimates that about 40% of all rural electric cooperative customers in the U.S. are in line to receive funding through the New ERA program. Those dollars have yet to be released by the USDA. 

Since the New ERA funds account for around 25% of the total cost of any given project, Fisher said the total investment for rural cooperatives to transition to more efficient and affordable energy is much higher. 

“It’s spurring $35 billion, at least, worth of investments across these cooperatives, and in each of those circumstances, substantially reducing costs for customers,” Fisher said. 

Beyond USDA programs supporting energy and electricity, the USDA has a host of other programs that go toward supporting farmers and others in rural communities across the country. Sarah Alexander, executive director of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA), is seeing money frozen for those programs, too. 

“The $20 million that was released is just a very small drop in the bucket compared to the national amount that those programs would normally be funding at this time of year,” Alexander told the Daily Yonder. Right now, many of the farmers who MOFGA supports, like Kevin Leavitt, are being told that their grants are under review in accordance with the statement made by Secretary Rollins on February 20. 

Alexander said that cuts to the federal workforce, including in local USDA offices, are affecting access to information for farmers trying to track down answers to their funding questions. 

“Some folks are calling the office and nobody’s answering. There’s nobody to pick up the phone, or the person that they were in contact with may no longer be there,” Alexander said. 

In West Gardiner, Leavitt said that the federal funding he was expecting helps reduce the price of food, like the vegetables he grows. Without it, prices may go up in the coming season.

“If these payments don’t come through, that’s going to add a pretty significant burden to these farms, and it’s hard to see how that wouldn’t end up ultimately impacting consumers,” Alexander said.

The post Farmers Still Owed Hundreds of Millions in REAP Payments After Federal Freeze   appeared first on The Daily Yonder.