Editor’s note: This is part of a series of “low peak” hiking options in Franklin County. For another beginner-level excursion, make the trek to Debar Pond or Panther Mountain. Azure Mountain offers a medium-level hiking trail. Up for a challenge? Consider Ampersand Mountain.

Location: Tupper Lake
Mileage: 3.3 miles round trip
Hiking level: Easy
Coordinates: 44.244052, -74.357647

Overview

The trail follows an old woods road through a mixed forest. You will pass a wetland that often has wildflowers in the summer months. The trail narrows as it enters a thick evergreen forest before reaching the river. A lean-to sits near the Raquette River. The river offers wonderful views and waterfowl is often seen. You may also see paddlers on the river, as it is a popular water route.

Getting There

The small parking area is directly across from the NY routes 3 and 30 intersection, 4.5 miles east of the Hosley Avenue traffic light.

Trail Description

The Trombley Landing Trail is suitable for year-round use for hikers of almost all levels. Cross-country skiers and snowshoers are common in the winter months. The unmarked trail is easily followed.

Between tariffs on foreign goods and broader economic policy under the Trump administration, farmers in New York are feeling more stressed than ever.

Farming is already a backbreaking business. According to the National Rural Health Association, the suicide rate among farmers is 3.5 times higher than the general population. The rate is even higher in rural areas and among male farmers and agricultural workers.

Adam Howell, Outreach Director of New York Farm Net at Cornell University attributes this high level of anxiety in farmers to changing environmental conditions that determine the quality of their land, being isolated in their work, animals getting sick and dying, limited pay, high upfront investment, and being a small business owner.

“You can essentially think of farming as high stakes gambling with your life,” said Howell.

The tariffs on foreign goods by the Trump administration this year have only compounded the economic burden farmers experience. While farmers grow their food within the United States, many rely on equipment coming in from Europe and Asia to increase their output, as well as fertilizer from Canada that is often used in growing organic produce.

Tim Gorzynski of Gorzynski Ornery Farm in Narrowsburg spoke about how the tariffs have created an unprecedented burden on his family business.

“It’s hard to figure out how to continue producing food and keeping it affordable for people so that they can afford to buy it,” said Gorzynski. “We’re still being forced to swallow all these extra costs that we weren’t necessarily planning for.”

New farmers are especially feeling the burden of increased tariffs on crucial parts of their production chain. Sea Matias of Serra Vida Farm in Delancey relocated to the Catskills from New York City to help provide increased access to fresh produce for communities of color.

Apart from already feeling isolated in an industry where 95% of all farmers are white, Matias questioned how they could pursue their mission while remaining afloat financially.

 ”I feel extremely restricted as a baseline, and I feel like I only have a few avenues to financially navigate, as a very small business, but also as a beginning business and a business run by people of color,” said Matias. “Having to figure out where to get the money out of the air to be able to provide just basic materials is a real double down on stress.”

In addition, many farmers and agricultural workers rely on grants from the US Department of Agriculture to support sustainability practices and mental health initiatives, as well as Medicaid and SNAP for living assistance.

With USDA Grants to farmers being halted or cancelled, as well as the current federal government shut down, many farmers are anxious about what will happen to the programs that they rely on to live in rural areas.

Michaela Hayes-Hodge of Rise & Root Farm in Chester has witnessed first hand the cuts to grants from the USDA that specifically addressed the mental health crisis in farmers. A BIPOC and Queer Run Farm, Rise & Root prioritizes addressing the inequity in mental health access especially to farmers of marginalized identities.

While they have significant community support from the Chester Agricultural Center in Orange County, Hodge said that many farmers are questioning if their work is worth the time, effort, and isolation.

“I have multiple friends, queer farmers, trans farmers who are stopping farming, and again. Maybe that’s part of the playbook,” said Hodge. “They can’t do it anymore because they have to take care of their mental health and wellness, and it’s really, really challenging in this time, in this space.”

Image: Farm in Jeffersonville, NY (Credit: SullivanNY.gov)

The post Fields of Stress: How Tariffs and Federal Cuts Are Taking a Toll on Farmers’ Mental Health appeared first on Radio Catskill.

In the winter, when Jay resident Kayla White drives her electric vehicle to Watertown, she keeps the heat to a minimum in order to save her car’s battery. 

That’s because once she’s past Saranac Lake, there are no fast-charging stations until Watertown, a distance of 115 miles. 

Her car has a roughly 200-mile range in the winter, but she doesn’t want to take a chance of running out of power. 

On top of that, White says it’s not uncommon to show up at a charging station and find the machines out of order. 

That scarcity of high-speed units in some places makes the maintenance issue even more pertinent, said EV owner Pete Nelson, of Keene.

“The quality control issues are not mastered yet,” he said. 

White and several others interviewed by the Explorer, both locals and particularly visitors, noted that gaps in availability of fast chargers (also known as Level 3 chargers) in the Adirondack Park can make it difficult for drivers on high-mileage days, particularly in the winter when EVs have less range. 

“Anybody that’s got travelers going through, it’s pretty much mandatory that there be some fast chargers,” said Jim McKenna, who worked 40 years in the tourism industry and is an EV owner. “Somebody that’s traveling doesn’t want to spend five hours at a Level 2 charger.” 

Level 3 chargers are the closest equivalent to gas stations. They allow drivers to charge their batteries up to 80% in 20 minutes to an hour. But they are expensive to install and the rural North Country has been mostly reliant on state funding to get them and slower Level 2 chargers, which take four to 10 hours.

A focus on Level 2 chargers

In the Adirondacks, the most common chargers are Level 2. These units play an important role in the world of EV infrastructure, but a much different one. The Level 2s are best suited for drivers who have reached their destinations, such as a workplace or hotel, and plan to stay for at least a few hours. 

For example, the Olympic Regional Development Authority offers 32 Level 2 units for public use in the Adirondacks. Whiteface and Gore ski areas each have six and Mount Van Hoevenberg has 20. Whiteface is scheduled to add another 20 chargers this fall. They also have eight at their administrative offices. 

In a statement, an ORDA spokesperson said the costs to the Olympic Authority of installing and running Level 3 chargers are too prohibitive.

Northway gets built out first

Right now, the majority of fast charger infrastructure in the Adirondack region exists along the I-87 (known as the Northway) and the Route 73 corridor into Lake Placid.

It’s no accident that the Northway corridor was built out first with fast chargers. It’s the main travel route between Montreal and Albany, and the only highway through the park. The EVolveNY program specifically targeted highways, with a goal of having fast chargers a minimum of 50 miles apart. 

In the Adirondacks and North Country, EVolve NY has been responsible for eight charging sites, including four directly off the Northway and one at Stewart’s Shops on busy Route 73 in Keene. The others are in Watertown, Malone and Potsdam. 

Business owner Muhammad “Mo” Ahmad worked with both the state and with Tesla to install fast chargers on his properties in North Hudson and Schroon Lake. 

He had 16 ports installed in North Hudson at his Frontier Town establishment, just off  Exit 29. Half are owned by the New York Power Authority’s EVolve NY program and eight are Tesla units. 

Ahmad hopes to install more chargers. He said the original plan was to have another eight Tesla chargers but the power grid wouldn’t support them, so he’s waiting for it to be upgraded. 

Small towns catch up

That strategy of focusing on major highways has made it challenging for EV owners traveling in the more rural areas of the park. 

“Our moniker for Old Forge is at Adirondack basecamp,” said Mike Farmer, town of Webb tourism director. “People come here, and then they launch out from here throughout the park. Every place else is an easy day trip.” 

But Old Forge lacks adequate EV charging infrastructure.

“Fast chargers would be a salvation for us in so many ways,” he said. “And like all the communities in the park, especially on the interior, that must be done with state and federal assistance. There’s no way that the municipalities can afford that stuff – us included.” Farmer plans to explore funding options.

Neil Pederson, a Massachusetts scientist who has been visiting the Old Forge since he was a child, said the Adirondacks feels like an EV fast charging desert but it wouldn’t take much to improve the situation. He pointed to a number of communities, including Old Forge and Tupper Lake, as places that could benefit from fast chargers. 

“It’s not like they need to be everywhere, but they just need to be in critical spots,” said Nancy Bernstein, an electric car owner and energy circuit rider with the Adirondack North Country Association, which supports communities looking to install green energy infrastructure. 

One of those critical interior spots is Indian Lake. The town’s welcome center had four fast-charging ports installed this summer and are expecting them to be active soon.

Jay received state funding to put Level 2 chargers at the community center, village green and in Upper Jay and a fast charger in the Tops parking lot in Ausable Forks.  Knut Sauer, a Jay councilman and head of the town’s Climate smart communities taskforce, said the town was looking to serve EV drivers as they make their way to Lake Placid. 

“We have a lack of fast chargers in the northern part coming from Canada, and Jay is really the gateway into Essex County and Lake Placid,” he said. “We’re trying to get people to stop as well.” 

This article is part of an ongoing series about electric vehicles that covers a variety of issues including ownership, charging sites and state mandates.

Ulster County will soon connect nearly 1,300 homes, businesses, and community sites to high-speed internet, thanks to $20.8 million awarded through New York State’s ConnectALL Deployment Program. Verizon is matching with $40.9 million, bringing the total investment to nearly $62 million.

The funding, pending final approval from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, comes under the federal BEAD program — Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment — aimed at expanding internet access in rural and underserved areas.

“Reliable broadband is a necessity in today’s world for education, work, healthcare, public safety, and daily life,” said County Executive Jen Metzger. “Thanks to the NYS ConnectALL award and Verizon’s substantial match, nearly 1,300 homes, businesses, and community anchor institutions in rural Ulster County will finally be connected with reliable fiber optic service.”

Jenny Lee, chair of the Ulster County Citizens Commission for Digital Inclusion, called it “a proud moment for our Commission. We’ve worked hard to ensure that every location, no matter how remote, has a fair shot at digital access…Our research showed that fiber optics was the optimal solution and that Verizon, with its existing infrastructure and workforce, was uniquely qualified to implement it.”

“I have witnessed firsthand how vital fiber broadband infrastructure is to public safety and emergency response to education, healthcare, business, and civic engagement,” said Ulster County Comptroller March Gallagher. “That’s why in 2022, I established the Ulster County Citizens Commission for Digital Inclusion to champion this essential cause. Thanks to the visionary leadership of Commission Chair Jenny Lee and the collaborative efforts of partner Verizon, we have secured over $20 million to deliver fiber broadband to every last mile of Ulster County

Dennis Trainor, Vice President, CWA District 1 said, “The BEAD program represents a once-in-a-generation investment in broadband infrastructure, with the power to connect New Yorkers to high-speed internet and strengthen good jobs in our communities.  CWA District 1 has worked tirelessly to ensure this funding supports companies that deploy future-proof fiber technology and hire a directly-employed, highly skilled, and well-trained workforce. We’re proud that CWA members who live and work in Ulster County will be bringing Verizon Fios to their neighbors.

Officials say the county remains committed to closing the digital divide as construction begins.

Image Credit: Ulster County Comptroller

The post Ulster County Lands $20.8M Federal Grant to Bring Fiber Broadband to Rural Homes appeared first on Radio Catskill.

This weekend, the Big Eddy Film Festival returns to Narrowsburg, bringing a vibrant mix of storytelling, creativity, and community spirit to the Delaware River region. Radio Catskill, a proud media partner, sat down with three filmmakers whose work highlights the festival’s focus on local voices and innovative storytelling.

Moh Azima: Blending Community and AI in “Be Like a Tree”
Moh Azima’s video installation, Be Like a Tree, will be featured in the festival’s digital gallery. The piece is a meditative exploration of community, impermanence, and identity, blending local participants’ voices with AI-generated imagery.

“The idea of community felt crucial,” Azima explained. “I wanted to bring people together from my community to speak with one voice. Then I used AI to merge all their faces together gradually over five hours. It creates this idea that we’re all parts of the same tree — like leaves on the same tree, constantly changing but rooted together.”

Azima said the community’s response to participating was overwhelmingly positive. “Everyone was really enthusiastic. Many were familiar with Rumi’s poetry, which ties directly into the work’s meditation on accepting change and transformation.”

Alex Spotts: Bowling, Band, and Local Charm in “No Crying in Baseball”
Alex Spotts’ short, No Crying in Baseball, brings playful energy to the festival’s Rural Shorts program. Filmed in Port Jervis, the video stars local residents, including young girls’ bowling teams and longtime community members, alongside the regionally celebrated Riot Grrrl band Basic Bitches.

“It was really fun to bring everyone together,” Spotts said. “The girls versus the older men, their playful taunts, and the energy of the community made the video incredible. I hope audiences just have fun watching it.”

The short emphasizes connection, playfulness, and local culture, capturing the spirit of collaboration that thrives in small-town filmmaking.

Mariah Dunker-Kramer: A Family Legacy in “Shirley”
Mariah Dunker-Kramer’s Shirley, part of the Family Ties program, tells the poignant story of a young mother facing kidney failure in the early 1960s. Inspired by Dunker-Kramer’s maternal grandmother, the film examines loss, legacy, and resilience through a deeply personal lens.

“Growing up in a rural area with a large, close-knit family shaped my storytelling,” Dunker-Kramer said. “This film is a glimpse into my grandmother’s life and how her legacy continues through generations. My hope is that audiences leave with a sense of how grief, love, and legacy intertwine.”

Celebrating Community Through Film
All three filmmakers emphasized the festival’s role as a creative hub for the region. “It brings us together, gives local creators an outlet, and fosters collaboration,” Azima said. Spotts echoed that sentiment: “Being a creative can feel lonely. Festivals like Big Eddy let you connect with people who share your ideas.” Dunker-Kramer added, “It’s a resource in a rural area that supports artists and celebrates creativity.”

The full lineup is available at bigeddyfilmfest.com.

Image: Riot grrrl punk duo Basic Bitches in the music video for the track “There’s No Crying in Baseball,” which was directed by Alex Spott and filmed at Memory Lanes in Port Jervis, New York. (Credit Basic Bitches)

The post Big Eddy Film Festival: Local Faces, Stories Come to Life in Narrowsburg appeared first on Radio Catskill.

The following are recent actions from New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Forest Rangers in the Adirondack region:

Week-long fire suppression in West Canada Lakes Wilderness

The most challenging operation began September 15 at 4:16 p.m. when a member of the public contacted Forest Ranger Caswell about a fire near Bear Lake in the West Canada Lakes Wilderness in Hamilton County. Due to the remoteness of the fire, Forest Ranger Scott hiked in with hand tools and stayed overnight to begin suppression efforts.

The following morning, New York State Police Aviation flew Rangers Miller, Nahor, and Thompson to the scene. They worked to control the fire and stayed overnight. On September 17, Rangers contained the fire and State Police Aviation flew the crew out of the fire area by 3:30 p.m. The fire was declared out on September 22.

Unprepared hikers rescued on Bear Den Mountain

On September 20 at 4:08 p.m., Ray Brook Dispatch received a call from two hikers who were lost and unable to move on the south side of Bear Den Mountain in Keene. They were attempting to hike Dial Mountain via Gravestone Brook but had no experience bushwhacking and were hiking without a map, compass, headlamp, or extra layers. They also had not planned their return route after reaching the summit.

At 7:40 p.m., Forest Ranger Foutch hiked up the Leech Trail and bushwhacked to the hikers after they became stuck in thick spruce. Ranger Foutch provided the 32-year-old from Syracuse and 36-year-old from Irondequoit with food, water, and headlamps, and assisted them to the Round Pond trailhead. Resources were clear at 10:15 p.m.

Lost hiker spends night off trail on Big Slide Mountain

Also on September 20 at 11:30 p.m., Forest Rangers Odell and Rooney responded to a call for an overdue hiker on Big Slide Mountain in Keene. Last contact with the 38-year-old from Clifton Park was six hours earlier when they stated they were off trail.

At 4:40 a.m., Rangers cleared the summit without finding any signs of the subject. At 7:15 a.m., Rangers found the hiker in good health approximately half a mile from the trailhead. The hiker had spent the night far enough off trail that they didn’t hear Rangers calling, but saw headlamps early in the morning and continued toward the trailhead.

Hypothermia scare at Elk Lake trailhead

On September 21 at 2:35 a.m., Essex County 911 dispatched an ambulance to the Elk Lake trailhead in North Hudson for two subjects complaining of hypothermia. The hikers had finished their trek, but two other members of their party had not returned and had the car keys. Schroon EMS warmed the subjects while Forest Rangers Quinn and North Hudson Volunteer Fire Department prepared to search for the missing hikers. The overdue pair reached the trailhead before the search began, and resources were clear at 4:30 a.m.

Sick hiker assisted from Marie Louise Pond

On September 21 at 1:46 p.m., Rangers responded to assist a 41-year-old who had been vomiting all night and could not hold down food or water while hiking with a 13-year-old from Marie Louise Pond in Elizabethtown. The pair had stayed overnight after hiking from Chapel Pond, and the adult started feeling lightheaded at Blueberry Cobbles. Forest Rangers Foutch and Odell, along with an Essex County Paramedic, met the pair 0.75 miles up the trail, provided fluids, and assisted them to the trailhead.

Safety reminder

Rangers emphasize the importance of proper preparation before entering the backcountry, including carrying the 10 hiking essentials and always traveling with a map and compass as backup navigation since phone batteries often die in the wilderness.

Be sure to properly prepare and plan before entering the backcountry. Visit DEC’s Hike Smart NY, Adirondack Backcountry Information, and Catskill Backcountry Information webpages for more information.

If a person needs a Forest Ranger, whether it’s for a search and rescue, to report a wildfire, or to report illegal activity on state lands and easements, they should call 833-NYS-RANGERS. If a person needs urgent assistance, they can call 911. To contact a Forest Ranger for information about a specific location, the DEC website has phone numbers for every Ranger listed by region: http://on.ny.gov/NYSForestRangerRoster

TROY, Ohio — For almost as long as she’s been a mother, Sara Laughlin has known where she could turn for help in this western Ohio town 20 miles north of Dayton. 

For years, the local Head Start program provided stability and care for her oldest son, and it now does the same for her two younger children, twin boys. Head Start was there for Laughlin and her family through tough transitions, including the end of a long relationship. She credits the free federally funded program, housed in a blue building on the edge of this manufacturing hub of 27,000, for allowing her to keep her job as a massage therapist while raising three kids.

“If we had to pay for child care, I would not be able to work,” Laughlin said. “There’s no way I could do it.”

So, Laughlin said, she was “dumbfounded” when she heard this spring that Head Start was targeted for elimination in an early draft of President Donald Trump’s budget proposal. In small towns and rural areas throughout the country, voters like her were key to both of Trump’s election victories. Laughlin was particularly attracted to his campaign promise to eliminate taxes on tips, which she relies on. She couldn’t conceive why cuts to early childhood programs would be on the table.

“Out of all the things in this country that we could get rid of, why do you want to attack our children’s learning?” she said.

Laughlin’s experience shows what’s at stake in towns and rural areas up and down the western side of Ohio — and across the country. In many of these communities, Head Start, which combines early childhood education, health, nutrition, and other family services, is the only game in town for child care, allowing thousands of parents to work. It’s often the only early childhood program where educators can make a decent wage in a chronically underpaid industry. And it’s a key source of connection and support for parents dealing with trauma, job loss, poverty and parenting challenges.

Head Start is often viewed as a program that caters primarily to urban areas. The numbers, however, tell a different story. Nearly 90 percent of rural counties in the United States have Head Start programs, which are funded with federal dollars and run by public or private agencies including schools and nonprofits. Almost half of the 716,000 children Head Start serves live in rural congressional districts, compared to just 22 percent in urban districts. 

“These are communities that are underinvested in by philanthropy or the states where they are,” said Katie Hamm, who during the Biden administration served as deputy assistant secretary for early childhood development at the federal Administration for Children and Families, which oversees Head Start.

In many rural communities, moreover, the program is not just about education and child care. Head Start is particularly crucial to the survival of these local areas in a way it isn’t in larger urban areas with more diverse economies. The program not only employs local residents, it supports other local businesses as centers pay rent, buy food from local farmers and grocers, use local mechanics to repair buses, hire local technicians to service kitchens and pay local carpenters to outfit centers.

Head Start was created in 1965 to provide early learning, family support and health services to low-income families, part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty. The program has long enjoyed bipartisan support: 74 percent of Trump voters and 86 percent of Democrats said earlier this year that they support funding the program, according to a survey conducted on behalf of the advocacy group First Five Years Fund. 

Related: Young children have unique needs, and providing the right care can be a challenge. Our free early childhood education newsletter tracks the issues. 

Although Head Start has survived elimination so far this year, its local centers are still trying to recover from what many say feels like death by a thousand federal cuts since Trump took office — with more likely to come.

It started last year, when conservatives with ties to the president published Project 2025, a governing blueprint that called for Head Start’s elimination, among dozens of other spending reductions. 

In early February, many Head Start programs were caught up in a federal funding freeze. Then, the Trump administration fired about 20 percent of the program’s federal staff. 

This spring, some rural programs shut down because the administration delayed Head Start payments in some regions. In April, the administration abruptly closed five regional Head Start offices, cutting off a main source for support for programs. Just three months after that, the administration announced that undocumented immigrant children, long eligible for Head Start, could no longer participate.

In the midst of all that turmoil, some local and regional Head Start programs have begun laying off employees. At the start of the year, the government withheld nearly $1 billion in funding from local programs, a move that the Government Accountability Office called illegal in July. While the money has since been distributed, in the interim several Head Start programs closed temporarily, and a few have told some staff they will be let go.

After all that, Head Start leaders in rural communities said, their futures feel more tenuous than ever. While urban Head Start programs are more likely to be supported by large, well-resourced organizations that receive donations from individuals and local philanthropies, those additional funding streams are often absent in rural communities.

The resulting “uncertainty and constant whiplash” is taking a toll on Head Start providers across America, said Hanah Goldberg, director of research and policy at the Georgia Early Education Alliance for Ready Students, a nonprofit that promotes quality early education in that state. “They need to be focusing on supporting kids and families, not putting out a new fire every day.”  

Advocates say Head Start’s model of wraparound support is especially needed in remote parts of America. Rural children under 5 have the highest poverty rate in the country. Rates of food insecurity and unemployment are higher in rural areas than in urban ones. Child care deserts — areas with a dearth of care options — are most common in low-income rural communities.  

In Greenville, Ohio, a town of about 12,700 that hugs the Indiana border 40 miles northwest of Dayton, the median household income is just under $47,000. The local Head Start program is one of just two licensed child care centers available in town for nearly 600 children under the age of 5 who live in Greenville. Run by the Ohio-based nonprofit Council on Rural Services, it serves children whose parents work in nearby retail stores, fast food chains or factories, as well as a growing number of grandparents raising their grandchildren.

Related: As federal dollars for Head Start slow, rural parents left without other options

Teachers there describe their work as far more than providing child care. 

On any given day, in addition to teaching a group of preschoolers, Greenville Head Start teacher Sasha Fair may find herself lending an ear to parents who need to vent and helping caregivers track progress toward personal educational, parenting or employment goals. In her center, like many others in the region, Head Start workers pool their money to buy birthday presents for children who would otherwise go without. They track down car seats for parents who can’t afford them. And they go door-to-door to local dentists trying to convince them to accept children who use Medicaid.

“It’s about connection and community,” Fair said.

Fair was terrified for the families she serves when she heard Head Start was on the chopping block. It’s even more worrisome, she said, considering that broader federal and state cuts are being made to other social supports like health care and food assistance that Head Start families rely on. Educators and parents here have already seen federal budget cuts affect area food pantries and farms. Some locals like Fair say they fear cuts that could hit closer to home and affect Head Start more directly.

“These are our future,” she said, gesturing at the preschoolers playing in her classroom. “We need to give them the strongest, best possible start, and that includes their health care, their access to care, their education.”

Many residents would also be out of jobs if Head Start programs were to close. Nationally, nearly a quarter of the program’s teachers are parents with children currently or formerly in the program. In Ohio, Head Start is among the state’s 50 largest employers, providing work for more than 8,000 Ohioans and, by extension, additional area residents who rely on Head Start spending. 

“We try to stay local and utilize whoever is local,” said Stacey Foster, who leads a Head Start program in Urbana, a town of about 11,000 that is 40 miles northeast of Dayton and surrounded by picturesque fields and farmhouses. On a summer afternoon, while workers from a local family-owned carpet company installed new flooring in Foster’s center, students from a nearby career technology center’s early childhood program cycled through her office, interviewing for part-time positions.

Foster’s Head Start rents space for its five classrooms and two playgrounds from a local organization that works with adults with disabilities, helping to support those services.

The program’s fleet of buses is serviced by Jeff’s Automotive Service, a local garage. Katy Leib, service manager at Jeff’s Automotive, said demand for work rises and falls, especially this year with some people spending cautiously because of economic uncertainty. Being able to rely on Head Start as one of its larger, more consistent accounts has been helpful for the business’s stability, she said.  

If Head Start were to lose its funding, it would affect Jeff’s Automotive, as well as other companies that contract with Jeff’s. “When we’re working on their vehicles, we’re also purchasing parts from local businesses. It’s affecting tire companies and our oil companies,” Leib said. ”It’s a domino effect.” 

Heather Littrell is an example of a parent who found support, and eventually employment, through Head Start.

Littrell, who lives in Troy, was standing in line to apply for housing assistance when she spotted an ad for free preschool. At the time, she was 19 and struggling to keep a job while raising her two young children. Family members helped when they could, but without consistent child care, Littrell was forced to leave job after job at local factories and a gas station.

“Everything was unstable,” she said. “I wasn’t really knowing what direction I was going to take.” 

Related: In 2024, Head Start programs are still funded by a formula set in the 1970s

Littrell ended up enrolling her girls in Head Start, where they learned their colors, numbers and social skills, while Littrell received parenting advice, diapers and meals for her daughters. Most importantly, she could work. A few years later, inspired by her experience as a Head Start parent, Littrell decided to pursue a degree in early childhood education.

Now, 17 years later, she has moved from being a Head Start student teacher to serving as a coordinator for mental health and disability services in Head Start programs across western Ohio. 

“If I hadn’t seen that flyer that day, I wouldn’t be standing here now,” she said. “I really did use Head Start to help me become a better person and a better member of society.”

Trump’s latest budget proposal would not change the amount of money set aside for Head Start, but given inflation, keeping the program’s budget unchanged effectively amounts to a cut. And program officials say that years of inadequate funding has already compromised the program’s reach and stability. Lawmakers have until the end of September to settle on a federal budget. If the current budget doesn’t grow, federal estimates predict, Head Start will lose nearly 22,000 slots and more than 2,000 teachers across both urban and rural regions over the next year. 

Laurie Todd-Smith, appointed by the Trump administration in June to oversee federal early childhood programs at the Administration for Children and Families, including Head Start, acknowledged that the programs play an important role in rural areas. “If Head Start wasn’t in rural areas where those most impoverished families are, we’d have very different outcomes for children,” she said. 

But Todd-Smith isn’t convinced that the program needs more money. Rather, she said, programs should look for ways to be more efficient. In some places, state-funded offices already provide health services, employment assistance and mental health assistance. She said Head Start programs could tap into those services instead of offering their own.

“There might be some cost savings if we actually link state systems to some of the work of Head Start, instead of creating duplication of services,” Todd-Smith said.

At the local level, however, Head Start providers say that if they’re going to raise salaries, keep teachers and serve more children — there aren’t currently enough seats for all who qualify — they need more money. 

Officials from the Council on Rural Services, which runs 17 Head Start sites scattered across western Ohio, said communication from higher-ups has been virtually nonexistent since a regional office in Chicago closed in April. Earlier this spring, money for CORS sites’ payroll was delayed. Staffers called state Head Start officials, who frantically reached out to federal counterparts. The money showed up just in time for CORS to send out paychecks, but it was a reminder of how precarious the system is. “We are one payroll away from shutting the doors at any time,” said Karin Somers, chief executive officer at CORS.

Related: A little-known program could be a model for how to spend billions in federal money on child care 

Even under friendlier administrations, Head Start’s finances have been shaky. For example, the program still distributes money to centers based on a formula developed in the 1970s, even as populations and community poverty rates have changed. The outdated system has led to wildly inequitable results: For example, the percentage of children in poverty who are served in Head Start ranges from 7.7 percent in Nevada to 50 percent in Alaska. 

More recently, the Biden administration decided that all Head Start teachers should get raises by 2031. It didn’t supply more money for those raises, however, leading some programs to reduce how many kids they serve in order to afford the wage increases. CORS boosted teacher pay by more than $5 an hour in 2023, but had to cut 310 student slots to do so.

Head Start staffers say many parents in rural Ohio had no idea that Head Start was a federal program until funding was threatened in the spring. CORS officials sent emails to enrolled families explaining the funding situation and encouraging parents to advocate for the program.

“Typically, community members at large don’t understand” the funding source, said CORS CEO Somers. Some assume Head Start is paid for with state education money, she said, and others think the state foots the bill. “The system itself is hard to track.”

The federal money pays for more than just brick-and-mortar Head Starts and their staff. It also covers the cost of a traveling home-based education program that brings one-on-one support to parents in areas too small for a center-based program.

In the town of Paris, about 40 miles southeast of Akron and home to fewer than 1,900 people, mom Kirsten Mayfield welcomes weekly visits from CORS’ Gabrielle Alig, who drives many miles through the Ohio countryside each week to visit 11 families. During those visits, Alig serves as both an educator and counselor, providing lessons and games for children while talking to parents about their own needs and concerns.

Mayfield wants to find a play therapist to help her 5-year-old son with behavioral challenges, but that would involve a drive to a medical center more than 90 minutes away. In the meantime, Alig is working with the boy on skills like following directions, while also giving Mayfield parenting tips and connections to community resources. 

Littrell, the former Head Start parent who now works for the program, hopes residents will realize programs like Head Start are critical for communities like hers and vote for politicians who will try to protect them. From her early years as a teen mom, she said, she knows how easy it is to end up in a situation where a family needs some help to move forward. “We had food stamps, we had [subsidized] housing, we used Head Start,” Littrell said. “We used them to help us build a life where we didn’t depend on those social services. 

“But they were there for us when we needed them.”

Contact staff writer Jackie Mader at 212-678-3562 or mader@hechingerreport.org. 

This story about rural Ohio was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

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New York State is moving forward with plans to invest $1.4 billion to upgrade Route 17 between Exit 113 in Wurtsboro and Exit 131 in Monroe, continuing the decades-long effort to convert the highway into Interstate 86. While much of western New York already has the interstate treatment, the Hudson Valley segment is now at the center of a heated debate.

State and business leaders say the expansion, including a possible third lane, is needed to handle growing traffic and support local economic development.

“There’s already significant development along Route 17,” Mark Baez of the Sullivan County Partnership for Economic Development told the Sullivan County Legislature recently. “That’s why we need a third lane to address issues that exist today.”

But environmental and community groups are pushing back. The Rethink Route 17 Alliance argues that the $1.4 billion could be better spent on public transit, pedestrian projects, and repairing existing roads.

Liam Mayo, news editor at The River Reporter, said, “The Rethink Route 17 Alliance is advocating against adding that [third] lane, suggesting instead that money be redirected toward local transit, pedestrian infrastructure, and road repairs.”

Their recent report, Invest in Our Communities Not a Wider Highway, recommends doubling bus routes in Sullivan County, building a 15-mile continuous rail trail in Orange County, and adding a pedestrian bridge in Ellenville—all while still addressing current Route 17 safety and maintenance issues.

Jessica Landsdale of the Lake Communities Alliance said the expansion could worsen runoff, air pollution, and push industrial development into the corridor. “The more accessible the highway becomes, the more pressure there will be for warehouse and industrial projects that could harm local ecosystems,” she told The River Reporter

Proponents highlight the highway’s role in accommodating long-term population and traffic growth. The 17Forward86 coalition projects rising demand along the corridor over the next 30 years, citing millions of square feet of existing and planned industrial space and thousands of new housing units.

Mayo said the debate is not just about construction, but “rethinking the way you do this expansion,” with some proposals focusing on upgrades that do not require a full third lane.

An environmental impact statement is currently in preparation, with planning expected to continue through late 2025 or early 2026. The state is aiming to complete the project by 2030.

More information on the Route 17 project is at the New York State Department of Transportation’s website: dot.ny.gov.

The River Reporter’s coverage can be found at riverreporter.com

Image Credit: New York State Department of Transportation

The post Route 17’s $1.4 Billion Expansion Continues to Spark Debate appeared first on Radio Catskill.

American farms hire roughly 2.5 million people annually to pick crops, milk cows, manage nurseries, tend livestock, and otherwise keep farms running, according to an analysis of federal data by UC Davis economics professor Philip Martin.

Most farmworkers in the U.S. are immigrants, particularly from Mexico. Some foreign workers come to the U.S. just for seasonal work through the H-2A guest worker visa program. Many more, approximately 1.7 million Mexico-born farmworkers, according to Rural Migration News, are settled in the U.S. and have worked on U.S. farms for decades. Of these settled workers, roughly half have some sort of legal residency status or U.S. citizenship, while the other half, an estimated 850,000, are unauthorized to live in the U.S.

Another 1.7 million people work in food processing plants, per the USDA. Many are refugees, and approximately 19% are in the country without authorization, according to the New American Economy research group. In the largest food processing segment, meatpacking, the American Immigration Council estimates that 45% of all workers are immigrants and around 23% are unauthorized.

Food workers and farmers are worried about what President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown will mean for their livelihoods, their families, and the nation’s food supply.

“The anticipation of not knowing what’s coming down the pike is creating a lot of sleepless nights for agricultural employers,” said Michael Marsh, president and CEO of the National Council of Agricultural Employers (NCAE).

The administration’s change in enforcement tactics and violations of due process have heightened fear among farm and food workers. The president has suggested that farmers may be able to offer workers a path to leave the U.S. and return legally, but the administration has not presented specifics.

After Initial Pause, Raids Hit Farms

In his first 100 days, President Trump issued several executive orders directing federal agencies to prevent illegal border crossings, deport unauthorized immigrants, and constrict immigration overall, particularly for refugees and those seeking asylum.

As a result, border crossings declined to historically low levels, and immigration arrests are up. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) claimed to arrest more unauthorized immigrants in the first 50 days of the Trump administration than in all of the 2024 fiscal year. However, some immigration data experts believe this figure is inflated and that arrests have increased, but not by as much as the administration claims.

Nonetheless, Richard Stup, director of Cornell University’s Agricultural Workforce Development program, said farmers and workers have noticed changes in enforcement.

“We have much more active enforcement from both ICE and border patrol in rural communities,” Stup said.
Tom Homan, the White House border czar, said in January that ICE will target people with criminal records rather than conduct mass workplace raids. This largely held true for about six months, until ICE started conducting more food work site immigration raids.

On June 10, ICE arrested 76 workers at the Glenn Valley Foods meatpacking plant in Omaha, Nebraska, roughly half the plant’s staff. That same day, immigration enforcers arrested 11 workers on a dairy farm in New Mexico. Throughout June, ICE also raided several produce farms in southern California, particularly Ventura County, just north of Los Angeles. The impact of those raids extends beyond the arrests. Farmers and plant owners reported that some workers stayed home out of fear following a raid.

The Trump administration continues to give mixed signals about its immigration enforcement priorities, at times reiterating that farms and food plants are not targets, only to change its position. The inconsistencies represent internal conflict in the administration between pleasing business owners, such as farmers, and meeting aggressive deportation targets. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller reportedly pressured ICE leadership to increase arrests to meet a goal of deporting 1 million people by the end of the year.

The Trump administration has struggled to legally increase deportation rates. The Transactional Records Clearinghouse at Syracuse University and The New York Times found that daily deportation rates during the first six months of the Trump administration were similar or slightly lower than during the Biden administration and started increasing only in May. This largely reflects the fact that many Biden-era deportations happened at the border and border crossings have declined under Trump.

National Public Radio reported a 20% increase in immigrants in detention centers from January to June, reflecting the increase in arrests but not deportations. This may explain why the Trump administration has created systems and offered incentives for unauthorized immigrants to voluntarily leave, or “self-deport.” The administration also has been criticized by legal experts for denying immigrants their constitutional right to a fair hearing, and otherwise violating due process to expedite deportations.

New Restrictions

In addition to new enforcement tactics, the Trump administration has largely eliminated some legal forms of migration, particularly for people fleeing danger and prosecution as refugees, asylum seekers, or migrants with Temporary Protected Status (TPS).

On his second day in office, President Trump suspended all refugee resettlement programs via executive order. The administration has since accepted white South Africans as refugees, but all other refugee resettlement remains on pause despite a court order to resume it. According to the Fiscal Policy Institute, the meatpacking industry has the fifth-highest concentration of refugee workers.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) also narrowed the TPS program, which permits migrants from 17 countries experiencing war, famine, or other disasters to live in the U.S. without threat of deportation for a limited time. DHS removed Afghanistan and Venezuela from the TPS list and seeks to remove Haiti as well, which would make over 9,000 Afghan, 300,000 Venezuelan, and 200,000 Haitian migrants in the U.S. liable for deportation.

In 2020, approximately 15,600 people with TPS worked on farms or in food processing, especially meatpacking. The United Food & Commercial Workers union told Bloomberg that TPS deportations could lead to meat shortages and price increases. The world’s largest meatpacking company, JBS, disagreed, telling Bloomberg that less than 2% of its workers have TPS status. In July, visas were revoked for 200 JBS employees at the company’s plant in Ottumwa, Iowa. Homeland Security also shut down the CPB One app, which allowed migrants who apply for asylum at U.S. points of entry to legally enter and work in the U.S. while their asylum cases are pending. Asylum applicants generally seek year-round work, including in some corners of the food industry, though not so much seasonal farm work. (Farms increasingly rely on the H-2A guest worker visa for seasonal labor.)

Immigrant rights organizations say the suspension of the CPB One app, TPS, and refugee resettlement are illegal and have sued to reinstate them.

Impact on Farmers and Workers

By far, the biggest impact of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown is the widespread fear it instills among food and farmworker communities. Most immigrant workers continue to come to work, then seek safety by retreating from public life. Some farms and business owners report workers staying home briefly following news of immigration raids.

Most of the 850,000 unauthorized farmworkers in the U.S. arrived 20–30 years ago, have worked on farms for decades, and built lives and families in the U.S.

“Obviously, that is terrifying, to have a family at home and possibly get arrested and sent back,” said Stup. “It is affecting peoples’ mental health and well-being. People who used to go out on the weekend, go to Walmart, do shopping about town — none of those things are happening now. They stay home.”

Stup and Marsh encouraged farmers and workers to know their rights and create contingency plans in the event of an immigration raid. This includes having up-to-date emergency contacts for all employees, and a plan for dependents who could be left behind. Marsh also recommended that H-2A workers keep their I-94 forms on them at all times.

For some farms, especially larger operations in remote areas, there is no Plan B to harvest crops or care for livestock if many of their workers get deported. “The system is not prepared for that; it doesn’t have the capacity to handle things like that,” Stup said. “A remote, large dairy farm that loses a significant part of its workforce — that’s an animal welfare issue waiting to happen.”

Agricultural trade organizations have expressed concern about the impact of mass deportations on the food supply, particularly on labor-intensive fruit, vegetable, and dairy farms. In April, President Trump suggested at a Cabinet meeting that unauthorized farmworkers could be granted legal residency if employers vouch for them.

“So a farmer will come in with a letter concerning certain people, saying they’re great, they’re working hard. We’re going to slow it down a little bit for them, and then we’re going to ultimately bring them back. They’ll go out. They’re going to come back as legal workers,” Trump said.

The president reiterated that idea in June. “We’re looking at doing something where, in the case of good, reputable farmers, they can take responsibility for the people that they hire and let them have responsibility, because we can’t put the farms out of business,” Trump said at a press conference. “And at the same time, we don’t want to hurt people that aren’t criminals.”

The administration has not provided details or clarifications about what exactly it would “slow down” for farmworkers facing deportation, how farmers would “take responsibility” for workers, why workers would need to leave the country to receive legal residency, or how it would be granted or on what terms.

A White House official reportedly told NBC News that President Trump wants to expand the H-2A and H-2B visa programs that allow employers to hire immigrant workers for temporary or seasonal jobs. Employers can only hire migrant workers through these programs after demonstrating they were unable to hire U.S.- born workers at a local prevailing wage. The Biden administration changed the methodology for calculating the rate for H-2A workers, which resulted in a larger pay increase for some of them this year. Some farm organizations, including the NCAE and the Farm Bureau, want the Trump administration to roll back that change and expand the H-2A program to cover year-round workers, especially for dairy and livestock farms.

The number of farmworkers hired on H-2A visas has quadrupled over the past decade, and the number of meatpacking plants granted H-2B visas increased sixfold from 2015–2023, according to U.S. Department of Labor data. H-2 visa programs could grow even more if immigration enforcement ramps up and more unauthorized food workers are deported. Brownfield Ag News reported that the Department of Labor received nearly 20% more H-2A applications in the first quarter of 2025, which Marsh of the NCAE attributed to farmer anticipation of worker deportations.

Farms incur extra costs to hire H-2A workers because they must provide them with housing, meals, and transportation. At the same time, H-2 visa holders have suffered from serious labor abuses, including human trafficking and wage theft, and the programs’ insufficient oversight has been well documented. Critics on the right, such as the authors of the document to reshape government, known as Project 2025, want to limit legal immigration and phase out the H-2 visas.

Critics on the left want to strengthen H-2 workers’ labor protections, as well as their enforcement, and provide guest workers a path to citizenship. Neither group seems likely to get its way if the Trump administration follows through on its comments about expanding or changing the visa programs.

Assume for a moment that our Earth is a bubble, containing finite physical material, moisture and the solar energy that’s delivered to us each day. Anything organic is ultimately food for something else.

Our own species’ relatively narrow food requirements are what we’re usually most concerned about, and the solution to meeting our needs is not complicated. To provide food for all, rather than having billions among us go hungry, we need more efficient food production and better foods and/or fewer people: Impossible Burgers rather than Wagyu beef. Backyard tomatoes rather than mass agriculture that’s produced far away and flown, then driven, vast distances to our dinner tables, etc.  

At scale, this requires policy change, but also cultural change. Hence swapping out light bulbs does play a part in these matters. As we run out of food and water there is the excellent and well-timed opportunity to recalibrate our relationship with nature. But what stories — what seeds — can help encourage that change?

I work to get the bulk of my protein from wild game — a deer, an elk, a couple of ducks and pheasants, some grouse — but that’s because I’m incredibly fortunate to live in the heart of the 2.2 million-acre Kootenai National Forest in northwest Montana, in an unincorporated community composed of a few homesteads and “town”— two bars and a mercantile. The northernmost half of the Kootenai is called “the Yaak,” with Canada’s wilderness at our back. I’m incredibly fortunate to live in the only ecosystem in Montana I’m aware of where stream temperatures have not yet begun to rise, sheltered as the Yaak is by a diverse mosaic of microsites — twists and turns of geomorphology that create a bewildering landscape of rumpled north slopes and frost pockets. 

I live off the grid and heat partly with firewood, but my chainsaw runs on the magic elixir of the Paleozoic, summoned from 3,000 feet beneath the Earth, thousands of miles away. Even when I walk a hundred yards from my cabin in the autumn and sit quietly waiting for a deer to walk past, I will have had a cup of 4 a.m. coffee prepared on a stovetop and poured into a metal cup. 

I do not hunt with a cedar bow and deer ligament bowstring and flint or obsidian arrowheads. I use copper bullets instead of lead to avoid contaminating the meat, but the copper, rest assured, does not come easily from the Earth’s embrace. My meat is stored in a propane freezer.

The word “sustainable” is a good word to bear in mind in all matters, but I think it is important to remember with humility that humanity’s current position on the tree of life precludes sustainability. For us to be here in any significant number, much has already had to step off — or been pushed off — into oblivion, and the accounting is not yet finished. Our needs and our population numbers long ago evolved beyond sustainability. 

Everything exists because of everything else, and sometimes in direct opposition to it, despite our best intentions. It is our lonely birthright to forever take more calorically and thermodynamically than we give. We cannot ever be sustainable — not in life. But we can pump the brakes on the mad adventure of our brief existence — our voracious passion and profligate appetite for the world’s finely wrought treasures.

Wild nature is not a crop but a cathedral, and a single old-growth forest is a databank containing more info than any legions of supercomputers could hold. Forests belong in a Department of Climate Defense, a Department of Homeland or of Global Security, a physical and spiritual Department of the Interior. So why is the U.S. Forest Service housed within the Department of Agriculture? It’s a relic of an earlier era of convenient ignorance, when we were told that animals do not feel pain, and that forests were just crops of fiber that could be farmed like corn. How did DOGE’s whiz kids overlook this fiscal and silvicultural mismanagement? 

Forests absorb about a third of the world’s annual carbon emissions globally — but older trees absorb far and away the most. Our old and mature forests are an enormous asset in this planet’s climate portfolio. And yet the Forest Service is still working to clear-cut old growth. In the West, 75% of the agency’s current proposed timber sales are at least a mile or farther from the “wildland-urban interface” — the small towns and villages in harm’s way from the dragon breath of global warming. 

Protecting the cool shade and wet groves of old and mature forests worldwide is the single best thing we can do to slow the meteoric rate of climate change, but the agency is racing to clear-cut these old forests before their true ecologic and economic worth can be accounted, claiming that it needs to log these giants so far in the backcountry in order to protect communities against wildfire.

In the Kootenai National Forest, there’s a region called Black Ram that is an inland rainforest, and a primary forest: one that’s never been logged. Much of it shows no evidence of fire scarring. Fire has passed over and will continue to pass over the West like the meteorological phenomenon it is, but the Yaak ecosystem is projected to be the least vulnerable to wildfire in the Northern Rockies all the way through the rest of this burning century.

And, ironically, the greatest lesson the old forest has for us at this particular point in the burning is not how to achieve more fiber product per acre, but, instead, how to keep from further aridifying our food system, and everything else.

This issue of High Country News explores the theme of food and power, and at the risk of hitting the nail on the head too squarely, the old forest does not offer us food directly. Instead, it stands guard over our food, for a while longer. The old forest stands guard over our water, cools and stabilizes the one thing — weather — that determines the food supply, not just for Montana and the West, but for the world.

The old forest at the center of the Black Ram country, which has almost never been in a hurry, buys all of us — farmers and ranchers, musicians and hunters, teachers and students, saints and sinners — the rarest and most precious of commodities: time; time, here among the living to figure out how to take less and share more. That is why my neighbors and I are hell-bent on saving it, through an organization we founded a few decades ago called the Yaak Valley Forest Council. We have proposed that the Black Ram country be designated the nation’s first Climate Refuge — a 265,000-acre mass of public land dedicated to storing the maximum amount of carbon possible.

I know of no scientist willing to say our current agricultural system can survive peak global warming. Old forests like the one at Black Ram are a lifeboat, and we are its passengers.  

In addition to our climate justice campaign to save all old and mature forests in the Yaak — the seed of that action then gaining momentum and support to transform into a campaign to create a global Curtain of Green — our group advocates for the recovery of grizzly bears: Ours is the most threatened population in the United States. But it is, of course, not just the grizzlies in our community whose existence is stressed as never before. Our county, Lincoln County, has one of the highest poverty rates in Montana, and each village’s food bank — Troy, population 900; Libby, population 3,200; Eureka, 1,600 — exists chronically at the edge of collapse, but none more so than the utterly unincorporated remote Yaak (population unknown), where a volunteer food pantry that’s only open two hours a month serves half the valley. Even while we’re advocating for grizzlies and old forests and restoring riverbanks degraded by clear-cuts and literally taking the temperature of our ecosystem daily with stream and lake thermographs, we spend more and more of our time rallying donations for the Yaak pantry. 

This wasn’t something we ever thought we’d be doing when we formed nearly 30 years ago. But in this ecosystem — one of the very few in the U.S., and perhaps the only one, where nothing has gone extinct since the last Ice Age — it is not a cliché to say that all things are connected. It is instead a hyper-specific reality. 

In these burning days, we all find ourselves making adjustments, inhabiting a world few imagined or foretold, and, increasingly, we look to the mysteries of the ancient forest for instruction, leadership and the best kind of hope: hope that leads to action.  

One does not commonly think of a female grizzly up above treeline in the wildflowers of summer, breeze ruffling her fur, as having much sway one way or the other over the cost of a loaf of bread, or even the existence of a loaf of bread. But the grizzly bear is far and away the major cornerstone of the ecosystem — tenuous though her hold is now — and the Endangered Species Act, which requires protection of her habitat, is all that stands between the liquidation of these shady, unroaded forests, where she spends an increasing amount of time. Where would you go on a broiling summer day if you were wearing a 70-pound fur coat?

With the complex and crafted integrity of her species, she protects the old forest, which cools our planet. In that forest is a dream of a Climate Refuge, first here and then in green belts encircling the world at northern latitudes — a fringed, breathing, semi-permeable Curtain of Green that allows us to continue dreaming our dreams — not sustainable, mind you, but beautiful — of feeding and caring for ourselves, and our kind and kin. The old and mature forests do not grow our food. But their cooling breath makes possible the food for all.