After a blazingly hot stretch of summer in early July 2022, the skies broke open over Buchanan County, Virginia. Floodwaters damaged almost 100 homes and destroyed miles of road in the rural, overwhelmingly low-income mountain towns that dot the region. In the wake of the devastation, local officials spent $387,000 compiling a flood preparedness plan. The multistep blueprint analyzed inundation risks and recommended potential risk-reduction projects.

To develop the proposal, the county tapped the Community Flood Preparedness Fund, a state program that makes hundreds of millions of dollars available for disaster risk analysis and mitigation. They were among the first to do so after money for such things became available in 2021 through proceeds from a carbon-offset program called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI. But those plans, and the fund, are now in doubt because Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin wants to withdraw from the initiative despite the fact it has provided $657 million for flood preparedness and energy-efficiency programs and reduced the state’s carbon emissions by almost 17 percent.

Critics of such a move say that, beyond curtailing the significant emissions reductions RGGI has already incurred, pulling out will reduce the funding available to help communities prepare for increasingly common extreme weather. It is, they say, a huge mistake and, what’s more, illegal. A group of four Southern environmental nonprofits, led by the Southern Environmental Law Center, filed suit on August 21 to stop it.

“Repealing this regulation is just outside of their authority,” said Nate Belforado, a senior attorney with the center. “If they disagree with it, they have to take it to the General Assembly, and they’ve tried to do that and it hasn’t been successful.”

RGGI, often pronounced “Reggie,” is a collaborative cap-and-invest effort that links 12 states stretching from Maine to Virginia. Power plants in those states must acquire one carbon-emission allowance for every ton of CO2 emitted, with the permissible level of emissions declining over time. Ninety percent of the allowances are sold through quarterly auctions, generating money states can invest as they choose. The program reportedly has slashed power plant emissions in participating states by half and raised nearly $6 billion.

Virginia joined the program two years ago, following the legislature’s 53-45 vote to require participation. Of the $657 million Old Dominion has raised, 45 percent has gone toward the Community Flood Preparedness Fund to help communities with resilience planning and municipal projects. (At least a quarter of the fund’s annual allocations go to low-income communities.) The remainder has financed home weatherization for low-income residents, reducing their utility bills through simple, but often expensive, home improvements.

But Youngkin says the rate increases utilities instituted to cover the costs of participation in the initiative create a financial burden for low-income Virginians. “RGGI remains a regressive tax which does not do anything to incentivize the reduction of emissions in Virginia,” his office told 13th News NOW. (The governor’s office did not respond to a request for comment.) “Virginians will see a lower energy bill in due time because we are withdrawing from RGGI through a regulatory process.”

The appointed Air Pollution Control Board, of which four of seven members were personally named by Youngkin, voted in June to withdraw from the program by repealing the Community Flood Preparedness Act that made Virginia a part of it in 2020. If the decision stands, the move would take effect December 30. Environmental groups said the proper procedure would have been to introduce a legislative bill and have lawmakers decide. One poll found that 66 percent of Virginians support staying in RGGI; to go against them, Youngkin’s critics argue, is a fundamentally anti-democratic move. A comment period for the withdrawal remains open until Wednesday.

Beyond that criticism, Benforado calls Youngkin’s move frustrating given the progress made under the initiative. “Virginia’s monopoly utilities are required to zero out their carbon by 2050,” he said. “RGGI is the tool that will help us get there.”

Municipalities all over Virginia have used the flood-resiliency funds to shore up infrastructure, draft evacuation plans, and restore blighted wetlands. “Local governments are on the front lines of the climate crisis,” said Mary-Carson Stiff, the executive director of the nonprofit Wetlands Water Watch, which worked with Buchanan County on its flood-resiliency plan. “And they are on their own, to come up with resources to come up with plans and to fund strategies to protect against losses.”

In a 2020 report, the organization noted that most of the state’s rural communities do not have any flooding or other climate resilience plans to speak of. Proponents of RGGI say that before Virginia joined, there was almost no money for disaster preparation and planning, which can be time- and labor-intensive, and requires hiring specialists and conducting environmental studies.

Stiff says Virginia’s use of funds raised through the initiative has been fairly forward-thinking. “We’re unique in the other participating RGGI states where our auction proceeds are being spent on grant programs that are actually reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” she said.

Youngkin’s claim that Virginia ratepayers underwrite the cap-and-invest effort echoes an argument Dominion Energy, the state’s biggest utility, has made. It has said in public comments that the costs it had incurred under RGGI made it necessary to raise rates. It has proposed a rider of $2.29 on top of recent increases caused by fluctuating natural gas prices.

Mayor Justin Wilson of Alexandria, which has benefited from RGGI-funded flood-resiliency projects such as a redesigned downtown waterfront and storm drain expansion, says people were already paying dearly for the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions, and that the Community Flood Preparedness Fund has been a godsend. Flooding costs Virginians $400 million per year, according to some estimates.

“I’ve stood in the homes of residents that have seen their livelihoods destroyed,” said Wilson. “The impacts of these storm events are a tax on the community.”

Youngkin has promised alternative sources of funding for flood preparedness and weatherization, and has proposed a $200 million revolving loan fund with a similar purpose. Wilson said he’ll believe there’s a contingency plan when he sees it. All the while, small floods that would have been unusual a couple of decades ago are happening with greater frequency, and the city struggles to keep up. “We have billions of dollars of investment we are gonna have to make,” the mayor said.

Meanwhile, on the other end of the state, Buchanan County’s flood-resilience planning may be complete, but officials must find money for the improvements it outlines. On the anniversary of last summer’s inundation, flood survivors were still fixing up their homes, mourning the woman who had died, wondering where the next resources for them were going to come from, and nervously looking at silt-filled and waste-dammed creeks as summer rain began to fall.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Virginia is bailing on a carbon cap-and-invest program. Activists say that might be illegal. on Aug 28, 2023.

This story is part of Record High, a Grist series examining extreme heat and its impact on how — and where — we live.

Josh Payne planted chestnut trees six years ago. The rows of nut trees haven’t fully matured yet, but he’s banking on the future shade they’ll provide to shield his animals from sweltering heat. 

“We started with that largely because we want to get out of commodity agriculture,” Payne said. “But also because I’m worried that in our area it’s getting hotter and drier.” 

Payne operates a 300-acre regenerative farm in Concordia, Missouri, an hour outside of Kansas City, where he raises sheep and cattle. By planting 600 chestnut trees, he is bracing for a future of extreme heat by adapting an agriculture practice known as silvopasture. Rooted in preindustrial farming, the method involves intentionally incorporating trees on the same land used by grazing livestock, in a way that benefits both. Researchers and farmers say silvopastures help improve the health of the soil by protecting it from wind and water, while encouraging an increase of nutrient-rich organic matter, like cow manure, onto the land. 

It also provides much-needed natural shade for livestock. According to the First Street Foundation, a nonprofit climate change research group, chunks of America’s heartland — including Kansas, Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Missouri — could experience at least one day with temperatures of 125 degrees Fahrenheit or hotter by 2053. 

When temperatures rise above 80 degrees, the heat begins to take a toll on animals, which will try to cool themselves down by sweating, panting, and seeking shelter. If they are unable to lower their body temperature, the animals will breathe harder, becoming increasingly fatigued, and eventually die.

Research shows that as the planet warms, livestock deaths will increase. Last year, when temperatures exceeded 100 degrees in southwestern Kansas, roughly 2,000 cattle in the state died; the Kansas Livestock Association estimated each cow to be worth $2,000 if they were market-ready, equaling an economic loss of $4 million. And so far this year, the trend is continuing, with livestock producers in Iowa already reporting hundreds of cattle deaths in the latter half of July alone.

According to the United States Department of Agriculture, or USDA, the ideal temperature for beef and dairy cows ranges between 44 and 77 degrees. Above those temperatures, heat stress causes cattle to produce less milk and decreases their fertility. 

Payne’s family farm is a microcosm of American agriculture’s monocrop past and its changing future. He inherited the land from his grandfather, who spent decades tearing trees out of the ground in favor of growing corn and soybeans, using chemical fertilizers for years. His family was hardly alone in doing so: Along with cattle, corn and soybeans make up the top three farm products in the U.S., according to the industry group American Farm Bureau.

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Missouri produced nearly $94 billion of agricultural products last year — an economic driver under threat from climate change, which has brought more intense floods and droughts to the state. Last year, the Mississippi River, which flows through Missouri, reached severely low water levels in the face of a historic drought, stopping the barge travel that supports the country’s agricultural economy. When Payne spoke to Grist in July, he was hoping for rain to come soon amid the humid 98-degree heat.

To prevent harm to his 600 sheep and 25 cattle, Payne currently uses portable structures to provide artificial shade while he waits for his chestnut trees to mature. This technology acts like a big umbrella that can be moved as a herd moves, but it doesn’t protect animals from reflected heat and sun rays from the sides the same way a tree canopy can. 

In addition to the shade his future nut trees will provide, they’ll be a source of income, too. Payne said it’s likely he’ll make more money on 30 acres of chestnut trees than he would on 300 acres of row crops like corn.

“We’re rethinking the farm process based on climate predictions,” Payne said. “Here we are planting trees in our pastures, so that in 10 to twelve years we can have dappled shade.”

Planting trees in a field seems almost too simple as a way to keep livestock safe and healthy in a hotter world. But Ashley Conway-Anderson, a researcher at the University of Missouri Center for Agroforestry, knows better. She said of all the USDA’s land management systems used to blend forest and livestock, silvopasture is the most complicated, as it requires a delicate balance between planted trees, natural forests and brush, and livestock. 

But she will admit the practice is common sense. 

“Trees provide shade. That’s the place where you want to be when it’s hot, right?” Conway-Anderson said. “The idea behind a well-managed silvopasture is your taking that shade and dispersing it across the field.”

Conway-Anderson said farmers are adapting their land to silvopastures at a time when agriculture as a whole is wrestling with its role in climate change. The sector accounts for roughly 11 percent of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to the USDA. 

In addition to mitigating extreme heat risks and promoting soil health, trees planted on pastures and fields act as a way to sequester carbon out of the atmosphere through the process of photosynthesis. Project Drawdown, a nonprofit known for its expansive list of practices to prevent further climate harm, estimates that silvopastures could sequester five to 10 times the amount of carbon than a treeless pasture of the same size. 

Notably, however, while carbon accounts for the main source of human-caused greenhouse gasses, agriculture’s role in a warming planet largely comes from methane produced by livestock and their waste. But silvopastures help combat that — animals that move around to graze end up trampling on their waste, working it into the soil where it’s repurposed as a natural fertilizer; in contrast, most farm operations pool all livestock waste together in large ponds from which a concentration of methane is then emitted. 

Conway-Anderson said agroforestry and silvopastures aren’t always a one-size-fits-all solution. She said farmers are having to “get big or get out,” and aren’t always able to invest the time or money in planting trees or revitalizing woodland they might already own. 

“We’ve created an economic system where we have incentivized and subsided specific crops, products, and ways of doing farming and agriculture that has really sucked the air out of the room for smaller, diversified operations,” she said.

On the other hand, she said silvopasture practices can be successful because of their flexibility. Farmers can use trees they already own. They can graze goats, pigs, sheep, cattle, and more under the shade of nut trees, fruit trees, and trees whose trimmings and branches can be harvested and sold to the lumber industry. 

“Silvopastures are not a silver bullet,” Conway-Anderson said. “But at this point, I don’t think we have any silver bullets anymore.”

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At Hidden Blossom Farms in Union, Connecticut, a rural town located near the border of Massachusetts, Joe Orefice has been methodical in his implementation of silvopasture. 

Orefice, a Yale School of the Environment professor of agroforestry, raises tunnel-grown vegetables, figs, and roughly two dozen grass-fed cows that enjoy the shade of apple trees on a 134-acre farm. He said there are currently only two acres of fruit trees the cattle use for cover. 

Despite the small acreage, Orefice said, he has focused primarily on soil health, a key aspect of silvopasture management. Without properly maintained grasses and soil, trees won’t grow, and there wouldn’t be any shade for his cattle. 

“You need to manage the grasses so young trees will grow,” he said. 

In addition to land management and soil health, Orefice said the animal welfare benefits of shade were top of mind. 

“I don’t want to eat a big meal if I’m sitting in the sun on a hot and humid day, and we want our cattle to eat big meals because that’s how they grow or keep their calves healthy by producing milk,” he said. 

Orefice said a common misconception about silvopasture leads to farmers just taking livestock they own and putting them in the forest without any additional management. He said this can damage soil when livestock, especially pigs, aren’t routinely moved. While it might seem counterintuitive, he said one of the first steps of creating a proper silvopasture from an existing forest is to trim trees and till the soil.

While he only raises 25 beef cattle, Orefice said he’s seen larger farms begin to implement silvopasture practices. He said raising tree crops, like nuts or figs and other fruits, is a boon for farmers who switch to more diversified crop operations versus large, concentrated animal-feeding operations. 

For example, Orefice noted that if farmers in the Corn Belt, who are facing continued droughts and an extreme heat future, switched to tree crops, the upfront costs might be expensive and hard. Still, they would eventually make more money on tree crops than on corn or soybeans. The problem, as he sees it, is there is no incentive or safety net for farmers to begin to adopt these practices at the same rate as they have mainstream ones. 

“The question isn’t really, ‘Is silvopasture scalable?’” Orefice said. “The question is, ‘Does our economy allow us to scale pasture-based livestock production?’” 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Livestock are dying in the heat. This little-known farming method offers a solution. on Aug 15, 2023.

The post Why Washington’s Tunnel 5 Fire is destined to be repeated first appeared on Columbia Insight.

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Why Washington’s Tunnel 5 Fire is destined to be repeated was first posted on August 3, 2023 at 9:19 am.
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The dream that haunts Christine White is always the same, and though it comes less frequently, it isn’t any less terrifying. 

The black water comes rushing at the witching hour, barrelling toward her front door in Lost Creek, Kentucky. She’s outside, getting her grandson’s toys out of the yard. It hits her in the neck and knocks her off her feet before racing down a street that has become a vengeful river. She and her husband run to a hillside and scramble upward, grabbing hold of tree roots and branches. She finds her neighbors huddled at the top of the hill. As dawn comes, everything is unrecognizable, the land shifted, houses torn from foundations. They begin to walk through the trees, over the strip mine, out of the forest, in their pajamas and underwear with whatever they were able to carry when they fled. 

Then she wakes up.

That night used to replay every time White went to sleep. She started taking antidepressants six months ago, something she felt ashamed of at first but doesn’t anymore. They’ve helped a little, but the dream still haunts her, lightning-seared and vivid. 

It’s been one year since catastrophic floods devastated eastern Kentucky, taking White’s home and 9,000 or so others with it. Her current abode — a camper on a cousin’s land — has become, if not home, no longer strange. But it’s the closest thing to home she’ll get till her new house, in another county, is finished. Lost Creek, though, is all but gone forever. What houses remain are empty husks. Some are nothing more than foundations overgrown with grass. 

White is never going back. “All the land is gone,” she said.

In the early hours of July 28, 2022, creeks and rivers across 13 counties in eastern Kentucky overran their banks, filled by a month’s worth of rain that fell in a matter of days The water crested 14 feet above flood stage in some places, shattering records. All told, 44 people died and some 22,000 people saw their homes damaged —staggering figures in a region where some counties have fewer than 20,000 residents. Officially, the inundation destroyed nearly 600 homes and severely damaged 6,000 more. A lot of folks say that tally is low, based on the number of residents who sought help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. As of March about 8,000 applications for housing assistance had been approved. That’s half the number the agency received. 

The need for help, specifically housing assistance, was, and remains, acute. Most people here live on less than $30,000 a year, and at the time of the disaster, no more than 5 percent had flood insurance. Multitudes of nonprofits, church and community organizations, businesses, and government agencies have spent months pitching in as best they can. Yet there is a feeling among the survivors that no one’s at the rudder, and it’s everyone for themselves.

President Biden issued a federal disaster declaration the day after the flood, and his administration has disbursed nearly $300 million in aid so far. The state pitched in, too, housing 360 families in trailers parked alongside those from FEMA. Many of those have moved on to more permanent housing, but up to 1,800 are still awaiting a solution.

Some in the floodplains are taking buyouts — selling their homes to the federal government, which will essentially make the land a permanent greenspace. It’s a form of managed retreat, a ceding of the terrain to a changing climate. Some local officials openly worry that the approach doesn’t solve the biggest problem everyone faces: figuring out where on Earth people are going to live now. Eastern Kentucky was grappling with a critical shortage of housing even before the flood, and much of the land available for construction lies in flood-prone river bottoms. That has people looking toward the mountaintops leveled by strip mining.

Kate Clemons, who runs a nonprofit meal service called Roscoe’s Daughter, sees this crisis every day. As the water receded, she started serving hot meals in the town of Hindman a few nights each week, on her own dime. She figured it would be a months’ work. She’s still feeding as many as 700 hungry people every week. Recently, an apartment building in Hazard burned down, displacing nearly 40 people. Some of them were flood survivors. They’ve joined the others she’s taken to helping find homes.

“There’s no housing available for them,” she said.

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Clemons often brings food to Sasha Gibson, who after the flood moved with her boyfriend and nine children into two campers at Mine Made Adventure Park in Knott County. At first, she felt optimistic. “I was hoping that this would open up a new door to something better,” she said, after asking her children to go to the other trailer so she could sit for the interview in her cramped quarters. “Like this is supposed to be a new chapter in our lives.”

But the park, built on what was once a strip mine, became purgatory instead. 

Gibson, who lived on family land before the rains came, wants to leave. It’s just that the way out isn’t apparent yet. Many rentals won’t take so big a family. It doesn’t help that many of their identity documents were lost to the flood, making the search that much harder. She got some help from FEMA, but said the money went too quickly. 

A caseworker helps navigate a labyrinth of agencies designed to help Kentucky flood victims, and they’ve put in applications at a grab bag of charities building housing. One has told Gibson her case looks promising, but she’s still waiting to hear a final word. Other applications are so long and such a crapshoot — one ran 40 pages, for a loan she’d struggle to pay back — that she’s too tired to put them together.

“It’s a big what-if game,” she said. “They’re not reaching out to you. You’re expected to call them.”

Meanwhile, ATV riders sometimes ride through to the park, kicking up dust and leaving a mess in the restrooms. Gibson tries not to resent them. It’s not their fault she’s stuck.

“While it’s great and, like, they’re having a good time, it’s not a great time for us because we feel like we’re stuck here and we’re, like, an inconvenience and we’re in the way,” she said. “We don’t want to bother anybody.”

As extreme weather intensifies due to climate change, stories like Gibson’s will play out in more and more communities. Though eastern Kentucky hadn’t flooded like this since 1957, parts of the state could face 100-year floods every 25 years or so. About half of all homes in the region hit hardest by last year’s floods — Knott, Letcher, Perry, and Breathitt counties — are at risk for extreme flooding. 

Some residents worry that the legacies of surface mining – lost topsoil and tree cover, a ruined water table, and waste retention dams like the one that may have failed near Lost Creek, drowning it – will make communities more vulnerable to floods, compounding the effects of generational poverty and aging rural infrastructure. Housing needs to be built, and some say it needs to go up on the only high, flat land available — that is, the very same strip mines that contributed mightily to this whole problem in the first place.

High ground, especially former strip mines, in the region tends to be off limits. A study completed in the 1970s showed that most of what is available belongs to land companies, coal companies, and other private interests. About 1.5 million acres is believed to have been mined. Many of those sites are too remote to be of much use for housing, though, and those that are closer to town typically have seen commercial development. As the flood recovery has dragged on, though, some of these entities have decided to donate some of what they hold so that there might be more residential construction. Other parcels have been donated by landowning families with cozy relationships to the coal industry, though that hasn’t always gone smoothly.

Chris Doll is vice president of the Housing Development Alliance, a nonprofit dedicated to building single-family homes for low-income families. It was beating the drum of eastern Kentucky’s crisis long before the flood. The situation is even more dire now. Without an influx of new construction, he argues, the local economy will spiral even further.  

On an overcast and gentle day in June, Doll walked around a former strip mine turned planned development in Knott County called Chestnut Ridge. It sits near a four-lane highway and close to other communities, with ready access to water lines. The Alliance is working with other nonprofits to build around 50 houses here, along with, it hopes, 50 to 150 more on each of two similar sites in neighboring counties. A $13 million state flood relief fund has committed $1 million to the projects.  

The road leading to what could, in just a few years, be a bustling neighborhood opened up into a bafflingly flat landscape, almost like a wooded savanna. It was wide open to the sunshine, unlike the deep hollers and coves that characterize this part of eastern Kentucky. To an untrained eye, it appeared to be a healthy ecosystem. Look closer, though, and one sees the mix of vegetation coal companies use to restore the land: invasive autumn olive, scrubby pine trees, and tall grasses, planted mostly for erosion control.  

Still, it’s ideal land for housing, and most folks around here won’t mind the landscaping. Doll said the number of people who need help is overwhelming, and his team can’t help everybody. But they hope to build as many houses as they can.

“There are so many people that have so many needs that I am of the mindset that I will help the person in front of me,” Doll said. “And now we can turn them into homeowners. If that’s what they want.”

On a hillside overlooking another mine site, Doll and I walked up to the ridge to see if we could get a better view of the terrain. It is covered in a thicket of brush, too dense to see beyond. The path wound toward a small clearing, where worn headstones and stone angels sit undisturbed. Family cemeteries are protected from strip mining, and this one was clearly still cared for; the bouquets at the angels’ feet were fresh. The lifecycle of coal had come and made its mark and gone. 

“You can see where they cut out,” Doll said. “They just entirely destroyed that mountain. It’s such a wild thing to think that strip mine land is going to be part of the solution.” 

Doll thinks of it as a post-apocalyptic landscape, or maybe mid-apocalyptic, ripe for renewal, but still carrying the weight of its past. The land was gifted by people whose money was made from coal, after all.

“And, you know, it’s great that they’re giving land back,” he said. “I would prefer if it was still mountains, but if it was mountains, we couldn’t build houses on it. So yeah, it’s ridiculously complex.” He shrugged.  “Bigger heads than mine.”

He squelched across the mud and back to the car. In the summer heat, two turkeys retreated into the shade of a scrubby pine grove, their tracks etched in the mud alongside hoofprints, probably from deer and elk. The place was alive, if not exactly the way it was before.  

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The former strip mine developments are financed in part by the Team Kentucky flood relief fund created by the governor’s office. Beyond the four projects already in motion, eastern Kentucky housing nonprofits like the Housing Development Alliance are working with landowners, local officials and the governor to secure more land in hopes of building hundreds more homes. 

“Working together – and living for one another – we’ve weathered this devastating storm,” Governor Andy Beshear said last week during a press conference outlining progress made since the flood. “Now, a year later, we see the promise of a brighter future, one with safer homes and communities as well as new investments and opportunities.”

That said, nothing is fully promised just yet, and the process could take years. The homes will be owner-occupied and residents will carry a mortgage, but housing advocates hope to lower as many barriers to ownership as possible and help families with grants and loans. Applications for the developments are expected to open within a couple of months. The plans, thus far, call for an “Appalachian look and feel” that combines an old-style coal camp town and a suburban subdivision to create single-family homes clustered in wooded hollers. Though some might argue that density should be the priority, local housing nonprofits want developments that feel like home to people used to having a bit of land for themselves. 

The Housing Development Alliance has built houses on mined land before, and some of them are among those given to 12 flood survivors thus far. Alongside other entities, it has also spent the year mucking, gutting, and repairing salvageable homes, often upgrading them with flood-safe building protocols.  Even that comparatively small number was made possible through support from a hodgepodge of local and regional nonprofits, and the labor of the Alliance’s carpenters has been supplanted with volunteer help. 

Though the Knott County Sportsplex, a recreation center built on the mineland next to Chestnut Ridge, appears to be sinking and cracking a bit, Doll said houses are too light to cause that kind of trouble.  Nonetheless, geotechnical engineers from the University of Kentucky, he said, are studying the land to make sure there won’t be any unpleasant surprises. The plan is for the neighborhoods to be mapped out onto the landscape with roads and sewer lines and streetlights, all of which require the involvement of myriad county departments and private companies; then the Alliance and its partners will come in and do what they do best, ideally as further disaster funding comes down the line. 

Still, all involved say that there’s no way they can build enough houses to fill the need.

More federal funding will arrive soon through the U.S. Housing and Urban Development disaster relief block grant program. It allocated $300 million to the region, and organizations like the Kentucky River Area Development District are gathering the information needed to prove to the feds the scale of the region’s need. Some housing advocates are critical of this process, though. 

Noah Patton, a senior policy analyst with the Low-Income Housing Coalition, said HUD grants are too unpredictable to forge long-term plans. “One reason it’s exceptionally complicated is because it is not permanently authorized,” he said. A president can declare a disaster and direct the agency to release funds, but Congress must approve the disbursement. Although it all went smoothly in Kentucky’s case, the unpredictability means there are no standing rules on how to allocate and spend funding.

“Oftentimes, you’re kind of starting from scratch every time there’s a disaster,” Patton said.  

Local development districts, such as the Kentucky River Area Development District, are holding meetings around the affected counties, urging people to fill out surveys so it can collect the data needed to apply for funding from the federal program. And HUD is overhauling its efforts to address criticism of unequal distribution of funds. Still, the people who might benefit from these block grants may not see the homes they’ll underwrite go up for a few more years, Patton said. 

On the state level, housing advocates have been pushing the legislature for more money to flow toward permanent housing. Many also say the combined state, FEMA and HUD assistance isn’t nearly enough. One analysis by Eric Dixon of the Ohio River Valley Institute, a nonprofit think tank, pegged the cost of a complete recovery at around $453 million for a “rebuild where we were” approach and more than $957 million to incorporate climate-resilient building techniques and, where necessary, move people to higher ground.

Sasha Gibson has heard rumors of the new developments. She’s somewhat interested insofar as they can get her out of limbo. Until she sees these houses going up, though, they’ll be just another vague promise in a year of vague promises that have gotten her nowhere but a dusty ATV park. It’s been, to put it bluntly, a terrible year, and the moments where the family’s had hope have only made the letdowns feel worse. 

 “I have no hope to rely on other people,”  she said. “I don’t want to give somebody else that much power over me. Because then you’ll just wind up disappointed and sad. And it’s even sadder when you have all of these little eyes looking at you.”

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As Gibson waits, others long ago decided to remain where they were and rebuild either because they could or because there wasn’t another choice. 

Tony Potter, who’s lived on family land in the city of Fleming-Neon since birth, has spent the past year in what amounts to a tool shed. It’s cramped and doesn’t even have a sink, but the land under it belongs to him, not a landlord or bank. It’s a piece of the world that he owns, and because a monthly disability check is his only income, he doesn’t have much else and probably couldn’t afford a mortgage or rent. Asked if he’d consider moving, he scoffed.

“You put yourself in my shoes,” he said. 

He can’t believe FEMA would offer to buy someone’s land, or that anyone would take the government up on the offer. “I mean, my God, why in the hell you wanna buy the property and then tell them they can’t live on it?” he said. “What kind of fool would sell their property? Why would you want to sell something and then go rent something?”

James Hall, who also lives in Neon, lost everything but is staying put, in part because he doesn’t think it’ll happen again. The words “thousand-year flood” must mean something, he said. But that didn’t keep him from putting his new trailer a foot and a half higher just in case. He might bump that up to 3 feet when he has a minute. Through it all, he’s kept his dry sense of humor. “If the flood comes again,” he said, “I’m gonna get me a houseboat.”

That kind of outlook buoys Ricky Burke, the town’s mayor. He said the community’s used to flooding – the city sits in a floodplain at the intersection of the Wrights Fork and Yonta Fork creeks – but last year’s was by far the worst. Water and mud plowed through town with enough force to shatter windows. People went without water and electricity for months in some places. A few buildings, like the burger drive-in on the corner at the edge of town, have been repaired, but others remain gaunt and empty. 

Still, Burke, a diesel mechanic who was elected in November, is confident the town will pick itself up. He’s heard talk that Neon might need to move some of its buildings, that a return to form simply isn’t viable. He’s dismissive of such a notion. What Neon needs, he believes, is a big party, and he’s planning to celebrate the community’s resilience with flowers, music, and a gathering on the anniversary of the flood.

“These people in Neon ain’t going nowhere,” he said.

Some folks, through persistence, hard work, and a bit of luck, have moved into new homes.

Linda and Danny Smith got theirs from Christian Aid Ministries, a Mennonite disaster relief group, though construction started a couple months later than planned because it ended up taking awhile to figure out exactly where the floodplain was. It was built on their land at the end of a Knott County road called, whimsically, Star Wars Way. According to the Smiths, the group, which was from out of state, nearly ran out of time before having to return home and only just finished the job before leaving. They left so quickly that Danny Smith said he still needed to paint the doors. He isn’t complaining, though. Other homes were left half-done, their new owners left searching high and low for someone to finish the job. 

Although grateful for the help that put a roof over his head, Smith got a little tired of dealing with all the people who came to heal his body, his spirit, and his mind even as he completed mounds of paperwork and made calls to anyone he thought might help. “One guy, he kept insisting that I needed to go talk to someone,” he recalled. “And I said ‘who?’”

The man suggested that Danny talk to a therapist. He laughed at the recollection. It was a laugh heard often around here, the sound of a tired survivor who’s already assessed their own hierarchy of needs many times over. “I said, ‘You know, I don’t need nothing done with my mind. I need a home.”

Despite the frustration, the Smiths are piecing their lives back together, a little bit higher up off the ground than they were before. Christine White is praying for a similar outcome, and thinks she can finally see it on the horizon. The occasional nightmare aside, she’s felt pretty good these days.

FEMA gave her $1,900 awhile back to demolish her house and closed her case, leaving her high and dry. She called housing organization after housing organization until CORE, a national nonprofit that assists underserved communities, agreed to build a small home on a piece of land she owns in Floyd County. Construction began earlier this month. White, who spends her time volunteering at a local food bank, calls it a miracle. “You just gotta go where the Lord leads you,” she says. But it’s not built yet, so she’s trying not to count her chickens.

Parker Hobson contributed to this story.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Old nightmares and new dreams mark the year since Kentucky’s devastating flood on Jul 27, 2023.

A federal judge in May dismissed the Sauk-Suiattle Tribe’s lawsuit against the state over the collection of an online sales tax after the state informed the tribe of the existing tax reimbursement process.

Filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle in December, the tribe argued tribal members should be exempt from the collection of 6.5 percent sales tax in online purchases, in addition to exemptions for in-person purchases on the reservation.

In June, Jack Fiander, the tribe’s general counsel, said the lawsuit was rendered “unnecessary” upon further investigation. There is an existing process for reimbursement from the state, and tribal members can notify online retailers of their tribal status before the payment is made and have the tax removed.

“The process already existed, but it seems to me ideally it should have been on the state to send out a notice to various online retailers that tribes at these locations are tax exempt,” Fiander said.

The federal law exempting enrolled tribal citizens from paying sales tax states the goods are exempt if “delivered to or the sale is made in the tribe or enrolled tribal member’s Indian country.”

Fiander argued that those requirements created an unnecessary hardship due to the remoteness of the 315-citizen tribe.

Located 30 miles up Highway 530, the reservation is near only a handful of brick-and-mortar retailers. The closest town is Darrington with a population of 1,400. Forcing members to pay for a 100-mile round trip delivery of an item from Seattle, Fiander explained, was not worth the tax exemption.

The suit also alleged the sales tax was a form of discrimination against the tribe. Tribal Council Chairman Nino Maltos Jr. called the tax exemption a sovereignty issue.

But in February, John Ryser, then-acting director of the state Department of Revenue, filed a motion to dismiss the case.

In an 18-page document, Ryser argued the tribe failed to state a claim for which relief can be granted. The motion also outlined the mechanism already available to refund the sales tax and explained how to work directly with online vendors to remove the tax preemptively.

Ryser’s motion to dismiss argued the “Tribe has failed to allege facts or law that support a preemption claim for declaratory or injunctive relief.” Ryser’s motion also stated the tribe’s allegations are “insufficient” to show intentional discrimination based on race, as the lawsuit alleged.

In May, U.S. District Court Judge Ricardo S. Martinez tossed the case, stating the tribe failed to properly state a claim.

With the case dismissed, Fiander said the tribe plans to “work directly with online vendors” in the future.

“The problem with the refund policy is you have to wait,” Fiander said. “The easiest way to (remove the sales tax) will be between the consumer and retailer — to contact the internet seller and provide them proper documentation and tribal ID.”

A spokesperson for the state Department of Revenue told the Herald that the department “appreciates the court’s decision and is awaiting further developments, if any, in the case.”

Kayla J. Dunn: 425-339-3449; kayla.dunn@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @KaylaJ_Dunn.

This article was published via AP Storyshare. 

The post Judge dismisses suit over sales tax, tribe agrees appeared first on Buffalo’s Fire.

Civic Leadership & Engagement Corps (CLEC) has awarded Saint Martin’s University a $125,000 career and leadership development grant. CLEC is an AmeriCorps initiative through the

Ever since Democrat Janet Mills was elected governor of Maine in 2018, she has been a strong advocate for renewable energy in general and wind energy in particular. The state has tremendous potential for wind production, given the high wind velocities off its coast, and it has committed to procuring 100 percent of its energy from clean sources by 2050. Earlier this year, in an attempt to supercharge wind energy production in the state, Mills proposed legislation to speed up permitting for wind ports, sites where wind turbines could be built before being deployed offshore.

That bill got the votes needed to pass in the state legislature — only to be vetoed by Mills herself earlier this week. At issue are amendments to the bill made in the state senate, which require the undertaking to incorporate Project Labor Agreements, or PLAs, a type of collective bargaining agreement in the construction industry that streamlines work on projects and establishes standards for wages and working conditions — standards that are typically more robust than those that would prevail in their absence. 

In a letter vetoing the bill, the governor said the provision would have a “chilling effect” on companies that are non-unionized, raise construction costs for the wind port which would eventually be borne by Maine taxpayers, and lead to out-of-state workers being bussed to Maine. The idea is that the PLAs will lead to fewer firms pursuing contracts for work on the wind project — or firms will increase costs to meet the PLA requirements — leading to a higher overall price tag and less employment for local residents. (Only 10 percent of construction workers in Maine are in a union.)

“We must maximize, not sideline or limit, benefits to Maine workers and companies and minimize costs to Maine taxpayers and ratepayers,” Mills wrote. “It is imperative that investment in offshore wind facilities foster opportunities for Maine’s workforce and construction companies to compete on a level playing field for this work.”

The veto does not appear to be the end of the road for the legislation. In the letter, Mills emphasized that her office is willing to work with lawmakers, and the Maine Senate is expected to reconvene next week. Environmental and labor advocates told Grist that a number of legislative pathways to pass the bill still remain open, and that Mills’ office is actively involved in negotiations with lawmakers. 

“The veto is not unexpected and not the end of the story,” said Kathleen Meil, senior director of policy and partnerships with the environmental group Maine Conservation Voters.

Still, Mills’ veto of a bill she herself proposed is an example of the tensions that can emerge between climate and labor priorities. Labor unions in Maine have been a strong proponent of wind energy investments in the state. The industry is expected to generate thousands of jobs, and unions in the state have argued that PLAs are a critical mechanism to ensure that those jobs pay well and adequately protect workers. 

Arguments that PLAs raise construction costs and would make Maine uncompetitive are unfounded, according to Francis Eanes, executive director of the Maine Labor Climate Council, a coalition of a dozen unions across the state. “These are routinely used tools across the construction industry writ large, and it’s the case in the offshore wind industry,” he said. 

Indeed, researchers have found that projects with PLA requirements attract a similar number of bidders as those without PLA requirements and do not result in higher costs. One study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, evaluated PLA and non-PLA projects at community colleges in California and found that PLA projects actually had a slightly higher number of bidders — and similar costs — compared to non-PLA projects. Another study that evaluated school projects in New England found no evidence that PLAs raised or lowered costs. 

The Maine government also has recent experience with PLAs in which Mills’ fears appear not to have borne out. A law passed two years ago authorizing construction of an offshore wind research array included a PLA provision, as did a law providing $20 million for building affordable housing in the state. In the case of the latter, the Maine State Housing Authority, which was in charge of disbursing the funds, received requests for double the amount of funding available from builders. 

“When we hear ‘the sky is going to fall,’ that’s a useful talking point from construction firms and other players in the industry who are not interested in sharing power,” said Eanes. 

Mills’ veto came a day after the Associated General Contractors of Maine, a group representing several construction firms in the state, sent a letter urging her to veto the bill. The letter warned that PLA provisions in the bill would lead to higher costs for energy consumers and “create an unfair advantage for out-of-state skilled workers.”

A compromise may still be possible in the coming weeks. Lawmakers have floated language that would prioritize workers from Maine in order to allay Mills’ concerns that the inclusion of a PLA provision would lead to workers being bussed in from out of state. Legislators have also suggested including provisions that emphasize that all contractors will be eligible to work with the state, regardless of whether or not their workers are unionized. 

“We spent months building a really delicate coalition, not just with labor and environmental and faith community groups, but with fishing communities as well,” said Eanes. “We see lots of upside to finding a resolution with the governor that can get past the ideological opposition, recognize that this is how it’s been done everywhere else, and seize this amazing opportunity for Maine to build an industry that could be a once-in-a-generation game changer.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Why Maine’s climate-conscious governor vetoed an offshore wind bill on Jun 29, 2023.

Between 2015 and 2020, Indigenous and Afro-descendant Peoples, and small, local communities in Asia, Africa and Latin America, gained legal recognition to more than 247 million acres of land – an 85 percent increase. That’s according to a new report from Rights and Resources Initiative, a global non-profit focused on land and resource rights.

Researchers covered 73 countries and found that rights holders now hold title to more than 11 percent of the Earth’s land – a combined area larger than Egypt. However, in 49 of the countries studied, more than 3-million acres of Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and local lands have not been recognized by governments. That means communities have limited rights of access and have no rights to manage or prevent third parties from entering their lands. In some cases, lack of documentation in land claims can leave communities vulnerable to inconsistent and violent expulsion policies by local officials, making it difficult to reach resolutions, due process, or receive just compensation for oppressive tactics carried out by governments, companies, or individuals.

Multiple studies have shown that Indigenous peoples are some of the best managers and protectors of the environment and that rights-based approaches could be critical to curbing the effects of climate change.

“There’s a need for donors to invest in funding advocacy for legal commissions and directly supporting communities so they can secure their rights,” said Solange Bandiaky-Badji, coordinator of Rights and Resources Initiative. “But governments need to put in implementation and regulation mechanisms so we can increase the number of areas under the ownership of local communities and Indigenous peoples.”

According to the report, Sub-Saharan Africa saw the biggest increase in legal recognition of community land rights, gaining nearly 87-million acres, and largely driven by efforts in Kenya and Liberia to recognize communities’ customary land. In 2016 Kenya’s government implemented the Community Land Act which led to engaging with government and rights holders’ to figure out the best way to implement the “progressive provisions of the recognition of the rights on the ground,” said Bandiaky-Badji. Liberia passed the Land Rights Act in 2018, which recognised traditional lands and launched a land process to partner with local community organizations and networks to recognize customary land rights. 

According to researchers, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is a country to watch, after passing a historic law recognizing the rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2022.

”The DRC has been going through major reform processes,” said Bandiaky-Badji. “The Indigenous Pygmy law that was adopted less than two years ago was a real milestone because it allows Indigenous people to claim their collective rights. It’s helping grow and implement the demarcating of the land of Indigenous peoples.” 

In 2020 the Republic of Congo passed a historic law which introduces new concepts like certification, verification of legality, consideration of riverside communities, deforestation and reforestation, carbon credits and the fight against climate change. In tandem, the study contends that both countries have an opportunity to accelerate land rights recognition in the Congo Basin in the years to come.

Asia is home to an estimated 70 percent  of the world’s Indigenous population and nearly 22 percent of land is owned by communities. Of the countries analyzed in South and Southeast Asia, over 44 million acres are designated for, or owned by, Indigenous peoples and local communities. The report found that compared to the data collected in 2015, community land recognition increased 18 times in India and nearly seven times in Indonesia over five years. However, scientists noted only Cambodia, India, Indonesia and the Philippines, have national, legal frameworks recognizing community-based ownership. In China, collective ownership of forestland and an extensive pasture contract system cover nearly half the country’s land area. If China were not included in the study, Asia would have the lowest percentage of community ownership of any region, at only 0.8 percent.

“There’s still a lot that needs to be done, it’s insufficient really. It’s really important to look into countries where there are still gaps of recognizing the rights of communities,” said Bandiaky-Badj. “We want to recognize the rights of Indigenous people, local communities and the rights of women. We need to push for more recognition of land rights.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline More Indigenous and local communities are getting land back on Jun 27, 2023.