Move aims for transparency and to identify struggling water systems.

The water tower in Sunset, Louisiana. The town’s water system received a D grade in the state’s first report card. Photo courtesy of Patrick under Creative Commons license BY-NC-SA 2.0

By Brett Walton, Circle of Blue – May 11, 2023

In an effort to improve public communication, the Louisiana Department of Health published its inaugural water system report cards last week, becoming the first state in the country to use annual letter grades to highlight the failures and successes of drinking water utilities.

Water systems are already required by federal law to send an annual Consumer Confidence Report to customers with details about drinking water contaminants. The Louisiana Department of Health grading system, which was mandated by a 2021 state law, goes several steps further, combining a range of measurements into a single letter grade for each of the state’s 951 community water systems.

On top of water quality, the grade incorporates data on utility finances, operations, and customer complaints. Utilities must include the grade on annual reports sent to customers.

Forty-one percent of water systems earned an A grade. Six percent received a D, and nine percent failed. Many of the failing systems serve small, rural communities, which often have fewer financial and technical resources.

Amanda Ames, chief engineer at the Department of Health, led the development of the grading system.

“It provides for accountability and for transparency,” Ames said. The public gets an easy-to-understand snapshot of their water provider, she said, while state agencies receive an overview of water utility conditions.

Though many states collect the same data that informs the Louisiana grades, a drinking water report card is a new step. But is it worthwhile to take it?

Manny Teodoro, who studies public policy and consults with water utilities, said that a report card makes intuitive sense. School systems use them. Health departments assign letter grades (or smiley faces) to restaurants based on their cleanliness. The American Society of Civil Engineers publishes an annual report card on the nation’s infrastructure. In the 2021 report card, drinking water systems received a C- and wastewater systems a D+.

All told, report cards have promise, Teodoro said. Still, details matter and he has reservations about how Louisiana designed its grading system.

The Louisiana system works mostly by subtraction, but also some addition. Water utilities start with a score of 100. Points are subtracted in seven categories of infraction that were spelled out in Act 98, the law that mandated the grades. Those categories include exceeding federal and state drinking water standards, failing to have evaluated their water rates, being the subject of customer complaints, and having deficient infrastructure. Utilities can earn up to 10 bonus points for having an asset management plan or participating in training programs.

Letter grades change every 10 points. Scores of 90 and above receive an A while scores below 60 earn an F.

Within the categories the Department of Health determined the point distribution. The highest point-value category is failure to meet federal drinking water standards. The maximum deduction for that category is 30 points, which Teodoro feels is too generous. A utility could have a slew of violations but its penalty is capped.

“This is a recipe for grade inflation,” said Teodoro, a professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison who is helping to develop a water utility grading system in his state.

Teodoro also thinks that basing a grading system on deductions is more stick than carrot. In other words, even with the bonus points it does not encourage utilities to do more than the minimum requirement.

The Louisiana Department of Health, which developed the grading system itself, said that it looked at various designs, but “ultimately used a point deduction method because it was easy for the public to understand. These annual letter grades are a step in the right direction to increasing transparency and accountability and, ultimately, to increasing water system sustainability.”

Maureen Cunningham, director of water at the Environmental Policy Innovation Center, also called the grades “a step in the right direction” because they generate more information about utility performance. But she was not ready to endorse report cards, in general, as the best approach for improving drinking water outcomes.

“I worry that it’s not always a complete picture of what’s going on,” Cunningham said.

For instance, data on the number of customers who had their water shutoff is not a part of the Louisiana assessment. Nor is data on customer debt.

Cunningham also wondered how the report cards would be received. Could state agencies collect the necessary data and be transparent about the problems that certain communities face without condensing it all into a single letter grade? “I would be interested in seeing what motivates change better: giving someone a failing grade, or just pointing out, ‘Hey, this community needs X, Y, and Z to do a better job.’”

Though perhaps not a perfect system, the grades will be useful, said Leslie Durham, executive director of the Louisiana Infrastructure Technical Assistance Corporation, an agency set up to assist disadvantaged rural governments in applying for federal grants.

“I’m excited about it,” Durham said, referring to the report cards.

For years Durham has worked with rural water systems. In the past, she said it was difficult for some of these systems to acknowledge that they needed help. “They didn’t want to raise any flags or make any waves.” The grading system lays bare some of those struggles in an easy-to-digest format. Accessible information will lead to action, she said.

“Our organization plans on using that grading system to make sure we’re targeting the right folks,” Durham said.

Some are already getting help. Of the utilities earning a D or F, Ames said that more than 30 percent are in line to receive funding to upgrade their water systems.

The post Louisiana Becomes First State to Issue Drinking Water Report Cards appeared first on Circle of Blue.

Stark disparities continue to exist in how Black students and low-income students are disciplined in West Virginia schools, according to data released Wednesday by the state Department of Education.

As Mountain State Spotlight reported last year, Black students in West Virginia have been suspended twice as often as their white peers for the last two decades. And a lackluster report was given to lawmakers last summer that showed disparities still exist but did not include a plan to address them.

But this week’s report came with a six-slide plan to start tackling the issue and a different tone from state education officials.

“This has got to be a complete overhaul,” said Board of Education President Paul Hardesty during the meeting. “We’ve got to do something different.”

State education officials said almost 178,000 instructional days were lost over the last school year due to school suspensions.

In that time period, Black students continued to be suspended twice as often as their white peers. Low-income students, foster care students, homeless students and students with disabilities were also suspended at disproportionately higher rates.

The data also showed students who were suspended performed worse in reading and math proficiency than students who were not. Last year, West Virginia schools had their lowest-ever performance on standardized reading and math tests.

“We have a problem of epic proportions,” Hardesty said. “It’s no wonder we’re in a position we are on proficiency.”

On Wednesday, state education officials presented the Board of Education with a plan to increase training, create a public dashboard with school discipline data and recommended the board revise its discipline policy.

They recommended ending zero tolerance policies, encouraging alternatives to classroom exclusion and revisiting discipline levels.

This could mean a departure from a 2019 change that made it easier for students to be suspended, allowing schools to punish students with out-of-school suspensions for minor offenses like cheating, “disruptive conduct,” “inappropriate language,” “inappropriate appearance” and “disrespectful behavior,” without being held accountable by the state system that grades a school’s performance.

Since then, the state Superintendent of Schools and the Board of Education President have both changed. Hardesty was appointed to the board in 2021 and named president last year. Superintendent David Roach was appointed in August of last year after several years at the head of the School Building Authority.

While the data released this week came with strong words from the state Board of Education and an outline for addressing the issue, it is far from the first time that the state has looked into this.

In 2013, researchers with the state Department of Education conducted the first statewide study of the impact of school discipline and found some of the same disparities shown in this week’s data.

Black students were being suspended more, students with disabilities were being suspended more, and students who were suspended were more likely to do poorly in school or drop out.

In 2020, state lawmakers required the department to collect and report data related to school suspensions. They also required officials to develop a plan to deal with issues raised in the data.

The first report was delivered to lawmakers last summer with data missing in one place and inaccurate data in another. And it did not include a plan to address the issue.

During this year’s legislative session, lawmakers passed a bill to give teachers in grades six through 12 the authority to remove a student from the classroom who is being disruptive.

Republican supporters of the bill said it would give teachers an extra tool to maintain a safe learning environment while Democrats said it would lead to more school suspension and exacerbate the issue.

New data shows racial, economic disparities persist in West Virginia school discipline practices appeared first on Mountain State Spotlight, West Virginia’s civic newsroom.

This story was produced in partnership with the nonprofit newsroom Type Investigations and is co-published with ICT.

In any given year, thousands of people are incarcerated in dozens of detention facilities run by tribal nations or the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Often left out of research on climate and carceral facilities, the tribal prisoner population is one of the most invisible and vulnerable in the country.

Now, climate change threatens to make matters worse.

According to a Grist analysis, more than half of all tribal facilities could see at least 50 days per year in temperatures above 90 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century if emissions continue to grow at their current pace. Ten facilities could experience more than 150 days of this kind of heat. Yet many tribal detention centers do not have the infrastructure, or funding, to endure such extreme temperatures for that long. This kind of heat exposure is especially dangerous for those with preexisting conditions like high blood pressure, which Indigenous people are more likely to have than white people.

“Tribal court jails are the worst jails in the country. They’re worse than any facilities you’ll ever go to,” said Diego Urbina, a public defender for the Pueblo of Laguna. “I worked at a [veterinary] hospital when I was 15 years old, and the vet hospital had better facilities than we have out here.”

In the Pueblo of Laguna jail, just 45 minutes west of Albuquerque, New Mexico, the air conditioner was often down, according to Brandon Chavez, a Laguna citizen who has been detained multiple times over the past few years. Even when doors were left open for cross ventilation, the effort did little to blunt the hot desert air, Chavez said.

“Climate change and excessive heat factors into Pueblo planning for all aspects of Laguna government and the Laguna community,” officials from the Pueblo of Laguna wrote in an email to Grist and Type Investigations. When asked whether Laguna currently has plans to manage climate impacts like excessive heat, officials wrote, “The [detention facility’s] HVAC system is less than 10 years old and normally keeps the occupants warm in the colder months and cool in the hotter months. Malfunctions will occasionally happen and are quickly repaired.”

While New Mexico’s Cibola County rarely sees a heat index over 90 degrees, both Chavez and Urbina said that the Laguna Tribal Detention Center, located there, can be unbearably hot. And temperatures are only expected to go up: According to data from the Union of Concerned Scientists, Cibola County — and the Laguna jail — could see about 50 days per year above 90 degrees by the end of the century if emissions and temperatures continue to rise at their current pace, a drastic change from the present day.

According to Chavez, the Laguna jail is already a grim place. “There was literally pipes exposed,” said Chavez. “There was mold on places, and we used to tell [the guards]. They didn’t care. I’ve been into some pretty huge jails around some places, and nothing still compares to the mistreatment [at] my Pueblo jail.”

Urbina said his clients detained in the jail have complained about backed-up toilets, overdue repairs, and overcrowding, including having to share a shower with 20-plus other people. “At one time, they packed that thing like sardines,” Urbina said of the Laguna jail.

In response, James Burson, an in-house attorney for the Pueblo of Laguna, told Grist and Type that a renovation of showers, toilets, and sinks in the facility was completed in February 2022.

Tribes have their own justice systems, including courts, law enforcement, jails, and prisons. In a given year, thousands of people are incarcerated in these detention facilities. In 2021, more than half of those detainees were held for nonviolent offenses, and a majority had not been convicted of a crime.

Tribal jails have a long history of mismanagement. In 2004, the Department of Interior, which oversees the Bureau of Indian Affairs, issued a report that called the state of tribal jails a “national disgrace.” It examined everything from deaths in facilities, attempted suicides, and escapes — serious incidents that were not reported to supervisors 98 percent of the time — to smaller issues including broken lights, malfunctioning cameras, faulty plumbing, and leaking water pumps. “Nothing less than a Herculean effort to turn these conditions around would be morally acceptable,” investigators wrote at the time.

​​In the aftermath of the report, funding for facilities increased, the percentage of certified officers grew, and new jails were built. However, multiple reports and investigations over the years have shown that little else has changed since 2004. According to an NPR report in June 2021, at least 19 people had died in tribal detention centers since 2016, while one out of five correctional officers had not completed required basic training. Reporters also highlighted facilities with broken pipes, dirty water, and other infrastructure problems.

“Under Interior’s new leadership, we are seeking increased funding and conducting a comprehensive review of law enforcement policies, practices and resources to ensure that [Bureau of Indian Affairs] detention center staff are adequately trained, that our facilities are upgraded, and that we respect the rights and dignity of those within our system to the fullest extent,” Darryl LaCounte, the director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, or BIA, said in a written statement to NPR at the time.

In an April report, the Office of Inspector General, or OIG, highlighted serious health and safety concerns at three tribal detention facilities: San Carlos Apache Adult/Juvenile Detention Center, the White Mountain Apache Adult Detention Center, and the Tohono O’odham Adult Detention Facility. The report comes as part of an ongoing performance audit of BIA-funded or BIA-operated detention programs, and says that the problems identified need immediate attention. Issues include holes in walls, broken air-conditioning, nonoperational toilets and sinks, and moldy shower ceilings. Many of those challenges were also included in a 2016 OIG report.

“The safety issues raised in this report are disturbing enough on their own, but the fact that they span multiple administrations is inexcusable,” U.S. Representative Raúl M. Grijalva, a ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, said in a statement on the recent report.

In 2022, The Intercept assessed the growing risk of extreme heat in jails and prisons across the United States. But of the roughly 6,500 facilities The Intercept analyzed, only 16 were tribal detention centers and jails, excluding the vast majority of tribal facilities across the country. Grist and Type Investigations built on The Intercept’s reporting to fill this gap.

Based on an analysis from the Union of Concerned Scientists, information collected via Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, requests from the BIA, and research conducted in partnership with the Carceral Ecologies Lab at the University of California, Los Angeles, we tracked heat risk for 81 tribal jails and prisons spread across 20 states.

In 2019, the Union of Concerned Scientists published a county-by-county analysis of just how hot the contiguous U.S. could become under different levels of global climate action, from rapid action to reduce global emissions to effectively no action. The researchers then looked at the heat index, or the “feels like” temperature, which takes both humidity and air temperature into account, to paint a holistic picture of how heat would actually be experienced by communities on the ground. The National Weather Service also uses the heat index when issuing advisories or excessive heat warnings.

The researchers found that by mid-century, under a no-action scenario, “the average number of days per year with a heat index above 100°F will more than double, while the number of days per year above 105°F will quadruple.” In other words, in just a few decades, dangerous heat will become much more commonplace unless aggressive action is taken to limit climate change.

Jails across the country already face challenges when it comes to managing heat. The Intercept’s analysis found that “hundreds of thousands of incarcerated people are being subjected to prolonged periods of high heat every year.” Tribal jails are no different.

According to information Grist obtained through FOIA, most tribal facilities are in the Western U.S., where climates tend to be arid or hot. Nearly 20 percent of tribal facilities already face more than 50 days per year with a heat index above 90 degrees — the point at which heatstroke and heat exhaustion become much greater risks, particularly for vulnerable groups, such as elderly and obese people, and those with preexisting health conditions.

Within 80 years, if emissions continue to grow at their current rate, three out of four tribal facilities could experience 50 days or more in those temperatures.

Hundred-degree temperatures are a key marker for the National Weather Service. Generally, heat advisories are issued once the heat index reaches 100 degrees for 48 hours. Just five tribal facilities typically experience more than 50 days per year where the heat index tops 100 degrees F. But at the world’s current rate of emissions growth, that number will more than triple by the end of the century, with 17 tribal facilities experiencing 50 or more days per year where the heat index tops 100 degrees. Places like the Colorado River Indian Tribes Female Adult Detention Center and the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Department of Corrections Juvenile facility, located in Parker and Scottsdale, Arizona, respectively, could experience well over 100 days per year in 100-degree heat.

In states not historically considered “hot,” like Montana, Idaho, or Washington, tribal detention facilities could also see dramatic increases in excessive heat, according to Grist’s analysis. Facilities typically accustomed to experiencing only a day or two of temperatures above 90 degrees could see up to 24 days per year where the heat index tops 90, just within the next few decades.

“That ramp-up from zero to 10 [days out of the year] — that’s really significant for places where the infrastructure is less prepared,” said Kristina Dahl, the principal climate scientist for the Union of Concerned Scientists’ climate and energy program. “Generally, in any given year, heat kills more people in the U.S. than any other hazard like a hurricane, a flood, tornadoes, etc.”

Dahl and her fellow researchers have called for aggressive action to limit global warming, but for some communities in the U.S., more frequent extreme heat is inevitable.

Even if world leaders take rapid action to curb global temperature rise and reach goals set by the 2015 Paris Agreement, the number of tribal jails and detention centers experiencing more than 50 days over 90 degrees could increase by roughly 70 percent by the end of the century.

The Union of Concerned Scientists used statistical models to predict the number of days each county in the contiguous United States would experience temperatures above 90, 100, and 105 degrees F by the end of the century. But a county’s risk of experiencing extreme heat can change, depending on the degree to which world leaders are able to lower fossil fuel emissions and stop global warming.

A “rapid action” scenario represents the fulfillment of the goals set forth in the Paris climate accord, or limiting temperature rise to 3.6 degrees F above preindustrial temperatures.

Under the “slow action” scenario, greenhouse gas emissions will have declined by mid-century and temperature rise would be limited to roughly 4.3 degrees F by the start of the next century. Scientists consider this scenario to be the most likely.

According to Grist’s analysis — which combines Union of Concerned Scientists’ data with information on detention center locations obtained via FOIA requests — under this scenario, roughly one-third of tribal facilities would see more than 50 days per year with a heat index reaching at least 90 degrees F.

Roughly 14 percent would see more than 50 days with a heat index topping 100 degrees F.

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One of the biggest hurdles to understanding and addressing the heat risks tribal facilities face is gathering even the most basic information about them.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs places tribal corrections facilities into four categories: direct, 638, self-governance, and tribal. Direct means the facility is run directly by the BIA; there are 23 of these programs. Meanwhile, 638 programs, which receive BIA funding but are contracted out to tribes to operate, make up roughly half of all facilities, according to BIA documents. Self-governance facilities can also receive federal funding and allow tribes more control. Tribal facilities are run and funded directly by tribes themselves.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security publishes hundreds of datasets related to critical infrastructure for public use. Among them is a database containing addresses for over 6,700 correctional institutions in the United States. Of these records, only 16 are tribal facilities, representing less than 20 percent of tribal detention centers in operation.

The BIA does not make publicly available the exact number and locations of many tribal jails and detention centers, including the physical address of the jail at Pueblo of Laguna — Department of Interior Secretary Deb Haaland’s home community. In an email to Grist and Type, a BIA spokesperson attributed this lack of transparency to “security reasons.” When asked to explain the nature of these security concerns, BIA did not expand, but instead wrote in an email that tribes are “not required to report address changes to the BIA.” The agency added that it provides oversight, including onsite visits to monitor compliance with federal standards.

Last year, Grist filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the specific locations of all tribal detention facilities, including those previously kept private by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The BIA released the locations of 23 active detention centers managed by the agency, but withheld the addresses of tribally operated detention centers. Those include 638, self-governance, and tribal facilities.

A second FOIA request for these locations revealed only the cities in which these facilities are located, and no street or mailing addresses. The Salt River Pima-Maricopa Department of Corrections juvenile and adult facilities, for instance, are located in “Scottsdale, AZ,” but where those centers are in the city’s roughly 185 square miles was not revealed. Grist has appealed the agency’s response.

Grist partnered with the Carceral Ecologies Lab at the University of California, Los Angeles, to begin answering these questions.

The U.S. Department of Justice tracks information about the population in tribal jails through the Annual Survey of Jails in Indian Country. According to its midyear surveys from 2010 to 2019, an average of 70 percent of tribal jail detainees were held for nonviolent offenses. By midyear 2021, that percentage had dropped slightly to roughly 60 percent of detainees. According to the Justice Department, the average length of stay for a tribal detainee in 2021 was roughly 11 days, with 53 percent of those held in these facilities that year having not been convicted of a crime.

Heating and cooling are common problems in tribal jails, according to tribal public defenders, who also said water quality, bathroom maintenance, overcrowding, and staff training are of concern.

Those conditions can make incarcerated people, as well as those who work at carceral facilities, more susceptible to health risks associated with extreme heat. Preexisting conditions such as asthma, hypertension, and obesity can increase susceptibility to heatstroke and heart attack.

“[Incarcerated people] have limited mobility and suffer from a disproportionate amount of mental health and medical comorbidities that are exacerbated by exposure to extreme temperatures,” environmental epidemiologist Julianne Skarha and her coauthors wrote in a 2020 paper in the American Journal of Public Health assessing the health effects of extreme heat among incarcerated populations.

There is limited research on the intersection of extreme temperatures and carceral facilities, and in research Grist reviewed, tribal jails were not included.

However, between 1988 and 2019, Skarha and her team inspected at least 100 legal cases citing violations of the Eighth Amendment — that no imprisoned person can be subject to “cruel and unusual punishment” — based on exposure to extreme temperatures. In Texas alone, Skarha found that approximately 270 heat-related deaths occurred between 2001 and 2019 in carceral facilities that do not have air-conditioning. Yet no national database tracks air-conditioning availability in jails, let alone tribal jails.

In Arizona, one of the hottest states in the country, three tribes have seven facilities that face the greatest risk for excessive heat among tribal jails. These facilities include the Colorado River Indian Tribes’ male, female, and juvenile detention centers, and adult and juvenile centers for the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community’s Department of Corrections and the Gila River Department of Corrections.

The Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community Department of Corrections adult and juvenile facilities are located in Maricopa County. Last summer, temperatures in Maricopa County reached a high of 115 degrees, with the National Weather Service issuing 17 heat warnings for the Phoenix area in 2022. As of October 2022, the total number of heat-associated deaths in the county reached nearly 380 — up at least 50 percent from the same month in 2021.

“As a tribe, we’re starting to realize climate change,” said Wi-Bwa Grey, a member of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community tribal council. “We’re in the desert, where the sun hits us the most. Now, leadership, our council, is starting to really take that into consideration.”

About a four-hour drive northeast of Salt River, the Zuni Pueblo adult and juvenile detention facilities in McKinley County, New Mexico, have historically seen very few days where the heat index tops 90 degrees. But by the end of the century, Zuni Pueblo could experience more than roughly 55 days a year with temperatures above 90 degrees if emissions continue at their current rate, representing a massive change to the area’s typical climate.

Tyler Lastiyano, Zuni Pueblo’s director of public safety, said the Zuni jail, a 638 facility, recently updated its HVAC system. To deal with rising temperatures and higher energy costs, he hopes that the facility can transition to renewable energy. “If we can get the funding to do that, it’ll help us in the long run,” he said. For now, however, Lastiyano has to make trade-offs.

“Our tribal government can help. They can advocate, and they have advocated, but it’s the Bureau [of Indian Affairs] that has to approve our funding,” he said.

Of the 27 tribal jails visited by Department of Interior investigators in 2004, 10 were run directly by the BIA while 17 were 638 programs, run by local tribes with a combination of federal and tribal funding. Investigators noted that, in general, the 638 facilities were better managed.

In 2022, after NPR’s reporting, the BIA announced reforms to its corrections program, including updated policies for death investigations, revised processes for cell checks, and improvements to staff training.

But Ed Naranjo, a member of the Confederated Tribes of the Goshute Reservation and a former supervisory special agent for the BIA who helped spark the 2004 investigation, says that not enough has been done since the report’s release. “You got people sitting in D.C. in these offices, and they don’t really give a damn about what’s going on in the field,” Naranjo said. “It seems that they just neglect what’s going on as long as nobody makes any waves, and everything’s supposedly fine.”

In a statement, a BIA spokesperson wrote, “In accordance with procedures developed in partnership with Tribes, facility conditions are monitored quarterly to assess facility needs and to prioritize projects to be completed with available funding.” The BIA also wrote that it does not track how much funding tribes contribute toward detention facilities or whether optimal staffing levels are fulfilled. In response to a question about how many functioning HVAC systems there are in tribal detention centers, the spokesperson wrote that there is no centralized monitoring program relating to the maintenance of HVAC systems, but that “essential airflow systems are closely monitored and maintained by Tribal/BIA maintenance crews.”

For 2023, the BIA has budgeted over $15 million for “public safety and justice facilities improvement and repair,” roughly two-thirds of which is earmarked for “minor improvement and repair,” which can include accessibility updates and disposal of property. Just $1 million is designated for environmental projects like managing air and water quality, which comes to just over $12,000 per facility if divided equally among the 81 facilities listed by the BIA.

In its 2023 budget, the BIA plans for the construction of nine new detention centers, including three 638 facilities, most of which are replacing existing facilities. According to the BIA’s 2023 Budget Justifications report, without these new facilities, “Employee and Inmate safety will also continue to be impaired by inadequate facilities incapable of addressing modern detention requirements.”

Derrick Marks, a Yankton Sioux Council Member, says one of the biggest issues with relying on federal funding is that money is tied to the whims and policies of the administration in power. “As Native Americans, the less that we can have other people making decisions on our behalf, the better it is,” said Marks.

The Yankton jail, located in Wagner, South Dakota, less than 15 miles north of the Nebraska border, is currently run directly by the BIA. While Marks says he would prefer the tribe manage the jail itself, he’s hesitant about pushing for a shift to a 638 contract. Although 638 facilities receive BIA funding, Marks says that the amount provided would not be sufficient to properly run the jail and the tribe simply doesn’t have the resources to fill in the gaps. Beyond day-to-day upkeep and administration, preparing for a more extreme climate future comes with its own hurdles. “I don’t know where the next administration is going to go with this stuff, with climate change,” Marks said. “It’s just so up in the air.”

Some Indigenous activists, however, are not convinced that tribal management and increased funding are real solutions. Some, like Brandon Benallie, who is Diné and a member of the K’é Infoshop, a Diné Anarchist and Communist Collective, believe that jails are part of a punitive justice system that has never worked for Indigenous people. Instead of spending millions on upgrading tribal jails, tribes should be spending money on resources to build culturally appropriate treatment centers for substance use disorders and working to address the root causes of crime, argues Benallie.

“We can’t just call everything an experiment of sovereignty when it harms our people,” said Benallie. Later in the interview, he explained, “We’re looking for short-term or nearsighted solutions to handle things that take an immense amount of time and responsibility.”

Experts and tribal officials who Grist spoke to for this story underscored the obligations the federal government owes to tribes but routinely violates — legal agreements between Indigenous nations and the United States that exchanged large swaths of land for guarantees like education, health care, and financial support.

“The feds can always help out more,” Urbina, the public defender at Pueblo of Laguna, said. “They have a trust obligation to the Native American tribes, and I think they can always do a better job, considering the historical trauma, the stuff that’s been done by the federal government to these tribes.” Officials from Laguna wrote to Grist that they need additional resources from the federal government for the detention facility and regularly request additional funding for staff and facility improvements.

In lieu of relying on the United States, though, tribes have adapted. When heat reached dangerous levels in Arizona this past summer, tribal council member Grey said Salt River detainees were kept inside, safe in indoor recreation areas with air-conditioning, tablets, and televisions. According to Grey, the center is able to avoid infrastructure problems found in some other tribal jails because it is a self-governance facility funded by the tribe, in part through tribally operated casinos. In addition to infrastructure, funding goes to initiatives such as language classes for detainees and culturally appropriate programs that focus on rehabilitation.

“We’re blessed because we’re able to have our own HVAC people on staff dedicated to the facility,” said Grey. “A lot of communities aren’t that blessed to have that.”

To help close the gap and protect some of the country’s most vulnerable prisoners, advocates say that the federal government needs to uphold its obligations.

“Tribes need to raise a lot more hell about this whole thing, demand things,” said Naranjo. “I don’t think a lot of tribes realize they have a voice. If they unify and get together, they can make some changes and get things done.”

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Additional research by Precious Ivy Molina, Liz Barry, and Nicholas Shapiro of Carceral Ecologies at UCLA

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Extreme heat will take an unequal toll in tribal jails on May 10, 2023.

A recent Lynchburg high school production of the musical “The Prom” met with controversy from one Lynchburg City Council member, who called for the show to be canceled over what he said were anti-Christian sentiments depicted — but the show went on to become Heritage High School’s best-attended production post-COVID. 

The theater departments at Heritage and E. C. Glass High School collaborated on the production, becoming one of the first high school drama groups in Virginia to put on “The Prom,” a musical that tells the story of discrimination faced by a lesbian couple trying to go to their high school prom together. 

“The Prom” is based on the true story of Constance McMillen, a high school senior from Mississippi who wanted to bring her girlfriend to prom, and also asked to wear a tuxedo. The couple ended up banned from the event, and the school division withdrew its sponsorship of the prom.

The musical by Bob Martin and Chad Beguelin follows an Indiana high school senior as she requests to bring her girlfriend to prom, but the couple gets banned. The PTA instead sponsors a different prom elsewhere for other students. Four fading Broadway stars who are desperate for anything that might propel them back into the spotlight hear about the case, and make their way to the Midwest to involve themselves in a bid for attention. 

The real-life case from 2010 made its way to court. The Itawamba County School District was sued with assistance from the ACLU, and it was found that the district violated McMillen’s First Amendment rights, according to ACLU’s records of the case. Ultimately, McMillen won the case. 

The play is relatively new. It first debuted in 2016 and hit Broadway around 2018. “The Prom” got a Netflix adaptation in 2020, and last year, the play became available for theater groups to buy the rights to produce it. Since then, high schools in multiple states have put the show on.

A Charlottesville high school performed the show earlier this year, according to Larry Hart, artistic director of Heritage’s Pioneer Theatre for the past 30 years. A Woodbridge high school theater group also put on “The Prom” this year.

The show at Pioneer Theatre ran April 21-23 and April 26-28. It featured 27 students from the two schools and a technical crew of 10, Hart said. The show was directed by guest director Jeff Krantz, a longtime area director and actor who has contracted with Pioneer Theatre for the last several years.

The first weekend of performances went smoothly, Krantz said. 

Then, during a city council work session on April 25, Lynchburg City Council member Marty Misjuns raised the topic of the production, which he said was brought to his attention by “constituents concerned about the content of the play.”

Misjuns’ objection to the show was what he perceived to be anti-Christian sentiments.

“It’s absolutely appalling to me that the publicly funded Lynchburg City Schools would put on a production with children that openly mocks the vast Judeo-Christian majority in our city,” Misjuns wrote in a public social media post on April 26, the day that the final performance weekend of “The Prom” began.

Reading selected lines from the play’s original script during the work session, and later sharing them on his Facebook page, Misjuns demanded that Heritage’s Pioneer Theatre cancel the remaining performance of the show immediately, and said the city school board should ask for the superintendent’s resignation for permitting production of “The Prom.” 

In both his work session comments and his public post, he asserted the content of the play contributed to student behavior problems. 

“We’ve got behavior problems in our schools, and when we’re teaching kids completely disrespectful garbage like that, that’s the problem,” Misjuns said at the work session.

“Lynchburg City Schools should immediately cancel the rest of these productions out of respect for those that believe in, prescribe to, and practice the Christian faith. Teachers came out in droves last night discussing behavior problems in schools. If our school superintendent does not cancel the rest of these plays for the offensive content, the school board should ask for her resignation,” he wrote in a public statement. 

In further comments to Cardinal News last Friday, Misjuns reiterated his primary issue with the show. 

“The only concern that I ever stated was about the anti-Christian sentiment in the performance,” he said in an email. “It is completely unacceptable for publicly funded facilities to be used to promote anything that openly mocks any race, religion or creed.”

During the work session, Misjuns read a portion of lyrics from one of the original songs to illustrate his concern, in which some Christians from the small town are described as: “Those fist pumping, Bible thumping, spam eating, cousin humping, cow tipping, shoulder slumping, tea bagging, Jesus jumping losers and their inbred wives, They’ll learn compassion…”

Misjuns said such sentiments were “completely disrespectful and marginalizing” to the city’s Christian population. 

“Imagine if that was the other way around. Imagine if that marginalized some other segment of the population other than the Judeo-Christian part of our community? This woke mind virus has infected the school system so much that they think it’s OK to do that,” he said during the work session. 

As for relating the musical to student behavior issues, Misjuns added, “I cannot see how promoting disrespect of someone’s faith will teach the children in our schools how to respect one another.”

Misjuns did not attend any of the performances. Fellow council members did not weigh in heavily on the topic of the play, but listened to Misjun’s remarks. 

Lynchburg Mayor Stephanie Reed, a fellow Republican, said she was not aware of the production prior to Misjun’s work session comments. 

“I had not heard about it from any voters, from any parents, from any citizens, nothing. I hadn’t actually even ever heard of the play,” she said. After Misjuns’s comments spread publicly, Reed said the only messages she received from constituents were ones in support of the play. 

“I still, to this day, have not received any calls or emails from any parents or citizens that were against the play. I’m not saying that there weren’t; I’m just saying I never personally received them,” she said. 

Certain lyrics and lines from the original script were revised in a bid to be less divisive, according to Hart, Krantz, and the production’s musical director, Heather Brand, in a public Facebook comment.

“What you are reading is the original script and not what is being presented on stage. Anticipating backlash of this nature, every effort has been made to remove divisive language, while still providing a place and space to speak about the subjugation and denial of basic rights and common sense considerations a large portion of our society faces each day,” Brand said.

The very line Misjun quoted from the play’s original script during the work session was another portion revised slightly for the high school production, Hart said. 

“One of the rhymes that changed was putting Forrest Gumpin’ instead of cousin hump in’. And instead of Bible thumping I think it was something like Bible Lovin’,” he said, adding this line was delivered by a “very liberal” Broadway star, when they first heard about the discrimination.

“Once the Broadway stars got to Indiana they found the humanity of people who actually live there and everybody grew some. But they represent one aspect of the antagonist when they arrive to the small town in Indiana,” Hart said. “Not everything antagonists say is pretty. Gaston does not say nice things about women, Pontius Pilate does not say nice things about Jesus Christ.”

Reed said city council’s legal department informed the council through an internal email about the revisions made to the original script, although she clarified she had not seen the performance personally.

“Anything that you see, in or out of context can make a huge difference. I really can’t comment to the show since I haven’t seen it. I have not watched it; I haven’t read the script,” Reed said.

Hart said that students initiated the production.

Several seniors had begged to do “The Prom” since they were freshmen, Hart said. After the rights became available last year, the students chose the show.

“I read the script and loved its overarching messages of love and acceptance because I know so many students past and present that this story speaks to,” Hart said.

The theater group obtained the rights to produce the play and set about producing it.

“This year these students were tired of the children’s theater and wanted something with relevance,” Hart said. “In the recent past we have performed ‘Les Miserables’ about the injustices of post revolution France and Ragtime which dealt with prejudices in early 20th Century America.”  

A production of “Cabaret” last February dealt with the rise of Nazi Germany. 

“When you deal with the ‘Wizard of Oz’ or other children’s shows, your villain is the Wicked Witch of the West. But, for non-children shows, the ‘villains’ as well as the ‘heroes’ are real people,” Hart said. “The interesting thing about a villain is that you cannot play a villain as if he or she knows they are evil.  A villain thinks they are acting for the good.”  

After Misjuns’ comments, other community members came out in support of the school and the show. Numerous people responding to Misjuns via social media, many of whom said they had either seen or read the play, commented on a lack of context surrounding Misjun’s selected lines and lyrics. 

“I believe that politicians should actually do their due diligence before taking a stand against something. The arts have always been and always will be a place for exploring ideologies, this should be encouraged, especially for those against indoctrination. I am against indoctrination on either side,” Amber Carderelli wrote in a public response to the Facebook post from Misjuns.

Describing herself as a Christian and “staunchly pro-life,” Carderelli pointed out how often Christians fail to obey their greatest command to “love thy neighbor” and continued, “It is clear sir, that you really don’t know the city you represent, because the 2 things Lynchburg loves most are Christianity and Theatre… and you have greatly disrespected both.”

Hart said this isn’t the first time someone criticized a play selected for Pioneer Theatre; the principal of Heritage High School received a letter from a disgruntled individual over a production of “Cinderella” two years ago. 

“I am sorry that someone took offense to the show — someone who didn’t see the show,” Hart said. 

Krantz said he did not go into the production intending to cause controversy. 

“I didn’t go into it thinking, ‘Hey, I’m going into it to upset people,’” he said. “I went into it thinking, ‘This story needs to be told, and it needs to be told in Lynchburg.’”

Krantz said he began acting in community theater groups at age 5, and is currently on the board of directors for Lynchburg-based Renaissance Theatre Company. In his long theater career, Krantz said he has never seen reactions quite like the one drawn recently. The backlash lately seems to come from a vocal minority.

“It didn’t surprise me that some people made comments. What surprised me was that it was an elected official, who’s elected to represent all people,” he said.

Hart and Krantz both said they were proud of their students, and their school division. 

“The  audience size tripled on the last night from the outpouring from the community.  Lynchburg has a deep tradition of gentle, intelligent and educated people. Our town is uniquely traditional and creative,” said Allison Daugherty, director of E.C. Glass theater. “I am proud of the students involved who are especially kind, accepting and loving people. They worked, and used their talent to tell someone’s story. Happily, many came to enjoy and appreciate it.”

Pioneer Theatre’s production of “The Prom” is not the only one that faced backlash. 

While in Lynchburg the outcry came from primarily one individual, Cedar Grove High School in Essex County, New Jersey, initially scrapped plans to perform the play after facing similar community backlash. The controversy was primarily driven by concerns over what was called “inappropriate content.” When supporters of the show pushed back, however, the school came back and announced it would put on a “high school version” of “The Prom” that was made available through the play’s licensing organization, according to an article from NJ Advance Media last October. 

Such a trend is not isolated to Lynchburg and its surrounding counties. School theater is one of the latest platforms to be targeted in cultural wars playing out in schools nationwide. 

Book banning and censorship efforts that target material dealing mostly with sexual orientation, race and what some call “sexually explicit” material have been ongoing, along with pushes to alter certain curriculums. These movements within school systems are led primarily by conservative groups and individuals including local chapters of Florida-based “Moms for Liberty.” Across the U.S., school administrators have had to contend with the turmoil. Responses vary from division to division. 

Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, Florida — in these states and more, The Washington Post recently reported, musical theater productions in high schools have been targeted. These instances, too, predominantly deal with queerness or address race and racism, or contain what those who object call “inappropriate content” like language or mature themes. In some cases, scripts were edited to appease disgruntled community members and groups; other times, a high school theater department ended up putting on a different show altogether.

“Art by its nature begs criticism. And everyone is a critic,” Hart said. “The most important thing to remember about critiquing is when one critiques something they most generally say more about themselves that they do about the thing they are critiquing.” 

The post A high school musical starring LGBTQ characters draws criticism from a Lynchburg city council member. It’s part of a trend. appeared first on Cardinal News.

MENDOCINO Co., 5/9/23 — The Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday morning to repeal Ordinance 4507, which authorized county officials to violate state law as a cost-savings measure related to answering public records requests, less than a year after the controversial legislation was first proposed last June. But now they’re looking to reduce the costs associated with releasing public records through a new “email retention policy” authorizing staff to delete public records within six months of receipt. (Watch the full meeting here.)

“All email will be retained in the County email system for a period of six (6) months. After this time, emails will be disposed of unless they are specifically archived in accordance with the retention periods outlined in the subfolders described below,” Section 5.1 states.

The subsequent text indicates that some records may need to be retained for up to 10 years, or on a permanent basis. It does not, however, provide guidance on what kinds of records will need to be retained for longer than six months. Rather, the new policy gives individual staff significant discretion in determining which public records get destroyed: “It is the responsibility of each employee to determine whether an email constitutes a record to retain, and to save any such record as necessary.”

Aside from cases in which County Counsel Christian Curtis orders the postponement of document destruction related to litigation, determining which emails get deleted and on what time frame will have to be done one department at a time. Curtis himself described that as a “heavy lift” — but the policy passed unanimously and without comment from the public.

Supervisor Ted Williams (5th District) verbally acknowledged that the new email deletion guidelines are related to the repeal of Ord. 4507, which he referred to as a “public records tax.”

“This kind of gets at that,” Williams said. “If we store millions of records on a continual basis without additional capability to be able to parse and search, we’re setting ourselves up for failure.”

Later on in open session, the board voted unanimously to repeal the public records fees passed unanimously by the same board in July 2022. The supervisors did not disclose their rationale in open session, but Supervisor John Haschak (District 3) said in February that Ord. 4507 was not on “solid legal ground.” He made those statements after attending a workshop on public records presented by the Orange County Office of the County Counsel.

Local discourse around the legality of the ordinance has revolved primarily around a 2020 decision by the California Supreme Court in National Lawyers Guild vs. City of Hayward where the court ruled that the California Public Records Act does not authorize California governments to assess fees for finding or redacting public records. In the Mendocino County Counsel’s defense of such fees, Curtis argued the law allowing counties to set and adjust a master fee schedule for government services (Government Code Section 54985) could be used as a work-around.

The supervisors initially found that argument persuasive, but opted not to test it out in court after the First Amendment Coalition threatened litigation. It remains unclear whether county counsel’s argument could successfully challenge a California Supreme Court precedent set just three years earlier. The county’s plan for resolving public records requests left pending since Ord. 4507 went into effect last year also remains a mystery.

Three people spoke in favor of repealing Ord. 4507 during public comment, including Carrie Shattuck, who encouraged the board to improve transparency by posting previously released public records on the county’s records portal. (Mendocino County currently requires an additional PRA to be filed in order to access previously published documents under most circumstances.)

4th District Supervisor Dan Gjerde strenuously objected, however, stating many of the public records requests are for county emails and publishing those might make Mendocino County the “laughingstock of the state.” During a contentious exchange with The Mendocino Voice publisher Kate Maxwell, Gjerde asked Maxwell to avoid encouraging any additional requests from the public.

“If that’s the problem that you’re pointing to, it does make people think you’re not interested in transparency,” Maxwell said. “That’s the right of people to file public records requests.”

Maxwell added that public records requests for correspondence like text and email have uncovered corruption scandals throughout the region.

The First Amendment Coalition and the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California issued a statement acknowledging the repeal of the ordinance Tuesday afternoon.

“It’s good to see that Mendocino finally did the right thing after starting off in the wrong direction,” wrote Chessie Thatcher, a senior staff attorney with ACLU Northern California. “This ordinance should never have been enacted, and the ACLU and FAC — joined by others in the community — were poised to challenge it.”

You can read the rest of their statement and our previous coverage below:

San Rafael, Calif. – Today the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to repeal Ordinance No. 4507, which authorized the county to charge as much as $150/hour for staff time to locate, review, or redact documents people asked for under the California Public Records Act. The law, passed last July, received widespread condemnation from the public, journalists, and open government advocates. One local media organization, the Mendocino Voice, has been assessed fees in excess of $76,000 since the law was passed.

Mendocino was not the only county in California with an ordinance allowing illegal fees to be charged for public information. According to research by the  First Amendment Coalition and the ACLU of Northern California, seven other counties — Los Angeles, Shasta, Siskiyou, Calaveras, Tuolumne, Santa Cruz, and Ventura — have passed similar laws.

The following can be attributed to David Loy, Legal Director, First Amendment Coalition:

“We’re glad the board of supervisors repealed this law. Public records belong to everyone no matter how wealthy. Democracy depends on freedom of information, but information is not public when only the rich can afford it. We hope other counties with similar laws will listen to the public and abolish these undemocratic laws.”

The following can be attributed to Chessie Thacher, Senior Staff Attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California:

“It’s good to see that Mendocino finally did the right thing after starting off in the wrong direction. This ordinance should never have been enacted, and the ACLU and FAC–joined by others in the community–were poised to challenge it. The government must provide public information to everyone with as few barriers as possible. When the government doesn’t do that, we have problems with access and equity.”

Previous coverage:

• Editorial: Tell Mendocino County to rescind their unlawful public records fees
• Letter: We’re calling for Mendocino County to overturn the unlawful public records ordinance
• Letter from the publisher: Mendocino County wins “worst” for government transparency (opinion)
• Sunshine Week: national award names Mendocino County one of America’s “worst in government transparency”
• Mendocino County to charge fees for public records
• Free press advocates caution Mendocino County on new public records fee ordinance
• Open letter to Mendocino County supervisors: new public records fees will cost more than they save

When Brendalyn King and her partner, Osei Doyle, quit their jobs and left Brooklyn, New York, in 2020 to buy land, they had high hopes of entering the growing industrial hemp industry.  They moved to Salem, Illinois, to farm on a family friend’s land until they were able to buy the property. However, they never […]

The post Black Farmers Looked to Cash In on the CBD Industry. Now, Hemp Is in Decline. appeared first on Capital B.

For as long as anyone can remember, the lack of a sanitation system in Lowndes County, Alabama, and resulting reliance on piping human waste directly into septic tanks and local creeks, has made life in the community miserable. After years of organizing and calls to action by the residents of this rural, low-income, and largely Black community, Earthjustice and Alabama grassroots leaders submitted a civil rights complaint, alleging racist neglect by Alabama public health officials. In response, federal authorities launched an investigation. 

The 18-month inquiry found the Alabama Department of Public Health and the Lowndes County Health Department acted with neglect and discrimination toward the county’s residents by not only denying them access to basic sanitation, but imposing fines and even liens against them while ignoring the grave health impacts the situation created.

“Today starts a new chapter for Black residents of Lowndes County, Alabama, who have endured health dangers, indignities, and racial injustice for far too long,” Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said Thursday in a statement announcing the agreement. “Our work in Lowndes County should send a strong message regarding our firm commitment to advancing environmental justice, promoting accountability, and confronting the array of barriers that deny Black communities and communities of color access to clean air, clean water, and equitable infrastructure across our nation.”

Residents of this county in central Alabama have long lived without basic sanitation services and have watched raw sewage from failing septic tanks flow into their yards. Catherine Coleman Flowers, founder of the Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice and a 2017 Grist 50 honoree, brought the issue to public attention in her book Waste: One Woman’s Fight Against America’s Dirty Secret. It describes shocking scenes of raw sewage on the ground, overflowing toilets, and repeated calls in vain to the city to pump effluent from yards. In a county where almost one in three residents live in poverty, very few could do much about the problem, leaving almost half the county’s homes without access to wastewater infrastructure. A study in 2017 found that rare intestinal parasites persisted in over 30 percent of the Lowndes county residents surveyed, and all of them were Black.

After years of community organizing led by Flowers and others, the federal Justice and Health and Human Services departments launched an investigation in November 2021. They focused on Title IV of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits recipients of federal funding from discriminating on the basis of race, color, or national origin in federally funded programs and activities. They also considered the Affordable Care Act, which explicitly prohibits the exclusion of any individual from services provided by a public health program. 

The investigation found that not only did the Alabama Department of Public Health fail to provide basic sanitation to the residents of Lowndes County, but the Lowndes County Health Department actively enforced sanitation laws. It often levied charges on residents who had no control over the sanitary conditions in their community and who often could not afford upgrades. 

According to the agreement, the state health department is working alongside federal agencies to correct the situation. The Department of Justice has ordered the agency to immediately stop prosecuting Lowndes County residents for sanitation law violations and take meaningful steps to assess the county’s wastewater needs, develop a plan to address them, and collaborate with the residents to do so. The state health department must provide people with “critical health and safety information” and work with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to assess health risks to the population. It must also develop a plan within a year to improve public health in the county. Federal agencies may reopen the investigation if officials feel the agreements are not being followed.

“The work is just getting started,” Flowers said. “We have, over the years, been working to shed light on the problem. Now we’re at the point where we’re working on a solution. I think that [state health officials] will cooperate, because now the nation is watching.”

The federal investigation and resulting agreement mark the first time an environmental justice inquiry has fallen under the Civil Rights Act. Justice Department officials indicated that it would not be the last — something Flowers applauded.

 “There are numerous communities across the United States, especially rural communities, that have these issues,” she said. “So yes, we hope that this will be an example for others to follow. Or people can decide to not wait for the Justice Department to get involved, but to go to work on solutions.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline A landmark investigation brings environmental justice to rural Alabama on May 8, 2023.