The $8.4 million in infrastructure grants go to five local government applicants, the first round of awards through a rural workforce housing initiative.
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A late summer breeze whispers through the soaring pines that surround Andy Foss’ home on the shore of Gardner Lake in Washington County, where he sits reflecting on his more than a quarter-century of public service as a law enforcement officer.
The former Maine State Police trooper retired earlier this year to focus on his cancer recovery. Foss said he’d rather be back on patrol but knows his health would suffer.
“Oh, I miss it, I do,” Foss said from the home where he and his wife Jane raised two children. “But working the road in law enforcement is a lot of stress. I was covering probably like 23 or 25 towns myself, answering anywhere from 850 to 1,000 calls a year. It’s just nuts when you think about it.”
The Bureau of Maine State Police agrees. Faced with diminishing numbers from retirements and recruiting challenges, the Bureau decided that with 52 vacancies there were too few officers to provide dedicated patrols in the state’s expansive rural counties such as Washington — a county the size of Delaware — so they gradually began trimming or cutting out rural patrols completely.
But some rural counties have decided to push back, demanding restoration of trooper patrols or more funding to offset the losses. Rather than waiting to be picked off one by one as contracts with the state police expire, rural county sheriffs, commissioners and the organizations that represent them are banding together to make sure their voices are heard at the state level.
Some legislators have taken the fight to the statehouse, with two bills already introduced and at least one more on the way.
Over the past few years, Washington County and some other rural counties had reluctantly agreed when the state police presented them with the drastically pared down “resource sharing agreements” that mapped out what the state would provide. But Penobscot County Sheriff Troy Morton balked at a plan that would have left troopers covering only two of his county’s six rural zones, instead of half as they are now.
Sen. Stacey Guerin, R-Glenburn, and Rep. Joe Perry, D-Bangor, each submitting bills seeking funding for more deputies. Guerin’s bill was approved but amended without funding.
“My bill ended up being a broader discussion of the State Police role and the different county sheriffs’ roles, and how that’s going to play out,” Guerin said. “It really did open the conversation.”
The new law, L.D. 756, approved on July 26, limits changes to the Resource Coordination Agreement between the Bureau of State Police and the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office, keeping the current contract terms in place through 2024.
It also requires the Bureau of State Police to report to the joint standing committees of the Legislature “having jurisdiction over criminal justice matters, transportation matters and appropriations and financial affairs regarding resource coordination agreements between the Bureau of State Police and all county sheriffs’ departments …”
Mary-Anne LaMarre, the Maine Sheriffs’ Association executive director, said the MSA welcomes the legislature’s help.
“In some counties, there is an issue with adequate resources to meet the demands of patrol coverage,” LaMarre said. “The Maine Sheriffs’ Association is going to be working closely with the legislature and other partners to secure adequate funding, outside of property tax, to meet our standards.”
The State Police began restructuring a few years ago, beefing up its specialty units and reducing or eliminating routine rural patrols, as it did in Washington County. The county does still receive State Police specialty team services (as all counties do), troopers agreed to answer half of the county’s DHHS calls, and they respond to all fatal crashes. But designated patrols in Washington county and other rural counties are gone.
The loss of designated patrols left rural counties reeling from the sudden gaps in coverage, the cost of hiring more deputies and the prospect of higher taxes to pay for local law enforcement.
In Penobscot County, officials said the price for six more deputies would be roughly $1 million over two years. Washington County commissioners already approved $140,000 for an immediate hire of an additional deputy. But officials say at least four more are needed and will likely be added in the next county budget.
Sen. Marianne Moore, R-Washington, said she is encouraged by the prospect of a more cooperative dialogue with the State Police, but Washington County can’t afford to wait and see how the talks pan out. She plans to submit a bill before the Sept. 29 deadline for next spring’s session to seek more emergency funding from the legislature.
“I have to be a little selfish, I’m going in just for Washington County,” Moore said. “These bills are supposed to be on an emergency basis, so I’m going to have to justify it to the Legislative Council and hope they’ll let it go forward.”
It might be wise that the senator isn’t waiting for a broader, statewide solution. The State Police objected when Guerin and Perry asked the legislature for funding, even though they were not seeking the money to come from State Police funds. At least for now, State Police officials seem to be doubling down on their previous positions.
“The State Police cannot comment on pending legislation that we have not reviewed,” said Major Lucas Hare, head of the State Police operations division. “With that said, any proposed legislation that seeks to defund the State Police to fund other law enforcement agencies would be detrimental to public safety. Our resources benefit the entire state, not just one county.”
But officials in rural counties say those State Police resources — primarily specialty teams such as tactical units, crisis negotiation, underwater recovery and the bomb unit — are not helping understaffed sheriffs’ offices, and municipal police departments meet the core responsibility of law enforcement – public safety.
According to the most recent state crime data, 14 people have been killed in Washington County since 2017 — one of the worst rates statewide. Deputy Chief Mike Crabtree said the county’s soaring drug problem is largely to blame.
“We’ve always had violent crime, the problem now is the frequency of the violence,” Crabtree said. “A lot of these calls lead to death. These are no longer one-person calls.”
In Patten, public safety officials said a reduced police presence resulted in slow response times for emergency calls by Maine State Police, who went from 28 troopers responding from the Houlton Barracks down to only two, according to Lt. Brian Harris, Maine State Police Troop F commander.
Since June, officials say there have been several times that ambulance crew members waited up to two hours for police and one time no one came, according to a report this week in the Bangor Daily News.
Even further north, the situation can be worse. Although there are three small municipal police departments in Piscataquis County, the sheriff’s office, with only five deputies, covers 99% of all calls, about 4,000 calls a year spread out over roughly 3,900 square miles, excluding Baxter State Park. Chief Deputy Todd Lyford said the lack of law enforcement and the jaw-dropping geography means they run the risk of suspects getting away before officers can reach the scene.
“We just had a call in the deep, deep woods up into Chesuncook, which takes 2 1/2 hours to get to. Then I had to get on a boat across a lake to an island to deal with a call,” Lyford said.
Like six other counties, Piscataquis chose not to have a call-sharing agreement with the State Police. Lyford said his understanding is the call-sharing agreement they had 15 years ago was not continued because of “poor communication.”
Still, all the officials interviewed for this story said the reality on the ground is that with or without a call-sharing agreement, in a pinch the State Police will assist when called, at least to the best of their ability.
For example, the recently signed call-sharing agreement with Washington County acknowledges the potential for this type of informal arrangement, stating in part, “The Maine State Police will continue to staff a uniform trooper in Washington County to the extent resources and staffing allow. To the extent that resources and staffing allows when a trooper is assigned to work in the county, we will respond to all requests for assistance from the sheriff’s office.”
But the agreements are fast becoming irrelevant because there aren’t enough troopers to cover Maine’s vast state, and also provide the technical and specialty assistance that every county relies on.
The governor’s 2020-21 biennial budget proposal requested from the legislature a total of 10 State Police trooper positions and five sergeant positions to meet severe staffing shortages. The positions were not approved.
“The State Police have not seen a compliment increase to our rural uniformed patrol division in over 40 years, while the demands and mission of the State Police have increased significantly beyond just rural patrol,” said Shannon Moss, the public information officer for the Maine Department of Public Safety.
Since local law enforcement appears to have a slightly better track record with recruiting, some county officials had suggested shifting to the unused funds from the State Police’s unfilled vacant positions to the county. The proposal was dead on arrival due to statutory and prior allocation restrictions. In an interview conducted prior to his summons on an OUI charge, Washington County Commission Chair Chris Gardner expressed outrage at the impasse.
“Public safety is the No. 1 responsibility of the collective. And if you aren’t stopping bad actors, and you can’t get to the hospital when you need it, what really is government spending their money on?” asked Gardner, who also serves as a reserve officer in Eastport.
But former trooper Andy Foss said shifting the money would have only replicated what’s happening with recruiting. He said it’s an illusion that local departments are attracting more officers.
Foss said officers are simply being shuffled back and forth due to better pay and a host of other reasons, including burnout. Not atypically, during his 24-year career Foss has served as a municipal officer, a part-time deputy, as a Marine Patrol officer, as well as a trooper.
Lyford in Piscataquis County agreed, saying it’s also happening there, with one deputy recently switching to the Greenville Police Department. Lyford said local law enforcement departments are offering more money, better benefits, and beginning to look beyond state boundaries for recruits, with modest success.
Foss added that pulling troopers out of their communities to serve exclusively on specialty teams also should be re-examined. He said it’s the opposite of community policing, which he knows is successful.
Foss has gotten heart-felt letters of encouragement during his recovery from people he had to arrest and send to jail. He recounted one incident involving a violent suspect when Foss told the State Police tactical team it needed to stand down.
“I said, ‘what do you need a tactical team for, I know this guy,’ ” Foss said. “I went alone and told the guy I had to take him in. He just said, “yeah, OK — if you don’t mind, I just want to put down a bunch of food for my cats before we take off.”
Foss said an officer’s tongue is his most valuable weapon. Maine’s rural residents, increasingly worried about public safety and rising taxes, are hoping county and state officials also can learn that lesson, and it’s becoming critical that they do.
In Lubec, for example, most homeowners just saw their tax bills double after a re-valuation. It’s a harsh reality many communities are facing as they brace for yet another hit for additional police coverage.
Washington County Sheriff Barry Curtis told the Quoddy Tides that the Maine Sheriffs Association and County Commissioners Association plan to meet in September, holding a joint session to discuss the law enforcement pressures the state’s counties are facing.
York County Commissioner Richard Dutremble, president of the County Commissioners Association, said he is confident all officials can come together and find a compromise.
“There are answers if people will sit down and talk about it. We’re all here to solve this for the taxpayers. So let’s get it done,” Dutremble said.
The story Maine’s rural counties scramble to fill gaps in police patrols appeared first on The Maine Monitor.
The nation’s highest court recently upheld the Indian Child Welfare Act in a major case over the law’s constitutionality, a decision hailed by many as a victory for Indigenous children and their families.
But while the 7-2 majority decision in the Brackeen v. Haaland case firmly rejected key arguments against the law known as ICWA, state-level challenges have been moving through lower courts across the country, with varying degrees of success.
Cases in Nebraska, Alaska, Iowa, Montana and Oklahoma center on different legal issues than those decided by the U.S. Supreme Court last month. Plaintiffs in Brackeen v. Haaland — a group of states along with white adoptive parents seeking custody of Native children — argued unsuccessfully that ICWA was unconstitutional because it exceeds the “plenary powers” of Congress to pass legislation governing tribal affairs, “commandeers” states to follow federal law and violates equal protection guarantees.
Yet while the Supreme Court upheld ICWA’s constitutionality for now, legal experts who are both supporters and critics of the 45-year-old federal law say the Brackeen case doesn’t rule out future challenges to tribal sovereignty.
What’s more, justices declined to delve into the equal protection arguments in the case, stating only that the plaintiffs “lack standing” on that issue because the adoptions of Indigenous children they sought had been finalized. Some court watchers say that leaves open the possibility of future lawsuits on equal protection issues.
The 1978 law in question seeks to repair damage caused by centuries of forced attendance at Indian boarding schools and coercive adoptions into white, Christian homes. That legacy has endured in Indian Country, where the rate of foster care removals remains far higher than in other racial and ethnic communities.
Under ICWA, state child welfare agencies must determine whether a child facing foster care, adoption or guardianship is a member of a Native American tribe. If they are an enrolled member or have a parent who is enrolled and are eligible for tribal membership, the case takes a different pathway than for other children. Tribes must be offered the opportunity to take jurisdiction from the state court; tribal members and Indigenous foster parents and kin must be prioritized for placements; and social service agencies must make “active” rather than “reasonable” efforts to help parents accused of maltreatment reunite with their children.
Kate Fort, director of the Indian Law Clinic at Michigan State University College of Law, outlined the most common reasons for an ICWA appeal in the March edition of the Juvenile and Family Court Journal.
She wrote that between 2017 and 2022, more than 40 percent of all such cases were remanded — sent back to lower courts — or reversed. Plaintiffs in 87 percent of the ICWA-based appeals were biological parents of an Indigenous child. About half the cases were appealed based on parents’ belief that the court improperly determined ICWA’s application to their child’s case.
“These data indicate that agencies and courts are still struggling with the first step in an ICWA case — whether they have an ICWA case at all,” Fort wrote in the paper.
Two ICWA-related cases were decided by the Alaska Supreme Court in July 2022.
They involved the federal law’s provision requiring that a “qualified expert witness” testify about the Indigenous child’s tribe, customs and traditions before their parent’s rights can be terminated. Those challenges did not prevail.
Recent disputes over ICWA in state courts center on tribal jurisdiction, the definition of a Native child, and termination of parental rights, among other issues. The following is a summary of some recent cases:
Tribal court jurisdiction in child welfare cases lost ground in an April ruling in Oklahoma. In the decision — involving a child identified as S.J.W. — the state Supreme Court gave lower courts increased ability to grant custody of Native children living on a reservation that is not their own.
S.J.W.’s parents argued that “the Chickasaw tribal court has exclusive jurisdiction regardless of the fact that S.J.W. is a nonmember Indian child,” according to court documents. The state maintained it had shared jurisdiction on cases involving ICWA.
Critics call the ruling involving a Muscogee child living on Chickasaw Nation’s reservation deeply flawed.
The state Supreme Court “misunderstands tribal sovereignty,” the Choctaw Nation’s senior executive officer of legal and compliance Brian Danker told a National Public Radio affiliate. “This ruling could impact a tribe’s ability to protect tribal citizens’ social, cultural and familial connections as it attempts to chip away at the foundations of tribal sovereignty in the state of Oklahoma.”
Fort described the Oklahoma ICWA case as unique, and a “truly unfortunate opinion with absurdly weak analysis.” Fort said tribes’ ability to retain jurisdiction over child welfare cases remains an ongoing fight in multiple states.
In another suit filed this past April by the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians, the Supreme Court in Nebraska denied the tribe’s request to intervene, because it had previously been determined the child in question did not meet the criteria of an “Indian child.” The child’s mother was eligible for tribal enrollment, but was not yet enrolled.
The tribe argued the spirit of ICWA should apply to the case, but the state of Nebraska opposed that position, and was victorious in court. Ultimately, the state’s highest court ruled that ICWA’s specific requirements to determine a child’s eligibility for its protections should be strictly applied.
In April 2022, the Iowa Supreme Court upheld a juvenile court’s ruling that denied a child ICWA protections, affirming a prior decision to terminate the rights of the child’s parent. The juvenile court found the state’s “reasonable efforts” to avoid out-of-home placement — instead of the “active efforts” required for tribal members under ICWA — were adequate because the child was deemed to be non-Native.
ICWA was affirmed in a Montana case decided by the state Supreme Court in January, a ruling that underscored how the federal law applies to guardianships and third-party custody proceedings, in addition to adoption and foster care cases.
The child’s mother, an enrolled member of the Native Village of Kotzebue Tribe in Alaska, provided the court with verification that her three children were eligible for ICWA protections. She asked the courts to remove her children from the Montana home of their paternal grandparents — who had full custodial rights — and restore her custody. The case was sent back to lower courts for further proceedings to determine if the children should be returned to their mother.
Nearly two weeks after the Brackeen decision in mid-June, the U.S. Supreme Court denied review of a recent Minnesota case making a related equal protection argument — that ICWA discriminates against non-Native foster and adoptive parents.
In March 2022, Hennepin County was sued by two Indigenous foster parents who were unsuccessful in the adoption of the Indigenous child they were fostering. Instead, the child’s tribe, Red Lake Band of Chippewa, took over the proceedings and granted custody to the child’s maternal grandmother. The foster parents were considered “nonmembers” in the ICWA case, because one is enrolled in the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa and the other is a White Earth Nation descendant.
The plaintiffs in the case — who, under ICWA, lost priority in their adoption efforts in favor of the child’s relative despite having adopted the child’s siblings — were represented by Minnetonka attorney Mark Fiddler, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians. He also represented the white adoptive couples seeking to overturn ICWA in Brackeen v. Haaland. The conservative Goldwater Institute filed amicus briefs in both cases, challenging ICWA’s constitutionality.
In an email, Fiddler said that while the institute attacked ICWA as unconstitutional, the plaintiffs did not. “Rather, they argued ICWA could and should be interpreted to be constitutional by not forcing nonmembers into a jurisdiction foreign to them,” he said.
“Petitioners were improperly subjected to the personal and subject matter jurisdiction of a state foreign to them, one where they have no right to vote,” plaintiffs stated in Denise Halvorson v. Hennepin County Children’s Services Department case documents. As a result, the lower court violated “their due process rights to fundamental fairness and equal protection.”
But the petition to the U.S. Supreme Court was denied on June 26.
Fiddler said despite the high court upholding ICWA in Brackeen and its denial of the Hennepin County case, establishing standing in an equal protection case against ICWA “would be easy,” and he fully expects continued challenges to the law on this issue and others.
“Any foster or adoptive parent would have the right to move to strike down ICWA in state court, so long as he or she was jeopardized by it somehow,” Fiddler stated shortly after the Brackeen decision.
The Imprint is a non-profit, non-partisan news publication dedicated to reporting on child welfare.
The post Despite Supreme Court ruling, ICWA challenges remain appeared first on Buffalo’s Fire.
It’s taking longer than expected, but residents in Clinton should once again have a hospital operating in their community soon, while those living in Woodward hope to experience a seamless continuation of hospital services during an operational transition later this year. Plans call for the emergency room of Clinton Regional Hospital to open Oct. 30, […]
The post Two western Oklahoma cities work to preserve their hospitals appeared first on NonDoc.
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.
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.”
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.
[Content warning: The video of this arrest shows police using force against a civilian. The incident is also described in the text of the article.]
NORTHAMPTON — Last week, when The Shoestring published a video of Northampton police tackling and pepper-spraying a 60-year-old woman in April, city resident Jada Tarbutton was disturbed. As a Black woman who lives in Northampton, she said the violent arrest of a person of color reinforced her belief that the city’s progressive reputation is only true for some of its residents.
“I’m scared in Northampton,” she said. “It hurts my heart. I don’t feel safe.”
Tarbutton was one of over 70 people who showed up at City Hall on Sunday to protest against police brutality. The demonstration came after The Shoestring broke the story that on April 4, police pulled over Marisol Driouech — who was in the city working as a food-delivery driver — and within five minutes had yanked her out of her car, tackled her to the ground and pepper sprayed her. The Northampton Police Department cleared the arresting officer, John Sellew, and Jonathan Bartlett, the officer who pepper-sprayed Driouech, of any wrongdoing. So did a consulting firm the department hired to investigate the incident.
But for those gathered Monday, the incident was a clear case of police violently escalating a minor traffic stop on a woman whose first language is Spanish and who told Sellew she didn’t understand him.
“Hey hey, ho ho, John Sellew has got to go!” the protesters chanted. They called for Bartlett to be fired and for Police Chief Jody Kasper to resign over the department’s handling of the case.
Several communist and socialist groups organized the rally. John “J.R.” Rivera, a member of the Workers Party of Massachusetts, said that Driouech is from the same Holyoke neighborhood as him. As a Puerto Rican, he said her arrest is a reminder of how immigrants and non-native English speakers are at risk of police violence.
“I’ve never felt particularly protected by any police, but this moment solidified what I know now: whatever community the police protect, people like me aren’t a part of it,” he said.
There was no immediately visible police presence at the protest. However, the Northampton Police Department’s drone flew above the crowd and officers erected barricades in front of the police department.
The officers’ arrest of Driouech sent her to the hospital. Sellew wrote in his arrest report that after failing to hand over her license and registration, Driouech tried to roll up her window during the traffic stop and then put her car in drive. He accused her of resisting arrest when he ordered her out of her car and grabbing his baton from its holster as he tried to take her down.
Another speaker at Sunday’s protest, Workers Party member Dennis Moore, noted that Sellew wrote in that same report that once Driouech had his baton, he realized that he “had the ability to utilize strikes or possibly lethal force.”
“However, due to her size, I believed that I could subdue her using takedown techniques until additional units arrived,” Sellew wrote. Driouech is 5 feet tall and weighs some 120 pounds.
“Officer Sellew believed that he had the right to kill a 60-year-old woman whose only fault was having a broken headlight and not understanding English well,” Moore said. He went on to ask what might have happened if Sellew had encountered a younger, more fit person during the traffic stop. “Had he pulled over a young, male ESL person, would the incident have ended in a blood bath? I hope we never find out.”
Reacting to Sellew’s comments about lethal force, city resident Dan Cannity — the former co-chair of the city’s Policing Review Commission — told The Shoestring that the entire system is irrevocably broken and that just firing one or two officers isn’t enough. He said protesters were sending a message to city leaders: “the community is fed up with violence and policing against members of our community.”
“If an old woman can be yanked out of her car, pinned down and pepper-sprayed, who is safe?” Cannity asked.
Police initially charged Driouech with assault and battery on a police officer, attempting to disarm a police officer, resisting arrest and refusing to identify herself, in addition to the lights violation, according to court documents. But the Northwestern District Attorney’s Office dismissed all of those criminal charges against Driouech, who admitted to the broken headlight charge.
Local defense attorney Dana Goldblatt is now representing Driouech and has said she intends to present claims to the city before possibly suing over the arrest.
Goldblatt is currently suing the city on behalf of another person Northampton police pepper-sprayed in 2017, Eric Matlock. Another man is also suing Northampton and five police officers over allegations that they tackled him to the ground, kicked him, beat him with a baton, pepper-sprayed and arrested him during a mental-health episode in 2019.
Dusty Christensen is an independent investigative reporter based in western Massachusetts. He can be reached at dusty.christensen@protonmail.com. Follow him on Twitter: @dustyc123.
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Every summer, people flock to Maryland to eat blue crabs. Named for their brilliant sapphire-colored claws, blue crab is one of the most iconic species in the Chesapeake Bay. The scientific name for blue crabs, Callinectes sapidus, means “beautiful savory swimmer.”
In restaurants and at home, diners pile steamed and seasoned blue crabs in the middle of a table covered in paper. Then, using small mallets, knives, bare hands and fingers, they break open the hard shells and extract the juicy meat from inside.
It is a messy experience, especially with Old Bay seasoning and beer known locally as Natty Bohs, one that is quintessentially Maryland.
Though many people know firsthand how difficult it is to pick and clean crab meat, they often don’t realize how crab is processed when it is sold in stores already picked and cleaned. Most people also may not know that crab picking is a livelihood for many, mainly poor, women.
For generations, African American women from Maryland’s rural, maritime communities labored for crab houses on the Eastern Shore.
Today, fewer than 10 crab houses are left on the Shore. The workforce consists of mainly female migrant workers from Mexico who do the grueling job of picking crab for eight to nine hours a day, from late spring to early fall. They make on average of US$2.50 to $4.00 for every pound of crabmeat they pick.
That pay is roughly one-tenth to one-twelfth of the wholesale price of one pound – or about a half of a kilogram – of the seafood they pick, which is $35 to $44. In comparison, the Maryland minimum wage is $13.25 an hour, while the federal minimum wage is $7.25.
Over 2.1 million migrants and immigrants work in jobs growing and processing food in the United States, playing an essential role in feeding Americans.
As an anthropologist and global health researcher, my work has shown that they are part of an increasing trend in rural America. Since 1990, immigrants have been moving to small towns and rural regions at unprecedented rates, accounting for 37% of the overall rural population growth from 2000-2018.
Some rural counties, like Stewart County in Georgia and Franklin County in Alabama, have experienced growth rates of over 1,000% in their foreign-born population, which have boosted their local economies and mitigated rural population decline.
Maryland’s rural Eastern Shore, for instance, has experienced a rapid rise in immigration since 2000. From 2010 to 2019, migration was the primary source of population growth, with the foreign-born population increasing by 90%.
Many immigrants come to this region to find work in agriculture, poultry and seafood processing. Some come directly from Mexico, Central America and Haiti.
Typically, farmworkers have temporary visas and arrive in late spring and early summer and stay through the growing season. Migrant Mexican women who work in crab processing also follow the same seasonal employment pattern. Others, like those working in poultry processing plants, have settled here more permanently, either as undocumented or permanent residents.
Immigrant workers in rural regions work dangerous jobs and are exposed to pollution, deplorable living conditions and limited safety training.
Additionally, immigrant workers are among the lowest paid and lack access to health information, preventive care and medical treatment. Dry skin, cuts, scrapes, rashes, chronic pain and broken bones are common among immigrants who work in agriculture, poultry and seafood processing.
These workers also suffer from numerous invisible injuries such as discrimination, verbal harassment and physical exploitation.
Despite the daily risk of harm, migrant workers in rural regions have limited access to health care and rely on mobile clinics, local health departments and community health centers.
But these facilities are not equipped to handle specialty care or emergencies. Nor are many of them easily accessible due to location or hours of operation. In addition, many workers cannot afford to miss work or are afraid to tell their supervisors that they need care.
Some avoid health providers altogether because they are not treated well or feel misunderstood.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the notion of “essential” workers became part of the nation’s vocabulary as a way to describe people required to continue in-person work under lockdown conditions. They included food industry workers.
The pandemic exposed the disproportionate numbers of immigrant workers in the agriculture, poultry and seafood industries in rural America.
It also revealed how policies enacted during the pandemic to protect public health and essential workers did little to prevent people from working in dangerous workplace conditions without adequate safeguards.
Unable to self-quarantine at home, many food production workers got sick or even died as a result of working in crowded conditions without personal protective equipment and adequate ventilation.
In many ways, the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the long-standing crisis of health care for immigrants in rural America.
But despite evidence that close to 2.5 million foreign-born people live and work in rural America, very little information exists on these people’s health.
This inattention by lawmakers is harmful and dangerous because it leaves health care providers and social workers with little understanding of immigrant experiences in small towns and sparsely populated rural communities.
Thurka Sangaramoorthy receives funding from The National Institutes of Health.
