In recent years, state legislatures in the South and elsewhere across the country have taken steps to crack down on predatory lenders -- payday advance companies, title loan firms, and other outfits that charge borrowers exorbitant interest rates sometimes as high as 36 percent. Last year alone, for example, more than 100 bills pertaining to such lenders were introduced in 33 states.

But the industry is mobilizing to protect its interests by boosting political donations to state lawmakers.

So reveals a new report from the National Institute on Money in State Politics. "With Interest" found that in the 2006 election year cycle, predatory financial services companies contributed more than $6.2 million to state candidates and party committees.

That's close to double the 2004 total of about $3.2 million -- which in turn is more than twice the 2000 total of $1.5 million.

And of the 10 states that were the top recipients of payday industry contributions from 2000 to 2006, half were in the South.

The most dramatic increase in the industry's contributions in the region -- an eye-popping 2,099 percent -- occurred in Georgia, where the industry boosted its spending over the six-year period from $33,740 in 2000 to $742,054 in 2006. After Georgia legislators banned payday lending in 2004, two bills were introduced in 2007 and 2008 to repeal the law but both of them failed.

Elsewhere across the South, Texas saw a 970 percent increase in campaign contributions from predatory lenders during the period to $365,384; Florida, a 337 percent increase to $816,880; South Carolina, a 322 percent increase to $245,040; and Tennessee, a 277 percent increase to $205,575.

(Map from Page 11 of "With Interest"; click for larger version)

Labels: campaign finance, economic justice, National Institute on Money in State Politics, predatory lending

Net profit of ExxonMobil in 2nd quarter of 2008 (March-June): $11.7 billion

Total annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the entire country of Haiti: $11.1 billion

If ExxonMobil was a country, its 2nd-quarter profits alone would rank it as the 133rd-biggest economy in the world. And of course, a country's GDP measures all economic activity, not just net income/profit.

Have we entered a new Gilded Age?

Labels: exxonmobil, gdp, gilded age, haiti, oil industry, profits

Chris O'Brien, reporter for the San Jose Mercury News has posted excerpts from his interview with T. Boone Pickens, the Texas-based oil-man-turned-wind-energy-advocate.

The Pickens Plan, as O'Brien lays it out:

In short, Pickens wants to build massive wind farms to generate 22 percent of our electricity. He would use that to free up natural gas which would then be used to power new fleets of trucks and government-owned vehicles.

Such views have brought Pickens attention from the media and environmentalists. But the interview reveals that Pickens hasn't turned entirely green. When O'Brien asks him about the hot issue of offshore drilling, Pickens doesn't flinch:

You oughta drill off the West Coast, the East Coast, ANWR, Florida, the whole thing.

Watch the video here; listen to the audio here.

Labels: energy policy, offshore drilling, oil industry, renewable energy, t. boone pickens, the pickens plan, wind energy

Arkansas-based Wal-Mart has more than 4,000 stores and distribution centers across the United States -- and the group Wal-Mart Watch is trying to map every single one of them.

The watchdog group's interactive map aims to provide reliable, up-to-date information on store size, type of development nearby, and other useful information for both existing and proposed operations.

The map not only gives a useful snapshot of the "enormous amount of real estate" Wal-Mart holds; the group hopes it is valuable for community groups assessing the value of a Wal-Mart store in their area.

In related news, Arkansas Business reports that Wal-Mart leaders have known since 2000 that stores were illegally denying employees breaks and meals but ignored their own internal audits. The company faces a slew of lawsuits over the issue, which must be troubling given Wal-Mart's recent losing streak in court:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. now faces more than 70 lawsuits across the country accusing the Bentonville retailer of failing to award rest or meal breaks to its employees or forcing employees to work off the clock without pay.

Since December 2005, Wal-Mart has lost all three of the wage and class-action lawsuits it has faced in courtrooms, with damages now totaling nearly $400 million. And the third case, which hasn't concluded, has the potential to reach $2 billion in damages.

Labels: arkansas, arkansas business, wal-mart, wal-mart watch, workers' rights

With reports -- widely spread, rarely verified -- that Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine is near the top of Sen. Barack Obama's VP candidate list, it's interesting to look at his record since taking the governor's mansion in 2005.

For progressives, Kaine has been something of a disappointment. To capture this sentiment, one has to go no further than the prominent Virginia blog that was launched to support Kaine -- cleverly named "Raising Kaine." Today, it has renamed itself "RK" and has this to say:

Three years into the Kaine Administration, Virginia Progressives stand aghast at what it has become. From his repeal of the estate tax to his abandoned plan for universal Pre-K, to his opposition to embryonic stem cells, from his failed transportation plans to cozy relationship to Dominion Power and his reprehensible support of the Wise Coal Plant, the Kaine administration has fulfilled our every early fear and never failed to disappoint progressive Virginia.

A similar piece appeared at The Daily Yonder, which examines why Kaine lost his progressive mojo, landing on this assessment:

All in all, Kaine has strayed from one bad policy decision to another, alienating various bases of support without reaping much political capital or securing tangible results along the way.

The battle around Virginia's plan to build a new $1.8 billion coal plant in Wise County has been especially bitter. As the Southern Environmental Law Center said after filing three lawsuits this month, charging that the plan would violate the Clean Air Act:

At nearly two billion dollars and without any means to capture its carbon dioxide pollution, this plant represents a remarkably bad deal for Virginia.

Indeed, the image of a Kaine tenure that has been high on partisanship and low on accomplishments has made some Democrats nostalgic for the previous governor, Mark Warner, who is now running for U.S. Senate. Contrary to Kaine, who is thought to have surrendered progressive values, the RK blog argues:

Mark Warner is the very model of what will become known as Fiscal Progressivism, the pragmatic, cross-partisan application of intelligent, responsible management.

Such fondness for Warner can also be found at OpenLeft, which similarly praises Warner's bi-partisan effectiveness. While governor, Warner famously convinced a Republican legislature to hike taxes to invest in schools and basic infrastructure -- the state's first tax increase since 1986.

But the portrait of Warner as a staunch progressive, held in contrast to Kaine's alleged betrayal of those values, might be a bit of revisionist history. It was Mark Warner, after all, who penned strategy pieces for the Democratic Leadership Council on the need to govern from "The Sensible Center." In 2004, Warner was praised byRepublican columnist George Will for criticizing John Kerry as too liberal.

Not to downplay Kaine's problems or Warner's accomplishments -- but when it comes to assessing their progressive agenda, bloggers and pundits shouldn't compare Kaine to myths and different standards; he's apparently got enough to deal with.

Labels: barack obama, daily yonder, democratic leadership council, george will, mark warner, open left, raising kaine, rk, tim kaine, virginia

The Times-Picayune reports that repeated changes in rules for the Road Home recovery program have made it more difficult for applicants to collect the same grants they were once promised by the program.

At the launch of the program, grant calculations were based on the highest pre-storm value available from various evaluation methods, but by 2007 the state started paying for its own appraisals, prioritizing valuation methods that gave the lowest value. The Times-Picayune reports that the average grant size has plummeted from about $74,000 a year ago to about $59,000, stating that:

Despite new leadership in Baton Rouge, the state has continued efforts to prevent the highest value from always being used. In May, the state agency overseeing Road Home, the Office of Community Development, said the program is using less than the highest pre-storm value to calculate as many as 65,000 grants, half of all grants Road Home is likely to pay out. And multiple state policy changes from December through this month have made it more likely that the program will use lower pre-storm values and decrease grants.

New legislation passed in the last session that could require the Louisiana Recovery Authority to change Road Home rules so all applicants can get the highest pre-storm value in their file, but it awaits HUD approval, and there are doubts the federal agency will allow it. According to the Times-Picayune:

At issue is guidance HUD has sent Louisiana saying that homeowners shouldn't get credit for appraisals they provide that are more than 20 percent higher than the Road Home's own valuation methods. But homeowner advocates are concerned that there's a systematic effort to deny applicants the highest value created by the program itself.

Labels: Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch, new orleans, Road Home

As the N.C. Public Utilities Commission opened hearings yesterday on Duke Energy's controversial Save-a-Watt energy efficiency proposal, the plan's opponents called on commissioners to remove the conflict of interest inherent in having an investor-owned energy company promote efficiency -- by establishing an independent energy conservation program.

Crafted to make reducing customers' energy usage profitable, Duke's Save-a-Watt program has sparked opposition from a wide range of organizations. Environmental advocates say the plan's emphasis on off-peak load shifting doesn't do enough to reduce overall energy consumption. Consumer advocates point out that the program would charge $18.23 for promoting an efficient light bulb that retails for $1.65. Faith groups are concerned that the program would unfairly require poor ratepayers to subsidize their wealthier counterparts. And companies including Wal-Mart say they should be able to launch their own conservation initiatives instead of being forced to pay a monopoly's inflated costs.

Duke's own data raise questions about Save-a-Watt's effectiveness. The company says the program's cumulative energy savings would be 1 percent -- which is 91.6 percent less than the average of top-performing efficiency programs. According to the Energy Information Administration, the average top-performing efficiency programs save 11.9 percent, with the best-performing program saving 17.7 percent.

That's why Save-a-Watt's opponents are calling for a different approach to energy conservation in North Carolina. Before yesterday's hearing opened, they held a press conference outside the commission's offices calling for the establishment of a statewide, independently run energy efficiency program.

"Let's stop messing around with trying to compensate utilities to overcome their deep conflicts of interest in implementing energy efficiency programs," said Hope Taylor, executive director of Clean Water for North Carolina. "Independently run energy efficiency programs not only save more energy and cost less money, they also create jobs, reduce toxic and greenhouse emissions, and cut billions of gallons a day of water use and degradation."

Last year, Taylor's group commissioned a study of independent energy efficiency programs in six states: New York, Vermont, Oregon, Wisconsin, Maine and New Jersey. It found that one of the benefits of such programs is the fact that an independent administrator is concerned solely with the implementation of energy efficiency rather than worrying about falling revenues. In addition, an independent entity administering programs across multiple service territories can achieve economies of scale not possible with individual utilities. To read the full report, click here for the Word document.

Labels: Clean Water for North Carolina, Duke Energy, energy conservation, north carolina, North Carolina Public Utilities Commission, Save-a-Watt

This past weekend, Louisiana Environmental Action Network technical supervisor Wilma Subra toured the banks of the Mississippi River through Orleans, St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes to witness firsthand the effects of last week's devastating oil spill. She has posted her report to LEAN's website here.

Three days after Wednesday's accident, the broken barge was still in the river near New Orleans, propped up against a bridge and leaking fuel oil, she reports. Crews are still working to pump out the remaining oil and salvage the barge, a task that could take days, according to the Times-Picayune. However, the Coast Guard expects the river to be fully open to traffic today.

Meanwhile, booms that have been placed along the Mississippi's banks to keep the oil away are in many cases trapping the pollution against the shore, Subra says. The smell of petroleum hangs heavy over the entire river, the banks of which are coated with tarry oil, as seen in this LEAN photograph taken on the border of Orleans and St. Bernard parishes:


Of the more than 400,000 gallons of oil spilled, only about 72,000 gallons have been cleaned up so far, the Times-Picayune reports. As feared, the pollution is affecting local wildlife, like this oil-stained egret Subra photographed near the Oakville, La. community:


The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services says it has reports of almost 100 oil-contaminated creatures. Besides egrets, they include ducks, herons, black vultures, beavers, muskrats and American alligators. Field teams are using propane cannons and large balloons resembling predators in an attempt to ward off birds. People who spot oiled wildlife are asked to call the agency's hotline at (504) 393-0353. A wildlife rehabilitation team has been set up in Venice, La.

As the disaster continues to play out, LEAN and the Lower Mississippi Riverkeeper are calling on state and federal agencies to take a number of urgent steps to protect environmental and public health. They include:

* make sure the environment is completely restored;

* assess the extent of environmental contamination and associated economic impacts over the short and long term;

* carefully examine drinking water taken from the Mississippi River downstream from the spill;

* monitor environmental damage -- and specifically effects to wetland ecosystems -- over the long term; and

* assess the disaster's implications for the Gulf of Mexico including its Dead Zone, an 8,000-square mile area off Louisiana's coast where pollution runoff has made life unsustainable.

To read Subra's full report and see more photos, click here. There are also photos of the incident at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's website.

(Photos from LEAN's website)

Labels: environment, Mississippi River, new orleans, offshore drilling, oil industry, oil spills

Keith Hempstead, an attorney in Durham, N.C., has dropped the lawsuit he filed against the Raleigh News & Observer for breach of contract, the paper reports. He filed the suit when paper owner McClatchy Co. made cutbacks in the paper's staff and the news hole after he paid for his subscription.

Hempstead said the suit was no longer necessary since his concerns about the industry's management were aired by numerous media outlets. But he argued that those who called his suit frivolous "are accepting of a future of mediocre news."

Labels: mcclatchy, news and observer

A man with a shotgun entered a church Sunday and opened fire on congregants during a children's play at Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, Tenn. The assailant killed 2 adult parishioners and wounded at least eight others before he was subdued by church members, the New York Times News Service reported.

Jim Adkisson, a 58-year-old unemployed engineer, targeted the congregation because of its outspoken socially liberal and gay-friendly beliefs, police said. According to a four-page manifesto, Adkisson believed the church to be a bastion of liberalism in an otherwise socially conservative area of eastern Tennessee. He had a “stated hatred for the liberal movement” as well as his hatred for gays.

“We’re certainly investigating it as a hate crime,” Knoxville, Tennessee, police chief Sterling Owen said.

Unitarian Universalist congregations are known for their deep commitment to social justice, supporting the ordination of women, as well as civil rights and gay rights. The Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church hosts social events for gay and lesbian teens, and has received support from local gay rights groups.

While hate crimes directly against churches have been on the decline for several years, the LGBTQ community continues to be a target for hate groups. According to the FBI, in 2006, 1,472 victims reported being targeted due to a sexual-orientation bias. The Guardian UK also reported:

The FBI logged 7,722 hate crimes in 2006, the most recent year for which complete statistics are available. That is down slightly from 2000. Hate crime attacks at churches are rare, according to FBI statistics. Only 4% in 2006 occurred at places of worship.

Labels: hate crimes, Tennessee

In states across the South, utility companies are pushing ahead with plans to construct a new kind of nuclear reactor. Designed by Westinghouse Electric Co., the AP1000 is to date but an idea on paper, having never been tested with a demonstration model in the real world.

And now it appears there are serious problems with the reactor design, which is delaying the regulatory approval process. Those problems, in turn, have sparked legal actions by public-interest groups calling on utilities commissions in the Carolinas to revoke $230 million in approved pre-construction costs for two new reactors planned by Duke Energy of Charlotte, N.C.

Last week, Friends of the Earth in Columbia, S.C. and the Durham-based N.C. Waste Awareness and Reduction Network filed legal motions seeking the cost revocation. They argue that the design problems threaten Duke’s chances of ever completing two new AP1000 reactors it wants to build at the proposed Lee Nuclear Station on the Broad River in Cherokee County, S.C.. They also say the delays mean Duke can't provide a reliable cost estimate for the station by year's end, a commitment the company made to both commissions during hearings on pre-construction costs.

"Duke Energy’s customers should not be stuck holding the bag if the company keeps pouring millions into that risky project," said Friends of the Earth's Tom Clements. "The state regulatory agencies must now reverse their earlier decisions to approve Duke's reactor project and require that the company not come back for reconsideration until the reactor design is finalized."

In a June 27 letter to Westinghouse, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said the company's recent withdrawal of technical documents due to design problems had delayed the agency's review of key components and systems. Earlier this year, as part of the application process for building new plants, Duke Energy and other companies filed some 6,500 pages of technical documents from Westinghouse.

The NRC wants to review and certify plant designs separately from the plant applications. Because the agency expects more design modifications as its review continues, it's likely that all the projects involving the AP1000 will be delayed.

The same type of reactors are being proposed by Progress Energy for its Shearon Harris plant in Wake County, N.C. as well as the company's planned facility in Levy County, Fla.; SCE&G for the Summer Nuclear Plant in Fairfield County, S.C.; Georgia Power's Vogtle plant in Burke County, Ga.; FP&L's Turkey Point nuclear plant in Miami-Dade County; and Tennessee Valley Authority's Bellefonte Nuclear Generating Station in Jackson County, Ala.

A public hearing about the Bellefonte plant is scheduled for this Wednesday, July 30 at 9 a.m. at the Scottsboro Goosepond Civic Center in Scottsboro, Ala. The AP1000 design problems are expected to be part of the discussion.

Concerns about the reactor design were also raised during the July 17 public meeting in Waynesboro, Ga. about the two new reactors proposed for the Vogtle plant. Though the NRC does not expect to certify the reactor's final design until 2012, the NRC said they expected to issue a license for Vogtle in 2011, leading nuclear opponents to level charges of "rubber stamping."

The AP1000 reactors are being built by a consortium, 80 percent of which is owned by Westinghouse Electric (which in turn is owned by Japan's Toshiba Corp.) and the rest by Louisiana-based The Shaw Group's nuclear division. In December 2006, the AP1000 Consortium won a contract with China's State Nuclear Power Technology Co. to build four new nuclear power plants in that country.

(Artist's rendering of Duke Energy's proposed Lee Nuclear Station from the company's website)

Labels: Duke Energy, NRC, nuclear power, nuclear regulatory commission, nuclear safety, The Shaw Group, Westinghouse Electric

The Lower Mississippi Riverkeeper and Atchafalaya Basinkeeper patrolled the air yesterday to check on the section of the Mississippi River affected by Wednesday's oil spill. What they found was "not encouraging," they report:

Oil continues to leak from the wreckage of the barge and there were extensive oil slicks on the river from the wreckage to the extent of our patrol (near Carlisle).

A pilot we spoke to said that it was like this all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. It appears that oil has been continuously leaking from the barge in substantial quantities since the wreck occurred. Disturbingly, there appears to be little effort to contain and collect the leaking oil. While many areas on the river have been boomed off to prevent the oil from getting into things like intakes, diversions and other waterways, there seems to be little real attempt to collect the spilling oil. It appears that the oil is simply being allowed to escape into the Gulf of Mexico.

In response to the ongoing disaster, the groups are calling for systemic changes, including:

* a review of the safety practices for the shipping of dangerous cargo in Louisiana;

* labeling of barges so first responders can tell from a distance what materials they're dealing with;

* a requirement that petroleum products and other hazardous materials be transported in double-hulled containers;

* an additional vessel to accompany hazardous cargo, as with oversized loads on highways; and

* better communication during an incident so local officials can take steps to protect drinking water supplies and evacuate residents if necessary.

The full report with more photos is online here.

Meanwhile, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports, the company that owned the tugboat implicated in this week's accident was involved in another collision on the Mississippi River near New Orleans just 11 days earlier.

On July 12, DRD Towing's Ruby E sank after colliding with the Martin Challenger about four miles upriver from the site of this week's accident. The towing firm also owns the Mel Oliver, which was moving the oil-bearing barge that collided with the Tintomara Wednesday.

In the earlier incident, the tugboat crew was properly licensed. In this week's collision, however, none of the Mel Oliver crew members had the proper credentials to operate on the river.

Labels: environment, Mississippi River, new orleans, offshore drilling, oil industry, oil spills

New Orleans City Business reports that New Orleans District Attorney Keva Landrum-Johnson is filling up Louisiana’s prisons with a new policy charging minor marijuana offenders with felonies if they have prior convictions. Landrum-Johnson's predecessors routinely exercised their discretion to treat such offenses as misdemeanors, but Landrum-Johnson has reversed that policy, racking up felony prosecutions and demonstrating her “tough-on-crime” credentials.

The New Orleans CityBusiness, which is conducting an investigation into how police and prosecutors are spending public resources seeking lengthy sentences for non-violent, low-level crimes, reports that the hundreds of new felony cases have been small-time marijuana users (a number that could reach as high as 4,000 by the end of the year), sometimes caught with less than a gram of pot and threatened with lengthy prison sentences. According to the New Orleans CityBusiness:

The resulting impact has clogged the courts with non-violent, petty offenses, drained the resources of the criminal justice system and damaged low-income African-American communities, [Steve Singer, chief of trials for the Orleans Public Defenders Office] said.

Targeting nonviolent drug offenders and tacking felony charges on people arrested for second and third marijuana possession offenses is not a new phenomenon in the racially-skewed U.S. drug war. The impact on communities of color in the South has been devastating. In New Orleans, low-income African-Americans make up the majority of those facing charges each month, many of whom typically can’t afford bail and must sit in Orleans Parish Prison for extended periods of time unable to support their families.

“I don’t understand why anyone would think marijuana possession should be a priority given everything else we’re dealing with. But this is a convenient way of targeting a particular group of people,” Ursula Price, senior organizer for Safe Streets Strong Communities, a community-based organization dedicated to criminal justice reform, told the New Orleans CityBusiness.

In a city known for its party atmosphere, it is hard to deny that the policy is being aimed at certain communities while ignoring other more privileged areas. Pointing out that it is well known that low-income African-Americans are not the only people in the Big Easy guilty of lighting up a joint every now and then, Tulane University criminologist Peter Scharf tells the New Orleans CityBusiness: “[African-Americans are] targets of opportunity, lower-class individuals without resources. And for the most part, the public doesn’t seem to care. But you start arresting a bunch of Loyola and Tulane students and give them 12 years for smoking a joint and just see what happens. Parents will be out in the streets screaming with moral outrage and demanding justice.”

Labels: criminal justice, louisiana, new orleans, race, race and racism, war on drugs

This week, Facing South's Book Fridays brings you a selection of online photo essays.

Over at Southern Spaces, Earl Dotter presents “Coalfield Generations: Health, Mining, and the Environment," an exploration of mining communities in southern West Virginia and eastern Kentucky. The photo essay documents the lives of people in Appalachia as they intersect with the coal mining industry. Since 1968, Earl Dotter has photographed miners in Appalachia, and has documented the lives of workers throughout the country. According to Southern Spaces:

In this photo essay set in mining communities of southern West Virginia and eastern Kentucky, Earl Dotter seeks out changes in consumption and leisure, healthcare, coal mining practices, and the environment that have occurred since he first photographed in the region in 1968.

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Here’s a couple of older selections, but worth sharing.

Facing South has reported on the importance of coastal protection. Touted as one of the most innovative experimental travelblogs on the web, Erik Gauger’s Notes from the Road has been around since 1999. The site combines Gauger's stunning photography with his engaging stories about people and places. In Catfish Heaven: Winter on the Bayou, Gauger presents a series of photos and narratives published just a few months before Hurricane Katrina. In this travelogue Gauger paddles and drives through the backwaters of Louisiana bayou country talking to people and photographing the local geography. Speaking with locals he hears what would soon prove to be prophetic announcements: “Louisiana will sink, or face horrific damage from a hurricane, unless efforts are made to reverse the damage to the coasts and bayous.” For more information on Gauger, read his interview with TravelBlogs.

On a similar regional note, check out John Amrhein and Earl Robicheaux’ Voices of Atchafalaya, photographs documenting the Atchafalaya Swamp Basin of south Louisiana. As the site explains, “by combining photographs with a soundscape composed from oral histories and ambient sounds, we hope to portray life in this region.” Using photographs and oral histories to explore the rich folk heritage within the Atchafalaya Basin, the photographss were exhibited in Patterson, Louisiana in 2006. You can see a slideshow of some of the work here. According to the exhibit:

Featured are an Austrian oyster fisherman, the architecture of the Greek-based Florida shrimpboat, African-American storytelling traditions, French fisherman, a Native American traiteur, and others from this primordial and mystical world. The oral traditions of these cultures represent more than just a record of a previous time; rather, like the river that is their livelihood, sacred story flows through the generations, nourishing and nurturing them, and providing us all with an understanding of the nature of past, present, and future. Named for the Choctaw words for long (atcha) river (falaya), the river becomes a metaphor for that which binds generations, a keeper of dreams in south Louisiana.

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John Ficara's Black Farmers in America project was published as a book in 2006 and ran as an exhibit throughout that year. The Digital Journalist did a feature on Ficara's project, and still has a photo gallery of some of the photography featured in the project. Ficara, an international award-winning photojournalist and documentary photographer, spent four years photographing Black farmers across America, witnessing firsthand the difficulties faced by families who simply want to continue living and working on their land. The photographs capture a portrait of America’s Black farmers as their numbers dwindle. From the Digital Journalist:

Those of us concerned with the welfare of meaningful photography take some heart whenever a worthy project gets exhibited and published. John Francis Ficara's elegant take on black farmers in America documents a vanishing way of life and points to failures of social justice that sadly contribute to its passing. The book and exhibitions from his project are a significant contribution to the photographic ethnography of what has been one of our country's most important institutions, the independent family farm.

For more information on the book visit the University Press of Kentucky. Also check out this NPR report interviewing Ficara back in 2006: Twilight for Black Farms.

(First photo from Voices of Atchafalaya site and second photo from NPR.)

Labels: arts and culture, authors, book fridays, books, coastal protection, southern culture, southern history, southern photography, southern writers

There's been considerable attention paid to the role played by private security firms in the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As it turns out, one such firm is also helping with the stateside war against dogfighting.

Earlier this month, the Appalachian Circuit District Attorney's office raided Mountain Swamp Kennels in rural Blue Ridge, Ga., near the border with North Carolina. Owner Albert Glenn White was arrested and charged with more than 20 counts of felony dogfighting. Authorities say they found three fighting pits on the property and dogfighting paraphernalia and seized 22 dogs, some of whom reportedly have scars consistent with fighting.

Information regarding White's kennels was originally provided to the Humane Society of the United States via its dogfighting tip line, 877-TIP-HSUS. The tip line was set up in the wake of the dogfighting case involving former Atlanta Falcon's football player Michael Vick by private security firm Norred & Associates, which is headquartered in Atlanta with offices in Miami; Memphis, Tenn.; Hilton Head, S.C.; and Birmingham, Ala.

Founded in 1981, Norred & Associates provides security for corporations including Georgia Pacific, The Home Depot and TXU Energy. The company also dispatched special operations agents to Louisiana in the wake of Hurricane Katrina to protect its clients' properties against looting, and it provides security for retired Lt. Col. Oliver North's book tours.

Said Dr. Melinda Merck, a forensic veterinarian with the American Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals who took part in the raid:

"We are sending a clear message to dogfighters that we will continue to use any and all resources we have to uncover their illegal operations and bring justice for these animals."

The Mountain Swamp Kennel raid was the second such bust in Georgia since May, when Gov. Sonny Purdue signed legislation strengthening the state's anti-dogfighting law. It's now a felony there to own, possess, transport, or sell a dog for the purpose of fighting, and those involved in illegal dogfighting face one to five years in prison, a minimum fine of $5,000, or both.

Labels: dogfighting, friday dogblogging, Georgia, private security

The massive oil slick from the crash that occurred yesterday on the Mississippi near New Orleans has now spread 100 miles to the Gulf of Mexico. Meanwhile, it's come to light that the barge carrying the 400,000 gallons of fuel oil that spilled was being moved by a tugboat when it was struck by the Liberian-flagged tanker Tintomara -- and the tugboat operator had only an apprentice mate's license, and no one else on board was properly licensed to operate the boat. The Coast Guard's investigation continues.

So far cleanup crews have contained only about 140 barrels of oil out of the more than 9,900 spilled, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports. Several birds and a beaver have been found coated in oil, and wildlife officials continue to search the area around the spill. Staff at the Delta National Wildlife Refuge are overseeing the placement of oil-collecting booms in an efforts to keep the pollution from entering wetlands, where it's feared the oil could contaminate important food sources for migrating birds.

The disaster has shut down traffic along the Mississippi, with some 90 vessels stuck at various points along the river this morning. The river could be closed for days or weeks for cleanup operations, which would have an enormous economic impact. Click here for more details and updates from the Times-Picayune.

Labels: environment, Mississippi River, new orleans, offshore drilling, oil industry, oil spills

The Federal Emergency Management Agency yesterday asked a federal judge to dismiss it from lawsuits filed over the formaldehyde-contaminated trailers provided to families displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Arguing on FEMA's behalf, the Department of Justice told the judge the agency should be entitled to immunity from claims challenging its response to disasters.

Becky Gillette -- director of the Sierra Club's formaldehyde campaign, which first sounded the alarm publicly about high levels of the cancer-causing chemical in the Katrina trailers -- blasted the agency's request, the Jackson Free Press reports:

"The government should bear responsibility for harming these people. We tried to tell them early on that these trailers were testing positive for formaldehyde and it took them nearly two years before they even acknowledged a problem," Gillette said. "That’s two years that tens of thousands of families were exposed to excess levels of formaldehyde."

Independent tests conducted by the Sierra Club in early 2006 revealed dangerously high levels of formaldehyde in housing provided to Katrina survivors, but FEMA was slow to respond to concerns. In fact, more than a year after the group released its findings, FEMA Administrator R. David Paulison testified before a House committee that he was unaware the trailers posed a health threat. The agency was also accused of suppressing health warnings due to liability concerns and interfering with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's study assessing the trailers' risks.

But at the same time it's fighting liability for the Katrina housing disaster, FEMA has failed to come up with an alternative housing plan for future disasters.

This week, the agency finally released its full draft disaster housing plan, which was originally due a year ago. But apparently FEMA has decided to leave it up to the next administration to figure out how to avoid a mess like the one that unfolded after Katrina. Rather than submitting plans for six of nine required improvements to its previous plan, for example, FEMA instead plans to create a task force to figure that out. The agency has also failed to come up with an alternative to problematic travel trailers.

Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana called FEMA's plan "incomplete." An analysis conducted by the staff of the Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery, which Landrieu chairs, said the creation of such a plan should have been a top priority for the agency:

It is not clear from FEMA's strategy if and when the United States will have a catastrophic disaster housing plan and who will develop one. The only thing that is clear today is that the nation does not have a catastrophic disaster housing plan now. This is unacceptable.

Labels: FEMA, formaldehyde, Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch, housing, Hurricane Katrina, Sierra Club, toxic trailers

The Times Picayune reported on the new study released by AMBIO, a peer-reviewed science journal, which found that coastal wetlands provide $23.2 billion worth of protection from hurricane-related flooding in the United States each year. As quoted in the Times Picayune:

“Coastal wetlands provide 'horizontal levees' that are maintained by nature and are far more cost-effective than constructed levees,” wrote the authors of the study.

The study also found that:

• Louisiana has lost $29.4 billion in flood protection benefits from the disappearance of 1,927 square miles of coastal wetlands during the past century
• Louisiana lost more than $1.1 billion in benefits as a result of the erosion of 77 square miles of wetlands during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005

Citing the importance of coastal wetlands for protection from severe hurricanes, like Hurricane Katrina, the report concluded that investing in the maintenance and restoration of coastal wetlands will prove to be “an extremely cost-effective strategy for society.”

For more discussion on the topic, check out this post on "horizontal levees" over at the Daily Kos, which underscored that the new "study provides a means of comparing, dollar for dollar, the effectiveness of manmade levees and natural wetlands in protecting against what will surely be more frequent and devastating floods."

Labels: coastal protection, environment, Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch, louisiana, wetlands

It appears that the Lower Rio Grande Valley dodged a bullet yesterday, the earthen levees along the river reportedly holding up to Hurricane Dolly's rains. Before the storm made landfall, residents had been warned to seek shelter because officials feared the deteriorated levees might fail. Worries still linger, though, as Dolly -- now downgraded to a tropical storm -- moves inland.

With valley residents already living in fear of floods during what's expected to be an unusually active hurricane season, you might expect the federal government would be doing all it can to make people safer. But instead, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is undertaking a massive construction project that not only makes levee failures more likely in the short term but could also worsen future flooding in the region.

We're talking, of course, about the border wall.

Construction of on the controversial barrier between the U.S. and Mexico was set to begin in parts of the valley this week and finish by year's end. DHS plans to incorporate 18-foot concrete walls into the levees along the river's edge in coastal Cameron and Hidalgo counties in order to hold back both immigrants and floodwaters. In Hidalgo County alone, the structure is expected to cost $113.9 million. On Monday, cranes unloaded steel beams and other supplies at a staging site while project supervisors met with emergency officials to discuss Dolly's approach.

Chad Foster is the mayor of Eagle Pass, Tx. and chair of the anti-fence Texas Border Coalition, which is made up of cities, counties, chambers of commerce, and economic development corporations representing some 2 million border residents. In May, TBC announced that it would bring a class-action lawsuit against DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff and Robert Janson of U.S. Customs and Border Protection alleging abuses in the wall's construction. DHS waived environmental laws in order to allow the project to proceed without delay.

Foster seized the moment of Dolly's approach to release a statement calling it "unbelievably foolish" for DHS to move ahead with plans to rebuild the Rio Grande levees during hurricane season:

"The footings of the levees are being destroyed in the construction process so that the Department of Homeland Security can erect 18-foot concrete walls in their place. It is incredibly short-sighted that the government would open the levees at the same time that the danger is highest for devastating floods in the middle of hurricane season.

After the Federal Emergency Management Agency determined the 40-year-old levees along the Rio Grande were inadequate to handle potential floods, DHS -- FEMA's parent agency -- saw the need for repairs as a way to advance their goal of a border wall. The wall's opponents note that the only places where DHS is paying to rebuild the levees are in areas where the U.S. Border Patrol wants a barrier. Ironically, one major reason the levees are in such poor condition is because Border Patrol agents drive along the levees' tops, often dragging tires to erase immigrants' footprints so fresh ones will stand out.

Foster criticizes this piecemeal approach to levee repair, arguing that the valley needs a comprehensive flood control solution. And he's not the only one raising concerns about the impact the border wall will have on flooding in the region. K. Rod Summy, an entomology professor who lives in Hidalgo County's Weslaco and writes about the wall at notexasborderwall.blogspot.com, has been reporting on the structure's potential to worsen flooding for some time now.

Noting that there have been no studies to date examining the impact the proposed wall would have on flooding or the levee system's integrity, he blasts U.S. officials for failing to carefully consider the project's potential threats to area residents, writing last December:

Two years ago, this country lost a major city -- New Orleans -- because of a defective levee system. Last month, the failure of a levee system following torrential rains in Tabasco, Mexico resulted in a substantial loss of human life (nearly 300 people missing or dead) and approximately two million homes were severely damaged or destroyed by floodwaters. It is not very comforting to realize that the words "hurricane" and "tropical storm" and "torrential rains' do not appear on even one occasion in the 538-page Draft [Environmental Impact Statement] document for the Border Wall.

Just how devastating could a hit from a major hurricane be to communities in the Lower Rio Grande Valley? In 2005, the University of Texas prepared a computer simulation of a Katrina-like hurricane's effect on the valley's coastal area including Brownsville, the region's largest city with more than 170,000 residents and one that like New Orleans sits on a delta. Modeled after 1961's Category 4 Carla, the "Hurricane Carly" simulation predicted a 17.3-foot storm surge for the Brownsville area -- an estimate the researchers called conservative.

Given the potential threat, does it really make sense to mess with Texas levees now?

(Drawing of border wall levee from notexasborderwall.blogspot.com; click on image for larger version)

Labels: border wall, Department of Homeland Security, hurricane dolly, levees, Michael Chertoff, texas, Texas Border Coalition, u.s. border

As politicians from across the South clamor to lift the federal ban on offshore oil drilling, the disaster that took place early this morning near New Orleans highlights the very real dangers faced by oil-producing communities.

Around 1:30 a.m., a chemical tanker collided with a fuel barge on the Mississippi River, ripping the barge in two and spilling over 400,000 gallons of unrefined, tar-like fuel oil into the water. The U.S. Coast Guard has shut down a 29-mile stretch of the river around the city, and an oil slick at least 12 miles long has spread along the water.

Drinking water intakes have been closed along the river's West Bank in Algiers, Gretna, St. Bernard Parish and Plaquemines Parish, and residents have been asked to conserve water. Water flowing through the tap is from reserve supplies, which could run out in many areas by tonight, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports. Fortunately, the East Bank's water intakes are upriver of the crash site.

The owner of the barge that way carrying the oil -- American Commercial Lines of Jeffersonville, Ind. -- is reportedly paying for the cleanup effort even though it has not been found responsible for the collision. State environmental officials are coordinating a massive effort to keep the oil from leaching into wetlands south of the crash site.

The spill apparently occurred when a 600-foot tanker called "Tintomara" -- owned by Laurin Maritime of Houston and sailing under the Liberian flag -- crashed into the barge carrying the fuel oil. The tanker, which did not leak, was carrying about 4.2 million gallons of biodiesel and nearly 1.3 million gallons of styrene, according to the Associated Press. The Coast Guard is still investigating the cause of the crash.

A heavy stench of petroleum has been hanging over New Orleans all day. The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality has dispatched emergency responders with portable air monitors to patrol areas around the city's Riverwalk and French Quarter, but they say they're detecting hydrocarbons at levels too low to require any action.

(Photo of wrecked barge and tugboats near the Crescent City Connection Bridge courtesy of DEQ)

Labels: environment, Mississippi River, new orleans, offshore drilling, oil industry, oil spills

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal proposed using the state’s royalties from offshore oil and gas drilling (OCS) revenues to pay Louisiana's $1.8 billion share of future federal levee improvements.

But at a Congressional tour of New Orleans this week, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected Jindal’s offer to use future OCS revenues, saying that rather than tapping money already earmarked for restoring the state’s fragile coast, she would seek to “find another way” to eliminate the expensive levee burden entirely. As the Times Picayune reported, under Jindal’s proposal:

• Washington would keep future OCS revenues until the $1.8 billion was paid off.
• The arrangement would cost the state about $20 million a year until 2017, and about $600 million or more each year after 2017.

What's the story behind Jindal's sacrifice of coastal reconstruction funds? Last month Facing South reported on the supplemental Iraq war spending package passed by Congress and signed by President Bush last month. It included $5.8 billion to build southeast Louisiana's flood-control structures to 100-year storm levels by 2011. But the House dropped a Senate-passed provision that would have given Louisiana the 30 years it wanted to pay its share of the levee costs. The bill increased the state’s share of the cost by $200 million and allowed just three years to pay it off.

Jindal has acknowledged that the federal government's requirement that Louisiana pay its $1.8 billion share of the Army Corps of Engineers flood protection over three years would undercut critical work on coastal wetlands restoration, something for which the state already has dedicated $500 million. According to the Times Picayune:

Jindal said he never understood why the White House wanted to increase the state's cost-share from its pre-Katrina level, nor why Louisiana was not granted a longer period to pay. Time extensions were granted to California and Nevada following disasters.

Some local leaders are arguing that Louisiana should not be penalized and forced to reimburse the federal government any money for levee improvements, pointing out the unfairness of the policy and the impact upon Louisiana’s ability to rebuild.

Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C., called on Jindal to push Bush to grant a "wholesale waiver" for the flood projects. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin expressed a similar sentiment, arguing that the state and local governments shouldn't have to pay anything for the levee work.

“While I support the governor's compromise position on federal funding for this protection and appreciate his advocacy, I believe that this city and this region deserve 100 percent federal funding for this flood protection system,” Nagin told the Times Picayune.

(Levee construction photo by FEMA)

Labels: Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch, levees, louisiana

Hurricane Dolly is poised to strike the Gulf Coast near the Texas-Mexico border later today, maybe even escalating to a Category 2 storm. About 1.5 million Texans stand in the storm's projected path, and the governor of Tamaulipas, Mexico is planning to evacuate 23,000 people -- a reminder that nature knows no borders.

The storm is expected to hit 45 minutes east of Brownsville, the biggest city in the Rio Grande Valley. Similar to New Orleans, Brownsville is protected by a system of levees, in this case managed by the International Boundary and Water Commission. They were rebuilt after Hurricane Beulah devastated the area in 1967, killing 58 people and causing $1 billion in damage.

But with up to 15 inches of rain quickly dumped on the area, officials are afraid the levees will be breached, causing flooding damage reminiscent of Katrina:

"We could have a triple-decker problem here," Cavazos told a meeting of more than 100 county and local officials Tuesday. "We believe that those (levees) will be breached if it continues on the same track. So please stay away from those levees."

Also like New Orleans, the people who live on the Gulf's Texas-Mexico border are not economically well-equipped to withstand a storm's devastation. I first ran across Brownsville when covering environmental issues in 1992, when an epidemic of babies born without brains struck neighborhoods on both sides of the border. As Time magazine later reported:

From 1988 to '92, 25 children were born with the spinal-nerve defect called spina bifida; more than 30 others had almost no brain at all--a related and fatal neural defect called anencephaly. "It would look like somebody took a knife and just whacked the top of their head off," said Brownsville physician Manuel Guajardo.

Public health experts blamed the massive pollution coming from U.S.-owned companies in Matamoros, just across the border, where over 100 companies operated in maquiladoras to take advantage of cheap labor and loose environmental laws -- an ominous foreshadowing of NAFTA.

Families of the dead and deformed babies filed a lawsuit that included General Motors among its targets, which was found to be using four times the amount of toxic solvents in its Mexico plant as it did in a comparable plant in Dayton, Ohio. A massive study never conclusively proved the cause of the health tragedy but days before the case was scheduled for trial the companies settled for $17 million.

Outside the cities, most residents are tied to the Rio Grande's agricultural economy. 90% of the population is Latino, largely Mexican-American. A close-knit region with a strong cultural identity (and a rich labor organizing history), most live in the low-lying 2,000 colonias that often lack basic utilities and water, making them uniquely vulnerable to a storm.

As always, whether the storm Hurricane Dolly becomes a "natural disaster" or now will depend on very human -- not "natural" -- factors: the politics and economics of the Rio Grande before the storm hits, and the effectiveness of the government response after it strikes.

IMAGE: Hurricane Dolly, NOAA

Labels: brownsville, colonias, hurricane dolly, hurricanes, mexico, NAFTA, natural disasters, rio grande valley, texas

The ACLU sued Alabama elections officials this week over an overly expansive policy disenfranchising felons. According to the New York Times:

Like virtually all states, Alabama restricts the rights of many felons to vote, but in Monday’s suit the group contends the state is going beyond even its own laws. People convicted of nonviolent offenses like income tax evasion or forgery are at risk of being turned away by voter registrars in Alabama, the ACLU says.

Alabama bars felons from voting only if they've been convicted of a crime of “moral turpitude.” According to the ACLU, the state legislature defined the phrase to refer to specific crimes: murder, rape, sodomy, sexual abuse, incest, sexual torture and nine other crimes mainly involving pornography and abuses against children. But the list was expanded by Alabama’s attorney general Troy King to include about a dozen additional offenses, most of them nonviolent, and several including the sale of marijuana. In their lawsuit, the A.C.L.U. contends that the attorney general’s list violates the Alabama Constitution, saying only the Legislature can decide what crimes fit the “moral turpitude” category.

According to the New York Times, voting rights groups are “especially watchful this year because under a 2002 federal law, states are now coordinating lists to find felons and people who have died or moved, allowing easy — rights groups say too easy — purging of voters.” As the New York Times reported:

Elsewhere in the South, the voting rights group Project Vote has been expressing concern over what it sees as undue purging of voters in Louisiana, without notification, before this year’s election.

A spokesman for Louisiana’s secretary of state said that all voters found to have duplicate registrations were sent at least one warning letter and sometimes two, but that the last such actions were done some 13 months ago.

As Facing South has previously reported, felon disenfranchisement has had a huge impact on politics in the South, in fact taking millions of votes out of the political equation. This mass lock-out of a large number of blacks and the poor from the voting booth has had a direct impact on the balance of political power in the South, helping to swing election outcomes, giving Republicans victories by taking away potential minority Democratic votes.

Labels: Alabama, felon disenfranchisement, louisiana, voter suppression, voting rights

Several black leaders, community groups, and legislatures voiced outrage when the North Carolina Senate did not take up the North Carolina Racial Justice Act bill before adjourning last week. As Facing South previously reported, the North Carolina House approved the Racial Justice Act in 2007, and numerous attempts have been made to have this bill heard in the state Senate this year.

Bill sponsors Rep. Larry Womble and Rep. Earline Parmon sent out a scathing press release Friday blasting Senate Democrats for not passing the bill, stating that Senate killed the act by failing to deal with race and fairness during an election year and by blocking a hearing on this bill. According to their press release:

While the battle has been lost until the next legislative session, state legislators, the NC Legislative Black Caucus and numerous coalitions including the NC NAACP led coalition of eighty-five statewide progressive organizations will continue to fight for this vital legislation in a new and improved form in the next legislative session.

Unfortunately, this will not ease the devastation that will occur if executions resume in North Carolina before reforms such as the NC Racial Justice Act are enacted.

If passed in North Carolina – a state with a death row population that is 60 percent black despite the black population in the state being only 20 percent – the bill would have been a landmark in North Carolina’s continuing debate over the death penalty. It would allow defendants in death-penalty cases to use statistics to try to show that race played a factor in the application of the death penalty.

“We've had three black men released from death row,” the Rev. William Barber, the president of the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP, told the Winston-Salem Journal. “I believe that if we had had three wealthy men, three white men, exonerated like this, everybody would be de