NELIGH, Neb. (AP) — Opponents of a proposed pipeline that would carry Canadian oil south to the Gulf Coast hope to cultivate more resistance to the project by planting corn in the shape of a message.
About four acres of Ponka red corn will be planted this weekend in a field near Neligh, Nebraska, to fill out an anti-pipeline message carved into the ground earlier this spring.
The 80-acre artwork reads “Heartland#NoKXL.” It is one of the latest protests against TransCanada’s proposed Keystone XL pipeline that needs presidential approval before it can be built.
TransCanada has said the pipeline will have upgraded safety measures and will offer the safest way to transport the oil across Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas.
Critics of the project fear it could contaminate groundwater and contribute to pollution.
I don’t have enough fingers and toes to count the number of times Disney’s animated film “Frozen” has played in my home or in my car the last two months. Nor can I begin to count the number of times my little girl has performed the song “Let It Go” on our in-home stage, aka the coffee table. I love it, but sometimes after hearing the tune five times in a row, I want to throw my hands up and cry “that’s enough!”
Kacey Clay of Moniteau County sang the lyrics to the MFB YouTube video “That’s Enough!”
Farmers and ranchers have had enough too — enough of the never-ending flood of regulation bursting from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Washington, D.C. At the moment, EPA is partnering with the Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) in an effort to “clarify” (their word, not mine) the federal Clean Water Act (CWA) through a proposed rule.
It wasn’t too many years ago when the U.S. Congress rejected legislation to remove the word “navigable” from the 1972 law, which would have opened the flood gates in terms of the reach of the EPA and the Corps. The agencies attempted to accomplish the same goal through a guidance document in 2012. Officials pulled the plug after facing widespread opposition from farmers, landowners, homebuilders, small business owners and others concerned about property rights, economic development and more government.
The EPA and Corps are back again with a formal rulemaking, claiming they are not broadening coverage of the CWA but providing clarity. The proposed rule is long and complex, and the devil is always in the details. Summed up, CWA clarity would basically be achieved by the agencies classifying most water features and even dry land as “waters of the U.S.” by rule. Most ditches, small and remote “waters” and ephemeral drains where water moves only when it rains are at risk. These features are not navigable nor are they even wet most of the time.
New to the discussion is a list of 56 exemptions for farmers and ranchers. The exemptions, however, don’t apply to new or expanded farms or cover weed control, fertilizer use and other common farming practices. The EPA and Corps in reality have narrowed existing exemptions by tying them to mandatory compliance with what used to be voluntary Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) standards. Because these exemptions are not part of the rule but, rather, included in an interpretive rule that is more like agency guidance, EPA and NRCS could narrow them further at any time.
Had enough? Missouri Farm Bureau (MFB) has and that’s why we are urging the EPA to “ditch the rule.” In the new MFB YouTube video “That’s Enough,” a parody of “Let It Go,” the Clay family of Moniteau County shows their frustration through song and a little humor. Please check it out and share it with others.
The public comment period for the proposed rule closes July 21. Please visit ditchtherule.fb.org to learn more and join the chorus of farmers and landowners telling the EPA and Corps to “let it go” and ditch the rule!
Garrett Hawkins, of Jefferson City, Mo., is the Director of National Legislative Programs for the Missouri Farm Bureau, the state’s largest farm organization.
Shari Tedford, center, a public health nurse educator with the Johnson County Health Department, leads a goal-setting discussion group during the state Oral Health Plan Summit at the Kansas Museum of History in Topeka on Friday. She was assisted by Susanna Honake, right, a lobbyist with Little Government Relations, which represents the advocacy group Oral Health Kansas.-photo by Dave Ranney
By Dave Ranney
KHI News Service
TOPEKA — About 65 health care providers, public health officials and advocates spent the day here Friday assessing and refining state’s long-term plan for improving Kansans’ oral health.
“We’ve accomplished quite a bit in the last three or four years, but there’s always more to do,” said Cathy Taylor-Osborne, director of the Bureau of Oral Health at the state Department of Health and Environment.
The summit attracted a mix of KDHE officials, dentists, hygienists, safety-net clinic managers, and county health department administrators. It was organized by KDHE and the advocacy group Oral Health Kansas.
Taylor-Osborne said the group’s goals would be posted in November on the Oral Health Kansas website.
The website also will include an action plan and regular updates documenting the group’s progress.
“There will be an ongoing evaluation of what, hopefully, we see as the goals and the strategic planning activities for the next three years and of how we’re going to monitor how those goals are being met,” Taylor-Osborne said.
The goals are expected to focus on:
• Promoting the concept of good oral health being essential to overall wellness;
• Advocating for policies that lead to better oral health including: fluoridation, Medicaid-funded dental care for adults, increases in Medicaid reimbursements for children and adequate funding for clinics that care for the uninsured;
• Increasing the number of dentists and hygienists available to the state’s underserved populations.
KDHE Secretary Dr. Robert Moser urged the group to continue “knocking down the silos” that exist between the state’s dental, medical and mental health communities.
“There’s a compartmentalization that’s been going on in health care since the 1940s,” Moser said. “But all of us in health care need to play a role in dealing with these areas even though they may not be our forte, whether it’s behavioral health, oral health or physical health. And we all need to recognize that these issues need to be addressed, and we need to be advocates for getting our patients the care that they need.”
Moser announced that KDHE filed its application for accreditation with the national Public Health Accreditation Board earlier this week.
The application, he said, stresses the department’s commitment to “healthy living,” “healthy communities,” and “access to services.”
Many of the issues cited by Moser and others are not new, said Oral Health Kansas Executive Director Tanya Dorf Brunner.
“It’s not like we haven’t been working on these things,” Brunner said. “There still are some big financial problems because Medicaid doesn’t cover dental for adults, we still have some underserved areas in the state, and we’re still having a hard time meeting the needs of people with disabilities, the elderly and small children. But we’re not done yet, either.”
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A U.S. Department of Health and Human Services review board says transgender people receiving Medicare may no longer be automatically denied coverage for sex reassignment surgeries.
The agency’s Departmental Appeals Board ruled Friday that a three-decade-old policy excluding such surgeries from the treatments that can be covered by the national health program for the elderly and disabled is no longer justified.
The decision came in response to an administrative challenge brought last year by Denee Mallon, a 74-year-old Army veteran in New Mexico who in 2012 sought to have Medicare pay for her genital reconstruction surgery and was denied.
Jennifer Levi, a lawyer with Gay & Lesbian Advocates and Defenders in Boston, says the lifting of the coverage ban means Medicare recipients will be able to seek authorization for sex-reassignment surgery with a doctor’s recommendation
MARYSVILLE, Kan–For the second week in a row, Marshall County law enforcement officials are investigating a fatal traffic accident.
On Friday, a twelve-year-old boy was killed in a rollover crash.
In a media release, the Marshall County Sheriff’s office reported a truck driven by Chase Salyers, 17, Blue Rapids, was traveling northeast in the 500 section of Osage Road when it rolled.
A passenger in the truck Canyon Kelly, 12, Fort Mohave, AZ., was partially ejected.
Kelly was pronounced dead at the scene.
Salyers and two other passenger Chris Padgett and Joey Aguire were not injured.
The sheriff’s office reported they were not wearing seat belts.
Last Friday Jacob Allen White-Beckman, 23, Marysville, died when his vehicle hit a tree on US 77 near Osage Road.
WARRENSBURG – A western Missouri woman has been charged with murder in the death of her newborn son, whose burned remains were found six weeks later in a cave.
WDAF-TV reports a grand jury on Friday indicted 19-year-old Latasha Wilson, of Warrensburg, on one count of second-degree murder. Wilson was charged earlier with abandoning a corpse.
Wilson was in the Johnson County jail Friday night on $250,000 bond. A message seeking comment was left with her attorney.
Biology students found the infant’s remains March 4 inside a research cave owned by the University of Central Missouri.
Authorities allege Wilson gave birth at work on or about Jan. 29 but left the baby in a toilet too long. Investigators say she and another person later took the body to the cave and left it there.
CHICAGO (AP) — Doctors may have a way to help young breast cancer patients avoid infertility caused by chemotherapy. Giving a drug to shut down the ovaries temporarily seems to boost the odds they will work after treatment ends, and it might even improve survival.
Chemotherapy often causes early menopause. A Cleveland Clinic researcher led a study of 250 women around the world to see whether giving a drug to make the ovaries go dormant would help.
Two years after cancer treatment ended, women whose ovaries were suppressed were less likely to suffer early menopause, and twice as many of them became pregnant compared to others in the study.
Results were discussed Friday at a cancer conference in Chicago.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A cross-country fight had to make an unscheduled landing when a service dog pooped twice in the aisle, sickening passengers with the odor.
US Airways spokesman Andrew Christie said the May 28 US Airways flight from Los Angeles to Philadelphia had to make an unscheduled stop in Kansas City,
Christie called the episode a “rare and unfortunate situation.” The flight continued after the mess was cleaned up on the ground. The passenger and service dog were rebooked on another flight.
Jim Kutsch, president at The Seeing Eye guide dog school in Morristown, New Jersey, tells The Philadelphia Inquirer that such incidents are rare, but that dogs occasionally get sick on planes, too.
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Attorney General Chris Koster says he is disturbed by new statistics showing that Missouri law enforcement officers have continued to pull over black motorists at a significantly greater rate than white drivers.
The report released Friday by Koster’s office found that black drivers were 66 percent more likely than white ones to be stopped based on their proportionate share of the driving-age population last year.
The disparity increased slightly from 2012 but is up significantly since 2000 when the state first began reporting racial demographics about traffic stops. In 2000, blacks were 30 percent more likely than whites to be pulled over.
“This suggests a disturbing trend, and I hope communities with similar findings will make a serious effort to identify the causes,” Koster said in a written statement.
He cautioned that the statistics don’t prove that law officers are making vehicle stops based on the race of the driver.
The report is based on a review of nearly 1.7 million traffic stops made by officers for 613 law enforcement agencies in 2013. It compares the traffic-stop data to the racial composition of the population in each jurisdiction and to the state as a whole.
Law enforcement officers have said racial disparities in traffic stops may appear higher in some cities comprised of predominantly white residents that have interstate highways or retail and tourist destinations. That’s because the cities may attract minority drivers at a higher proportion than the local population.
The report shows that Hispanic drivers were stopped at a lower proportional rate than white or black drivers. Law officers searched Hispanic and black drivers at a higher rate than white drivers. But of those who were searched, whites were found with contraband at a higher rate than black and Hispanic drivers.
Missouri law requires law enforcement agencies to report their annual traffic-stop data to the attorney general’s office, which must produce a report by June 1. For its analysis, the attorney general’s office relied on criminal justice professors at Arizona State University, the University of Missouri-St. Louis and the University of South Carolina.
LICKING, Mo. (AP) — State corrections officials say two officers at a southern Missouri prison are recovering from an assault by an inmate.
The Department of Corrections said the incident happened around 7 a.m. Friday at the South Central Correctional Center in Licking.
The injuries were described as moderate, and the department said Friday afternoon that both officers were in good condition.
Details about the assault and the inmate were not disclosed. Department spokesman David Owen says eight emergency response teams were activated to help search the prison.
The South Central Correctional Center is located about 100 miles south of Jefferson City. It opened in 2000 with a capacity of about 1,600 inmates.
NELIGH, Neb. (AP) — Opponents of a proposed pipeline that would carry Canadian oil south to the Gulf Coast hope to cultivate more resistance to the project by planting corn in the shape of a message.
