Major unions and one of their leading allies in the U.S. Senate are hailing tens of billions of dollars allocated for shoring up struggling union pension funds.
The funding added to President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill, dubbed the Butch-Lewis Act, would provide $86 billion to dozens of failing union pension plans across the country, including the Teamsters, carpenters, builders, and more. Ohio Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown said Tuesday the funding will save tens of thousands of Ohioans their pensions “earned over a lifetime.” He said he called some of those with pensions last weekend.
“The relief in their voices, the excitement, the tears. They had thought their retirement, what they had planned on might have been destroyed,” Brown said.
Brown and other Ohio Valley lawmakers representing historically union-strong states had continually studied the issue in recent years as union-run pension funds with multiple employers struggled to stay afloat. Brown served on a bipartisan committee focused specifically on the issue. He originally proposed the Butch-Lewis Act as a remedy, naming it after a deceased Ohio Teamster. The funding has also received significant conservative criticism.
Leading Republicans in Congress have called the funding wasteful spending not directly connected to pandemic relief. Congressman James Comer of Kentucky, the Republican Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, received praise from the United Mine Workers of America union last year for the passage of a bipartisan bill that secured pension benefits for miners.
“Shoring up struggling pension plans should be thoroughly evaluated on its merits, not stuck in a bill that is supposed to be about addressing the pandemic,” Comer said in a statement. “This is a COVID relief bill in name only, and the inclusion of unrelated spending items is proof that Democrat leadership is not focused on ending the coronavirus and reopening the economy.”
Other critics say this funding fails to fix the underlying issues that led union pension funds into trouble in the first place, such as a trend of low union and employer contributions into pension funds. Charles Blahous is a senior research analyst at the libertarian think tank Mercatus Center. He served as a trustee for Social Security and Medicare under the Obama administration and as deputy director of the National Economic Council under the George W. Bush administration.
“It sends a message to every pension sponsor out there that they can bail on funding their pension promises, and that not only will there be no adverse repercussions, they’ll be rewarded for doing so providing they are politically connected,” Blahous said in a statement. “It tells those who have responsibly funded their pensions that they’re suckers. It sends the bill to taxpayers, who did nothing to cause this.”
Brown said he doesn’t take conservative criticism of the pension funding “particularly seriously,” pointing out that many of those raising concerns now did not have concerns when Wall Street banks were bailed out in the 2008 economic crisis.
“They want government dollars to go to the wealthiest people in the society and let everyone else fend for themselves,” Brown said, defending the pension funding. “This is fiscally sound. This will keep these pensions in good shape for 30 years.”
Brown said he’s started conversations with Republican colleagues to try to build on this funding to reduce the financial risk for employers and unions moving forward. He said a reason why pensions were troubled was because of company bankruptcies following the 2008 recession. For example, before the passage of the Bipartisan American Miners Act, the bankruptcy of Ohio Valley coal giant Murray Energy could have imperiled the pension plan for tens of thousands of miners and their families.
The golden hue of the sunset shines across the sky and through the window as a woman drives down Van Meter Road in central Kentucky’s Clark County, passing by green rolling hills and hay bales.
In her social media video from early September, Adreanna Wills points out white signs in yards along the way, displaying the phrase “Industrial Solar” with a slash through the words.
“Imagine these signs being ‘for sale’ signs in front of these properties instead of the signs demonstrating where they stand on this, because that’s probably what we’re looking at for some of these families,” said Wills, who runs the county animal shelter.
For months beforehand, the Winchester-Clark County Planning Commission had been considering an ordinance that would amend local zoning to allow for solar projects to be installed in agricultural zones, or on flat, sunny farmland. Clark County already had one solar installation, in the form of 32,300 solar panels on 60 acres, producing up to 8.5 megawatts of electricity, run by the East Kentucky Power Cooperative since 2017.
Adreanna Wills, Courtesy
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Opposition signs in Clark Co., KY.
But the solar farms the local government is now considering under the ordinance would be much larger, spurred on by Massachusetts-based Swift Current Energy looking to build a solar project with a capacity of 220 megawatts. Some in Clark County, especially farmers, have concerns.
“I don’t necessarily think industrial solar is wrong. I don’t even think it’s wrong for our community. But I think the way that they have gone about it is wrong,” Wills said in a recent interview. “The process has not been followed the way that it should.”
Hundreds of people attended a special meeting of the commission on the ordinance in September, lining up out the door of a local church, with some wearing masks with logos opposing the solar project. The meeting was ultimately canceled due to legal issues. Even with commission meetings held virtually due to the pandemic, Wills said she feels like the community hasn’t yet had the needed forum to fully weigh in on the ordinance.
“I don’t even know that the industrial solar is the huge issue behind this and why the community is pushing back so much,” she said. “I think the issue is more about the leadership and the way the process has been handled.”
Adreanna Wills, Courtesy
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Adreanna Wills (center) and her husband (right) wearing masks with a logo opposing the local solar ordinance.
She said one of the reasons she drove down that particular road in September was to show people the community’s agriculture. Depending on the time of year, crops could be growing and cattle could be grazing in those fields. Her family roots are in farming, and she wants to make sure farmers’ voices are heard when it comes to how the land is used.
For a community in the Bluegrass region that values farmland as a key part of its identity, the solar industry knocking on its door presents an opportunity and a potential turning point for its future land use. It’s a scenario that could become more common around the region as President Joe Biden pursues an aggressive clean energy agenda.
Biden signed a series of executive orders last month directing federal agencies to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies and invest in carbon-free electricity, among other actions. The administration’s push and positive market forces for renewable energy will make the public processes for placing solar power more important, even in a region long dominated by fossil fuels.
‘Ag’ Issues
Wills said she didn’t become aware of the solar ordinance until a local organization brought the issue to the community’s attention. The Clark Coalition formed last June, advocating for smart economic growth and government transparency. It’s gotten support particularly from farmers, including its executive director Will Mayer.
“Clark County is a very significant agricultural sector. It employs nearly 1400 people. It has a $200 million annual economic impact. And it also is very central to our ability to attract investment, and tourism, and residents,” Mayer said. “It’s really about quality of life.”
Democratic presidential nominee former US Vice President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign event in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
Mayer said he first learned about the ordinance and the related solar project being considered that summer, but the conversations surrounding the project had been reportedly happening between local government and Swift Current Energy for more than six months before then, unknown to the broader public.
“It’s now been 18 months since these initial conversations between the developers and some of our local officials first took place, and the public has still yet to have had the opportunity to weigh in on this issue,” Mayer said. “The community should decide whether or not it wants this land use. And then if it does, then we look at how do we regulate it.”
He said the Clark Coalition isn’t opposed to solar energy as a whole, but believes the community should have the proper forum to talk about industrial solar on productive farmland, which the organization is against. While the commission most recently held virtual working sessions in December regarding the ordinance, Mayer said poor internet connection at times hampered the public’s ability to listen in.
Local cattle farmer John Sparks, who supports the coalition, worries how much highly productive farmland could be taken out of commission by an industrial solar project.
“This area right here in central Kentucky is a magical place for livestock,” Sparks said. “If you want to do solar panels, find the places not special as this, and do it. But this is too special of a place. This shouldn’t be happening on this type of land.”
Sparks isn’t necessarily against solar energy either, but believes it could be better placed on tops of warehouses or residences.
The Clark Coalition in a December letter to local government called for a one-year moratorium on solar development and the consideration of the ordinance to allow for a more substantive conversation about the issues at hand, while referencing the county’s comprehensive plan which details how land should be used in the coming decade.
“I could have told you that it would not go smoothly, because there were a lot of very justifiably upset people who felt that they’ve been excluded from the process,” said Tom Fitzgerald, Director of the Kentucky Resources Council.
Fitzgerald, a prominent environmental advocate, was brought in by the Clark Coalition early in the group’s efforts, but isn’t involved with the group currently. His nonprofit aiming to protect communities from pollution and environmental damage created an ordinance template last year to help Clark County and other communities navigate land use issues with solar projects.
As for where solar farms should be placed, Fitzgerald said much of it is dependent on access to regional transmission grids. In Clark County’s case, Swift Current Energy would offer its electricity to the PJM grid, acting as a wholesale electricity provider. In Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia, upwards of 250 active solar projects are already connected or plan to be connected to the grid, according to PJM. Swift Current Energy declined an interview for this story.
Fitzgerald said for a project like the one in Clark County to succeed, the conversation between the developers and community needs to be ongoing and candid. But Fitzgerald and other solar advocates also see opportunity in Appalachia.
Growing Solar
For a region that’s traditionally been dominated by fossil fuels, Joey James with the West Virginia-based consulting firm Downstream Strategies believes the Ohio Valley is on the front edge of opportunity for solar.
“What we know is that 85% of solar development that’s happened historically in the United States has been concentrated in 10 states,” James said. “Generally they’re found on the coasts.”
According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, less than 1% of all electricity in Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia is produced by solar energy. James said this positions the region to take greater advantage of “carbon offsets,” or credits that companies can use to meet sustainability goals. Because the region still relies heavily on fossil fuels, the carbon offset incentives can be just as important to solar companies as making profit from electricity.
And with hundreds of thousands of acres of degraded lands from a history of mining and burning coal available for solar installations, he said, the opportunities could be transformative.
“You can achieve quicker and deeper carbon offsets here than if you were to just build another solar farm in California,” James said, referring to a recent study from his firm. “What better place to do that than on former coal mines and industrial sites that played such a large role in the growth and expansion of our nation.”
Research from the energy consulting firm Wood MacKenzie also found utility-scale solar could be the cheapest form of power generation in Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia by this year or next.
But James also cautioned that the transition from fossil fuel reliance could be a slow process. A recent report from the West Virginia University College of Law urged the state to embrace renewables for a better economic future, while also dispelling the notion that coal is still a cost effective form of power generation.
Smart policy and open communication with stakeholders can make solar power a good fit for farmers. One eastern Kentucky farmer is already seeing savings from solar energy on a smaller scale.
Bryce Baumann helps manage a 300-member community-supported agriculture farm in Garrard County and Madison County, where the construction of an 1,100 acre solar farm is moving forward. He decided to install solar panels last year as a way to manage costs from an energy-intensive operation, while also taking into consideration their environmental responsibilities. His monthly electricity bill from his local electric cooperative has plummeted as a result, from $300 to $18.
“Farms are inherently solar energy generators, whether we might turn it into electricity or cellulose,” Baumann said. “It just makes sense to look for all the ways that we can to generate our own electricity and decrease our impact.”
Baumann said he worked with the Mountain Association, an economic development organization focusing on eastern Kentucky, to receive grants at the federal and state level to support the solar installation.
A Plea For Process
Clark County Judge-Executive Chris Pace is one of those concerned about the displacement of coal by incoming renewables.
“It just seems like the federal government has a grudge against coal, especially a Democratic administration. And so that’s what is kind of pushing people into a corner in regards to what to do with solar,” Pace said.
While he said he’s open to the idea of solar energy, he worries about “federal mandates” on solar energy at the local level, and also wonders what solar installations could mean for the use of farmland.
When asked about complaints regarding a lack of transparency and public input in the consideration of the local solar ordinance, he said he’s confident that it’ll have a public hearing, whether before the planning commission or the city and county government.
“I don’t really know that you can require a private business to hold open hearings on their own. But once [the ordinance] becomes something that’s discussed in planning and zoning, of course, it’s going to have a public airing,” Pace said.
For Adreanna Wills, communication is key to moving forward in this process.
“These are the people that are going to be living beside of it,” she said. “So we’ve got to come up with a better process or a better plan of getting people on board if it’s going to be successful.”
The Ohio Valley ReSource gets support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and our partner stations.
NOTE: This story was modified on Feb. 20 to clarify the Clark Coalition position on siting solar facilities.
Holiday light displays are spread out across Bob Noble park in Paducah, Kentucky, lighting up the barren trees at night for the community to drive by. The park has long been a gathering place for the small city, with performances at an amphitheater and swimming during the summer.
Shirley Massie, 76, sits at one the park shelters, proudly wearing a Paducah Tilghman High School football hat — her son was quarterback and wore the number “1”. She points out to the direction where her mother’s house was, saying how the park was nearby in her childhood.
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Ohio Valley ReSource
Shirley Massie sports a Paducah Tilghman High School football hat in Noble Park.
“I never went to Noble Park as a child because I couldn’t come over here as a child,” she said. “Jim Crow was really out there during the time that I grew up. But I think my parents protected me from it.”
The park was segregated during her childhood, with a separate park designated for Black people, Stuart Nelson park. During that era, she remembers having to go through a side door and climb a fire escape to a balcony, just to watch a movie at a theater.
As she got older, she decided to transfer from the local Black high school to Paducah Tilghman High School, only a few years after school integration began. Newspaper archives have accounts of PTHS and other local high schools holding blackface minstrel and talent shows about a decade before integration.
Massie said she didn’t walk commencement for her high school graduation.
“My senior year was the year that I met this teacher who apparently was very, very prejudiced,” Massie said. “Even during his lectures on the Civil War, he’d use the n-word and I’d cringe in my seat.”
She said the teacher purposely gave her failing grades that she knew she didn’t deserve. She appealed to the principal but ended up taking summer school classes instead.
Despite that experience, she came back to Paducah Public Schools and dedicated her career to teaching, serving decades at Paducah Middle School. She worked with Black girls to encourage them to love their bodies, to tell them they didn’t have to straighten their hair.
“Self esteem is one of the most important parts of educating the child,” she said. “Once you tear it down, you can’t repair it. Not the way it should be.”
But she worries all that work may be tarnished in the future because of a photo, one that’s embroiled her community for weeks.
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Ohio Valley ReSource
The photo of Donald Shively (left) in blackface.
In October, a photo resurfaced of Paducah Public Schools Superintendent Donald Shively, that he said is from a Halloween party in 2002. He’s pictured in blackface, wearing gold chains, a durag, and a Paducah Tilghman High School Football t-shirt. Shively taught and coached football there at the time.
The reaction was swift, loud, and unabated. Students walked out of the high school in protest. Parents and community members marched around the high school calling for Shively’s resignation, at times gathering at the school to honk their car horns in what they called a “Tornado Warning,” playing off of the school’s mascot.
Paducah was one of many small communities in the Ohio Valley that saw a moment of unity with Black Lives Matter protests over the summer, but Black community members now worry of hardening racial divides because of this controversy.
During a historic year of marches against racial injustice, the Black community in this city is facing racial trauma that hits close to home, wondering what this means for tackling systemic racism in their hometown.
Not A Safe Space
His son played with Shively’s son on a local Little League football team, Andiamo White said, the sun setting in front of the Paducah Tilghman High School football stadium.
On the sidelines the two fathers would talk about their studies — both were pursuing advanced degrees. So when he saw the photo, he said, he was shocked.
“I told him it was hurtful. The thing about it is, it let me know when I’m not in your face, this is what you think of me. I’m a joke to you. My culture is a joke to you. Black people are a joke to you,” he said.
White is a part of a group of parents that have protested and persisted in calling for Shively’s termination. He remembers in the 90s how Black students seemed to receive harsher punishment and get in trouble more than other students. He worries about the precedent that might be set if Shively remains in charge of one of the most diverse districts in the state.
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Ohio Valley ReSource
Parents of students in the school district who are calling for the resignation of Shively stand in front of the high school football field. Andiamo White (left), Amina Watkins (center), Tracey Lenox (right).
Kentucky Department of Education statistics show about 25% of the state’s public school students identify as a person of color; in Paducah Public Schools, more than 58% of nearly 3000 students do so, on par with the largest district in the state serving Louisville.
“Every time they pass him, they’re not gonna see ‘white Shively’. They’re gonna see gold-teeth wearing, durag-wearing, brown-face white man walking to school, walking through the school,” White said. “The white kids are gonna see the same thing. A Shively that is who he really is. The racist Shively. That’s what they’re going to be seeing.”
For Amina Watkins, another Black parent of three kids who came to speak with White, she said this school year has shown her that the school is not necessarily a safe space for her child.
“So looking at their mental health, making sure that they can be open and honest and vulnerable with me about how they feel is difficult because they’re teenagers. They don’t necessarily talk about all the feelings and emotions and stuff like that,” Watkins said. “When you talk about something that they don’t experience every day and now has become, like, an everyday conversation, it’s difficult.”
The situation has been a distraction for her daughter in her senior year, as she’s trying to keep her GPA up and prepare to go into the military. Her daughter shouldn’t have to worry about this, Watkins said.
Illustration by Mindy Fulner, LPM
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Ohio Valley ReSource
An occasional series exploring Black life in the Ohio Valley’s small towns.
Watkins said this year of protests and this subsequent controversy has also been an opportunity to create conversations on race that wouldn’t happen otherwise with white neighbors, to help give voice to the experiences and pain Black people are feeling.
“They’re not used to hearing it because they’re not reaching out to any of us,” she said. “We need people, our white counterparts on our side, to speak out for us to those people who aren’t willing to listen to what we have to say.”
At that point in early December, she was frustrated by the lack of communication and action by the school board on what consequences Shively may face because of the photo.
The board over past weeks has had several executive sessions behind closed doors with no word on what progress is being made in those meetings. The board has been collecting feedback and Shively said he’s worked to create an “action plan” for the district.
The Paducah-McCracken County NAACP chapter has called for Shively’s resignation, saying it was the “only viable option” moving forward in a letter to the board on Thursday.
But despite the indecision, Watkins said she felt encouraged by what she’s seen as a large group of allies in her community willing to stand up and break down existing barriers in her community.
A Year Of Protests
Following the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor at the hands of police, the start of the summer also saw an eruption of protests across the country calling for racial justice. But these protests didn’t just touch larger cities like Minneapolis or Louisville.
The Black Lives Matter movement touched rural communities across the Ohio Valley, including in several western Kentucky communities where such demonstrations were rare.
Tracey Lenox, a Black parent of a sophomore at PTHS, had thought that because many people in Paducah assumed that problems with racism and policing were distant concerns, protests like those would never reach her hometown. But on a June afternoon, hundreds of people of multiple ethnicities and races — in the middle of a pandemic — mobilized in Noble Park.
“When I got there and saw how many people were there, I was just blown away,” Lenox said. “A lot of people said, ‘Paducah doesn’t have these kind of problems. So why participate in it? We don’t have that here. Don’t start that mess here.’ And it was a great turnout.”
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Ohio Valley ReSource
Protesters at the Black Lives Matter protest in Paducah in June raise their fists at Noble Park.
It was a moment of unity amid a divisive political atmosphere. But then came news of the blackface photo. Online petitions both supporting Shivley and calling for his removal garnered thousands of signatures following the photo’s resurfacing.
College student and PTHS alumnus Aeranna Orr, a Black woman, helped lead chants at the Black Lives Matter protest at Noble Park. She said where people stood on the issue often came down to race.
“I feel like a lot of people who are against Shively resigning, they are only doing it because ‘it was 20 years ago, because it doesn’t matter anymore’. And most of those people who are saying that are not black. So they can’t be offended by that picture,” Orr said.
She said a lot of people aren’t fully aware about the history of blackface, and that some people may not be as critical of the photo because Shively wasn’t depicting their race.
Another retired Black educator says there’s a lack of empathy for the trauma the Black community was feeling.
Melanie Nunn taught in Detroit for two decades, and moved to Paducah to be in her husband’s hometown in 1996. She wondered why her area’s Republican State Senator Danny Carroll was quick to support Shively early on in a Facebook post. Carroll declined an interview for this story.
“When you immediately came to his defense, it bottom-line said, ‘I don’t care what your feelings are. I don’t care how you felt about blackface. I don’t care whether or not you were hurt. I care about this man,’” Nunn said. “Those kinds of things make our community even more divisive. Because what it says is that you don’t matter. We don’t matter. And that’s the whole concept behind Black Lives Matter.”
Nunn said her husband was a police officer, and she knows what the law enforcement lifestyle is like. Black Lives Matter isn’t just about law enforcement, she said, but calling for people to care about Black people as much as they do themselves.
“There are people who are not going to forget this and probably never going to forgive,” Nunn said. “Whether that matters to Senator Carroll, Mitch McConnell, whoever else — whether that matters, I don’t know.”
When Nunn spoke to the Ohio Valley ReSource in late November, she said she wasn’t sure what should happen to Shively. She wants this to be a teachable moment for him and the community, but she’s not sure it can be with the aftermath that’s happened.
She doesn’t think Shively is the same man in the photo as he is today. But as a former educator, she’s not sure if she trusts Shively to inspire students to reach their full potential.
Moving Forward
Jewel Wilson is a man of faith, a man who strongly believes in the power of forgiveness. The 49-year-old minister at a local church said he’s prayed about this controversy entangling the school district, praying that it comes to a resolution.
He sits by the door of a local distillery in downtown Paducah, where he said as a young man he was racially profiled by police when he was driving down by the Ohio riverfront. He has children in the school district, but says he’s forgiven Shively.
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Ohio Valley ReSource
Jewel WIlson in downtown Paducah.
“The thing that I was wrestling with being in ministry was the idea of redemption and people having value,” Wilson said. “I believe that you don’t throw all of the good of the man away for a moment of something that they did wrong, if you can see them sincerely wanting to understand the mistake they made and do the best they can to rectify that mistake.”
The pastor at his church, James Hudson, is also a member of the school board. Wilson said he hasn’t spoken with Hudson about the controversy.
But Wilson said Shively should be held accountable.
He suggested potentially having Shively suspended without pay to donate his salary to a charity supporting diversity work in the community. Wilson understands he might be in a minority position among others in the Black community about how he feels about Shively, but he still sees work that needs to be done tackling systemic racism in his community.
“I do believe that there is systemic racism. And I believe, again, that it has always been here, but because of the outgoing administration at 1600, Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC, he helped dust things up,” Wilson said, a reference to President Donald Trump’s often racist rhetoric.
Trump won McCracken County, where Paducah is located, by about 65% in the November election.
Shively has some supporters in the Black community, including some who worked with him in the school system.
Randy Wyatt, a Black man who coached on the football team with Shively, said he’s “never heard a racist tone” from Shively, and that he believed the resurfaced blackface photo is due to people with ulterior motives.
Jerald Ellington, the high school principal at the time Shively taught and coached, said he was an “excellent teacher” who challenged students. Ellington added he didn’t perceive any issues with racism or racial prejudice during his tenure at the high school.
Since the photo emerged, Shively has repeatedly apologized, and more recently said it’s been hard to hear that he’s lost trust among some students he’s spoken with.
“You give your professional life trying to help others, and so that’s hard as a person that cares about others to hear and know that you’ve caused hurt and lost trust, especially as a leader of the district,” he said.
Shively added that regardless of what position he holds moving forward, he hopes Paducah embraces the opportunity to confront racial divides in the community.
But back in Noble Park, Shirley Massie wonders how more apologizing will help the community ultimately heal and move forward.
“He said I’m sorry, over and over and over, and you know, I don’t know what to say after you say I’m sorry.”
In a hastily called meeting Friday evening the school board announced that it was directing Superintendent Shively to take 40 days of unpaid leave, and ordered him to undergo professional development.
Board chair Carl LeBuhn said no resolution would satisfy everyone, but added the board was elected to make difficult decisions and hopes their community will give the plan a “good-faith opportunity to succeed.”
The Ohio Valley ReSource gets support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and our partner stations.
David Meinschein’s teachers, staff and students have sacrificed a lot this year amid the staggering challenges of the coronavirus pandemic.
He opens the door heading inside Ballad Memorial High School’s basketball gymnasium — known locally as the “Green Palace” for its school colors. The school’s emptiness is another reminder of COVID-19’s impact. But as assistant superintendent of his school district, he’s proud of the resilience his teachers, students and staff have shown. Meinschein thinks the pandemic could compare to another historic event.
“I think in a decade from now, we will see that this will be similar to going through the Great Depression,” Meinschein said. “That stoicism and that mentality that came out of the Great Depression, I think you will see that in people as we move forward.”
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Ohio Valley ReSource
David Meinschein stands in front of the Ballard Memorial High School basketball gym, known as the “Green Palace”.
Ballard teachers put together paper instruction packets for students when the governor urged school districts to swiftly move to distance learning in the spring. They’ve adapted to using online programs that for some were completely new tools to learn, doing their best to engage students through the screen of a Chromebook. And they’ve adapted yet again when Ballard County Schools recently decided to move to all-virtual learning, with too many other teachers quarantined to continue in-person classes.
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Ohio Valley ReSource
The sign outside Ballard Memorial High School in western Kentucky.
Ballard County Schools, a district of about 1,100 students alongside the Ohio River, had an advantage in this pandemic that many rural districts throughout the Ohio Valley don’t have — widely available rural broadband internet. The many communities that lack reliable internet service face a greater risk of students falling behind.
“We just live in an age where you shouldn’t have to do that,” he said.
In a study from an internet service comparison site earlier this year, just 11 out of 120 counties in Kentucky were classified as covering 99% of their population with wired broadband. Those included Jefferson and Fayette counties — home to the cities of Lexington and Louisville — and Ballard County. The county’s local telephone cooperative built out a fiber broadband network to its rural communities, and it continues to expand it with the help of federal funding.
Meinschein said because of what he’s seen broadband do for his community, he’s more than supportive of bipartisan efforts to provide it in places where it’s lacking.
That’s just one area where President-Elect Joe Biden’s sweeping $2 trillion infrastructure plan could have a profound impact in the Ohio Valley region. Biden’s plan would not only invest in rural broadband but also fortify clean energy industries and shore up struggling water systems.
It’s a plan that Biden says will modernize the country, fight climate change, and create millions of jobs, drawing comparisons to the New Deal. Ohio Valley advocates hope it’s a plan, if realized, that will transform the region for the better. But the likelihood of a divided government, with Kentucky Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell retaining his majority leadership, means the new administration will need to find common ground to make that vision a reality.
Connecting Online
Biden’s plan for rural America includes a $20 billion investment into building out rural broadband access, and would encourage cities and towns to create their own municipal broadband networks. But for Marty Newell, it’s not the dollar signs next to the broadband investment that caught his eye.
“The first sentence of that [campaign plan] part is, ‘broadband is essential.’ It’s not a luxury, it’s not something that it’s nice if you can get to folks. It’s essential to participate in the 21st century economy,” said Newell, who leads the Rural Broadband Policy Group at the Whitesburg, Kentucky-based Center for Rural Strategies.
Newell is also encouraged that Biden’s plan advocates for the Digital Equity Act, legislation that encourages education around how to use the internet and the opportunities it can provide. Newell said rural broadband is about more than just accessibility and affordability, it’s also “about making sure folks have the knowledge they need to take advantage of the tool.”
Biden’s plan compares broadband internet to how access to electricity spread across the country in the 20th century. Newell adds a personal comparison with the experience of his grandfather, a dairy and tobacco farmer from Mason County, Kentucky.
“Not everybody was convinced they wanted electricity. My grandfather adopted electricity because he saw that the milking machines, if they were electric, were a whole lot better notion than him doing it by hand.”
He said rural places fortunate enough to have broadband infrastructure may still face issues with affordability. The combination of dispersed customers and fewer providers can make internet access too expensive for lower income residents in areas that lack competitive service options. In Ballard County, for example, the community still offers wireless hotspots at churches and businesses for families of students who couldn’t afford the broadband that was already in place.
The Biden plan also calls for reform of the Federal Communication Commission’s Lifeline program, which offers broadband subsidies for those who can’t afford it. Critics have said the subsidies offered have been too little to make a significant difference for those in need.
And importantly, Newell believes rural broadband has bipartisan support.
“There is and will be sticking points about exactly how it happens. But it is not something that it makes any sense for any politician to oppose. You can’t oppose roads, you can’t oppose water and sewer,” Newell said. “Broadband is in that category now.”
Clean Water On Tap?
Biden’s transition plans also emphasize targeted investments for an infrastructure area that’s even more essential — clean drinking water.
Since the Ohio Valley ReSource first reported on the poor quality of water in Martin County, Kentucky, the county has become the prime example of a problem all-too common across the region: Aging water systems, a shrinking tax base, and a legacy of polluted waterways left behind by the coal industry.
Benny Becker
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Ohio Valley ReSource file photo
Mary Cromer is the deputy director of the Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center, who also represents Martin County Concerned Citizens, a group that is a party in a series of cases by the Kentucky Public Service Commission investigating the local water district. Martin County residents have long suffered frequent line breaks and water shut-offs due the district’s dilapidated infrastructure.
Cromer believes an influx of infrastructure spending from the Biden administration would be critical for Appalachia. Without outside funding, advocates including Cromer worry the water systems like Martin County’s could fall further into disrepair.
“I think that the Biden administration definitely is signaling that they want to come in and they want to focus on repairing our dilapidated infrastructure, and that could be huge for our area,” Cromer said. “It’s not just Martin County. It’s a lot of Central Appalachia has very, very dilapidated infrastructure, not just water infrastructure.”
A 2019 report by the US Water Alliance identified Appalachia as one of six “hot spots” in the country where access to clean water is lacking.
Cromer also pointed to the potential of the Water Justice Act introduced this year by then-U.S. Senator and now Vice-President-Elect Kamala Harris. Cromer said that legislation would not only include funding for income assistance to let people afford water but would also grant money that could help struggling water districts afford to make repairs to their system.
“They have to spend money on maintenance every month because the [Martin County] system is in such bad shape. So it’s just a dilemma,” Cromer said. “There is no real easy answer there other than we’ve got to have some assistance coming in to help the district get out of the hole.”
Climate of Change
Ted Boettner sees an opportunity for the Ohio Valley in the Biden administration’s plan, one that hearkens back to a past investment made in the region — the Appalachian Development Highway System.
“This huge, large-scale investment in our highway system helped connect rural places in Appalachia to the outside world. And it’s had huge, enormous benefits over the last couple decades,” Boettner said. He’s a senior researcher at the Ohio Valley River Institute, a new think tank focused on the Ohio Valley region. “I think something along that scale is needed, where instead of connecting rural areas to metropolitan areas, we need to be able to connect into the clean energy economy.”
Boettner cited a study that showed the removal of the highway system would have taken away nearly $54 billion in revenue created from across the country, with $22 billion in losses coming from Appalachian counties. Boettner believes sweeping investment from Biden’s plan could now create a new economic transformation for the Ohio Valley.
The Biden-Harris clean energy plan calls for the country’s power sector to be carbon pollution free by 2035, while also cleaning up abandoned mines and brownfield sites. The investment would also prop up solar and wind industries, calling for the production of millions of solar panels and tens of thousands of wind turbines.
Another key aspect in the plan is that 40% of the overall investment would go to disadvantaged communities, which could directly benefit Appalachia.
“The transformation vision is embodied by the Biden plan, with its investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency, would actually be great for the valley,” Sean O’ Leary said, another senior researcher at the think tank. “We’re talking about industries that are way more labor intensive and a disproportionate amount of funding would come to our region.”
O’ Leary said Biden’s vision contrasts with clean energy plans pushed by Republicans and moderate Democrats, including West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, which emphasize initiatives such as carbon capture technologies instead of wind and solar industries.
Both Boettner and O’ Leary agree a plan for a cleaner energy economy is likely to happen, but whether Biden’s vision will lead the way remains to be seen, especially with the likely prospect of a Republican-controlled Senate.
Boettner adds regardless of which vision takes hold, stakeholders in the Ohio Valley need to have a seat at the table to discuss a clean energy future.
“It’s going to require a huge amount of public investment to help transition our energy economy. And if that’s curtailed, because some senators do not believe that it’s the public’s role to invest in those things, this region could be way worse off moving into the future,” Boettner said, warning that it could leave more people in the region feeling left out and left behind. “That would have some real bad impacts on our democracy.”
ReSource reporters Suhail Bhat, Sydney Boles, Brittany Patterson, and Alana Watson contributed reporting for this story.
The Ohio Valley ReSource is supported by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and our partner stations.
This story was updated on Thursday, April 30, 2020 at 9:00 a.m., to include Gov. Beshear’s comments and information about public health inspections at the JBS facility.
As President Trump ordered meatpacking plants on Tuesday to keep operating amid the coronavirus pandemic, more details are emerging about the concerns workers had about their safety at a facility in Louisville, where dozens of workers were infected and one died.
The Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services reported as of Monday, the state was aware of 220 coronavirus cases at four meatpacking plants, including 34 cases at a JBS Swift plant in Louisville. The cabinet also reported one death — at that Louisville plant.
Records of complaints filed with the Louisville Metro Public Health Department show that in early April employees were concerned that the company was not doing enough to protect them.
One health department complaint, filed on April 9, stated a worker at the JBS Swift meatpacking plant said a coworker tested positive for the coronavirus. According to the complaint, the company did not inform employees about the positive case, and the plant was not using social distancing for its employees at that time.
A second complaint, filed on April 13, stated that despite an employee death due to COVID-19, the company was not taking any cleaning measures at the plant.
According to the complaint, “an employee had a positive test in the plant, and has passed away. Employee worked on the King floor in the plant, stated the company has not taken any measures as far as cleaning or any sanitization of the facility.”
The complaint continued, “employees are concerned about their safety inside the [building]. Stated after concerns grew inside and working at location in [building], company told employees that if they did not come to work they would be terminated.”
In a statement sent Tuesday to the Ohio Valley ReSource, JBS USA spokesperson Cameron Bruett said that the company is now testing worker temperatures and requiring face masks. He also said no worker is being forced to work or is being punished for absences due to health reasons. The company is also staggering shifts and breaks, deep-cleaning facilities every day, and removing workers vulnerable to the virus from facilities.
Union Request
United Food and Commercial Workers Local 227 represents workers at the JBS Swift plant and several other meatpacking plants in Kentucky, including a Tyson Foods plant in Henderson County closing this week for sanitation after a coronavirus outbreak.
Union spokesperson Caitlin Blair did not directly comment on the complaints on record with the Louisville health department, but said workers are concerned for their health and safety.
“Yet they continue to show up to work to produce the food that we all need, and we owe them our gratitude for being brave frontline workers who didn’t sign up for this,” Blair said. “And we need to do whatever it takes to protect them and support them.”
In a statement to the Resource, Blair said the union is asking every employer they work with to be transparent with information on positive cases so that workers can make the best decisions for their health.
“We are working directly with JBS to ensure the company takes action to immediately strengthen protections at this plant to keep these workers safe on the job,” Blair said in the statement. “We’re calling on our federal and state officials to provide increased access to testing for meatpacking workers and a place in line for PPE as it becomes available. The CDC and OSHA recently issued guidelines for meatpacking and poultry plants to keep workers safe. These guidelines shouldn’t be a suggestion. They should be mandatory.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration on Sunday released optional guidance for meatpacking plants to follow, including asking there be distance between workers, staggering breaks for workers, and reducing the contact workers have with each other in plants and during ride-sharing to and from the workplace.
During Tuesday’s edition of WFPL’s “In Conversation,” host Rick Howlett asked Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer how the city was monitoring COVID-19 cases at the JBS Swift plant.
“We have a team of folks that visit employers and other groups to make sure proper protocols are in place, and if not you get corrective action with that. These meatpacking plants all around the country obviously have been a very significant challenge, some with hundreds and hundreds of infections in their plants,” Fischer said. “So, the nature of that work is people are working very closely together, which of course is a problem. That’s why we want the 6-foot distancing. So, yes, we are working with JBS to make sure that they have all the best protocols they can have in place for their business, which is defined as an essential business.”
Health Inspection
Louisville Metro Public Health Department has the authority to perform unannounced inspections of workplaces and remove individuals with COVID-19 symptoms from the workplace. Department spokesperson Dave Langdon said inspectors performed two inspections at the plant in April: one on April 13 — the same day the department received the complaint that alleged a worker with coronavirus died — and a second inspection on April 21.
According to investigation notes, inspectors during the April 13 inspection found several precautions to prevent virus spread were already in place, including temperature scanning for employees, protective equipment and sanitizing materials.
However, inspectors at that time still recommended that more social distancing needed to be practiced, and workers who were cutting, rendering, and packaging meat products still lacked proper barriers. The inspectors also requested soap and paper towels be made available on production floors for workers.
“Still need barriers placed between individual workstations. These are small compact areas where it is difficult to practice 6 feet of social distancing,” the report states. “Ensure all hand sinks in the facility and on the production, floors are stocked with soap and disposable paper towels.”
Ultimately, the inspectors on April 13 ordered plant management to ensure more social distancing, add barriers, and follow Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance.
During the subsequent April 21 inspection, inspectors still noticed failures to social distance at the plant.
“During lunch time, observed employees standing in close proximity (less than 6 feet apart) at the hot holding station. Observed Liberty Food Service employees improperly washing hands. Instructed Food Service Manager to ensure employees use a barrier to turn off the hand sink. Plant Operator said he would request maintenance to install foot pedals on the cafeteria hand sinks,” the report states.
Inspectors also noted that the plant was following CDC guidance issued on April 20, which allowed for workers who tested positive for the virus who were asymptomatic for seven days to return to work. The guidance also allowed for close contacts to those who tested positive after, but were asymptomatic for seven days, to return to work.
Inspectors “strongly recommended” that those with COVID-19 and close contacts of those individuals be removed from work for 14 days, not seven days.
The inspectors also recommended that more barriers be installed in the plant cafeteria, better face mask use be encouraged as many employees were “observed pulling down their masks, so that noses were exposed.” Inspectors said health department exposure advisories should be handed out to employees who had close contact with coworkers positive with the coronavirus.
Presidential Order
Ohio Valley worker safety advocates in recent weeks have raised concerns about the spread of coronavirus in meatpacking plants because of the tight quarters workers operate in and the high levels of interaction workers have with each other. These plants may now have to stay open, with President Donald Trump signing an executive order Tuesday to keep plants operating. Trump said he is also working on a plan “to solve any liability problems” for meatpacking companies.
Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles praised the executive order in a release, pointing to potential financial impacts that livestock farmers could see from shuttered meatpacking plants.
“We’ve already seen how temporary plant shutdowns in other states can have a major ripple effect on our way of life: a decline in livestock and poultry prices, and rumors of protein shortages in grocery stores,” Quarles said in a statement. “President Trump’s decision will help reduce disruption in our food supply chain and better help protect workers.”
The UFCW urged President Trump in a release Tuesday to enact enforceable coronavirus safety standards for meatpacking companies to follow if plants were to remain open.
Democratic Representative Bobby Scott of Virginia, the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, called Trump’s executive order “disturbing” if no mandated safety standards are required in meatpacking plants.
“There is clear evidence that without proper protections from COVID-19, workers in meat processing plants and other workplaces will continue to fall ill and die from this disease,” Scott said in a statement. “The administration would better reflect the best of America’s values if it used the [Defense Production Act] to mandate the production and distribution of personal protective equipment, while issuing an emergency workplace safety standard to protect workers from COVID-19.”
Worker safety advocates have said the lack of an enforceable safety standard among meatpacking plants could lead to some plants not offering enough protection.
Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said during a Wednesday press conference that despite Trump’s order, it’s important for meatpacking plants to follow health guidelines and regulations, or risk putting their workers in harm’s way.
“If you know you got a problem and you’re unwilling to pause to fix it, you’re going to have a bigger problem going forward,” Beshear said. “It’s the same as any of these regulations that we’re talking about that if we don’t follow them and do what it takes to lessen the spread, then you end up with a worse result.”
Amina Elahi, Rick Howlett and Laura Ellis of WFPL, and Jeff Young of the ReSource contributed reporting. This story may be updated.
Local public health departments and hospitals are on the front lines of facing the coronavirus throughout the Ohio Valley, yet the health professionals…
Local public health departments and hospitals are on the front lines of facing the coronavirus throughout the Ohio Valley, yet the health professionals who run these facilities say years of underfunding and hospital closures have diminished these services that now face the crisis.
Dan Brown, a former councilman for the riverside village of Bellaire, Ohio, believes the emergency management services in his community and Belmont County are strong in facing the coronavirus, with several volunteer fire departments in “spitting distance” from his village. But that’s not what he’s worried about.
Belmont Community Hospital in Bellaire closed last April, and five miles upriver, East Ohio Regional Hospital and Ohio Valley Medical Center near Wheeling, West Virginia, closed their doors. One hospital remains in Wheeling.
“The number of beds have gone down so dramatically. I can’t imagine if we had any kind of outbreak, with a two percent or five percent fatality rate, we’re in deep trouble,” Brown said. “The whole thing is setting up for failure.”
Even before the pandemic, Brown said, the hospital closures meant that those in communities near Bellaire would have to travel farther to receive services like kidney dialysis, and he’s concerned a similar situation could happen with the current outbreak. On Friday, Belmont County officials confirmed two cases of the novel coronavirus.
One nurse in the upper Ohio Valley said her hospital is already dealing with a spike of patients and concerns about lacking resources. Megan Carroll works at Trinity Health System in Steubenville, Ohio, and was a nurse at East Ohio Regional Hospital before it closed.
“Resources are limited. Testing is limited. Staffing is limited, and of course beds are limited. Any potential outbreak, including the one that’s happening now will devastate resources,” Carroll said. “The public is irritated. They want treatment, but we can’t get to everybody all at once.”
As of Friday afternoon, she said her hospital is already having emergency room patients waiting six to seven hours to be seen by staff, and staff are establishing quarantine rooms for anybody who is suspected to have coronavirus.
Nearly 20 percent of more than 100 rural hospital closures across the country since 2010 have been in Appalachia, according to the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Hospitals are not the only important piece of the public health infrastructure to be diminished around the Ohio Valley. Officials say other vital parts of these public health systems now facing stress from the coronavirus could have been fortified years before.
Underfunded, Overworked
Under normal circumstances, Jim Tolley’s public health department would conduct restaurant inspections and help couples plan to raise families. But these aren’t normal circumstances.
Tolley, interim director for the Pennyrile District Health Department in west Kentucky, gave stern recommendations to school district superintendents, elected officials and hospital staff, during a regional meeting Thursday.
For example, nursing homes should limit visitors, hospitals should review plans in handling a spike of patients, and school districts should prepare for the governor to close schools. Later that day, Kentucky’s governor requested schools do just that.
But with a crisis like coronavirus, he’s strapped for resources and manpower. His public health department, covering several counties, is working with half the staff he had in 2012.
Three out of his five county health centers in west Kentucky that provide clinical care had to close one day out of the week to maintain services. And a report last year showed his department within 12 months of financial insolvency due to poor state funding and the state’s pension troubles.
Credit Liam Niemeyer / Ohio Valley ReSource
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Ohio Valley ReSource
Jim Tolley (right) addresses local leaders in west Kentucky.
He’s had to cut back even more on services his department provides to divert toward addressing the coronavirus. And millions of dollars of emergency federal funding could come months too late to help.
“When these events come up and we don’t have the staffing that we need, it shows the importance of having some reserve,” Tolley said. “They can send the money out, but it takes years to get a public health nurse fully trained.”
