The Summer 2013 issue of The Fine Print is out and about town. Can’t get your hands on a copy? Flip through the PDF online here.

Corrections to issue:

In the table of contents, the teaser for City’s New Swag is supposed to read: “A new health clinic to open in western Gainesville for low-income patients.”

Crossword puzzle answers:

Down:

1. Faro
2. Red
3. Ornate
4. Cashew
5. Retirement
6. Go to
7. Camouflage
8. Connecticut
9. Tudor
10. Advocate
15. Stolaf
17. Triumph
18. Basilica
19. Say cheese
20. Slap on the wrist
22. Staples
24. Amuse
31. In honor of
32. Comets
33. Wallace
34. Jackpot
37. Amour
38. Pars
42. Richard
43. Pearl
46. Break
49. Islam
50. Elver
53. I too
54. Dye
56. Sky

Across

11. Meridiem
12. Span
13. Nolo
14. Two tone
15. Swayers
16. Debt
21. Life is Beautiful
23. Dead ends
25. At war
26. Cups
27. United center
28. Tend
29. Solzhenitsyn
30. Bit
34. John
35. The Godfather
36. Casual
39. Hang ten
40. ATM
41. Street lamp
44. Other
45. Reuse
47. Extra
48. Giffen
51. Adhere
52. Lilac
55. Ants
57. Soy
58. Rated

The post Introducing Vol. V, Issue IV appeared first on The Fine Print.

Charlie Lybrand checks on a hive of his honey bees. Some of the honeycomb is filled with honey, which Lybrand will eventually collect using a centrifugal force extractor. Photo by Lily Wan.

Facing the nation’s largest bee die-off in history, what’s the buzz keeping colonies strong in Florida?

A major in philosophy could lead to a variety of careers, but beekeeping isn’t usually the first to come to mind. For Charlie Lybrand, however, the path from Socrates to honey bees made perfect sense. He says beekeeping has afforded him ample time to put his college education to use.

“One of the things I enjoy about working with bees is the fact that I do it by myself,” Lybrand said. “It allows you more time to be contemplative.”

Lybrand has been in beekeeping since 1977, when his love for honey sent him searching for his own hives. He planned on getting just two, but instead came home with eight. Since that day, he has maintained an intimate and active role in the honey bee business, specializing in honey production rather than crop pollination. He’s raised his bees and watched them develop, tending to them through years of both growth and decline. The bee colonies, however, are still an indomitable force.

“Bees have had a long-term relationship with humans, but in reality, there is an essence of them that is still wild. They never will be as domesticated as cows or horses,” said Lybrand.

Through his 36 years as a beekeeper, he’s witnessed his business transform into a bustling apiary with, at times, up to 60 hives. The landscape of the industry, he’s noticed, has also drastically transformed.

The crux of this transformation came in the eighties and would forever separate beekeeping into what Lybrand classifies as the “pre-mite” and “post-mite” eras. The Varroa mite invasions led to the now-widespread crisis known as Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD. The mites attach themselves to the bees, sucking out vital fluids and infecting them with viruses that wiped out massive numbers of their colonies.

“It’s changed the level of production that we get out of the hives dramatically,” Lybrand said. “We used to average very close to 400 pounds of honey a year off of each colony. Now we’re working hard to get back up to 200 pounds.”

The mites tore an industry wide open, instilling panic in the beekeepers who had no choice but to fight the mites.

“Beekeepers stopped being just farmers who could sit back and enjoy their livelihood,” said David Westervelt, a chief inspector of apiaries in Florida. “They started having to treat their hives with pesticides and had to start finding treatments they could use to control the mites.”

These new pesticides, brought in by large companies like Monsanto and Bayer, were employed with urgency to fight the Varroa mites, but many of them actually harmed the bees themselves.

“We’ve been at a war on both fronts,” Westervelt said. “You’re trying to keep the [pesticides] that were killing bees off the bees, and you’re trying to keep the ones that work and can control the Varroa mites.”

The mite-fighting treatment, when ingested by bees, becomes just one more drop in the cocktail of pesticides that bees are exposed to on a daily basis.

“Almost every aspect of the honeybee’s life is coming into some contact with pesticides,” said Jeanette Klopchin, a research technician and Laboratory Manager for UF’s Honey Bee Research and Extension Laboratory. “The interaction between each of those pesticides and their effect on the bees’ development is extremely complex.”

Commercial-scale pollination has added to the deluge of problems bees are already facing. Many pollination farmers team up with mono-crop agricultural industries like the almond producers in California because the partnership is more cost-effective. However, this partnership has brought along side effects, like the spread of weak under-utilized hives across the country and a reliance on Genetically Modified Organisms, or GMOs. These GMOs were designed to maximize production, often without concern for how the bees will be affected.

“There hasn’t been any real research on the long term effects of GMO pollen on the bees or anyone else,” Klopchin said.

Mono-crop pollination also alters the natural diet of honey bees — a diet that requires nutrition and diversity. In efforts to fix this, farmers are forced to provide soy-based, artificial feed to supplement the bees’ undernourished diet.

“At the UF apiary, we don’t tend to do supplemental feeding,” Klopchin said. “I think nothing is better than what’s from nature. We don’t use pollen substitutes or honey substitutes or anything like that.”

UF’s lab works to improve the health of Florida’s honeybees, including the use of RNA interference. This new technology manipulates the genes of the bees to try reduce the effects of pathogens and mites. While progress is being made, there has still been no effective way found to control the mites and curb their effects on colony collapse.

While CCD brought the honey bee population to record lows across the nation, Florida has seen a remarkable resilience in its numbers. In the last five or six years, the number of beekeepers has jumped from 900 to 3,000, and the number of colonies has grown from around 220,000 to 360,000.

These gains are mostly attributable to small-scale beekeepers.

These beekeepers, who have anywhere from 2 to 100 hives, offer a more natural, honey-centered alternative to the pollination farms that utilize GMOs, supplemental diets and pesticides.

“The beekeepers that keep their bees in more natural or small-time organic farms probably have less problems with their bees than [those with] big farms that have a widespread aerial pesticide spray,” Klopchin said.

Small-scale beekeepers like Lybrand are also trying to combat the problem of mites themselves.

“I’m slowly and progressively trying to genetically breed bees to come up with resistance to diseases,” Lybrand said. “The small-scale guys are the ones that come up with the innovations, and they know more about their bees from watching them more closely. They’re going to be what saves it in the long run.”

With one-third of all food in the U.S. directly related to honey bee pollination, the survival of the bees is vital for the survival of the entire agricultural industry.

“We’re all fighting for the same goal in the end,” Klopchin said. “We need to keep honey bees alive and productive and try to get rid of these mites before they get the better of us.”

The post The Bees’ Needs appeared first on The Fine Print.

Above: Louis Howard, 36, gives a command to his dog, Kate, at Academy 26 in the Paws on Parole program during a training session at the Florida Department of Corrections Gainesville Workshop.  Photos by Melanie Brkich.

“Sit. Sit. Okay, stay.”

Marcus Henry, 41, doesn’t spend his mandated service hours like most inmates. At the Florida Department of Corrections Gainesville Work Camp, he trains dogs. He’s spent one year and four months of his ten-year sentence working with the work camp’s Paws on Parole program.

Paws on Parole is a partnership program between Alachua County Animal Services and the Gainesville Work Camp. In each of the program’s eight-week long sessions, prison inmates train an “academy” of rescued dogs to be adopted into new “forever homes,” meaning they will no longer be shuffled around.

Henry usually calls dibs on the little ones like Ducky, his current dachshund-terrier mix. Ducky’s the seventh dog he’s trained; graduation and adoption are always bittersweet for him.

A former corrections officer himself, Henry became addicted to pain pills after knee surgery, eventually going to illegal lengths to obtain more.

“Thankfully I got caught,” Henry said. “You won’t often hear that. But this actually saved my life.”

The most powerful thing about the program, he said, is positive reinforcement for both the inmates and the dogs. Henry said the animals they train were often punished somehow without understanding why.

“I know exactly what I did, but I also know this is my second chance. We are both on the same path.”

Many of the trainee dogs are “at-risk” breeds, like pit bulls.  People mistreat or abandon them based on the misconception that the dogs are violent.

The inmates are fighting a similar stigma. Most of them are non-violent offenders, serving time for things like drug abuse, Animal Services officer Mike Kirby said. In the past, they would have to pay off their time doing roadside cleanup; now they have a chance to actually give something back to the community.

Since its start in 2009, the program has graduated 150 dogs from 25 academies, all trained by inmates, with 100 percent of dogs being placed in “forever homes.”

The success of the program has led to the creation of Paws on Parole Unleashed, the sister program at Alachua County jail, which enlists female inmates to train the dogs.

Debra Scott, a detention officer who helped spearhead the Unleashed program, said it took pushing through a lot of red tape, but two years after pitching the idea the persistence has paid off. Before Unleashed, women weren’t allowed to do work outside.

“The only chores available for women before were things like laundry and working in the kitchen,” she said. “The men were given the ‘bigger jobs.’”

Scott has been working closely with the dogs and their trainers since day one and has noticed an enormous change in the inmates. She has heard the women talking about going back to school and turning their lives around once they are done serving their time.

“The women are learning behavior modification because they are teaching behavior modification.”

Scott plans for Unleashed to expand in the future, but currently, the women’s program only has two trainers. On April 19, they graduated their first class of dogs.

Saying goodbye at graduation is hard, but it’s not necessarily forever. Henry said that every one of his families has come back to later graduations to say hello with their dogs.

“When I came into this, all I knew was I had to do the time,” he said. “Now I’m changing the lives of these families, my dogs, and my own.”

The post Homeward Bound appeared first on The Fine Print.

When Ephraim Ragasa, UF/IFAS entomology graduate student, created a comprehensive article on the Psorophora cilia — a particularly large species of mosquito — he had no idea he would be contributing to the trendy, rolling cache of evidence that Florida is both bizarre and terrifying.

Ragasa’s article was written as an assignment for a class and compiles information about the mosquito, commonly called the gallinipper, that had previously been scattered among various publications. Once the article was released online to the general public, it quickly caught the attention of the UF News Bureau. Both Ragasa and the bureau were struck by a particularly interesting feature: It was huge.

What the subsequent wave of press failed to underscore was that, other than its size, the gallinipper is not unusual.
Philip Kaufman, associate professor of veterinary entomology at the University of Florida who had assigned the article, spent his spring break answering phone calls from reporters around the nation. They were very interested in a UF News press release titled, “Huge aggressive mosquito may be abundant in Florida this summer, UF/IFAS expert warns.” Understandably, they wanted to know when the swarm would descend.

Kaufman’s responses were trimmed and incorporated into small, vaguely panicked articles. The Huffington Post titled one “‘Gallinipper’ Mosquito to Descend on Florida; Giant Insect ‘Goes After People,’ Hurts When it Bites,” and incorrectly reported its size as “ inch-long.” The Time Newsfeed warned the public to be wary about an impending “statewide infestation.” Reports favored words like “attack,” “invade,” “plague” and “strike.”

“A lot of this got blown out of proportion,” Kaufman later said. “The story unfortunately became more about the mosquito challenge. [Ragasa’s] article became lost in it.”

The spirit of Ragasa’s work, too, became lost in the urge to capitalize on latent fears.

“The questions became more about mosquito control and damage caused by the mosquito rather than the biology…and what it represents,” Kaufman said.

For Kaufman and Ragasa, the gallinipper is a glimpse into Florida before it was inhabited by humans. While the Asian tiger mosquito, the one urban Floridians most often encounter, has adapted to human presence, gallinippers are born and raised in rural, wooded environments and do not leave the place in which they were born.  Because the gallinipper is a species generally untouched by humans, its presence shows an environment in its most natural state.

“When you see this one, in essence, you’re in old Florida,” Kaufman said.

Despite the many reports warning that Florida will face an invasion, Ragasa pointed out that people living in urban areas will probably never encounter the mosquito.

“You’d actually have to hike in the woods after a significant rainfall in the summer or early fall to encounter these ladies,” he said.

And as for an invasion?

“It’s a native species, so there’s no ‘invasion’ happening,” Kaufman said.

Other misconceptions, such as its size, bite and rarity jolted through the general public, along with distressing, conflated descriptions. An article by LiveScience, later reposted by Science on NBC News, claimed that gallinippers were “One of the most ferocious insects you’ve ever heard of.”

“We’re in a news…cycle and no one wants to read the original thing,” Kaufman said. “And many of the reporters unfortunately didn’t go to the source, or even the press release, to get the information, and it was gleaned from others.”

As a result, the gallinipper — native to Florida, infrequently seen in urban areas and, while persistent and aggressive, harmless — became a monster-bug, another nightmarish and unusual quality of Florida. Mutant mosquitoes seemed to logically follow a state that spawned Florida Man, The Python Challenge and a person who ate another person’s face.

Ragasa recalls coming home from spring break, “looking at all of the reports and going, ‘oh, that’s not what we’re trying to write here.’”

It’s unfortunate that the story got out of hand, Kaufman said, but neither he nor Ragasa is worried about the gallinipper this summer, even if enough rainfall occurs to increase their numbers. In fact, the Asian tiger mosquito is of more concern, being a competent carrier of diseases dangerous to humans.

The gallinipper, though large for a mosquito, is harmless. In fact, though Ragasa has felt their bite, he looks at them fondly.

“Yeah, they’re blood suckers, but for us — for me — they’re very striking, very pretty mosquitoes,” Ragasa said. “I always tell people: When you see them, kind of look at them; appreciate them, before you smack ‘em dead.”

The post True Blood appeared first on The Fine Print.

Photo by Melanie Brkich.

“The Dixie Hotel”: The Jones B-side takes on the whiskey sour

So, The Jones B-side hosts Drag Queen Bingo every Monday evening, and that’s pretty cool. Maybe you’ve even been, had a couple drinks, gotten a little wild. But have you noticed the drinks you’re sippin’ are locally-sourced from places like Swamp Head Brewery and other nearby distilleries?

The B-side watering hole keeps it traditional, but also tries to infuse a personal touch of originality into their drinks. Audrey Dingeman, their bar manager, says they like to get creative by putting their own spin on classic beverages with subtle yet tasteful variations. In their Vanilla Old-Fashioned, for example, they replace sugar cubes with house-made vanilla from whole vanilla beans. They’ve taken on the crowd favorite whiskey sour, too. Check out the recipe for this zingy elixir they’ve conjured up and shared with us!

The Recipe:

• 1 1/2 oz. whiskey
• Freshly grated ginger
• 3 oz. Fresh squeezed sour mix
• Dash of simple syrup (see recipe below)

Fill a 10 oz. rocks glass with ice to the brim and pour it all in.
Fancy it up! Garnish with candied ginger skewer.

Sour Mix Recipe:

• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1 cup freshly squeezed lime juice

Boil water and sugar, stirring until dissolved.
Remove from heat and mix in juices.
Refrigerate.

Eat me! I’m in season and fresh!

Tomatoes
Watermelons
Squash
Peppers
Cantaloupes
Eggplant
Basil
Zucchini
Cucumber

The post Read Up, Drink Up appeared first on The Fine Print.

The Spring 2013 issue of The Fine Print is out and about town. Can’t get your hands on a copy? Flip through the PDF online here.

The post Introducing Vol. V, Issue III appeared first on The Fine Print.

Rusti Pee, one of the co-founders and baristas at Radical Press Coffee Collective, brews up a strong cup of locally roasted coffee using the cafe’s new AeroPress coffee maker. Photo by Maria Correa.
What do you do when you are tired of working in environments where you “don’t have creative control,” “feel powerless,” or that your “opinions aren’t as valuable as the higher-ups’”? You get creative, partner with people and empower each other, and make an inspiring and collaborative work environment. In the words of famous architect Buckminster Fuller, “To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

So what does this new model look like, and where is it?

It’s right in our backyard, at the artists’ block off south Main Street, also home to Citizen’s Co-op and Gainesville’s activist library, the Civic Media Center (CMC). This past fall, some young coffee-loving entrepreneurs pegged down this creativity hub for their new business model.

Entrepreneurs? Yes. Conventional? Hardly.

These eight founders were determined to build something better than the business-as-usual capitalist model. It would be a cooperatively run café — no bosses, anti-profit and community-focused. And with this mission, the Radical Press Coffee Collective was born.

Radical Press “dream[s] of a world where cooperative models are the norm and not an oddity,” where the management and production systems are “based on cooperation and not coercion,” said Rusti, Radical Press’s foam-forming barista artista.

At Radical Press, decisions are made laterally, meaning the decision-making process is non-hierarchical and entirely consensus-based. Additionally, all workers are self-employed and equally paid, allowing them to reduce management costs and additional overhead. Being self-employed, they have a personal interest in the success of the project as well, even if the interest is not driven by a profit motive.

One of the goals of Radical Press is to build upon the artists’ block and community that has been organically growing on south Main Street for several years. For a start, Radical Press launched an Indiegogo campaign in December to raise funds for its opening. The campaign’s goal? $15,000.

$15,000? Repeat that? A bit of a tall order for an anti-profit business model, no?

This type of speculative retort is something the collective has heard before.

The donations are for the coffee shop’s grand opening and for reinvestment back into the space, the project and partnership, as well as the community. This money will also go towards purchasing equipment and supplies, such as organic locally roasted coffee from roasters like Strongtree, Sweetwater and Tree City.

So far, the community has been supportive of the venture, donating their time, money and resources to get the collective up and running.

The founders believe that if the community wants the collective to thrive, they will keep coming back and donating for coffee and a comfortable, creative environment where they know they are truly valued as a customer.

“Our relationship with the CMC is symbiotic,” said Quinn Martin of Radical Press. “Our neighbors at the Co-op have been extremely generous in sharing their resources. We’ve been working with them to reduce our own overhead by using some of their facilities, while supporting them by purchasing most of our goods wholesale through the Co-op.”

Radical Press promises all surplus after paychecks, equipment maintenance and ingredients will go directly back into the community. Some of the campaign money and any monthly profit will be donated to the Civic Media Center for shared use of the space and utilities expenses, said Quinn.
Kenzie Cooke, another one of the Radical Press’s barista artista founders, is excited about the collective venture. “Since we don’t have any boss or owner concerned with profits influencing the space, the shop will be a real reflection of the community,” she said.

After several years of collaborating and community building, the artists’ block is now a hub for collective organizing, arts shows, workshops and music shows. It seems well on its way to being a sustainable and exemplary alternative business model, but how is success measured outside the traditional monetary metric utilized in capitalist business structures? How will the collective gauge success?

“One of our main objectives in forming this collective is to bring new energy into the CMC and revitalize it as a community space, so I think even if we can stay open as an all volunteer-run venture, I would call our project successful,” says Kenzie. “We want to be a real alternative and hope to share our process (what went horribly wrong, what we learned from it, etc.) and inspire similar collectives.”

By empowering each other, Radical Press and its neighbors hope to empower others to create similar new models and to give back to the community that helps support them in their venture. This is the kind of collaboration that builds jobs, the economy and real long-term equity. This is the kind of collaboration that has helped the artists’ block flourish.

The post No Boss, No Dairy, No Problem appeared first on The Fine Print.

Ed Braddy

After serving two terms as a Gainesville city commissioner, Ed Braddy entered the mayoral race in early January. Aside from his tenure as city commissioner, Braddy has also served as a co-host of the conservative Talk of The Town radio program. His work as director of the American Dream Coalition, a nonprofit group focusing on “the American dream of freedom, mobility and affordable homeownership” heavily influences his mayoral goals. Braddy has his sights set on a plan of fiscal conservatism and individual rights. He plans to oppose rising utility rates and taxes and promote affordable homeownership. Beyond this, he is working to “promote mobility,” as per his campaign website. What this comes down to is his desire to reject plans for a “bus rapid transit system,” a new plan circling in Gainesville city government, and focus instead on refining current RTS (Regional Transit System) service.

Scherwin Henry

Scherwin Henry is a senior biological scientist at the University of Florida, former city commissioner and a Gainesville native. Running his campaign on the concept of Gainesville as “a tale of two cities,” Henry looks to unite and promote growth throughout the city. His plans for his hometown include a focus on economic and community development, including a myriad of sub-issues, such as promoting plans to end homelessness, improvement to the existing infrastructure and environmental protection policies.

Peter Lars Johnson

Peter Lars Johnson first declared his intent to run for mayor in August of last year. A former chairman of the Gainesville Alachua County Regional Airport Authority, Johnson is hoping to “[lead] Gainesville from Good to Great,” as he describes on his campaign website. Deeply involved in Gainesville, Johnson’s resume hosts a wide range of tenures, from a term as president of the Gainesville Chamber Orchestra board to co-founder of UF’s Leadership Development Institute.  His stances seem to cling to the idea of fiscal responsibility and community development. It is clear that he wants to promote Gainesville’s reputation as a great place to raise a family, but his plans for what he would do exactly, if elected, are more vague.

Craig Lowe

Gainesville’s current mayor, Craig Lowe, a hands-on official who can often be found at student events at UF and downtown, is running for reelection. Previously, Lowe has worked as a biological scientist at UF and served as a city commissioner. Though not a Gainesville native, Lowe is finely tuned to workings of the city. His platform consists mostly of job creation through the promotion of new businesses — especially local businesses — and building projects. He hopes to create an environment in which, as he says on his campaign website, “all residents…can find a job and put down roots.” He has some emphasis on environmental concerns, neighborhood safety and promotion of a budgetary policy that would make his other plans possible. It seems Lowe, if afforded more time as mayor, would work to further the strides he has made in office so far.

Mark Venzke

Mark Venzke, who ran unsuccessfully for city commissioner last year, is largely a proponent of environmental activism. Venzke worked for a number of years in the landscape industry based in Chicago and later worked in Indiana and Colorado before eventually moving to Gainesville. Though his campaign focuses are broad, ranging from establishing “open and responsive government” to furthering Gainesville’s current transportation systems, Venzke has a keen interest in pursuing a “fully responsible energy policy,” as per his campaign website. Taking stances against  the biomass plant contract, which he says is too expensive and not well-suited for Gainesville, and the currently operating solar feed-in tariff program, Venzke seems focused on opening new avenues of renewable energy in Gainesville.

The post May (or) May Not appeared first on The Fine Print.

Founder of the Streetlight program at Shands Hospital, Rebecca Brown spoke of her experiences helping others handle life, death, and being human in the face of illness during TEDxUF at the Philips Center on February 23. Her talk, which ended the first portion of the day, was met with a standing ovation. Photos by Melanie Brkich.

When Rebecca Brown was a student in California, she found herself constantly being labeled as overly passionate. She was surrounded by laid-back people who preferred calm discussion over fervent action.

“I don’t know how many times it was said to me, ‘My, you’re passionate,” Brown said. “I can’t help it, I get worked up about whatever has gotten me on fire.”

Since coming to Gainesville, however, the people around her value her energy. Brown is the founder and director of Streetlight, a local program that partners students with young people with a chronic illness or disease. Recently, her dedication was recognized when she was selected to be a speaker at TEDxUF 2013.

She received a standing ovation after her talk about how society deals with death.

The event was held on Feb. 23 at the Phillips Center, and was the fourth iteration of TEDxUF, a testament to the idea of passionate living. Once a year, it showcases live speakers, performers, artists and entrepreneurs.

Organized locally, TEDx events are created in the spirit of TED, a nonprofit organization designed to promote “Ideas Worth Spreading.” This year’s theme, “Pursuing Passion,” was chosen by curator Stefan Wolff as the concise expression of everything the TED talks are about.

“A TED talk is a vehicle for ideas,” Wolff said. “The context and specific situations discussed might change, but the passion behind it doesn’t.”

Wolff, a junior at UF majoring in economics, has witnessed the growth of TEDxUF through the hard work of its organizers. He remembers the first year of the event as a work in progress. It was set in Pugh Hall and held only 70 people, but it also set the stage for what TEDxUF would become.

“The lighting was horrible, the videography sucked, but everything about it was organic and real,” Wolff said.

Since then, the event has grown to become one of the top 10 percent of TEDx events in terms of attendance, serving an audience of around 1,600 people. It is also one of the few events that holds the TED brand and yet is still able to remain free to the public. This is done through donations from businesses and organizations around Gainesville.

The decision to keep the event free was important to the people behind it.

“We know that a lot of people in college are eating Ramen noodles and Chipotle every day,” Wolff said. “We don’t want people to have to break the bank to come participate.”

Wolff first became involved as an ambassador to the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, the organization responsible for putting together the event. Once he heard about TEDxUF, he knew he wanted to help out in any way he could. He started out as House Manager, and by the next year was promoted to Head of Sponsorship. This year as Curator, he is in charge of putting the event together with the help of a core group of about fifteen people.

Wolff believes in the work he’s put in. “I wanted to make a difference and do something that matters, and I was lucky enough to be put in positions to do so,” he said.

Part of his job with the event was finding the speakers, who ranged from college students and professors to startup founders and charity organizers. His search criteria included finding people with enthusiasm, presence in the community and a tendency toward pushing ideas outside of the status quo.

Ken Staab was one of the speakers that Wolff found who this description. Through his work as an “Ambassador of Hope” for Tyler’s Hope, a non-profit organization designated to finding a cure for the neurological movement disorder Dystonia, Staab has seen his passion lead to concrete results. The culmination of his efforts was a $1 million donation to the UF College of Medicine for research. This happened after Staab was driven to leave his successful career in corporate banking to devote all he could to the organization.

“I had always wanted to do more, and I found myself in a job taking me away,” Staab said. “There’s no way to relax once you see this thing is curable and within our grasp.”

Staab’s TED talk utilized the example of Tyler’s Hope to advocate his unorthodox approach to funding, communicating that “high-risk, high reward research” is better off this way than in the hands of government or managed care. More than this, however, his talk stressed the importance of putting passions into actions that affect change.

The people on stage weren’t the only entrepreneurs and artists given the chance to show their passion. Part of the event included a Lab made up of innovative people from around Gainesville.

Chris Cano and Steven Kanner started the business Gainesville Compost, which uses their newly invented bicycle trailers to compost food scraps without using any gas or electricity. They brought one of their bikes to the event to show people how they’re using innovative ways to pursue what they believe in.

“We’re in a field that has yet to be developed,” Cano said. “We’re working on a mission that demands a lot of passion every day.”

This year, many new aspects were added to the event, including an art exhibit showcasing artists from the university. Noel Kassewitz, a who is majoring in painting, showcased some of her works that took concepts on the multiverse theory and expressed them through the repeated use of rabbits.

“A lot of the art here really goes along with what TED is about,” Kassewitz said. “We’re trying to take the realms of science and art, which are usually disparate, and connect them.”

Another new component of the event was an app for iPhones and androids. The app was powered by Feathr, a local startup that specializes in connecting people at events like these. The company was a part of the Lab at last year’s TEDxUF, and this year they took their participation a step further.

“I’ve been involved with TEDxUF for a while,” Feathr’s co-founder, Aidan Agustin, said. “This year was a cool way to give back to something that I’ve gotten a lot out of.”

This idea of contribution and collaboration was a present feeling at the event. While everyone had something to offer, they also could find something to take out of it.

Ken Staab viewed TEDxUF as a gift. Speaking of his job in corporate banking, he said, “It got to the point where I wasn’t getting any butterflies anymore. When I was told I could do a TED talk, I had butterflies for the first time in twenty years.”

Dayna Lazarowitz, 20, a junior graphic design student at UF, demonstrates how individual images she hung from a repurposed lamp illustrate the theme and title of the piece, “Electric,” which was shown in the upstairs art gallery of TEDxUF.

Jasmine Aldershoff, 19, an art major at UF, displays her work in the TEDxUF art exhibit on the second floor of the Philips Center.

The post The Passion Behind TEDxUF appeared first on The Fine Print.

The traffic cameras overhead, the bus driving by, the convenience store across the street, that ATM you just withdrew money from — surveillance is everywhere.

But who’s watching? Law enforcement, you’d assume, but they’re only a pixel of the full picture.

Each RTS bus has four to five video cameras recording not just the inside, but the outside, as well. Audio within the bus is also recorded.

Florida Statute 812.173(1)(a) requires every convenience store to have a security camera system and the U.S. Bank Protection Act of 1968 mandates a camera inside every ATM.

Private businesses usually comply to share footage from their own cameras, often without a subpoena or a warrant, according to Ben Tobias, Gainesville Police Department’s public information officer.

Best Buy released surveillance that helped determine the clothes UF student Christian Aguilar wore the day he went missing last September. The matching clothes indicated it was his body that was found 22 days later, before he could be properly identified by an autopsy.

The traffic cameras that are used as part of Gainesville’s traffic management system, a high-tech solution to traffic congestion, can also be utilized by law enforcement to track a person of interest or a suspicious vehicle — but not to ticket drivers.

Since they don’t record, they aren’t considered surveillance cameras, said Matthew Weisman, an Intelligent Transportation Services engineer at the Public Works Department.

But the Intelligent Transportation Services’ Strategic Plan states that the Florida Department of Transportation “collects a significant amount of real-time information, such as video.”

“Generally speaking, this information is not archived,” the document states. “In part, this is to avoid the workload and potential legal implications of third parties seeking access to this information.”

For roughly the past 13 years, police cars in Alachua County have had audio and video recording technology to record interactions between cops and citizens, said Lt. Todd Kelly, public information officer for the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office.

More than 80,000 license plates, along with the location, date and time, have been captured by just one patrol car using the VeriPlate Automated License Plate Recognition System, a technology the sheriff’s office started using in June 2011. This does not mean 80,000 distinct tags — it could include multiple recordings of the same tag at different times, as Lt. Kelly explained.

The black and white infrared camera can capture up to 1,440 license plates a day, from vehicles parked or moving in either direction of traffic. Another camera takes a high-resolution color photo of the vehicle to accompany its tag number.

The $20,000 system is used to find stolen vehicles, wanted persons, and people driving with suspended or revoked licenses. It’s also used for “domestic security purposes,” according to its purchase order, and to “aid in the continued protection of the motoring public of Florida.”

Storage is purchased on demand and grows as needed, Denise Rodenbough, chief of service support for the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, said. “The data is stored for 3 years and is accessible on a ‘need to know’ basis.”

The records are stored and backed up at one of the state’s primary data centers in Tallahassee, a secure disaster recovery facility, according to Rodenbough.

“You have to assume that you’re being recorded 24/7,” Kelly said. “As an agency, we welcome that.”

The post Watching the Watchmen appeared first on The Fine Print.

The Winter 2012 issue of The Fine Print is out and about town. Can’t get your hands on a copy? Flip through the PDF online here.

The post Introducing Vol V, Issue II appeared first on The Fine Print.

Three-dimensional printers are able to print precisely accurate products.  Chandler holds an anatomically correct model of the human heart printed at the Art and Architecture Fabrication Fab Lab’s Objet printer.

Mat Chandler and Sam Lopez have joked all year about printing their own candy.

It’s not such a long shot.

Chandler is the lab manager of the University of Florida’s Arts and Architecture Fabrication Lab, which houses two three-dimensional printers. Lopez, an arts and technology graduate student, works as the lab’s graduate assistant.

It’s no longer an impossibility to print a building model, cabinet handle or midnight snack. The rise of 3-D printing has created tangible objects that people could only dream of years ago. The high-end machines can print 107 of the 4,000 known engineering materials, according to Bruce Bradshaw, director of US marketing for 3-D printer manufacturer Objet.

A 3-D printer works by building an object in a series of extremely thin, horizontal layers. Instead of carving away from a piece of material, they lay down exactly what is needed.

The A2 Fabrication Lab, commonly called the Fab Lab, bought the printers in the fall of 2009 with a grant for collaborative work between the arts and architecture schools.

“The student work jumped 10 times,” Chandler said. “It’s so far past anything you could model by hand.”

UF art professor Anna Calluori Holcombe, who specializes in ceramics, wrote the grant with Jack Stenner, an associate professor of arts and technology, and Mark McGlothlin, an associate professor of architecture.

“Our students need to be up on the latest advances,” Holcombe said, “and this is it.”

The 3-D printers and scanners are an integral part of her multimedia ceramics class. Students create a ceramic piece of art by hand, scan it and then recreate it on the 3-D printer.

Initially, when Holcombe was working on the grants, she didn’t expect to use the printers herself. Now, 3-D printing is one of her personal hobbies.

“Nature has got a genetic code,” she said, holding one of her pieces, a smooth white pinecone. “This [3-D printer] uses a computer code. I’m re-coding nature in an artificial way.”

Previously, the lab was exclusively open to UF art and architecture students and faculty. As of this semester, it is available to students, faculty, staff and anyone in the greater Gainesville community. Currently, about 100 people use the lab; Chandler hopes that number will increase as students in other fields realize the printers’ potential.

“We want to make it so students can come in and create,” he said.  Engineers could test their systems. Entrepreneurs could prototype their products.

Since the printers were purchased, they have produced everything from character figurines designed by art students to models of thoracic spines used to study regional anesthesia at Shands.

The lab has two printers: an Objet Eden 260V and a ZCorp ZPrinter 450.

The Objet printer uses a brand-specific resin plastic and prints directly layer-by-layer from an adapted inkjet nozzle. Its maximum build volume is about the size of a compact microwave and is more durable and detailed than the ZPrinter.

The ZPrinter is divided into two chambers. The actual printing takes place on the left-hand side, which is an empty 8-by-10-by-8 inch box with the bottom as a bed of white powder. A standard HP ink cartridge filled with glue builds the layers. When the glue has finished spraying, the object is formed by the white power sticking to the viscous glue. Any remaining powder can be reused for the next batch.

The display screen on the machine counts layers as it builds. It takes 2,000 layers to build a tiny cube.

Over the past five years, 3-D printing has shifted from an expensive prototyping technology to an affordable reality.

Objet sells its printers to everyone from two-person businesses to large corporations like Nike and LEGO. Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man 2 suit was prototyped on the same Objet printer that resides in the Fab Lab.

According to Terry Wohlers, president of Wohlers Associates, Inc., “just about everything but trashcans” is currently prototyped on a 3-D printer. Now, the printers are creating more than just prototypes: 20 percent of their output is a final, usable product.

“It cuts across so many areas,” Wohlers said. “It’s hard to name an industry that hasn’t been or won’t be affected by this.”

Objet, one of the larger 3-D printer manufacturers, has seen a 35 percent increase in sales for the past four years and anticipates the same results this year, according to Bradshaw.

Their standard desktop model cost $100,000 three years ago. Today, thanks to more efficient manufacturing and inkjet developments, a comparable model sells for $20,000.

Chandler watches a print job in process.  The printer uses a UV lamp to harden the resin as each layer prints.

However, 3-D printing still has its drawbacks.

It costs $110 per semester for Fab Lab membership, which is required to use their printers. Students who need to use the printers for class assignments must pay the fee as well. On top of the membership fee, each print has a pricetag. A print of a palm-sized human heart figure is $200.

Although the cost of the machine itself has decreased considerably, the material can still be expensive. As is the case with regular printers, it’s the cost of ink, or material, that adds up. For 2.4 kilograms of Objet resin, Chandler pays $1,200.

There is also a programming barrier: the object must be created in a 3-D modeling program. Within UF’s art and architecture programs, students take 3-D modeling courses. However, the necessary programs may be foreign to students in most other majors.

For someone who isn’t familiar with 3-D modeling or printing, the technology can seem untouchable. Chandler wants to make the process as accessible as possible for anyone interested in learning by teaching a general elective course in 3-D modeling.

Regardless of the current obstacles, the 3-D printing industry has the potential to change industries from medicine to art even more than it already has.

“It’s taking the factory and putting it in your garage,” Lopez said.

The post New & Improved appeared first on The Fine Print.

Mackowiak lines up samples of his current beers on tap.

When Barron Humphries opened Hoggetown Ale Works ten years ago, he could predict the question people would ask when they walked into his home brew supply shop: is it legal?

“Everybody thought you made beer in a bathtub,” he said.

At the time, it was difficult to get a Florida-brewed beer at any bar in town. The beer-scape has certainly shifted. Within the past two years, Humphries’ sales have doubled as everyone and their dad joins the hip homebrewing crowd. The rise of home-brewed and craft beer has also shifted drinker expectations.

“Once you appreciate good beer, you can’t go back to drinking Budweiser,” he said.

And what, exactly, qualifies as “good beer”? The beauty of home or craft brewing is that the brewer answers that question his or herself.

For Humphries, that means a malt-focused English Brown Ale, like the Girls Gone Mild brew he has on tap in the store fridge.

For Neal Mackowiak, the head brewer for Alligator Brewing Co., the emphasis is in playing with innovative flavor combinations.

For Brian Sunter, a University of Florida senior studying computer science engineering, the answer is darker wheat beer.

Most beer is made from four basic ingredients: hops, grains, yeast and water.

Hops, the female flowers of the Humulus lupulus plant, provide bitterness, aroma and flavor to the beer. A brewer can buy them in pellet form or as whole leaves.

A large chalkboard in Humphries’ shop displays a list of nearly 100 hops, some with epic names like Glacier, Magnum and Warrior. In addition to the domestic hops, the international selection comes from as far as Germany and New Zealand.

“I order every hop you can get everywhere,” he said. He prides himself on carrying hops difficult to find anywhere else, both online and in stores.

Mackowiak uses hops from Humphries’ shop as the base for his beers. He is perpetually brainstorming to create new Alligator Brewing beers, which are brewed and sold exclusively at downtown bar Tall Paul’s.

After drinking Volta’s hibiscus tea for months, he had a moment of inspiration. He needed to brew a hibiscus sour ale. He procured a large bag of the flowers from the coffeeshop and added them to the barrel of fermenting beer. Now, it’s possible to drink the finished, fuschia product on tap.

“I’m always coming up with new things,” he said. “I want to experiment.”

Mackowiak has tried over 150 recipes in his nearly two years as Tall Paul’s official brewer. He has added a range of of flavors to his beers, from cooked pancakes with maple syrup to lavender to bacon and smoke habanero chili peppers. He is constantly reading, researching and observing to uncover new taste combinations.

He compares the brewing process to an ecosystem in which the beer is the end product. Like a terrarium, the natural elements come together in a closed environment.

At the most basic level, bringing everything together entails unwrapping the basic Mr. Beer kit, opening the bags of pre measured ingredients and following the instructions.

Sunter started brewing when he received a kit for his 21st birthday. Now, he has progressed to the second tier of beer-making: extract brewing. At this level, the brewer chooses his or her own hops. The grains are steeped in a bag immersed in the water to flavor it. Sunter follows Hoggetown Ale Works’ recipes and boils the brew on his apartment stove top.

However, once a brewer advances to all-grain brewing — and about half of Humphries’ customers have — the process becomes more complex.

At Tall Paul’s, Mackowiak’s set up has enough tubes, pumps and levers to make a science lab envious. Three vats line one wall; the other is occupied by a row of fermenting beers. The first vat is full of boiling water, which is piped into the second vat. The grain in the middle vat steeps in the hot water. This process is called “mashing.”

Then, the resulting sweet liquid, called wort, is piped to the final vat and heated. When the liquid is at a boil, the hops and sugar are added. For more aroma and flavor, the hops are only boiled for about 15 minutes. Boiling the hops longer (about an hour) results in a more bitter beer. The yeast is added once the mixture has cooled.

The beer-to-be ferments in the large containers lining the opposite wall. The fermentation generally takes about two weeks. During this time, extra flavors like fruits and spices can be added to the mix.

Once the beer is fermented, it is transferred to bottles, which need to be capped, or to a keg.

Humphries is optimistic about the growth of home and craft brewing in Gainesville. Instead of asking if home brewing is legal, customers now come in asking about specific hops.

“It’s as big as it’s ever been,” he said. “And it’s still growing.”

The post You Brew, Too? appeared first on The Fine Print.

Seismic airgun testing is used in offshore oil exploration. The airgun, towed behind a boat, sends out loud blasts of compressed air through the ocean and further below the sea floor about every 10 seconds, 24 hours a day, for days to weeks at a time.

That obnoxious conversation behind you clocks in at 60 decibels. The old Harley that just roared down 13th Street? 90 decibels. At 130 decibels sound is physically painful to the human ear.

A single blast from a seismic airgun, used for oil exploration, racks up 190 decibels. Underwater, each blast is amplified to 250 decibels — 100,000 times more intense than a jet engine.

The Department of the Interior (DOI) is currently pending approval of industrial seismic airgun surveying to search for offshore oil and gas reserves spanning from Florida to Delaware.

A fleet of airguns, dragged along by boat, shoot intense blasts of compressed air underwater and miles through the sea floor every seven to sixteen seconds, twenty-four hours per day for days to months on end.

These blasts pound through the water and miles deeper into the ocean floor to send back signals with information used to create three-dimensional images of geologic faults. From these images, oil and gas companies can identify potential drilling locations.

Flooding the Ocean
Sure, we might not hear or notice the airgun blasts from the shore and certainly not from Gainesville, but that’s not the case underwater.

Seismic airgun testing can be debilitating and even deadly to marine life. The frequency and amplification of the blasts can cause temporary and permanent hearing damage, habitat abandonment, disruption of vital behaviors and beach standings. For marine animals, sound is their sight. It’s how they feed, mate, migrate, escape danger — survive.

The low-frequency booms from the airgun are along the same frequency as the signals sent and perceived by larger whales, making them the most susceptible to direct impact from the testing. But the blasts don’t only emit low-frequency sounds; the range of sound transmissions include higher frequency components, too, which affect a range of other marine animals.

In its own draft Environmental Impact Statement report, the DOI recognizes that seismic airgun testing would cause 13.5 million disruptions to vital behaviors of marine mammals, which include feeding, breeding and calving.

It also estimates injury to 138,500 dolphins and whales over the next eight years. This count includes eight endangered species including the North Atlantic right whale. With only 361 individuals remaining in the entire ocean, the North Atlantic right whale is one of the most endangered marine mammals in the world.

Nine of those whales are on the slate as expected “take” from seismic airgun surveying. “Take” doesn’t directly translate to a death but definitely includes it. As defined by the Marine Mammal Protection Act, it is the harassment, hunting, capturing or killing of any marine mammal. For the 352 right whales not counted as take, each would undergo disruption of vital behaviors five times, according to the DOI statement.

The Atlantic Ocean off the east coast is a critically important habitat for the North Atlantic right whale. In winter, they roam the warmer waters off the Florida and Georgia coasts and give birth to their calves. When spring comes around, the pods migrate north, hugging the coast all the way to the plankton-rich waters of Massachusetts and New York.

These critically endangered whales depend on this migration route for survival. It’s the only one they’ve known for centuries. Intensive whaling that began as early as 1150 AD drove the right whale to the brink of extinction. Once whaling of right whales was banned in 1935, populations of sister species rebounded at a healthy rate, but unfortunately, the North American right whale didn’t see such success.

While whaling is no longer a threat to the North American right whale, other human-imposed effects are still diminishing their population. Shipping vessel traffic and commercial fishing are the biggest hazards they face, and on top of other anthropogenic stressors such as military training and pollution, seismic airgun testing will likely only further jeopardize their species.

Playing it safe
Earlier this year, an estimated total of 2,800 dolphins washed up dead along the coast of Peru. The Peruvian government attributed the deaths to natural causes, but the 30 necropsies performed by conservationist and veterinarian, Dr. Carl Yaipén Llanos, pointed to a fishier and more probable cause. The middle ears of each dolphin had suffered fracture damage. Dr. Yaipén Llanos and his team also discovered an excessive buildup of bubbles in the dolphins’ vital organs. After further testing disproved his suspicion of a viral infection, he suggested that intense sound impact may have caused these mysterious bubbles.

The Peruvian government denies any seismic airgun testing in the area coinciding with the dolphin deaths, but local fishermen insist otherwise. Peru’s largest newspaper also reported the Peruvian Navy granted permission for seismic airgun surveying to foreign oil companies.

Even though the cause of the massive die-off cannot be explicitly traced to the surveying, the necropsies — along with other evidence scientists have collected — certainly put it in the spotlight as a possibility.

The Atlantic coast is safe from offshore drilling for now, or at least until 2017. Rebecca Marques, the South Florida organizer for Oceana, shares the international ocean conservation group’s view on seismic airgun surveying and is advocating to “keep dangerous oil and gas exploration off our coasts and instead focus on developing renewable energy.”

And what about the humans?
The seismic blasts are not only dangerous to larger marine mammals —
they impact fish health and populations, too. Any deleterious effect on fish health directly translates to concern for coastal economies.

According to the environmental impact statement, the seven states residing in the proposed testing area are home to 108 fishing communities that may be affected by “acoustic sound sources, vessel traffic and vessel exclusion zones, seafloor disturbance and accidental fuel spills.” Many fishing communities located where seismic airgun testing has taken place have witnessed dislocated and depleted fish stocks as a result of “acoustic sound sources.”

The Atlantic coast harbors an $11 billion-plus fishing industry, which supports more than 200,000 jobs. Effects from testing would undoubtedly impact coastal economies from Delaware to Florida.

“As native Floridians we live constantly surrounded by our oceans. It is part of who we are, what we do, and why we stay here,” Marques said. “For many it is also how we survive.”

How to speak whale, or at least for them
One alternative, mandatory to all environmental impact statements, is the “No Action Alternative,” which is exactly what it sounds like. It takes a precautionary approach and would prohibit all geological and geophysical activities related to oil and gas exploration in this particular zone of the Atlantic Ocean but still permit, on a case-by-case basis, research and development for offshore renewable energy.

The DOI will make its final decision in the beginning of 2013, which is coming up fast. If the proposal clears, oil and gas companies could start up testing as early as next year. Until then, the only voice the whales have is ours.

The main petition against seismic airgun testing is a photo petition on Facebook. However, you can also take more direct action by writing to Secretary Ken Salazar of the DOI. Calling or even sending a quick note to your state senators and representatives can help greatly. For Florida residents, contact Senator Bill Nelson, Marco Rubio, and your district representative here.

The post Testing the Waters appeared first on The Fine Print.

A small hydroponic garden set up outside Gardener’s Edge grows some leafy greens. Al Ashkuff is planning to use this efficient soilless setup for the Krishnaponics rooftop garden.

*Editor’s note: The printed version spells Al’s name as “Ascough,” which is correct, but he has requested that we spell it as “Ashkuff” since that is how he is known in business.*

As a self-described business anthropologist, Al Ashkuff deals with people for a living. He delves into their world, learning their culture and their place in the community around them. He sees how they live, what makes them happy, and most importantly, he sees their needs that aren’t being met. He then looks for ways to use his expertise to meet these needs.

Ashkuff’s latest project is Krishnaponics, a plan to create a hydroponic fruit and vegetable garden primarily for Gainesville’s Krishna House. The garden, which will use nutritional solutions in water in place of soil to grow its plants, will reside on the roofs of Citizen’s Co-op, the Civic Media Center, and an art gallery. It will provide food for both the Co-op and the Krishna lunch served daily at UF’s Plaza of the Americas.

The idea first sprouted after Ashkuff spent time with the local Krishna chapter and saw a need for fresh food from a local source. The Krishna lunch currently gets its ingredients out-of-state, but showed interest in finding a way to switch to utilizing a local source.

“The Krishna Consciousness view farming as a very noble occupation, the same way that some Christians view carpentry,” said Ashkuff. “As a community, they have this collective desire to grow their own food.”

Ashkuff saw the incorporation of local, hydroponically grown food as the solution to this problem. This form of gardening is less common due to its high startup costs, an intimidating but surmountable learning curve and its need for constant maintenance; but, it can pay off both financially and environmentally in the long run.

“There’s definitely a learning curve,” said Crystal Taylor, who works at Gardener’s Edge, a local store that sells hydroponic equipment and runs its own gardens. As Taylor pointed out, hydroponic gardening can be advantageous when managed correctly.

“[With hydroponic gardening] you get a higher density of growth in a space, you don’t have to worry about soil being contaminated, you can easily overcome sandy conditions in a greenhouse, you can save water instead of using large irrigation systems and you have a greater control over your garden,” said Taylor.

However, before Ashkuff could fully dive into the Krishna House project, he had to prove hydroponics successful on a small scale. The Krishna House supported Ashkuff through a month’s worth of research and development,  which was spent setting up trial hydroponic systems.

“We grew hundreds and hundreds of wintertime vegetables in the middle of summer,” said Ashkuff, “[and] it wasn’t even in a greenhouse.”

That’s pretty impressive, and the Krishnas agreed. They decided to invest in the project for commercial scale development.

With this funding in place, the project came to life as a joint venture between the Krishna House; the Citizen’s Co-op, who will sell some of the crops grown; and Vibrant Community Development, who owns and manages the space the garden will occupy. Ashkuff sees these partnerships as not just business ventures, but ways for these business to help out causes in which they believe.

“For Krishna House, this is an act of spiritual joy,” said Ashkuff. “They’re not out to make money, [but] to support a cool project.”

The garden will definitely produce the leafy greens used in the Krishna lunches, but as for the other vegetables, Ashkuff’s still deciding. He’s currently looking into growing bulky foods, like kale and mizuna for salads, and some high-value crops, like tomatoes and strawberries, to be sold at the Co-op.

John Woodman, 23, checks the pH balance of the water for hydroponic lettuce plants at Gardner’s Edge. Woodman has been working there for one year and hopes to major in botany at Santa Fe Community College.

Both Ashkuff and Taylor believe that any and every plant can be grown hydroponically if approached with the proper care and attention to its individual needs.

“If it can tolerate constant moisture, it can be grown hydroponically,” said Taylor.

Ashkuff plans to put this to the test. He wants to explore what his garden can generate given growth space, weight and cost of the plants and demand from Co-op customers to produce the best and most diverse yield possible.

The project is still in its early stages. Ashkuff is still purchasing all the necessary construction equipment and trying to find the right waterproofing methods for the roof. Once he sorts out these issues, the garden will be set up and seeded as soon as possible.

In the meantime, Ashkuff continues to study the people he is growing for, both around the Krishna House and the Citizen’s Co-op. Better familiarizing himself with the local community, Ashkuff is able to arrange the partnership so it’s maximally beneficial to everyone involved.

Pressing issues like Florida’s freshwater crisis and the stagnant economy are creating a desire to support locally and responsibly grown food. This support is the very foundation of the Krishnaponics project and the Co-op, as well.

“[They] want to support local food systems,” said Ashkuff, “and you can’t get more local than [a garden] thrown right on top of you.”

The post Krishnaponics: From the Ground Up appeared first on The Fine Print.

The Fall 2012 issue of The Fine Print is out and about town. Can’t get your hands on a copy? Flip through the PDF online here.

The post Introducing Vol. V, Issue I appeared first on The Fine Print.

Gainesville Women’s Liberation, a local chapter of National Women’s Liberation, is a feminist group for women who want to organize against male supremacy, bring new fire to the fight for equality and win more freedom for women. Our efforts are independently funded by the dues of women, not corporations or their foundations.

We come from an ongoing collaboration between organizers from Redstockings of the Women’s Liberation Movement (a radical feminist think tank and an original group of the 1960s Women’s Liberation Movement in New York City) and Gainesville Women’s Liberation, the first women’s liberation group in the South. We believe that change comes from the collective actions of everyday people — not just politicians, the courts or the media.

At a time when UF had curfews and dress codes (no pants or shorts) for women and abortion was illegal in the U.S., Gainesville Women’s Liberation founders protested the Miss America Pageant and started an abortion referral service from a Reid Hall dormitory.  One of our co-founders, Judith Brown, was expelled from UF and lost her Ford Fellowship when she was convicted of contempt for defying an injunction against mass picketing to integrate a racially segregated movie theatre.
We made history then, and we are ready to continue making history now. The threats to women’s rights and freedoms in this country continue, and the need for a stronger feminist movement is urgent. From the slew of anti-abortion bills attempting to restrict our reproductive rights, to the sexist comments about “legitimate” rape showcasing the level of ignorance some men have about women’s lives, sometimes we have to check our calendars to make sure we’re in the year 2012. It is time to reclaim our spot in history and rebuild the movement that won basic rights for women in the first place.

At the national level, we are part of the Morning-After Pill (MAP) Conspiracy, an organization leading the fight against restrictions on the Morning-After Pill. Our activism led to the 2006 FDA decision that allowed MAP to be sold without a prescription, and some of our members are current plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the FDA charging the agency with discrimination against women and failure to follow medical science. A victory could mean no more age restriction and an end to behind-the-counter status, so this safe form of birth control can finally be where it belongs — next to the condoms and sold at pharmacies and gas stations nation-wide.

In Gainesville, we are starting a feminist zine that will reflect the experiences and issues facing local women. We already have plenty of content for the zine from our long-standing history and past women’s liberation articles, but the newer, more current content will come from our new members and from conclusions gathered at our consciousness-raising (CR) meetings. CRs are used to draw conclusions about the political roots of women’s problems by sharing, discussing, and analyzing our own experiences. We are holding our next CR on the topic of beauty standards on UF’s campus (Pugh Hall, 210) on Thursday, Oct. 25 at 6 p.m. Join us for good conversation and to find out how you can get involved in NWL.
Visit womensliberation.org to read more about our politics, philosophy, past and future events, and newsletters.

The post Monthly Manifesto: National Women’s Liberation appeared first on The Fine Print.

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Filling

Courtesy of:  Becca Bakes, a one-woman show, hobby and talent turned into small business. She’s a student at UF and sold her first batch of goodies at the downtown farmers market in 2011 and has since branched out to do custom catering as well. Look for her treats around town at special events, such as the PumpkinPalooza sale she’s hosting at Citizen’s Co-op. Find Becca Bakes at www.becca-bakes.com; twitter + Instagram: @becca_bakes; facebook.com/beccabakesfl; info@becca-bakes.com

A bit from Becca

“I was born on the first day of fall and because of that I feel deeply connected to this season. When the air becomes rich with the flavors of autumn, it is near intoxicating. Cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and clove combine in a symphony of spice and are always perfected with the addition of pumpkin.”

Where’s Becca Baking Next? Becca will be hosting her second annual PumpkinPalooza at Citizen’s Co-op on Sunday, Oct. 28th from 2 PM – 5 PM

The List

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon ground ginger
• 1/2 tablespoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 tablespoon ground cloves
• 2 cups dark-brown sugar, firmly packed
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 3 cups pumpkin puree, chilled
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

The Steps

For the Cream Cheese Frosting:

• 1 8-ounce package of cream cheese
• 3 cups powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1-3 tablespoons milk, as needed

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray two cookie sheets with cooking spray.
• In a large bowl, whisk together flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves; set aside.
• In another large bowl, whisk together dark brown sugar and oil. Add    pumpkin puree and whisk until combined.
• Add eggs and vanilla to the pumpkin mixture.
• Add the flour mixture to pumpkin mixture in parts and whisk until fully incorporated.
• Drop heaping tablespoons of dough onto baking sheets, about 1 inch apart.
• Transfer to oven and bake until cookies just start to crack on top and a    toothpick inserted into the center of each cookie comes out clean (about 15 minutes). Let cool completely on pan.
• Make the filling: with an electric mixer on medium speed, combine the cream cheese and powdered sugar until fluffy. Add the vanilla and cinnamon and continue to mix until smooth and frosting consistency. If frosting is too thick, add tablespoons of milk, one at a time, until frosting is correct.
• Assemble the whoopie pies with two cookies and a dollop of frosting in the center. Enjoy!

The Vegan Way

• Add 2 tablespoons of blackstrap molasses instead of the eggs
• For the frosting: 1/2 cup vegan margarine, 1/2 cup vegetable shortening, 3 cups powdered sugar, 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, 1-3 tablespoons non-dairy milk, as needed

The Jazzy Way

• Add 1 tablespoon of maple syrup to frosting
• Try chocolate ganache frosting
• You can use 3 tablespoons of pumpkin pie spice instead of the individual spices
• Try rolling the whoopie pies in mini chocolate chips
• Serving suggestion: pumpkin ale in hand, hanging out on your stoop

Eat Me! I’m in Season and Fresh!

persimmons*
chestnuts
pumpkins, zucchini, other squashes*
pears
yams*
cranberries
pomegranates
beets*

*Produced locally around Gainesville

The post Read Up, Chow Down appeared first on The Fine Print.

View of Tent City.  Photos by Ashley Crane

Just beyond the brush of the Hawthorne State Trail, there is the faint outline of a self-enclosed camp.  A short walk along an overgrown path will lead to the outskirts of the camp known as Tent City.  Gainesville’s Tent City has served as the convergent meeting and living space for the city’s homeless for decades.

Nina McNeal is a long-time resident of this space. She’s in her sixties and affectionately known as “Ma” around the camp.  McNeal keeps a Bible in her tent along with the clothes and food she brings in from the St. Francis House. McNeal says she likes the community that has formed in the area.

“Everybody knows everybody,” said McNeal, who thinks the residents are mostly content with their makeshift neighborhood. “Some like it, some don’t.”

Tent City sits on land that belongs to Larry Calton. Calton allows the tent site for the city’s homeless to stay on his property. His land has been the sole location for Tent City since the City Commission voted in 2007 to evict all homeless people that had been using public land to set up tents. This decision was intended to help the homeless by forcing them to find proper housing. Instead, it just caused them to move on to Calton’s private property.

Jack Donovan, Executive Director of the Alachua County Coalition for the Homeless and Hungry, says that if the city had kept its stake in Tent City, it could have used city funds to improve the conditions and expand the site to offer services and more legitimate housing.

“Pinellas Hope is an example of what can happen if the city helps improve the [tent city] it already has,” said Donovan.

Pinellas Hope, a “tent city” in Pinellas County, receives over $1 million in public funding every year and is able to effectively regulate who passes through, which in turn helps keep out illegal activity and violence. However, since Gainesville’s Tent City now illegally resides on private land, it can’t be effectively controlled, and the city has been forced to search for a new location.

Unfortunately, this city-wide search has been slowed down by opposition since it began and has gone on much longer than initially expected. The city went through a few cycles of first proposing new locations to transition to, then looking into these locations, and then finally shutting down plans after facing opposition from neighboring businesses who were resistant to the idea of an influx of the city’s homeless to their area. Progress was slow at best, and meanwhile, Calton was having to deal with violence and other issues on his property, including one incident of an alligator attack.

A significant step was reached in 2008 when the city decided on a publicly-owned site near NW 53rd Ave. for a new “one-stop” homeless shelter called the Grace Marketplace. The proposed shelter would include facilities with beds and housing for families and services like job training and medical care. In the four years since its announcement, however, the city hasn’t even broken ground on the site.

A major factor in the holdup is the requirement of a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers. The land under the proposed shelter contains wetlands, and although there is no expected environmental damage, the permit is still required. Without it, the land can’t even be used as a campsite, much less begin to undergo the construction of the shelter. This delay, according to Donovan, won’t defeat the shelter but can definitely prolong its construction. He says the process in issuing the permit is usually much quicker, and thinks there may be some political motivation behind the delay.

Another obstacle to the shelter’s progress has been the efforts of Ropen Nalbandian, a local business owner with factories near the proposed site. Nalbandian is attempting to block the project by issuing a series of four different zoning lawsuits. These lawsuits center around the idea that the city can’t use the land for the shelter in an otherwise industrial area. Donovan calls the basis for these suits ridiculous. He believes their intent is to try to defeat the proposed shelter by prolonging it until it dies. The lawsuits remain pending, with one already having been dismissed. Nalbandian has offered to donate land on Waldo Road that is owned by his company, Vital Properties, in a settlement. This site, however, was already considered and dismissed as a location for the shelter before it was bought by Nalbandian in 2011.

Nalbandian isn’t the only one who opposes the shelter’s location being set in the area around NW 53rd. Cindy Lacoste works close to the site of the proposed shelter at the offices of Charles Berg Enterprises, Inc.

“It just doesn’t make sense,” said Lacoste. “It’s all wetlands, there are no sidewalks, no bus stops, and it’s nowhere near St. Francis or the other places that offer services to the homeless.”

Nina “Ma” McNeal has lived in Tent City for four years.  She says Tent City has a real sense of community; some people like that, others don’t. 

Lacoste is in favor of one possible solution being discussed: the former correctional institute out by NW 39th Ave which is currently sitting vacant.  This site could easily be transformed into a more cost-effective location for a shelter. However, this idea faces powerful opposition, this time from Gainesville Mayor Craig Lowe. Mayor Lowe cites the failure of a previously proposed site near the correctional institute, which faced opposition in part due to its proximity to the Alachua County Fairgrounds, as evidence that the new proposal would suffer the same fate.

Many people disagree with the mayor on this issue, including both Donovan and Lacoste. They see the idea as a more practical and cost-effective solution than building completely new facilities out on 53rd Ave.

“I think it’s a great idea,” said Lacoste. “It’s already there; it just needs to be improved. And if a jail didn’t affect the surrounding area,” she added, “why would a homeless shelter?”

However, the city has remained steadfast in its plan of moving forward with construction on the site on 53rd Ave. once the wetlands permit is issued, regardless of the status of the Nalbandian lawsuits.

Though the city cites a waiting period of just six months before the start of any real changes, Donovan thinks a timeline of two years is more realistic.

As a result of this frustrating waiting game, residents of Tent City have grown skeptical of the possibility of changing sites or bringing improvements. They’ve heard talk like this before, and have yet to see results. Nina McNeal thinks the transfer to NW 53rd Ave. is not going to happen. She carries on with her daily routine in Tent City where she’s lived for four years — restocking her tent with food, swapping supplies with the neighbors and praying with others at the cross whenever she gets the chance. McNeal plans to continue to live in Tent City until she sees real improvements like the ones being discussed.

“Nothing’s changed since I’ve been here,” said McNeal. “But anything will help.”

The post The Unfinished Business of Tent City appeared first on The Fine Print.

A local ranch’s hunt for water, and the public’s fight to keep it in the springs

Central Florida’s springs have been drying up for decades. In December of last year, however, new waves were made when Canadian billionaire Frank Stronach submitted an application to the St. John’s Water Management District (SJWMD, the District) for a Consumptive Use Permit (CUP) allowing him to pump 13.267 million gallons per day (mgd). These 13 mgd were requested on top of the property’s existing CUP for 0.548 mgd, which was approved for the property’s previous use for sod irrigation.

The water from the new CUP would be used to irrigate the 61,000 square foot Adena Springs Ranch in Fort McCoy, Marion County, as well as provide drinking water for the grass-fed cattle raised there, 150 of which will be slated for slaughtered two days a week at a slaughterhouse on the property.

Shortly after the CUP was submitted, several news reports were published, illustrating the magnitude of these daily withdrawals by comparing the quantity to that pumped daily for the entire city of Ocala (12.85 mgd). Prior to preliminary meetings with the District, Stronach intended to apply for 27 mgd.

Alarmed and organized, residents, well owners and environmentalists in Marion and Alachua Counties have sustained their opposition campaign since first word of the ranch’s CUP.
Together they fought the permit from state advisory board meetings to public hearings, writing editorials to holding street-side protests.

Given the already visible affect the drought and over-pumping of the aquifer have had on above and below ground water levels, residents maintain approving the permit is irresponsible on the part of the District. At a recent public meeting about the CUP, Adena environmental scientist William Dunn was asked how the Adena science team had determined there would not be damage to Orange Lake, considering it was already dry. His response was that they did not consider current hydrological conditions when they did their calculations.

In fact, the permit review process ordered a scientific study to determine the minimum flows and levels of (MFLs) one of the water bodies, Silver Springs, that the approved permit would impact. This study, however, will not be completed until 2013. The MFLs serve as a limit for district-wide water withdrawals, beyond which would bear significant negative impacts on all the water levels.

H. T. Odum Florida Spring Institute Director Bob Knight, an aquatic and wetland scientist, has determined the sustainable volume of water withdrawal to be 70 gallons per day (gpd) per acre, to ensure the flows in the springs do not drop below 10% of their current average flows.

He estimated that the District has approved CUPs for 75-90% of the spring’s watershed flows.

Additionally, there are a number of hidden costs, such as remediation of impaired waters, which are not being discussed with the public, despite the permitting process in Florida hinging on any given CPU’s benefit to the public.

Two women at the forefront of the opposition, Judy Etlzer and Pat Hawk, couldn’t agree more with Knight’s sentiments. On Sept. 11, Pat attended one of the SJWMD meetings covering the Silver Springs spring shed. She too walked away questioning the “science” behind the discussions. As Pat points out, if residents are restricted to watering their lawns from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., how does the District justify allowing Adena Ranch to use huge irrigation sprinklers that would run for a consistent 24 hours?

Pat has heard of several local wells that have dried up, including two across from the Adena Springs Ranch itself. Two by Orange Lake, one on Hwy. 318 in the Irvine-Orange Lake area, and another owned by Bruce Seaman, a local minister, have also run dry.

Some residents like Pat and Judy have been forced to drill new and deeper wells as a result. In 2001, Pat had to drill a new well due increased development in her area and recently, Judy, who lives on Orange Lake, has had to drill down another 130 feet to reach her water.

12 years ago, Pat had to pay $4,000 out-of-pocket to replace her well. In a meeting with The Activist Coalition, a conglomeration of regional activists, Pat asked rhetorically, if Stronach pumps the springs dry making his financial living, who would pay for her to have yet another well drilled so that she could have potable water for simply living? Would Stronach? The District? Or would she pay out-of-pocket again? Where was the benefit to her and her neighbors to approve this CUP application?

Adena Springs Ranch has projected it will create approximately 150 jobs. 150 at what cost? In today’s market, jobs are scarce, but so is water.

The District has again come under attack by citizens and the media who are skeptical of the District’s priorities. They’re also scrutinizing the District for not being entirely transparent in their assessments and public reports, particularly those regarding hidden costs, such as remediation of impaired waters.

At an Aug. 23 meeting, Adena Springs Ranch announced it would reduce its water demand from approximately 13 mgd to 5.3 mgd — millions of gallons less, but still only a small victory for those fought to save the springs throughout summer.

It’s hard to put the numbers thrown around in these debates into context or scope. Though the CUP reduction seems large (approximately 7.3 mpd), when those numbers are multiplied out, the effect on water flows is much more significant.

In an editorial published on July 28 in the Gainesville Sun, Knight noted that the predicted 0.1 foot drop in water levels at Silver Springs actually translates into a 5 mgd reduction in average flows. That is more water than has ever been recorded flowing at the nearby Green Cove Springs and is equivalent to 4% of the average flows of Silver Springs in drought conditions. This figure also coincides with the ranch’s new CUP request, meaning that approving the application for this amount, even though much lower than the original request, could still negatively impact the water levels and flows in the drought-stricken future.

Mark Roberts, the Adena Springs Ranch manager, announced the reduction would be made possible by raising the cattle elsewhere for the majority of their lives and then bringing them to the ranch only 6 months prior to slaughter, reducing the water consumption in that specific localized area of the watershed.  Where the cattle would be taken was not definitive, and no new CUP had been applied for pertaining to the new areas that would experience the additional, though decentralized, pumping. The ranch’s PR Director, Honey Rand, also addressed concerns regarding nutrient loadings to the springs from manure and fertilization, claiming that Adena intended to employ best management practices, though the exact details on the designs were also not available.

The future of water in Florida is uncertain, and that is something the activists and the District agree on. The District had sent the Adena staff a Request for Additional Information (RAI) the same month the CUP application was submitted. The Ranch applied for an extension on the RAI deadline and the District granted the request in April, extending the deadline until late August. The Ranch applied for another extension in August, which again was granted by the District. Adena Springs Ranch now has until Nov. 24, 2012 to respond to the District’s RAI. Until then, both sides are standing their ground in anticipation of an approval? A rejection? Or perhaps, another extension.

The Ranch does have a website that describes its plans as yet, found at http://www.adenaspringsranch.com/project-overview/. By the printing of this article, the website spearheaded by springs activists called “Water Well Justice” should also be up and running, illustrating their struggle. And Bob Knight’s Springs Institute remains a wealth of information, including a 50 year study on Silver Springs, found at http://floridaspringsinstitute.org/.

The post A Difficult Thirst to Quench appeared first on The Fine Print.

The Summer 2012 issue of The Fine Print is out and about town. Can’t get your hands on a copy? Here you go.

Editor’s note: If you did get your hands on a copy and noticed the wonky margins, you should flip through the digital edition as proof that it was a printing error… and to see the issue as it was intended to be seen.

The post Introducing Vol. IV, Issue IV appeared first on The Fine Print.

Above: Daniel Markey, 9, lives in a trailer with six of his family members. His medications alone amount to at least $15,000 a month, aside from his visits with cystic fibrosis specialists. (Photo by Ashley Crane)

How will promised Medicaid cuts affect Shands Healthcare Center and its most vulnerable patients?

Tina Markey received a letter from Medicaid in late December informing her that her son had been switched from her preferred health plan to another without further explanation. Her son, 9-year-old Daniel Markey, was born with cystic fibrosis (CF), a genetic disorder causing the body to create unusually sticky and thick mucus resulting in digestive and pulmonary complications.

Until late December, Daniel was covered by Children’s Medical Services (CMS), a health plan under Medicaid that allows eligible children with special needs to receive adequate care. With the unexplained switch from CMS to Sunshine State Health, a more general Medicaid plan, Markey frantically scrambled to understand the mix-up.

“I couldn’t get my son his medication, his formula, during all of January. He couldn’t see his pediatric doctors,” Markey said. “I was worried about his care.”

Cystic fibrosis requires a strict care regimen and falling behind can mean long hospitals stays and difficulty breathing. Luckily, Markey had an extra supply of her son’s medications from his previous hospital visit.

“I fought with Medicaid for weeks, until they switched us back to CMS. His medications were running out when we could finally go back and see his pediatric doctors at the beginning of February,” Markey said.

The switch from the specialized but more expensive care Daniel was getting under CMS to Sunshine Health was likely Medicaid’s way to save money. The healthcare options available under Sunshine Health are not as extensive and limited Daniel to certain doctors, not the specialists he needs.

Markey argued with the Medicaid office for weeks, filling out form after form to prove her case and provide evidence of Daniel’s need for the most comprehensive health care plan. Medicaid finally approved to switch Daniel back to CMS in late January.

Impending cuts to Medicaid funding will likely cause the stacks of paperwork for patients and healthcare facilities to grow in the coming months, creating further obstacles to healthcare access. Due to Florida’s monetary shortfall in recent years, state officials voted during the 2012 State Legislative session to cut $235 million from the state Medicaid budget. This resulted in a 5.65 percent reduction in funding on top of last year’s cut of 12.5 percent. These cuts will mainly affect safety-net hospitals, which provide services for vulnerable populations of uninsured and low-income individuals, like Daniel Markey.

Shands is one of the largest safety-net hospitals in the state. Of all its patients, more than a third are on Medicaid or are uninsured. And according to the hospital, as the number of these patients has been increasing in recent years, funding is steadily decreasing. Between the budget cuts from the past two years, Shands is now operating with an estimated $41 million reduction in Medicaid funding.

Cindy Capen, a nurse and associate with the Pediatric Pulmonary Division at Shands, estimates that about 80 percent of the patients she sees are on Medicaid.

“We don’t turn people away, but there are many hoops to jump through to get reimbursed for the many Medicaid patients we do see,” Capen said. She predicts the difficulties will only get worse with the recent budget cuts.

Based on what Capen has witnessed while working at Shands, she asserts that Medicaid regulations are mainly guided by cost and not by clinical understanding of diseases.

If a medication is not typically used for a diagnosis or is not on the approved Medicaid list, for example, Medicaid requires additional paperwork from providers. The process is meant to insure that the funding is used appropriately, but more often, she said, it simply creates delays in care and reimbursement as providers struggle to prove that the medications they are recommending are in the best interests of the patient.

“Nursing used to be fun… now it’s become a battle against bureaucratic red tape,” Capen said. “So much time lost that was once spent in direct patient interaction.”

State hospitals are bracing for the coming year, not sure how to continue the best level of care with less Medicaid funding.

“If specialists can’t decide what’s right for the patient and not hit all these barriers,” Capen asked, “how can we provide the best care?”

Above: “When I wake up in the morning, I have to do my percussions, my nebulizer, my inhaler and my nose spray,” says 9-year-old Daniel Markey. “Other than that, I’m just like all the other kids.” (Photo by Ashley Crane)

The post The Cost of Medicaid Cuts appeared first on The Fine Print.

Above: Crystal River Nuclear Facility lies dormant amongst the stacks of Progress Energy’s coal plants in Citrus County, Fla. In addition to fixing and renewing this 35-year-old reactor, the company is in the final phases of establishing an entirely new facility in the neighboring Levy County. Photo by Ashley Crane.

Environmental organizations and industry critics question Progress Energy’s plans to revive nuclear energy in Florida

A breezy weekend morning overlooking Crystal River makes you forget you’re so close to Gainesville for a moment. The air’s quiet and crisp, critters rustle through the grass and fish weave through the glistening water. In the distance, two nuclear power plant cooling towers shimmer.

Certainly an unexpected presence at the otherwise pristine Crystal River, Progress Energy’s nuclear facility is more than just an eyesore. In the past three years, the 35-year-old plant has had three major structural defects, which put it out of commission in 2009, just one year after Progress Energy applied for the plant’s 20-year license renewal.

While a host of environmental organizations and experts warn that nuclear energy in Florida is dangerous, unnecessary and unfair to rate payers, Progress Energy plans to not only renew the license of its current plant, but to also build an entirely new plant in Levy County, about eight miles north of the Crystal River facility.

A Cozy Relationship?

Before a nuclear plant is even built, it must be approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for its operational license, which lasts 40 years. Additionally, each plant may apply for a license renewal in the years leading up to the original license’s expiration.

Even though its original expiration date looms on the horizon, just four years from now, Progress Energy wants to extend its operating license for another 20.

They wanted it, and they got it.

Well, almost. If it hadn’t been for those three containment wall cracks in 2009, the Crystal River nuclear facility would most likely have been up and running until 2036.

In the NRC’s 37-year history of establishment, it has only ever denied two nuclear power plants their operating license. Two of 104. Additionally, the NRC has only ever denied one license renewal (more about that later), granting 62 facilities their 20-year extension to date.

The relationship between the NRC and the bodies it regulates – each of the country’s 104 nuclear power plants – “plays a role in everything the NRC does – licensing, inspection, enforcement,” said Peter Bradford, Vice-Chair of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), a nonprofit science-focused environmental advocacy group. Bradford served as a commissioner of the NRC from 1977 to 1982 and became part of the UCS board in 1997.

“Looking at the NRC’s track record over the last decade or so, when it intervenes in particular proceedings, it almost always does so on the side of the industry,” he said. The New York Times echoed his assertion last year in an article titled, “Nuclear Regulatory Commission Criticized for Industry Ties,” which provided multiple examples of the NRC bending its own rules to please the nuclear industry.

According to Roger Hannah, Senior Public Affairs Officer of the NRC, the final decision on Crystal River’s license renewal is still pending. The NRC still needs a better understanding of the Crystal River technical staff’s plan on taking the appropriate steps to repair the plant and ensure that it will meet safety standards over the next 20 years.

Picking Up The Tab

In the process of routine maintenance, Progress Energy opted for the D.I.Y. route, trying to save some change ($15 million, to be precise). Unfortunately, the maintenance didn’t go as smoothly as anticipated. The containment wall sprouted a 42-inch-long crack. And in the process of repairing that crack, the wall cracked again. And, predictably, trying to fix that crack birthed another.

Upon discovery of these cracks, Progress Energy temporarily retired the plant and, at the time, ensured the public that their neighborhood nuclear facility would be back online in early 2011.

Early 2011 turned into 2014. With the plant’s original license expiratory year just two years from the currently projected repair completion, is it even worth the $2.5 billion repair bill?

While most of it will be covered by Progress Energy’s insurance, local ratepayers may still end up forking over a hefty sum. Progress Energy spokeswoman Suzanne Grant said the company is still working through the numbers with Nuclear Electric Insurance Limited (NEIL), their insurance provider, and could not yet provide an accurate estimate of the customers’ portion of the bill. Progress Energy believes NEIL will cover at least three quarters of the total bill; some quick number crunching leaves the ratepayers with a maximum tab of $625 million.

Through 2012, ratepayers won’t see any hint of these charges on their electricity bill. And they won’t until 2013, if and when the Public Service Commission approves a rate increase.

Tweaking the Rules

With every license renewal, the NRC compiles a comprehensive Environmental Impact Statement assessing and accounting for potential environmental risks for the 20-year extension period. According to Crystal River’s report, Progress Energy has considered other options – coal, natural gas or a combination of the two. There’s also a no-action alternative in which Crystal River’s license would not be renewed.

The NRC vies for a license renewal on the existing nuclear plant as the best option, claiming that the significance of environmental impacts from reopening the Crystal River plant would be “small,” meaning that they are “not detectable or are so minor” that they wouldn’t “noticeably alter any important attribute” of the geographic, biophysical and social environment.

“In evaluating nuclear plants, the NRC sees some environmental issues and health hazards as simply something that is just an accepted fact in dealing with nuclear power,” said Mary Olson, Director of the Southeast Office of the Nuclear Resource and Information Service (NIRS). NIRS is the information and networking center for environmental organizations concerned about nuclear power and sustainable energy issues.

Yankee Rowe, a nuclear facility in Massachusetts, was one of the first facilities to request a license renewal. However, it didn’t meet the NRC’s standards for renewal at the time: it was not even in compliance with its existing license, which was one of the two requirements for license renewal. The rejection alarmed the nuclear industry and operators of another plant in Minnesota, who fought back, claiming the NRC’s renewal requirements examined a time period that extended beyond relevancy, making license renewal uneconomical.

“[The NRC] realized if Yankee Rowe couldn’t meet [rules for extending licenses], other reactors couldn’t meet it either,” Olson said. Yankee Rowe, just scathed by the NRC’s blade of rejection, ended up shutting down. This close call was a little too close, and the NRC became introspective.

In 1995, the NRC went in and tinkered with their rules a little bit. Just a tad. One new, albeit very easily overlooked, amendment found its place in a mere footnote. In said footnote, the NRC acknowledged that per each commercial nuclear reactor granted its 20-year license extension, 12 people are expected to die from cancer as a direct result of normal operation and radiation releases.

In the scramble to address the energy crisis, politicians are starting to throw nuclear in with other “green” options like solar and wind technology. Sure, the nuclear plant itself doesn’t emit carbon gasses, but that’s not the only thing to be accounted for when assessing environmental impact – Olson points out that environmental and human health risks, including those associated with the transportation of uranium, must be examined as well.

Nuclear plant workers and neighbors experience only a small percentage of additional radiation exposure – about one extra millirem of radiation on top of the estimated national average of 310 millirem per year.

However, radiation has the potential to escape in just about every step of production, from the uranium mines to the neighborhoods surrounding a nuclear facility. Radioactive materials only leak out in small amounts during routine and proper plant operation, but in heaping proportions if and when accidents occur. Radiation is known to cause an increased rate of cancer, infant mortality and birth defects, including mental retardation. But the effects of radiation aren’t evident until decades after exposure, making them difficult to trace.

In With the Old, In With the New

Progress Energy doesn’t just want to keep the Crystal River station chugging along longer; they want another entirely new facility as well.

Progress Energy has their eye on 5,000 acres, including 765 acres of wetland, just southwest of Gainesville in Levy County. In the first stages of planning the Levy facility, Progress Energy was only looking at one reactor with an estimated cost of $2.5 to $3.5 billion. Now, after nearly six years and a projected $14.5 to $19 billion dollars added to the bill, Progress Energy is preparing for two 1,100 MW reactors. These two reactors would provide energy to about 900,000 homes, with the first of the two reactors set to come online in 2021.

And although construction is yet to begin, local ratepayers are already getting charged.

Thanks to Florida’s Nuclear Construction Cost Recovery (NCCR) law established in 2006, utilities are allowed to collect preconstruction and construction costs from ratepayers prior to the planned facility’s operation. In 2010, the average Progress Energy customer shelled out an additional $89.52 over the year as part of the Levy County reactors’ preconstruction costs. Progress Energy has since filed with the Florida Public Service Commission to lower that figure to $61.68 for 2012.

Since its initiation in 2006, the Levy County project’s price tag has only inflated. By 2021, the average 1,100 kWh residential customer will be paying an additional $59.83 per month to fund the construction.

Progress Energy communications specialist Rob Sumner said that despite the cost, Progress Energy still plans on moving forward with the Levy County plant. Besides, even if they were to halt all future plans for the Levy facility this very second, they’d be stepping away with a hefty, customer-paid and non-refundable $150 million. This no-refund policy is tucked away in the fine print of the NCCR law.

Progress Energy still has some hurdles to jump before breaking ground for construction on the Levy County nuclear plant. The NRC is currently working on compiling the proposed facility’s Environmental Impact Statement, which has a tentative completion date of late this year or early next year, Hannah explained. “We haven’t even scheduled the [final] hearing yet. We’re three steps away from the final decision.”

Three steps and many months away, but Progress Energy customers are already feeling the strain.

“It’s certainly not fair to those customers, whether residential or business customers, who won’t be around when the plant might start up,” Bradford said, “it’s also not fair to low-income customers in Progress Energy’s territory who have more urgent uses for the money, like rent and food.”

“Another nuclear plant in Florida is affirmatively unnecessary,” he added, aptly summing up the position of the NIRS and a host of other environmental organizations and activists.

Moving Beyond Nuclear

“We not only don’t need nuclear power at all, but we can actually create a flat line in the demand for energy in the state,” said Mandy Hancock, High Risk Energy Organizer for the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE).

Hancock and Bradford both vie for efficiency as the cheapest energy solution. Not quite the same as conservation, “efficiency” simply translates to using less energy by means of adopting more efficient technology and building standards.

Efficient use of the “right” kind of energy is also key. Bradford suggests turning to “some renewables and natural gas” as supplements. Yet here we are, the Sunshine State itself, still devoid of a Renewable Portfolio Standard, which would require a certain portion of the state’s energy to be generated from renewable sources by a set date.

According to an in-depth analysis conducted by Energy Savvy, a software company dedicated to making energy efficiency easy and widely accessible, money spent on a new nuclear plant is better spent retrofitting homes. The average levelized cost of electricity generated by a new nuclear plant is about $0.08 per kWh. Over a standard 40-year licensing period, without renewal, this plant would cost about $40 billion. Retrofitting 1.6 million homes, on the other hand, would only cost about $20 million.

“The problem is not that we don’t have the technology; the problem is that we don’t have the political will to really pursue aggressive energy efficiency measures,” Hancock said.

“It’s absolutely not too late for the Levy County facility to be stopped,” Olson confidently added.

The post Reactors in the Distance appeared first on The Fine Print.

Above: Evan Galbicka paints at the Church of Holy Colors, an influential art space downtown with growing ties to the local music scene. If you haven’t experienced Gainesville’s vibrant underground culture, here’s a great place to start. (Photo by Ashley Crane)

True to its name, the interior and exterior of the Church of Holy Colors are testaments to a pure love and worship of color. Every door, corner, wall casing, floorboard, piece of tile, everything, has been integrated into a greater, continuous piece of artistic work – each part unique, none singularly noticed. The church is a tangible expression of an artist’s statement.

“None of the art at CHC is ever really signed,” says one of the original founders, Evan Galbicka. “It isn’t necessary. You know who created what by looking around and by truly knowing each other.” And that’s exactly the mission of CHC: to encourage real human interaction, collaboration and creation. Each person is a unique character, like a color, and makes a distinct but unclaimed contribution to the greater picture. It’s a sacrifice of the ego in an effort to reach a more refined expression.

Though the church itself is a working space for resident artists, it also functions as a recording studio for musicians. Gainesville locals may recognize some of the homegrown bands that have played at CHC, like Hundred Waters and Euglossine. The church’s musical followers have grown en masse within the last few years, so much so that the CHC recently built a modular stage to increase visibility from the first three rows.

As Evan explains it, the church sees these events as a way to initiate human contact in a perpetually technical culture. He doesn’t think communicating through social media should be the norm. “We’re not technical beings,” he says. “There are truths expressed in the art [and music] that help us live more happily.”

CHC members hope to work directly with the community on various upcoming projects. About a year ago, the church planted a garden, which continues to grow through community support and functions to educate others in D.I.Y. techniques and sustainability. With the help of a few volunteers and Chris Cano, founder and owner of Gainesville Compost, CHC recently planted for the new season in February. At the event, participants planted seedlings in raised beds and received Cano’s instructions on composting.

CHC is a place of refuge, but also reuse. A major part of its non-technical mission is to reduce its consumptive footprint. As a result, the church’s members seek out leftover waste materials like paint and wood, which can be synthesized into completed works of art.

As a recent project, the church raised $8,500 through a Kickstarter campaign to purchase a diesel van for its upcoming art and music endeavors. In an effort to live better, CHC intends to convert the van to run on used vegetable oil (rather than biodiesel). They’ve already solicited contracts with members of the local business community for obtaining the oil to use as fuel for their van.

CHC is excited to share the cultural nexus of Florida art and music that Gainesville has been developing into. They see the bus as a mobile encapsulation of this Florida culture, which they can transport to other cities. Elestial Sound, a record label that hosts many local artists, had its first showcase at the South by Southwest music festival in Texas, where CHC came to work with them on the visual elements.

If you haven’t experienced Gainesville’s vibrant underground culture, the Fifth Avenue block (part of a currently developing land-share/trust in downtown Gainesville) is a great place to start. The block is home to CHC and several other community-minded and supported ventures, such as the Civic Media Center, the Citizens’ Co-op, the Sequential Artist Workshop and the Repurpose Project.

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Above: Jacob Atem unloads USAID supplies in the Sudanese village of Maar, where the Southern Sudan Health Care Organization (SSHCO) will soon open its clinic. Photo taken in 2009, courtesy of the SSHCO.

The Journey that Led a Lost Boy of Sudan to Gainesville

Eight-year-old Jacob looked around the riverbank. Behind him, bullets rained from AK-47s shot by men in military uniforms. In front of him, crocodiles waited along the bank with open jaws as thousands of young boys ran toward the water.

Those who dove into the Gilo River to escape their pursuers met their death by crocodile teeth. Others, desperate to flee the crocodiles, grabbed branches to swing across the river, but the men shot at them, and Jacob remembers their bodies falling into the water. Those who escaped struggled to wade to the other side. Many could not swim, and many drowned.

But Jacob Atem survived.

Now a UF graduate student, Jacob is one of the lost boys of Sudan who survived the second Sudanese Civil War, fought from 1983 to 2005 between North and South Sudan. About 2 million people died, 4 million were displaced and thousands of orphaned children like Jacob fled by foot to refugee camps, facing starvation, wild animals, bombs and military attacks.

“We formed a human exodus walking a thousand miles through lion and crocodile country,” Jacob wrote on his website, “eating mud to stave off hunger, drinking urine to quench our thirst.”

This is his story.

****

Jacob does not know his exact age. But he knows that when he was about 6 years old, the Northern Sudanese Arab militia entered his village, burning huts to the ground, killing men and kidnapping women and children.

Jacob and thousands of other boys were not there at the time. They had gone to a cattle camp by the Nile River, a custom of nomads. During the dry season, the village boys would walk with the cattle and goats to find water for the livestock.

It was a beautiful day, Jacob remembered. He was looking after a calf with his 14-year-old cousin, Michael Atem, when he heard bullets popping in the distance. He looked toward his village and saw clouds of smoke in the sky.

Many boys fled. Jacob ran into the woods with his cousin, where they hid for about a week.

He learned from those who escaped the attack by the militia that his mother and father were killed, and that his sister was captured.

“What we realized was [there was] no turning back,” Jacob said.

More than 20,000 boys started walking to a neighboring country they knew vaguely as Ethiopia. The only living relative he knew was his cousin Michael. When Jacob got tired, Michael would carry him over his back as they walked miles at a time, ran from troops and escaped bombs dropped from planes. At night, while the boys slept, someone would always keep watch.

One night, while Jacob was sleeping, a lion attacked his group.

“Michael slapped me in the head,” Jacob remembered. “It was pitch black and all I heard were people yelling, ‘Lion! Lion!’”

He scrambled to his feet and fled “like a scared rabbit” in pitch darkness, running into a prickly branch that tore straight into his leg, down to the bone.

“Today, I look at the scar on my leg and think of all Michael and I went through. When I look back on my life, I can honestly say that Michael saved my life many times.”

Despite his wounds, Jacob and the boys had to continue walking. They suffered from hunger and starvation. They went months without almost any water as they walked through arid deserts and mountains. Many boys ate mud and drank their own urine to survive.

Gilo River: The River of Blood, Tears and Haunting Memories

After five months of walking, the boys came to a refugee camp in Ethiopia, and their pursuers stopped shooting because they were no longer in Sudanese territory. In Ethiopia, Jacob was baptized as a Christian and changed his name from Thon to Jacob.

Meanwhile, Ethiopia had been fighting its own civil war since 1971. In 1991, its government was overthrown, and the new government told the boys they had to leave.
Jacob and thousands of other boys with nowhere else to go insisted on staying, until one day, the Ethiopian government forced them at gunpoint to leave.

What resulted was the bloody night between man and beast along the banks of the Gilo River that Jacob remembers from his childhood.

More than 2,000 boys died in the river that day.
Jacob and the others who survived the Gilo River walked all the way back to South Sudan.

The northern Sudanese militia, upon learning that the lost boys had returned, came after them with guns and tanks. The boys fled again – this time to Kenya.
Wild animals, airplane bombings, gunshots, hunger and thirst plagued the boys daily.

After about eight months of walking, the boys came upon Kakuma Refugee Camp in northwestern Kenya. There, Jacob lived for almost a decade.

“And now, you’re not a boy anymore,” Jacob said. “You’re grown a little bit into a young man.”

He and the other boys relied on the United Nations for food and clothes. When the United Nations didn’t bring food, they went hungry. There was a school in the camp for the young refugees, but Jacob was too hungry to go.

“Imagine when you’re so hungry that your eyes go blind temporarily.”
His friends who did go shared one book with about 50 other students. Classes were held under a tree. A blackboard was hung on the tree, and the boys sat on branches and wrote their notes in the sand. Many of those who finished eighth grade taught first grade.

In 1998, the United Nations took steps to bring them to the United States. The young Sudanese refugees were asked to each write their life stories.

“It was my cousin that wrote the story,” Jacob said. “I didn’t know how to write.”
In 2000, the United Nations came with lawyers to determine if they had been truthful in their stories. It became subjective.

“I know a few friends that didn’t make it,” Jacob said. “It could [have been] me.”
After they passed the interview, they had to take blood and urine tests to inspect for infectious diseases. Once cleared, they began a three-day orientation called “Welcome To America,” where they learned about life in the U.S.

Jacob doesn’t remember much, but one thing he does remember:
“Whatever happens, just call 911.”

Family Left Behind

Though Jacob and Michael made it to safety in the U.S., they left behind Jacob’s sister, who they haven’t seen since the day she was captured by the Arab militia that attacked their village.

From the start, girls were at a disadvantage. When the Northern Sudanese Arab militia attacked, many of the boys were at cattle camps, while the girls, who often stayed at home to cook and clean, were in their villages. Like Jacob’s sister, most of them were captured and taken into slavery. Many girls were raped.

Those who did flee joined the boys on their journey. When they got to the Kakuma Refugee Camp, the boys were placed loosely under adult care, while the girls were placed with foster families. When the United Nations considered the plight of the young Sudanese refugees, the girls were considered to be already cared for because they were with foster families.

Of the more than 20,000 young refugees who fled Sudan, only about 3,700 made it to the U.S. And of the 3,700 who came to U.S., only 89 were girls.

Most of the lost girls remain in refugee camps and face very similar circumstances to those Jacob once faced. Others, like his sister, remain bound as slaves to their northern masters.

A New Life

Today, if you ask a lost boy what his birthday is, you can be sure of the date – Jan. 1, the day many of them arrived in the U.S.
When Jacob came to America at about the age of 15, he was placed in foster care in Webberville, Michigan. He took a high school placement test and was assigned to the freshman grade, not because of his scores, Jacob emphasized as he had not attended much school, but because of his age.

“I could barely speak English, just using a lot of hand gesture.”

At school, kids would bully him, Jacob said. “They’ll call me the “n” word, the “f” word, you name it.” Little did they know the struggles he’d been through.

The state of Michigan required all students to graduate by the age of 18, so Jacob worked hard to graduate on time, successfully graduating in three years. He was the first in his family to ever receive a high school diploma.

He met his wife, a lost girl of Sudan, and they got married in January 2011. Jacob is now a Gator at the University of Florida, where he is completing his Ph.D. in Health Services Research, Management and Policy.

“It’s great to be in the Gator nation!”

Sending Hope Home

On his computer desktop, Jacob pulled up a picture of a girl who looked like nothing but bones squatting as a vulture landed nearby. South African photojournalist Kevin Carter committed suicide soon after taking the Pulitzer Prize winning photo. His note read:

“I am haunted by the vivid memories of killings and corpses and anger and pain … of starving or wounded children.”

Jacob looked at the photo, and he remembered his village, Maar.

In July 2011, South Sudan gained independence from the northern government. Jacob believes he was spared from death for one reason: to pay it forward.

“What can I do to make sure that this doesn’t happen?” he asked.

In 2008, Jacob founded the Southern Sudan Health Care Organization with a fellow lost boy of Sudan, Lual Awan, to provide a clinic that would improve maternal mortality rates in his village.

The only standing clinic that existed after the war was pervaded by bullet holes. The maternal mortality rate in South Sudan is the worst in the world. According to a 2008 UNICEF report, one in every 32 women is likely to face maternal death.

Last year, with the help of donations, the building for the Southern Sudan Health Care Organization was completed in Maar. Medical supplies worth about $500,000 were also donated to the clinic.

The supplies still have a long journey ahead before they arrive in Maar. They have already been shipped from Springfield, Ill., to Mombasa, Kenya, and are expected to arrive this spring. Jacob hopes to have them shipped immediately to Juba, the capital of South Sudan, and then to his village, Maar. It costs about $35,000 to ship the container, he said. So far, they raised about $15,000.

Jacob and the rest of the non-profit’s board of directors will visit Maar to officially open the clinic this spring.

One of the board members, Tim Page, an ophthalmologist who is going to Maar for the first time, will perform surgery on patients with cataracts – an affliction that has left thousands of Sudanese blind.

Jacob’s hope is that people will partner with him to get the clinic up and running and to ship supplies.

“If we have 50 students paying $20 a month, that’s $12,000 a year.”

Looking back on his journey, Jacob said his faith in God cannot be separated from his experiences.

“We have been called lost boys, but really we don’t feel lost,” Jacob wrote. “Even though we suffered much and lost many things dear to us, deep down in our hearts we know that we have never been lost from God.”

To learn more about how you can support Jacob, his dream and his organization, go to his website. You can also vote in the Dell Social Innovation challenge, where the projects with the most votes from different geographical regions are awarded $1,000. The last day to vote is May 13.

Above: Jacob Atem does not know his exact age. But he knows that when he was about 6 years old, the Northern Sudanese Arab militia entered his village, burning huts to the ground, killing men and kidnapping women and children. In 2008, Jacob founded the Southern Sudan Health Care Organization with a fellow lost boy of Sudan, Lual Awan, to provide a clinic that would reduce maternal mortality rates in his village. Photo by Ashley Crane.

The post Never Lost appeared first on The Fine Print.

Above: “Some people don’t like any government; they see 200,000 government workers and they want them gone,” says Brian O’Neill, president of the North Central Florida Chapter of American Postal Workers Union. (Photo by Ashley Crane)

Will Congress further gut the post office or save its service and workers?

The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is set to cut $20 billion from its operating budget by 2015 due to an increasing deficit. In order to accomplish this goal, USPS, a public entity that receives no tax dollars, plans to close more than 3,600 facilities, 252 postal sorting locations and to eliminate Saturday service and first-class mail.

Gainesville already shut down its downtown post office in September, and its sorting facility is currently on the chopping block. USPS will make a final decision on May 15, and if the currently proposed plan goes through, mail will be shipped to Jacksonville to be sorted and then shipped back to Gainesville to be delivered.

Gainesville is set to lose 232 good, local jobs. But because the national American Postal Workers Union (APWU) reached a new four-year employment agreement last May, the majority of these employees cannot be laid off or transferred more than 50 miles away. Those currently under this contract would be sent to other cities to work, most likely Jacksonville. Of these employees, though, about 30 are non-union workers, so they will be laid off.

“I live 50 miles from work now. If I get transferred another 50 miles, I’d have a 100-mile commute. Their gain in savings from consolidation is my loss,” said Brian O’Neill, president of the North Central Florida Chapter of APWU.

But O’Neill will go wherever they tell him to. After 17 years of working toward his retirement and little hope of a private-sector job, he’d be foolish not to.

This story has been playing out across the country for the past 20 years. According to O’Neill, the APWU went from 300,000 workers in its heyday down to 177,000 now. In Gainesville, it went from 400 in its peak down to 275. And if the sorting facility is closed, it’s going to go down to 130 unionized workers.

O’Neill believes this is part of the reason why Congress won’t help.

“Some people don’t like any government; they see 200,000 government workers and they want them gone,” he said. To him, Congress isn’t acting to save USPS because it wants to “starve the beast.”

“No one is feeling sorry for postal workers,” O’Neill said. He believes that the perception of a wealthy postal worker is false but pervasive.

“I make $55,000 a year. Big freaking deal. I’m not saying I’m wealthy, but it’s a decent salary.”

Closing the sorting facility would also mean no more overnight local mail. All mail would take two to three days minimum.

According to plant managers, closing this sorting center would lead to a net $5.8 million in savings. But there will also be an increase of $2.3 million for transportation costs. Many have pointed out that the price of fuel is expected to increase, meaning the savings will be lost in the coming years. There is also the unnecessary environmental toll from driving mail out of town and back.

Fiscal irresponsibility or manufactured crisis?

USPS’ yearly operating budget of $75 billion has been met (or nearly met) by an almost identical revenue until 2008. Because of falling volume, revenue has been declining since 2008. In 2011, USPS hit an operating deficit of $5.1 billion.

But this crisis traces its roots not only to falling demand but also to the 2006 passage of H.R. 6407: Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act. This law forced the postal service to pre-fund payments for future retirees’ health care benefits for the next 75 years. The pre-funding of retiree benefits for workers who have not even been hired yet is something unknown in any government or private industry.

Without this bill, the postal service would have a $1.5 billion surplus today.

Postal workers at a December town hall forum speculated as to why the bill was passed. Some expressed concerns about “bleeding USPS into privatization by FedEx lobbyists.”

Regardless of the reasons for this crisis, Congress has begun to move on legislation that will dramatically affect USPS.

The passage of H.R. 1351: United States Postal Service Pension Obligation Recalculation and Restoration Act of 2011 would allow USPS to use money that it overpaid into the retirement systems toward its deficit. This bill currently has 228 cosponsors, does not use any taxpayer money and would save more than 28,000 jobs nationwide. But this bill has been stuck in the Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, U.S. Postal Service, and Labor Policy since last April.

Meanwhile, H.R. 2309: The Postal Reform Act of 2011 has been moving forward. This piece of legislation was written by Rep. Darrell Issa, the wealthiest man in Congress, and has only one cosponsor, Rep. Dennis Ross, chair of the Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, U.S. Postal Service, and Labor Policy. Aside from not addressing any of the financial underpinnings of this crisis, it is also a major attack on union rights. The “solvency authority” clause would give a group of unelected individuals the right to entirely seize control of all aspects of USPS. This includes nullifying existing union contracts.

The outpouring of public support last September for the post office affected Congress enough to postpone the closing of any sorting facilities across the country. The decision was supposed to be made by mid-February, but the actions of 15 senators have pushed it to May 15. This agreement was reached in order to have time to come up with a comprehensive reform – a reform that could either further cripple the already-weakened post office or rescue this public service.

This story was printed in our Spring 2012 issue as an extended version of Tough Times for Your Mail(wo)men.

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Above: Photo taken 2009 at Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park: courtesy of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

This spring, the bison that live at Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park will begin to see cracked corn, molasses and sugar appear on the prairie, twice a day, every day, for a month.

Then at the end of the month, unfamiliar men will appear along with their daily treats. And suddenly the treats will become lures, leading the bison into wooden holding pens, built so they can’t see out of them. The contractor leading this project hopes the lack of visibility will keep them calm.

If the bison don’t go quietly, they’ll hear the beating of a helicopter’s blades overhead. The growl of 4-wheeler engines will crescendo over the prairie. And the plan is to force the bison, running as fast as most 4-wheelers can drive, into the holding pens where handlers will separate the males and ship them to ranches across the country.

Gainesville citizens have been fighting to stop this day since Paynes Prairie officials announced a plan in 2010 to, as the park puts it, “stabilize the bison population.” An online poll yielded more than 400 responses from concerned citizens, and the one public meeting held on the issue was filled to capacity with about 100 people voicing opposition.

Despite what may seem like the age-old conflict of animal rights advocates vs. The Man, the issue is more complicated than that. Paynes Prairie’s dilemma goes back, not just to 1975 when American bison were re-introduced to the state park, but to the late 1800s.

Back then, an animal that once boasted numbers as high as 20 to 30 million was whittled down to about 500 across the entire continent, explained Walter Munsterman, a biologist and bison expert at the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge – the second largest bison refuge after Yellowstone National Park.

In 1899, the New York Wildlife Conservation Society’s first initiative was to gather, shield and begin reproductive efforts with what was left of the American bison. But while hunters were slashing through millions of bison, ranchers were experimenting with the “super cow” – a bison, cattle hybrid. So when the society began its efforts, not only were there very few bison for them to work with, but many of the remaining bison had already lost their genetic purity.

No one knew it at the time. Only in recent years with new DNA testing technology has it become clear that herds previously thought to be genetically pure American bison actually have traces of cattle DNA.

“But just because it has that minute amount doesn’t mean it’s not still a buffalo,” Munsterman said. “They all still look, act and smell like a buffalo.”

To Munsterman, this new information gives all the more reason to preserve bison. Before the technology was so precise, if a small amount of cattle DNA was found in a bison, it likely would have been removed from the herd. With this new information, most bison are being kept in the herds – the focus now on fostering genetic diversity within the species rather than maintaining genetic purity.

Since almost all of the American bison alive today, including the Paynes Prairie bison, at some point originated from those initially rounded up off the Great Plains by the Wildlife Conservation Society, they all hail from a very close-knit, somewhat impure family tree. Today, increasing genetic diversity within the species is key to their long-term survival, according to the 2010 IUCN American Bison Status Survey and Conservation Guidelines.

At Paynes Prairie, this issue is compounded by the fact that the herd began with a donation of just 10 bison from the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge. The family tree was whittled down even more in 1985 when all but 6 of 35 bison tested positive for brucellosis. Left with six females, the park introduced one new male. But because of the small population size, inbreeding quickly became a concern, and in the late 1990s all the male bison were removed.

Friends of Paynes Prairie bought a new male bison in 2001 to introduce to the all-female herd. And now, each one of the 70 bison in the park are related to one another, and concerns of inbreeding have resurfaced.

Here and Gone

American bison called the Alachua Savanna home before hikers trampled paths and the Hawthorn Trail was paved. So it only seems fair to give them a sanctuary in North Central Florida – the tail-end of their natural habitat. But that’s not exactly why park officials re-introduced the bison to Paynes Prairie in 1975.

“They were brought here to [show] folks that bison really did exist this far south, that Florida was really this open, this wild,” said David Jowers, the director of Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park.

When the original 10 bison crossed the Florida state line, escorted by park officials, their fate and the fate of their offspring suddenly changed. No longer would they wander 59,020 acres of protected land in Oklahoma. Their home shrank to 6,000 acres – though still plenty of room for a small herd, according to Jonathan Proctor, a bison expert with Defenders of Wildlife in Montana.

Now, instead of wildlife to be preserved, the bison were classified as livestock to be numbered and accounted for, a result of Florida Statue 588.13, which categorizes all bovine animals as livestock.

When they arrived in their new home, the bison were given a new job title. They were now educators. Their purpose: to be a piece of the puzzle showing what the Alachua Savanna would have looked like when settlers first laid eyes on it in the late 1700s.

To citizens and visitors, their arrival was simply a new attraction to the park. To the bison, this meant that the same obstacles they had been facing as a struggling species – genetic instability and limited resources – would now be overcome differently.

If the Paynes Prairie bison were a conservation herd, the Livestock Management Plan that laid out the guidelines on how to “stabilize the bison population” likely would have looked very different. But as an educational herd, the point was to not allow inbreeding while keeping the bison at the park for their educational value with as little long-term stress to the herd and cost to the state as possible.

“Even the national parks have no choice but to remove some bison from time to time,” Proctor said.

A bison herd needs at least 1,000 members to be genetically stable, Proctor explained. And Paynes Prairie does not have the room or the resources to maintain a herd of this size, nor are Florida laws set up to allow for this type of conservation effort even if the park wanted to shift its strategy from education to conservation.

With all this in mind, Jowers said, “it would be irresponsible not to do anything. It was just a matter of when.”

Park officials decided on a one-time roundup this spring. All the adult males will be separated and taken to ranches that are looking for males for various reasons. The young males will be neutered and released back into the park along with all the females. And in the future when the herd begins to shrink, Jowers said the park plans to introduce new females and neutered yearlings here and there. In short, it will be a non-reproducing herd, and this will be the third and hopefully last time Paynes Prairie rounds up the bison.

The stress of rounding up bison can sometimes kill them, according to the IUCN bison guidelines. There’s also the difficulty of dealing with a herd of 70 animals that can run as fast as 35 mph and weigh up to 2,000 pounds. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection doesn’t have experts on staff who know how to round up animals of this size, so the project was put up for auction.

Four companies applied. State officials made their choice based on a combination of cost, experience and quality of the sanctuaries that each company listed as recipients of the male bison, Jowers said.

The bid could have been awarded to Holcomb Buffalo Ranch in South Dakota, part of the bison’s historic range. If it had, the male bison would have joined a herd of about 85 others in a rural, protected area, according to the ranch’s proposal. But Holcomb Buffalo Ranch quoted the state $11,200 per bison. With a herd of about 70, that adds up to $784,000, not including undetermined medical costs.

Gateway Farms offered to do the same job for $324 per bison. Gateway Farms, a High Springs-based company, has 10 years of experience with buffalo compared to Holcomb Buffalo Ranch’s 18 years of experience with bison. The main difference lies in the details of the sanctuaries specified in each proposal. Holcomb Buffalo Ranch would have given the male bison a definite lifelong sanctuary in South Dakota, a goal laid out in the Livestock Management Plan. Gateway Farms, on the other hand, will send them to a handful of ranches with varying purposes.

The final projected cost has yet to be released for the project, but it is enough that the state park doesn’t want to have to do it again in the future.

“The expense of rounding these animals up is phenomenal,” Jowers said. “This is not something we can do in-house. So for us to maintain the animals [for educational purposes], we feel the need to go to a non-reproducing herd.”

Jowers trusts Gateway Farms’ proposal, which states all five possible recipients of the bison will provide a sanctuary for them and allow them to live out their lives.

Jere Herrington, an active member of local conservation groups, has been working to protect the bison for almost two years and is skeptical.

“There is no provision for enforcement or follow-up,” she pointed out.

But, “At some point, you have to trust the vendor,” Jowers said. Adding that he doesn’t know the individual recipients, only what Gateway presented to the state park.

The Paynes Prairie bison exemplify the obstacles that the conservation movement faces across the country due to varying legal classifications and human-determined purposes for bison.

Only 10 states classify bison as wildlife. The rest, including Florida, classify them as livestock. That has led commercial herds, often selectively bred for domestic traits rather than genetic diversity, to outnumber conservation herds – about 400,000 animals to 20,500, according to the IUCN guidelines.

“If any major progress is to be made in re-establishing free-ranging bison on their native range,” these guidelines suggest that “a paradigm shift is required whereby the public recognizes bison as wildlife, and that there is a social tolerance, especially in the agricultural community.”

Where the Bison Will Roam

Until all the Paynes Prairie bison are rounded up, the number of adult males remains unknown. These are the locations that Gateway Farms’ proposal stated as possible recipients. None of these ranches have been guaranteed any bison. It is all dependent on how many adult males there are.

1. Gateway Farms
Gateway Farms is in High Springs, just up Highway 441 from Gainesville. Gateway is primarily a tree farm with an eclectic collection of animal ambassadors. It won the contract to round up all the Paynes Prairie bison and relocate the adult males.

The owner, David Hajos, said after Gateway is done dividing the males among the other ranches listed on the proposal, he may keep one if there are any left.

David Hajos has about 20 years of experience working with domestic and exotic livestock, according to Gateway’s proposal. For 10 years, he owned and maintained the second largest herd of Asian Water Buffalo in Florida – not exactly American bison, but at least from the same family.

If David Hajos does decide to keep one bull for himself, its bunkmates at Gateway Farms will be everything from a zebra and a kangaroo to painted camels and Cotton-Top Tamarin monkeys. They’ll share 40 acres of pastures and pens with straight lines of evergreens and palms.

2. Bellfield Farms
Gateway’s proposal states that Bellfield Farms has two locations, one in Micanopy and one in Maryland. However, Bellfield Farms isn’t listed in either location. The Micanopy Zoological Preserve is located at the Florida address, a preserve that the stated owner of Bellfield Farms, Jerry Holly, established for his son, Rhudy Holly, in 2000 – a childhood dream come true. The Maryland address is registered to three businesses: Jerry Holly Property Management, Frontier Stall Tent Rental and Brandywine Tent Rentals.

The Hollys aren’t strangers to obtaining exotic animals from Florida state parks. In 2004, Jerry Holly bought 53 animals – zebras, ostriches, impalas, giraffes, antelopes – from Silver Springs Nature’s Theme Park to add to Rhudy’s 600-acre, fenced preserve. The preserve’s main purpose is to breed exotic and endangered animals. In the proposal, Bellfield Farm’s states its focus is on capture, immobilization, transportation and nutrition of rare species.

David Hajos knows the Hollys well. He helps care for and round up “surplus animals” throughout the year.

3. Marvin Hajos
Marvin Hajos appeared as a bison recipient on both Gateway’s and Diamond D. Ranch’s proposals. Though his addresses on the two proposals don’t match – one is in Hollywood, the other in Lake City – the other details are fairly similar: 30 years experience with bison and something between 66 and 72 acres for 30 “different” or “exotic” animals.

Marvin and David Hajos have various business connections – they own D & M Farms together, for example – and some have said they are father and son, though I was unable to confirm this.

Marvin Hajos refused to discuss his plans for the Paynes Prairie bison if he were to receive any. He even refused to state the main purpose of his farm.

4. Gap Creek Ranch
Gap Creek Ranch is located in Bradenton. It’s the ranching portion of a two-part business, the other part being Gap Creek Buffalo Meat Sales.

Bob Cambell, one of the ranch’s owners, said their main purpose is to raise and sell bison meat. They tried beefalo, “but that confused people so we decided to go straight buffalo.”

Cambell is hoping to receive one or two male bison because his herd is currently down to 18 individuals, and he’s without a breeding bull. His bull died a few years back. He tried buying a new bull last year, but he’s not breeding. Too young, Cambell said.

“These guys won’t be eaten,” he said, referring to the male Paynes Prairie bison he’s hoping for. “We requested a fertile bull, and if we get it, it’ll be just what we need.”

5. Rodney Pickler
Rodney Pickler’s farm, located in North Carolina, is a 103-acre farm with 25 acres dedicated to a herd of 12 bison, according to Gateway’s proposal. The proposal also states that the farm, known as Southern Copper Buffalo Farm, has its own deep-water well for the bison and makes its own hay.

An article written last June in The Pilot, a local newspaper in North Carolina, stated that Southern Copper Buffalo Farm’s herd is actually up to 26 members. I called the farm, and though one of the owners was very open to speaking with me, I agreed not to publish our conversation since they haven’t even been guaranteed one Paynes Prairie bison yet. The impression I got, though, was very similar to that expressed by The Pilot. It’s a small, family-owned place. The owners, husband and wife, love their animals and their trade. They pride themselves on selling grass-fed, healthy meat and try to sell as locally as possible.

The Pilot article explained that they breed their bison and sell the younger ones once they reach about three years of age. They keep the mamas of the herd, as the couple calls them, and their bulls.

Editor’s Note: This story was written for our Spring print issue of The Fine Print, which came out in mid-February. The removal of the bison began on March 7.

The post Where the Wild Things Were appeared first on The Fine Print.

Above: Dan Harmeling, former UF student and civil rights activist, poses in his yard next to the mug shots of him and his twin brother taken in 1964. They were arrested for peacefully protesting outside a segregated restaurant in St. Augustine, Fla. Photo by Erik Knudsen.

In the 1960s, African Americans weren’t allowed west of 13th Street after dark, the one exception being UF students. The university gave the Gainesville police pictures of its black students so police officers could check that those who crossed 13th Street were in fact enrolled at UF.

“It was that bad. There was that kind of extreme discrimination right here,” said Dan Harmeling, one of the many white UF students who were active in the civil rights struggle alongside their African American friends.

Dan remembers one evening when a police officer shined a flashlight in his friend Jesse Dean’s face as the officer browsed through a collection of photos to ensure that Jesse was allowed to be there.

Black History Month pushes us to re-examine the deep-seated discrimination that daily confronted community members like Jesse and those who fought within their communities for a more just society.

Before Dan moved to Gainesville for school in the early 1960s, the minister at his church in Winter Park showed him how to fight for equality through his actions as a member of the NAACP and state civil rights groups. Dan quickly began to follow his example.

When Dan and his twin brother, Jim, moved to Gainesville to study psychology, Dan settled in the “student ghetto,” an area behind University Avenue that was one of the cheapest places to find housing. It was here that he met many black students who soon became his close friends.

“At the time, Gainesville was completely segregated. The blacks weren’t allowed in any of the restaurants along University,” he said. “They were treated as sub-par citizens.”

Dan joined his friend and fellow activist, Chester Chestnut III, and protested these restaurants and other local businesses.

In 1963, Dan and other activists blocked the entrance of The Florida Theater because the theater wouldn’t let African Americans buy tickets to shows. A white mob quickly gathered to counter the growing crowd, but Dan and others did not falter.

The movement continued to grow from there, amassing more activists with each protest. With the efforts of the NAACP and the Student Group for Equal Rights, Dan and his peers continued to push against discriminatory practices in Gainesville by holding protests and sit-ins.

“Very few businesses gave in to our demands and almost none changed their practices voluntarily. They changed when the law forced them to change,” Dan said.

The same year he helped block the entrance to The Florida Theater, Dan and fellow UF student, Judith Brown, joined Florida A&M protesters and picketed a Tallahassee movie theater. Dan was arrested, the first of four arrests for “civil disobedience.”

UF administrators, including then UF President J. Wayne Reitz, wanted Dan and Judith expelled for misconduct. Although they were ultimately allowed to remain at the university, Brown had her Graduate Assistantship in English withdrawn and Dan lost his job at the library.

“The administrators at UF were some of the most prominent segregationists. Dean Grinter would cross our picket lines to go into segregated restaurants, and Stephen O’Connell once had 50 students arrested for sitting in his office,” Dan said. “They were what we had to fight against.”

Dan, still fighting in 1964, protested against the segregation of public spaces in St. Augustine. The event drew national attention, with Martin Luther King Jr.’s presence and the Ku Klux Klan’s violent backlash.

Later that year, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, ending racial segregation in schools and other public facilities. But merely passing this act did not end racism, which was still pervasive in society. And Dan and others kept fighting. The following year, he and a group of at least 15 from Gainesville took part in the historic march from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery to push for equal voting rights.

“The vestiges of racism are still here,” Dan said. “It may not be as apparent, but this town was built on discrimination.”

Dan currently lives in Gainesville, teaching and tutoring part-time and is still engaged in political activism. He sees remnants of inequality in subsidized housing and the efforts to close schools in east Gainesville. The fight for equal rights is not yet over, but he does admit that the situation is a huge improvement from the 1960s.

“There are African Americans in leadership positions. Our police chief is an African American. We couldn’t have imagined that back then.”

Dan gently insists that he is only a small part of the civil rights story here in Gainesville and that there are still many personal histories left to tell.

“I remember people thinking we were idealists… and yeah, I guess we were. We just knew things could be better.”

Even now, 50 years later, Dan knows that things can improve and he continues to strive for that: something better.

The post Civil Disobedience appeared first on The Fine Print.

Above: Pat Fitzpatrick, a longtime advocate for the homeless and hungry, keeps a close eye on the relationship between big developers and the City of Gainesville. (Photo by Erik Knudsen)

Criminal background checks replace meal limit at St. Francis House

After years of protests by activists, supporters and the needy, the meal limit at the St. Francis House, which allowed only 130 meals to be served per day, was finally repealed this November. Now St. Francis House can serve unlimited meals to the hungry men, women and children who line up every day within a three-hour window.

But on the first Wednesday without the limit, The Gainesville Sun reported that only 81 people received meals. Why?

An end to meal limits only meant there were new regulations to be made. The end of one restriction ushers in another.

Recipients of any St. Francis House service are now required to have a police clearance form and picture ID upon arrival at the front desk. Previously, this requirement was only for those who needed to stay overnight at the facility.  Now, it applies to anyone who wants a meal or even just wants to use the bathroom.

Every 30 days, anyone who plans on going to the St. Francis House for food or shelter must first go to the police station to receive a clearance form that states they are cleared from any warrants for arrest. They must also show valid ID, something many homeless people cannot provide. Because of this, the meals that were once expected to increase after the recent repeal have actually dwindled.

Unlike the meal limit law that was part of the City of Gainesville’s City Ordinance, these new rules stem from the St. Francis House’s own board of directors.

After the meal limit repeal, a series of meetings were held among downtown businesses and neighbors and the board members of the St. Francis House. Kent Vann, executive director of the St. Francis House, called the new rule “compromise.”

We were going to be serving more people, so we needed to monitor the people in a safe manner,” he said. “Increasing the crowds calls for increasing responsibility on our part.”

Vann said he had to present the city with a management plan that would address the safety issue. He says that’s when the extension of the background checks was proposed. The St. Francis House already has close to 500 current police clearances on file.

But, not all agree with the new “compromise.”

Arupa Freeman is the the director of The Home Van, a group of volunteers who drive to serve food to people in Gainesville.

As of November 2, the 130-person meal limit at the St. Francis House soup kitchen came to an end. It was replaced by requirements so harsh, so difficult to meet, and so humiliating and demeaning that St. Francis House is now serving lunch to between 70 and 90 people a day,” Freeman said on her blog.

She also addressed the ID requirement issue, citing how problematic it is for homeless people to get the documents they need.

Under the new laws passed as a result of the Homeland Security Act, it has become a long and complicated nightmare for homeless people to obtain state of Florida IDs or even to obtain the documents, such as birth certificates, necessary to obtain a state ID. Many homeless people do not have such IDs and have given up trying to get them,” she said.

Pat Fitzpatrick, a passionate advocate for Gainesville’s homeless, keeps a close eye on the relationship between big developers, like the McGurn and Collier families, and the City of Gainesville. McGurn Management Company is responsible for, among other things, the Union Street Station, the Sun Center, apartments and parking garages. The Collier Companies own and manage more than 9,600 apartments in Florida and Oklahoma.

It was Ken McGurn who, in March of 2009, presented data at a meeting with the City Planning Board indicating the St. Francis House was giving out more meals than was allowed in the permit.

Shortly thereafter, the limit was enforced.

If it seems odd that a homeless shelter would agree to more seemingly self-imposed restrictions on its meal giving, Fitzpatrick says one doesn’t have to look much further than the might of Big Business and developers promoting their interests.

It’s not St. Francis’ fault. They have to stay in good graces with the city. And the city — they just bow down to downtown developers.”

The self-regulation of the St. Francis House seems to be the only way the city would even agree to repeal the limit. And while many don’t like what’s happened, the need for compromise between the St. Francis House and influential forces was necessary in order to change the meal cap.

Ronald Young, 51, is a Gainesville resident who has been hanging around the St. Francis House for years. He says Vann’s a good guy and understands he had to make negotiations with the city.

However, Young knows the deeper implications of the requirements and how they will deter many from getting a police clearance form.

A lot of homeless people have warrants just for some petty 1s [first misdemeanor]. I mean, they have an open container on their record, they’re not about to go down to the Gainesville Police Department. They’re going to try to stay far away from there,” he said.

He says St. Francis House seems anti-homeless now, and that it almost feels like a jail.

This is a homeless shelter, you know? You can’t even use the restroom without a form. What if you just got in town and hopped off the bus?”

Young says these policies are pushing people away, and the long line of people that once stood outside St. Francis House before the limit was repealed has now disappeared.

You’ll still see a little bit of a crowd in the morning. But, it’s not like it used to be.”

The struggle between the homeless and the city has been going on for years.  Unfortunately, the St. Francis House receives a lot of the spotlight due to its mission to feed and shelter the poor.

Providing services to those confronted with homelessness or hunger is never an easy task. But it is even further complicated in a city like Gainesville, where downtown businesses and wealthy developers have strong, conflicting interests with Gainesville’s own population, including the poor and homeless.

The post Pushing the Limit appeared first on The Fine Print.

Coalition of local pet shelters works to eliminate euthanasia by 2015

The lobby of the Alachua County Humane Society is small and clean. Dogs are barking from the kennels outside in the background. There are black and white portraits of different animals on the walls, pictures children have drawn of their adopted pets and a cork-board advertising the need for various donations: cleaning supplies, 13-gallon bags, and most of all, volunteers.

Next to the cork-board is a small piece of paper with the Humane Society’s goals and policies. First and foremost on the sheet — Alachua County Humane Society is a no-kill shelter.

Alachua County is currently working toward becoming a no-kill county, ending the euthanasia of healthy and adoptable pets. The Alachua County Humane Society is the leading organization of this movement by Maddie’s Pet Rescue.

Maddie’s is comprised of five shelters in the county dedicated toward reaching no-kill status by 2015. The combined efforts of the Humane Society, Haile’s Angles, Puppy Hill Farm, Gainesville Pet Rescue and Helping Hands Pet Rescue have lowered the amount of animals put down from 8,063, the 2000 baseline, to just under 3,000 this past year.

The formation of Maddie’s was brought about by the need to stop euthanasia at Alachua County Animal Services.

The Humane Society, and other local shelters, cannot take animals directly from citizens. Animals must first go to Animal Services.

“Animal Services does all the enforcement work; it’s where strays go,” said Eric Vanness, the executive director of the Humane Society.

It’s the middle-man for Alachua County animal shelters. Since all strays first end up at Animal Services, and not all are able to be taken in by the no kill-shelters in town due of lack of space and workers, space at Animals Services is a constant problem. Euthanasia is one option to continuously open up room for incoming animals.

Before turning to euthanasia, when space is getting slim at Animal Services, its employees send a list of animals on “death row” to the no-kill shelters in Alachua County. Vanness said that his shelter picks last, and they try to take as many animals as possible based on space-to-staff.

The Humane Society relocated in February of this year. With more than double the space of its previous facility, the shelter would be able house more animals and keep more off of the euthanasia list. However, the society was forced to reduce its staff by about half, due to lack of funding and the $400,000 spent beyond projected costs for the new building.

A total of four full-time Animal Care Service Workers, the society’s paid staff, and one of the two administrators were lost in the move.

Opening shifts at the Humane Society are strenuous on staff. They must open the building and ensure that supplies and animals are in order. They oversee distribution of medicine to animals and check in on dogs and cats in quarantine or special care areas.

Cages need to be cleaned, dogs need to be taken out and played with, cats must be groomed and cared for, and food and water must be replenished. Opening shifts pick up where the evenings leave off, and employees must also make sure there are no problems throughout the building in the midst of these tasks. With the aid of volunteers, these tasks can be completed while employees work on their other duties.

The more volunteers there are, the more interactions they can provide with each dog and cat and the more area they can clean and maintain. Thus, the more volunteers, the more animals that can be saved. Vanness said that there are about 900 volunteers on file, but only 60-70 actually come to volunteer. And there are even fewer regulars.

People fill out a volunteer application online and then need to go through an orientation training session. But not all who fill the application follow through with orientation.

Another issue lies in those only trying to fulfill a community service obligation.

“They have 15-hour requirements and they can honestly do that in three or four days,” said Vanness. “It’s not the easiest to recruit past that.”

Audrey Geoffroy, a volunteer since September 2009, said that it doesn’t have to be a difficult thing to volunteer and that anyone should try. Geoffroy is one of the Humane Society’s regular volunteers, and she brings her daughter with her to look after the cats.

“I enjoy it, all [the cats’] personalities, you really get to know them,” she said.

While caring for animals is always on the surface at the Humane Society, economic constraints struggle in the background, dictating what the society can accomplish with its staff and volunteers.

Eric Vanness said maintaining the payroll for his staff continues to be the biggest obstacle the society faces. Without the proper funds, the society can’t hire more hands to help, in turn reducing the amount of animals taken in.

“Everything comes back to staff,” he said.

Donations help, but they can’t fully cover the $130,000 mortgage from the new building, salaries, supplies and expenses.

“People donating don’t want to pay someone’s salary,” Vanness said. It’s easier for someone to donate an old dog bed or toys that the Humane Society’s Thrift Store can sell.

The Humane Socetiy’s Thrift Store is its main source of income. The store offers retail, pet food, flea care and spay/neuter vouchers. Donations are taken and resold for affordable prices, though Vanness did chuckle a bit as he recounted some of the more questionable conditions of a few donations.

Zach Toundas, an Animal Care Service Worker, spoke adamantly about the Humane Society’s mission. He said that with the community’s efforts, the goal of becoming a no-kill county could be reached.

“Volunteers are the only reason we can do what we do here.”

How you can get involved…

To join the Alachua County Humane Society volunteering staff, go to alachuahumane.org and fill out a volunteer application. You’ll be contacted by the Humane Society’s volunteer coordinator and can then sign up for an orientation time.

If you would like to donate, the Thrift Store accepts lightly used donations, or you can give money directly to the Humane Society.

Interested in adopting a dog or cat yourself, check out this story for tips on responsible pet ownership.

All photos taken by Ashley Crane at the Alachua County Humane Society.

Update: We have more photos from ACHS. Check them out >>

The post A Chance at Life appeared first on The Fine Print.

Sowing the Seeds of Ecotourism in Haiti’s Rugged Terrain

After last year’s notorious earthquake, Haiti’s recovery has been slow and riddled with setbacks, worsened by an allegedly preventable cholera epidemic. Fortunately, Gainesville hosts a variety of organizations that actively support Haiti, whether by raising money or sending medical volunteers. Jeff Depree, a doctoral candidate in Computer Science at UF, thought he could help in his own way.

Depree traveled to Haiti this year with nothing more than a backpack and some bare essentials. His goal, without the aid of an organized group, was to explore the landscape and interact with locals. He kept a detailed log of logistical issues that could be encountered by travelers and mapped out hiking trails in hopes of encouraging other ecotourists to follow his lead and visit the country’s rugged terrain.

The International Ecotourism Society defines ecotourism as a way to travel responsibly to natural areas while respecting the environment and local culture. It’s not a novel idea, but in Haiti, it’s uncharted territory. Haiti’s tourism industry consists of isolated resorts, providing foreigners with private beaches and bars but no glimpses into the rest of Haiti.

Despite the obstacles presented by deforestation and widespread poverty, DePree hopes ecotourism will eventually become a viable option for travelers, as well as a source of income for locals and an incentive to protect Haiti’s resources.

Depree’s journey began in Port-au-Prince, where he saw the reality of the earthquake’s devastation: a tent city had replaced the main square and most of the buildings were in ruins.

He continued, focused on reaching Haiti’s untamed landscape, and hopped onto a tap-tap, a brightly colored bus or pick-up truck used as a common form of transport.

After spending his first night in a church rectory in the southern town of Furcy, DePree awoke early to begin hiking. Markets and vendors lined segments of the ridgeline to the southern coastline. He picked out a lady with pots in the dirt alongside the trail and bought a cheap and filling meal: a hodgepodge of fried spaghetti, onions, tomatoes, ketchup, and mayonnaise. For the rest of the trip, DePree mapped out up to 50 miles of hiking trails.

“Haiti is one of the last places I would imagine as a destination for ecotourists,” said Dr. Gerald Murray, professor emeritus of anthropology at UF. Murray designed and directed an agroforestry project in Haiti over a 20-year period and conducted research on the country’s culture and religion. Murray attributes his lack of optimism to Haiti’s high population density and rapid deforestation.

The government protects only two patches of land: Pic Macaya in the southwest and La Viste in the south, both national parks. Throughout the country, Haitians clear forests and use the resulting wood and charcoal for energy. The land is subsequently used for subsistence farming until overuse triggers soil erosion, creating a vicious cycle of resource depletion. In the past two decades alone, roughly 13 percent of Haiti’s forest cover has been eliminated.

“Haiti’s environment has been sidelined to deal with more pressing issues,” said Dr. Paul Monaghan, an assistant professor at UF’s Department of Agricultural Education and Communication.

Monaghan worked with the US National Park Service on an assessment of Pic Macaya over a decade ago. Aside from the deteriorating landscape, he encountered human rights issues, including a lack of clean water and no viable economic opportunities. The Haitians he came across on the outskirts of the park had no choice other than clearing the forests to survive.

Although Monaghan doesn’t imagine ecotourism in Haiti would ever replace conventional tourism, he foresees its development as an incentive for Haitians to take the preservation of natural resources into their own hands, reversing the current cycle of deforestation and soil erosion.

Travelers like DePree hope to plant the seed from which ecotourism could expand from the ground up. As of now, ecotourists in Haiti are virtually on their own. Throughout his entire trip, Depree ran into one wilderness guide, an English-speaking Haitian who advised Depree on where to go, despite his inability to afford the guide’s price of $40 per day. He appreciated any monetary help he could get from DePree, explaining that he needed the money to buy bread for his children.

Unlike DePree, the vast majority of tourists in Haiti flock to resorts operated by foreign businesses. Labadee, one of Haiti’s most popular tourist destinations, is exclusively for those traveling with the Royal Caribbean cruise line. The 600,000 tourists who pour into Labadee annually enjoy an assortment of commercial attractions, surrounded by a 12-foot fence.

Haitian locals are not allowed into the fenced property, with the exception of those employed by the cruise line and a couple hundred others who sell trinkets at a small flea market. Aside from these 530 Haitians who receive monetary benefits, the Guardian reported last year that other Haitians lament the loss of one of their country’s most pristine natural areas to foreign enterprise.

“Haiti is beautiful,” said Getro Naissance, a Haitian student at UF. “There’s no place like it.” Born and raised in Haiti until the age of 14, Naissance makes a point to visit bi-annually and explore his homeland. He mentioned that the media focuses too much on the negative without showcasing the unique culture and landscape Haiti offers.

Naissance travels by means of local transportation, getting by with the help of people he meets along the way. Dr. Monaghan encourages Haitian émigrés, already well-versed in the country’s language and culture, to set an example for foreigners and revisit their homeland.

DePree will continue to promote a self-sufficient Haiti and hopes to go back again, next time with more camping gear and a small group of fellow travelers. He and others will build upon previous efforts, exploring uncharted areas and recording their trip in hopes of guiding future ecotourists.

“At present, Haiti has a bit of an image problem,” DePree said. “But the Haitian people are passionate about improving their country and, with a little direction, I think they could create a really enticing ecotourism industry that could put Haiti high on the list of adventure travel destinations.”

Above: Photos taken Dec. 2010 in Haiti by Jeff DePree while hiking between Fermathe, Quest and Depot, Sud-Est. Others taken Jan. 2010, hiking from Baissins Bleu, Sud-Est to Jacmel, Sud-Est.

The post Uncharted Territory appeared first on The Fine Print.

The Fall 2011 issue of The Fine Print is out and about town. Can’t get your hands on a copy? Here you go.

New feature: links. If we’ve posted an article online, we linked the print headline to it so you can see what others are saying and join the conversation. (Also, all website/email mentions within the issue are functional links.)

Cover illustration by Susie Bijan.

The post Introducing Vol. IV, Issue I appeared first on The Fine Print.

On the surface, Destiny is like any other four-year-old — easily bored, energetic, and unaware that her future hangs on a thread. Cantrice, her 28-year-old mother, left Chicago last year in search of a better place to raise her kids. In Gainesville, she struggled to find an adequate place to sleep at night. Destiny’s father, who had been “missing in action” for years, wasn’t going to help. On July 10, she entered the Interfaith Hospitality Network of Greater Gainesville, a nonprofit dedicated to sheltering homeless parents and children.

For more journalism documenting homeless children in Gainesville, check out Transient Children of Alachua County, where this story was originally posted. If the topic interests you, check out their event this Friday at Plaza of the Americas.

The post A Place to Call Her Own appeared first on The Fine Print.

Last month, we promised you weekly Paper Cuts, our quick updates and occasional commentary on headlines that matter. We’ll have to apologize for now and change “weekly” to “whenever we have time.” If you think we’re missing something important, feel free to email us.

Not My Representative
On Sept. 15, Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) of Ocala, the chair of the House Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, drew national attention when he challenged Planned Parenthood once again on its spending. Stearns launched an investigation into Planned Parenthood’s financial records, requesting documents that go back 12 years from locations across the country. Stearns has also been making headlines with his new investigation into federal loans totaling $535 million made to Solyndra, a failed California-based solar panel manufacturer. Stearns was quoted as saying the U.S. can’t compete with China to make solar panels and wind turbines. When called out directly by President Obama on this statement, Stearns clarified he was referring to cheap labor. Read more >>

Florida Organic Growers vs. Monsanto
Since March, organic farmers across the country have been at legal war with Monsanto, the world’s leading producer of genetically altered seeds (and possibly the world’s leading producer of public outrage). The conflict emerges when pollen from modified crops produced by Monsanto gets carried by the wind and genetically contaminates organic farms. Plaintiffs claim Monsanto has sued over 100 farmers for patent infringement, even though their crops had been unwillingly contaminated. In July, Florida Organic Growers joined the fight. Read more >>

Bystander Intervention
This past April, Vice President Joe Biden, who wrote and helped pass into law the Violence Against Women Act in 1994, spoke at the University of New Hampshire to promote a new initiative set forth by the Obama administration. A 19-page “policy guidance” was sent by the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights to all school districts, colleges and universities that receive federal funding. The letter outlines and reinforces current requirements for handling sexual violence under Title IX, which was originally designed to protect students against sexual discrimination, including sexual harassment and assault. Read more >>

Photo (above) courtesy of Nationaal Archief via Flickr Commons

The post Paper Cuts / 11.8.11 appeared first on The Fine Print.

Ever tasted the difference between a ripe, juicy strawberry picked yesterday and an oversized strawberry sprayed with chemicals, picked last week and trucked across the country?

If yes, then you might understand why the number of farmers markets has more than tripled in the past 15 years. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, more consumers are seeking alternatives to industrialized agriculture by searching for food produced close to home.

Studies have shown that eating locally grown food improves health, supports local economies, promotes the biodiversity of crops and reduces the environmental impact of shipping food around the world.

“The nutritional value of fresh fruits and veggies is at its peak right after harvest,” said Danielle Treadwell, a professor who researches organic crop production at the University of Florida.

1. Support restaurants that use locally grown food

The Jones Eastside is one of many restaurants in town that uses local sources to create its menu. The food might be more expensive, said co-owner Maya Garner, but the price takes into account more sustainable production, fair wages for workers and fresh food.

“It tastes so much better when you have something on your plate that was picked the night before,” she said. “No one can argue with that.”

Gainesville is full of resources for people who want to eat locally, so consumers have no excuse for not doing so, she said.

“We’re spoiled. We can get kiwis from New Zealand, bananas from Costa Rica, chocolate from Africa,” she said. “It’s not a natural way of eating.”

For a list of restaurants that support local farmers, ranchers and fishermen, check out Gainesville Farm Fresh.

2. Buy your groceries at Ward’s

From strawberries to beef and jams to hummus, Ward’s Supermarket, the only locally owned grocery store in Gainesville, offers year-round goods from nearby growers.

Local items are often labeled, said Danielle Williams, an employee whose family has owned Ward’s since 1951. But you can always ask employees what products are local, she said.

Citizen’s Co-op, a member-owned grocery store with a “Local First” policy, will open downtown in April.

“We don’t need a bunch of diesel trucks belching fuel across the country when we can get food right here,” said Phil Kairalla, a local farmer and beekeeper who serves as the chair of the Co-op’s board of directors.

The store will focus not only on local food, but also on food grown in organic, environment-friendly and socially responsible ways. That means making sure all products are free from chemicals and genetic modification, and all producers are paid and treated fairly.

At Ward’s, Citizen’s Co-op and local restaurants, shoppers can check out Hogtown HomeGrown, a monthly newsletter that educates customers about what foods are in season and how to cook them.

3. Shop at farmers markets

Unlike buying food in a traditional store, where your money goes to distributors, packagers and processors, when you buy directly from farmers, the farmers keep more of every dollar spent.

Another benefit of buying from farmers markets is getting to know the person producing your food. Farmer John Steyer said concerned consumers can ask growers about issues like chemical use.

Garner said the food you buy from local sources might be organic even if it doesn’t say so.

“Most local farms operate organically even if they’re not certified,” she said.

At the market, some shoppers may be intimidated by unfamiliar foods, and Garner suggested talking to the growers about how to cook the item.

“They will be able to tell you how to prepare it to perfection,” she said.

There are four farmers markets in Gainesville and more in the nearby towns of High Springs and Micanopy. The times and places of every market can be found on the Gainesville Farm Fresh website.

4. Join a CSA

Members of a Community Supported Agriculture program, or CSA, “subscribe” to a farmer by paying a set price for weekly shares of the harvest from November through June.

“CSAs are wonderful because farmers are guaranteed income and can grow what they need to grow,” said Stefanie Samara Hamblen, the creator of Hogtown HomeGrown.

She said consumers might be forced to experiment with different foods because they have less choice in the food they receive, but this applies to buying foods in season, as well.

Hamblen said thinking differently about cooking and meal planning will help those who want to eat locally. Instead of planning a menu, making a list and then shopping for groceries, she said, do it in reverse. See what’s in season, then plan meals around what’s fresh.

5. Grow your own food

Gardening at home is an option for those with the time and space. People living in dorms and apartments can experiment with potted plants or try gardening at a community garden.

The city of Gainesville has five community gardens where residents can grow their own food. Call 352-393-8186 to see if any plots are available.

The University of Florida also rents plots to community members at its Organic Gardens Cooperative. For more information, call Ginny Campbell at 352-378-6108.

Top: Lily Garner, 6, uproots fresh carrots and offers them to passersby at Swallowtail Farm’s Second Annual Spring Festival, a “celebration of everything good and local.”  Above: Scott Edmundson relaxes in a patch of soil with his two-year-old son, Kepler West Edmundson, at the same festival on Swallowtail Farm. Photos by Henry Taksier.

The post 5 Ways to Add Local Food to Your Diet appeared first on The Fine Print.

They call him the “herb man.” Since the 1970s, James Steele was Gainesville’s first local provider of herbs.

Perched behind the Gainesville Farm Fresh stand at the Union Street Farmers’ Market downtown every Wednesday afternoon, rocking a ponytail and a thick white beard, Steele is confident that if people need herbs, they’ll come to him.

“One can’t ask for more, to make a living doing what you love,” he said. “And what I love is to grow things and pass that knowledge onto others.”

After 39 years of growing, seeding, composting, harvesting, canning, preserving, harvesting eggs, baking breads and quiches for bartering and teaching, Steele continues to grow herbs and vegetables. He’s the man behind Gainesville Farm Fresh, an online community market that promotes sustainability by connecting farmers with consumers.

“James promotes the idea of buying locally produced food,” said Pat Stevens, a fellow grower and a close friend of Steele. “He is both computer savvy and personable and is able to get his message across to people on a one-to-one basis or through his websites.”

Steele was recently elected to join the board of directors at Gainesville’s Citizens Co-op, a soon-to-open grocery store that provides its members with affordable food, freshly delivered from local farms. His role is to directly connect growers to the board, answer any questions people might have about selling their goods to the co-op and generally act as the “in-between man.”

But really, who is this elusive man, and how did he become the person he is today?

Steele’s journeys in Europe ultimately taught him what he really wanted to do with his life. In the 1960s, he received a degree in surveying law and traveled the world as a mapmaker for the U.S. military. His time in Amsterdam led him to shift his primary focus to herbs (no, not that kind).

He met a man in Amsterdam who had a shop filled with dried teas, fruits and a variety of spices. Steele remembers scooping up some of the herbs, taking a whiff and being in awe. He lived in Europe for a few more years and made a decision.

“I’m going back home, getting my degree in horticulture and making herbs my profession,” he said.

Now he sits downtown every Wednesday afternoon, eager to chat with his customers. Steele appreciates the Gainesville culture of college kids and people of all ages who really seem to push for a tight-knit community and a thriving local economy.

Steele manages The Herb Garden in Melrose, supplying north central Florida with herbs since 1989. Besides hopping between farmers’ markets and managing his multimedia website, Steele teaches gardening classes and works as a chef at a restaurant in Melrose. The Whole Earth Catalogue, Mother Earth News and Organic Gardening Magazine have guided his pursuit of living closer to the earth.

Steele wants consumers to understand the external costs of shopping at a corporate supermarket, where products are shipped over great distances, with high carbon footprints, and sold cheaply as a result of extensive government subsidies. He’s not judgmental or preachy by any means, but he believes education would lead many people to support their local economies.

“Soon, I’m going to get some chickens,” Steele said, excited to take control over where his food and resources come from. His passion for nature, herbs and local food has shaped his lifestyle, but it’s not the only thing he lives for. Steele has a son, a musician in Gainesville, and a daughter, a model in Los Angeles.

He can disprove the notion that older people aren’t technologically savvy like the ‘young-ins’ around him. He does web design not only for his own sites, but also for a handful of local bands. He’ll whip out his iPhone to show a video clip of his daughter in one of P!nk’s music videos shot in the streets of L.A. He’s exceptionally proud that his daughter played a character in the “So What” video (check it out on YouTube).

Steele recommends living in the moment and never looking back.

“That’s all we have,” he said. “Just live your life with no regrets. I never regret a thing that I do. But don’t slack off. That’s what I’m always telling my kids.”

At the thought of slowing down or retiring, Steele insists that he’s got to keep sharp and stay active in the game or else someone else will come in and take over the herbs.

It’s Steele’s game though. He’s the father of the trade and loves to see the people he’s taught over the years come around and sell their own stuff at the market. The name James Steele floats around the community plaza. Other vendors say, “Oh yeah, I know James. Everybody knows James around here.”

“I’ll always be growing herbs,” he said. “That’s me.”

The post Sage and Thyme appeared first on The Fine Print.

Roy Hale Geiersbach, 61, has lived along the fence since 1996. “Don’t be surprised if I gotta cough,” he said, “I’ve been fighting pneumonia and cracked ribs.” There used to be a well in his yard, which he drank from until 2007, when he found out it was contaminated with industrial toxins. Geiersbach takes 27 prescription medications for a variety of ailments, including skin cancer, cardiovascular problems and diabetes. “Look outside,” he said. “See the oak trees? Do you see any squirrels? There are none because they eat the acorns and drop dead. Everything here is dying.”

For two years, Mary Ann Jones has lived along the fence with her extended family, which includes three grandchildren. “I’m scared to death,” she said. “I used to love to garden, but now my plants are dead because I’m scared to touch them. We’re pretty much stuck here.” Jones is left to wonder whether her family’s ailments, which include skin rashes, headaches and frequent nosebleeds, are just a coincidence or signs of toxic contamination.

Aaron, 4, lives with his grandmother, Mary Ann Jones, along the fence of the Superfund site. He doesn’t fully understand the situation but knows that if he plays outside and drops something on the ground, he is not to pick it up under any circumstances.

Max and Peanut, the Jones family’s pets, cling to the fence outside. Small children and pets are particularly vulnerable to the effects of chronic dioxin exposure, which can lead to immune deficiency, reproductive problems and cancer.

Farinda O’Steen, 64, has lived along the fence since 1966. In 2006, she lost her husband to seven different types of cancer. Her son, 35, had three strokes before he was six months old. O’Steen believes her husband’s chromosomal damage spread to their children and grandchildren in the form of skin rashes, bone weakness, learning disabilities and other problems. She has lost faith in the EPA, the City Commission and even the activists who claim to represent the interests of people trapped near Koppers. O’Steen’s only goal now is to save money so she can start a new life with her family elsewhere.

Across the street from O’Steen’s house, a dog chained to a fencepost runs in circles and barks at passersby, releasing contaminated dust in the air.

A few blocks away from the actual fence of the Superfund site, another wooden fence in the Stephen Foster Neighborhood displays the notorious trademark of Koppers, Inc.

Update (July 2011): In June, The Gainesville Sun reported, “There is no evidence to suggest neighbors of the Cabot-Koppers Superfund site in Gainesville are at an increased risk of developing cancer, according to a Florida Department of Health analysis released Friday… The Stephen Foster Neighborhood Cancer Review compared numbers of cancer cases in that neighborhood’s census tract with the rest of the state between 1981 and 2000.”

In the same article, Anthony Dennis of the Florida Department of Health acknowledged that the study had limitations. On July 21, Anne Lowry, a former Hospital Director of Nursing and Investigational Drug studies, wrote an unpublished letter to the editors, calling the study “junk science” and criticizing the Sun for not being critical enough. “Proper and valid health studies take years,” she says. “They require thousands of people to be studied, tracking back over many generations, and must be designed and fully completed by scientists.”

To learn more, check out:
A Haunting Past, Pt. 1: How Gainesville Faces Decades of Toxic Pollution
A Haunting Past, Pt. 2: Gainesville’s Dirty Little Secret
A Haunting Past, Pt. 3: The Record of Decision
Feb. 18: City Commission Analyzes the EPA’s Record of Decision
The Superfund Art Project

The post A Haunting Past: Fenced In appeared first on The Fine Print.

Randy Williams* got more than he bargained for when he and his wife went horseback riding on a Saturday afternoon. After a three-hour ride, the couple returned to their Ocala home to find two brown horses tied to their truck.

“I’ve heard of people dumping horses before,” Williams said. “But it’s not something you think actually happens—at least not to you, and not like this.”

As the number of unwanted horses rises in America, one trick of desperate owners involves casting off equine baggage on unsuspecting neighbors.

For now, the skinny (but otherwise healthy) male horses are living on the Williams’ 10-acre farm. He said they have space and can afford to feed them, so unless someone comes forward, they’ll keep the strays. Most abandoned horses aren’t so lucky.

Jeri Debrowski is the webmaster of AMillionHorses.com, a website dedicated to documenting current cases of neglected horses in America. She said the Montana-based site began in 2009 when she and several equine experts realized the growing problem of unwanted horses.

Debrowski said stories like Williams’ are happening across the country, but most are without a happy ending. She attributes the pattern to the recent recession and to legislation restricting horse slaughter in the U.S.

According to Debrowski, America had 16 horse meat processing plants operating in the 1980s. In 2000, animal rights activists, including the Humane Society of the United States, began to lobby for intervention in the horse-slaughter industry.

By 2005, Congress cut funding for the U.S. Department of Agriculture to inspect facilities processing horse meat. Without proper inspection, the meat couldn’t be transported across state lines, and slaughterhouses were forced to shut down. The last facility closed in Illinois in 2007 after the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the constitutionality of a state law passed to ban horse slaughter.

But regulation didn’t end there. With a strong racehorse industry, Florida was particularly prone to illegal horse meat processing as a way of disposing failed or injured racehorses, so last May, Gov. Charlie Crist signed a bill strengthening state bans on the sale of horse meat for human consumption. The law also increased penalties for violation. Florida is now one of six states that prohibits human consumption of horse meat.

Debrowski said activists hailed the government action as a victory for horse welfare, but the celebration was premature.

In 2006, prior to regulation, the U.S exported about $65 million in horse meat from more than 100,000 horses, Debrowski said. Now those horses need a place to go.

“They didn’t do their homework to establish that rescues could handle an extra 100,000 horses,” she said.

She said rescue sites across the country are bulging and starting to fail due to a lack of space and, more importantly, money.

“You can save a horse today, but there’s another 20 to 30 years of upkeep,” she said. “They live much longer and more expensive lives than cats or dogs.”

According to a December study from the University of California-Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, there are 236 registered horse rescues nationwide able to support 13,400 total horses per year. The annual cost of care for a rescued horse averages $3,648.

That means nearly $50 million a year is spent maintaining about 13 percent of America’s abandoned and neglected horses. The majority of that money comes from personal funds and donations, not from federal aid.

“We used to make millions exporting meat, and now we need to raise millions to keep horses alive that have no homes,” she said.

More complicated still, not all of the unwanted horses are staying in America. The horse slaughter industry is thriving in Mexico and Canada, where regulations are minimal and meat can be easily processed and exported to Europe, Japan and other countries where it’s in high demand.

According to USDA figures from last March, 88,276 U.S. horses were shipped in 2009 to slaughterhouses in Canada and Mexico, where operational restrictions are less rigid. Debrowski said this number represents horses that carry a green back tag identifying them as slaughter-bound. She said the trauma and cruelty many of these horses experience is devastating.

Of those not shipped across borders, the unwanted horses remaining in the U.S. are often neglected, abused or abandoned in the hope that someone else, like Williams, can provide a home. And because of the poor economy, fewer people are able to afford the care, she said.

The solution to the swelling number of unwanted horses is as complicated as the issue itself. While some, like Debrowski, support reintroducing slaughter on American soil, others argue it wouldn’t fix the root of the problem.

John Friary and Kathy Pennenga own and operate Greener Pastures, a farm sanctuary in Gainesville. Here, they adopt and care for dogs, cats, pigs, cows, donkeys and horses, many of which were abandoned or neglected.

Friary, 40, a biostatistician at the University of Florida with a Master’s in public health, opposes slaughter and said the practice is a “convenient out-of-sight, out-of-mind solution” to deal with the real issue: there are just too many horses.

He said to reach a sustainable solution, irresponsible breeding needs to stop. The racehorse industry is a front-runner for the blame, producing many more horses than the number actually ending up with a racing career.

“They see horses as a commodity,” Friary said. “I’m not saying horses are human– they definitely aren’t and don’t have the same rights– but they aren’t a car either.”

Pennenga, 27, who is completing her Master’s at UF in public health, said blaming slaughter restriction for the increase of neglect and abandonment cases is impractical.

“Closing slaughterhouses didn’t create the problem; it just exposed it,” she said.

And with the economic downturn coinciding with the crackdown on horse slaughter, she said the number of unwanted horses was inflated. Still, Pennenga said a lack of education on the issue is disturbing.

“People don’t realize how big the problem is,” she said. “If they did, they would be outraged.”

Pennenga and Friary advocate humane chemical euthanasia as an alternative to slaughter. Friary estimated it costs $100 for the injection and $200 to dispose the body, yet the horse is spared the cruelty of slaughter, starvation or abandonment.

He said owners pay about $300 monthly in health expenses alone to maintain a horse, not including the cost of board.

“If they were able to afford that, they can afford another $300 to do the responsible thing for their horse,” Friary said.

However, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association, while chemical euthanasia is preferred by most veterinarians, incorrectly disposed carcasses are hazardous to the environment and to preying species, such as birds. Debrowski added that while euthanasia is a more responsible approach than abandonment, it isn’t realistic. Some people just can’t — or won’t — find the money to put down their horses.

So abandonment continues.

The program coordinator for Marion County Animal Control, Elaine DeIorio, said that while the agency saw an increase in abandonment and neglect cases during the past few years, she couldn’t attribute it to any specific event.

However, the issue gained so much attention nationwide that in 2009, the Government Accountability Office was asked to study the link between the closing of slaughterhouses and horse neglect and report findings by March 1, 2010.

The report has not yet been published.

Debrowski said the GAO found so much material that it asked for an extension. The report is now set to come out this March.

While the report might not provide a quick fix, it’s the start of a process that will hopefully inspire a change, Debrowski said.

“Activists had good intentions, but the follow-through wasn’t planned,” she said. “So we’re left asking, ‘What are we going to do now?’”

*Name changed at subject’s request for privacy.

The post The Mane Dilemma appeared first on The Fine Print.

No kicks left in Newnansville, and not a soul to talk to. Just the cicadas holding vigil as the sun sets through the live oaks. People call this place a ghost town, but there is no town left to haunt, and the ghosts have long since faded like the letters etched in their tombstones. Everyone is nameless in the end.

The real history of Newnansville is hazy at best. The town lived and died at a time when public records weren’t quite so public, when politicians and plantation owners were free to meet behind heavy lacquered doors and divvy up the land over glasses of Scotch. What records remain are maddeningly incomplete and sometimes downright contradictory. It’s difficult to establish the cause of the town’s demise. What’s left to work with is a watered-down oral history, charming to recount from a rocking chair but damn near impossible to validate.

The story goes something like this: In 1814, James and Simeon Dell settled on a patch of land about a mile north east of the present-day city of Alachua. The area developed slowly as settlers trickled in and put their plows to the soil. Then in 1824, after gaining dominion over Spanish Florida, Congress authorized the construction of the Bellamy Road. The new federal highway would run from Pensacola to St. Augustine, bringing travelers and trade through the area that would soon become Newnansville.

By 1828, the settlement had grown prosperous enough to gain the attention of The Territorial Council. They officially renamed it “Newnansville” after Gen. Daniel Newnan, and with a few pen strokes made it the seat of the newly formed Alachua County. As the plantations around it grew, Newnansville became a hub of antebellum society and enjoyed prosperity for nearly 30 years.

Newnansville reached its peak just before the Civil War, and then suddenly fell into a terminal decline. No one really knows why. There’s a story about Alachua County’s leading citizens meeting at Boulware Springs in 1853 and voting to move the county seat to a location along the new Florida Railroad. They settled on a swampy area just east of the settlement at Hogtown, on land that was part of the Bailey plantation, and named it Gainesville. Some say they went so far as to steal the Newnansville courthouse. Six years later, the first train finally rolled into the fledgling city.

The death blow, if you buy into legend, came in 1884, when the Savannah, Florida and Western Railroad missed Newnansville by barely a mile. F. E. Williams, whose land the railroad traversed, capitalized on the opportunity and founded what would later become the city of Alachua. Slowly but surely, the life drained out of Newnansville.

That’s the official line anyway: The ebb and flow of progress simply left the town behind. But it doesn’t tell us why—why the ambition of one man should take priority over an entire community, why no one seemed to fight him, why a distance of a mile should be allowed to kill a place.

One way or another, by the 1930s Newnansville was gone from most maps, and most of its residents were gone from it. Those who remained were laid to rest in the old Methodist cemetery. Over the years, the cemetery has expanded, and now it is all that’s left. Even the church is gone. The town site was entered on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. It sits just outside Alachua, on County Road 235, where the traffic drowns the echoes of its silent past—a legacy of lichen-covered graves, unanswered questions and armadillo holes.

The post Digging the Rubble: Newnansville appeared first on The Fine Print.

Mica seems like an average American college freshman. She works hard in school and volunteers for the school paper because she’s crazy about writing and wants to be a journalist.

But she’s also an illegal alien.

Mica, who has asked that only her first name be used, came to the U.S. with her mom, dad and little brother when she was 8 years old. They came on a temporary visa meant for families on vacation, and though her parents told her the truth, she knew to say she was going to Disney World if anyone asked.

About 65,000 undocumented students graduate from American high schools every year, but once they reach age 18, they are considered the same as other adult undocumented people, and can be deported if discovered.

For the children of illegal immigrants, this can mean the only country they remember living in doesn’t want them to work or vote or drive. It can mean being invisible.

“It’s a great example of how people create legal categories without bothering to think about the real human impact,” said Paul Ortiz, director of the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program at UF.

Because they have no immediate relatives with U.S. citizenship or legal residency, undocumented children can face detainment and deportation, and just like other immigrants without special skills or circumstances, have virtually no path for citizenship.

“These are individuals who have grown up in the U.S., and for many, if not most of them, this really is their culture,” Ortiz said. “Unfortunately, what you’ll find in politics is the fairness and logic arguments only get you so far. If those arguments would have worked, we never would have had slavery or segregation.”

The DREAM Act, which stands for Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors, was created to provide children and young adults like Mica a pathway to citizenship. If passed, those who came to the U.S. before the age of 16 and have been here for at least five years could obtain conditional permanent residency by attending college or serving in the military for at least two years.

For Mica and other undocumented children, the biggest challenges start as they approach adulthood and face their futures.

“I have this huge weight on my shoulders,” she said. “Sometimes it leaves; it always comes back.”

Mica attended high school in a suburb of Miami, where she took advanced classes and then interned at an established newspaper. She got into UF and several other schools, but because of her status, she has to pay out-of-state tuition in Florida, where she’s lived for over a decade.

As an undocumented student, she was also ineligible for federal grants and scholarships and can’t drive or work, now or after she graduates.

There were disappointments, but Santa Fe Community College accepted her immediately and was affordable even with out-of-state tuition.

While she’s happy to pursue her “one true love,” journalism, Mica wishes her family could be with her as she does. Feeling the financial and emotional strain of living in legal limbo, Mica’s father, mother and little brother returned to Argentina in August. Mica chose to stay and finish the future they worked so hard to help her start.

And because of policy changes in the ‘90s that made returning to the country within 10 years of their illegal residency criminal, and punishable by prison time, it could be a long time before they see each other again.

Mica’s family and the 12 million other people living in the U.S. illegally could embark on the long road to proper citizenship, but the best case scenario, for parents, spouses or children of an existing U.S. citizen, takes at least five years. The next best cases can take decades. For those without an immediate relative or a college degree and job offer in the country (or special cases like star athletes or wealthy potential investors), gaining permanent legal residence is nearly impossible.

The DREAM Act, first introduced in 2001, would allow these children and young adults to stay in the country, so long as they earn a high school diploma or GED, have good moral character (a term yet to be defined exactly, but probably something like a clean criminal record) and complete the necessary requirements. Then they can eventually transition from conditional permanent residency to citizenship.

It has been almost 10 years, and the act has been reintroduced several times, most recently in late September. But it’s never had enough votes to pass. The act has faced opposition not only from Republican conservatives but also from some traditionally liberal organizations and individuals who struggle with use of the act as a recruitment tool by the military.

Advocates of the DREAM Act have also faced criticism from other immigrant-rights groups who feel more comprehensive reform should be the movement’s priority.

“We have an act which is not perfect, that leaves much to be desired, but my argument is that we need to support it because real lives are at stake,” said Ortiz, a third-generation immigrant and veteran. “Human rights are at stake here.“

Vickie Mena, program coordinator for the Bob Graham Center for Public Service and local activist, along with the other members of the Gainesville Interfaith Alliance for Immigrant Justice, hopes to make the dream a reality.

“This is going to be the year it passes,” Mena said.

The post ‘Illegal’ Student Shares Her Story appeared first on The Fine Print.

As a group of students gathered around a small vine growing from a drainpipe, Michael Adler described the edible and medicinal qualities of the unassuming weed. Adler was guiding an edible weed tour around the block of South Main Street and Fifth Avenue on Saturday, Sept. 26, where the second annual DIY Fest was held. The weekend-long fest, coordinated by locals, offered free “alternative education” in the form of workshops, skill-shares and an after-party with a talent show.

The DIY Fest encompassed an array of community-led workshops, including herbal syrups, organic gardening, the science of sustainability, do-it-yourself mental health, carpentry, hoop dancing, trans-awareness and make-your-own genitalia.

“Anyone can teach, anyone can participate,” said Cori Kate, a coordinator of the fest. “We try to make it as flexible as possible to allow the facilitators to convey their message.”

The acronym “DIY” means “do-it-yourself” and describes a growing culture of people who choose an active lifestyle of self-sufficiency over idle consumerism. The movement is rooted in grassroots political and community activism, and a preference for locally available resources that do not deplete the natural landscape. The DIY mentality often extends beyond material needs to encompass leisure, as well as mental, emotional and spiritual support.

The DIY Fest was held in celebration of the two-year anniversary of Gainesville’s Free University (FU) — an ongoing educational program designed by the community, for the community. Currently, FU hosts a workshop every Thursday night at the Civic Media Center (CMC). Each week, a different person or group organizes a class on a topic of their choice.

“DIY takes money out of the equation,” said Chelsea Carnes, one of the organizers of Free University and the DIY Fest. “People just feel passionate about sharing knowledge.”

Saturday afternoon at the CMC, Xtn Hansen facilitated a workshop in the courtyard called “Make your own genitalia.” Xtn laid out images of reproductive organs on the tables and asked participants to mold sculptures based on personal interpretations of their own genitalia with brightly colored clay.

Meanwhile, inside the CMC, Lars Din initiated a workshop on Mutual Aid in dealing with disasters, relationships, necessities, colonialism, and being an ally. Participants discussed how free and practical workshops, like the DIY Fest, help to create an abundance mentality in a community, as opposed to a scarcity mentality created by exclusive educational systems.

The fest offered free food and childcare, as well as housing for out-of-towners to ensure a safe and inclusive space for participants.

“People don’t even know their neighbors anymore,” said Gabriel Paez, who came with friends from Tallahassee to attend the fest and collaborate with like-minded individuals. “It’s easier to go down the street to Publix to get your food than to rely on people who actually share your surroundings.”

The DIY Fest brought people from Tallahassee, Orlando and other cities into Gainesville. Loren Jones, a local participant, expressed hope that the out-of-towners would branch out to inspire similar practices in their own communities.

Jessica Holmer, a UF student of anthropology and linguistics, taught beginner poi dancing — an ancient form of dancing with fire. “It’s great that so many people have donated their time and skills to something that can be free to everyone,” she said.

Rusty Poulette, a coordinator of the DIY Fest and FU, said the format of the fest was “a good thought experiment in gift-economy.” Mooj S., facilitator of the “community calendar” workshop, said the fest “gives people the idea that ‘yes, you can do this on your own.’ Also, it creates a basic format that can eventually expand to include more advanced topics.”

Statistically, this year’s DIY Fest was about twice the size of the last, with double the number of workshops and 150 to 200 participants, compared to 80 the year before.

“The fact that it happens is enough to inspire others to host their own classes,” said Mooj. But, “FU and the DIY Fest can’t happen unless people come together and help out.”

Free University hosts classes every Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Civic Media Center, 433 S Main St. For more information and class descriptions, check out freeugainesville.wordpress.com or search “Free University Gainesville” on Facebook. Classes are open to everyone, regardless of age, income, background, etc.

Upcoming workshops:
October 28- Myers Briggs, “Find yourself doing good,” by David Ames
November 4- Propagating plants from cuttings, by Michael Adler
November 11- Fitness for life and functional skills for your well-being, by Fred Preston
November 18- Gainesville Icarus Project’s radical mental health support group monthly meeting.

The post DIY Fest: Create Your Own Life appeared first on The Fine Print.

At least that’s how I imagine it. Like every other night here. Seamless, sticky hours of loose tongues and rowdy sidewalks. Christmas lights in the banyan trees. Long legs, bleached hair and teeth, and the collared boys who love them. This island is a hideout. The beginning and the end. Mile 0. Time passes only as a series of classic rock covers and vague impressions.

Duval is just like any other Spring Break street, with the doors flung open and the tanned shoulders spilling from their halter tops. The girl on the bar is too young to know the songs she’s dancing to. Hungry faces slouch at her feet, suck down pints and slide dollar bills beneath her garter. Outside, the pedicabs and taxis hustle by. The cops grope their belt buckles and lean in the alleys to spit.

Everyone is on vacation, even the locals. They carry their drinks from corner to corner, scream and lust and vomit, and no one notices. The spiky-haired hippy chicks with the homemade tattoos and the banjos on their backs, the Navy boys on their scooters, the bikers and sailors and fishermen all struggling to hold their liquor and let everything else go. They’re escaping something, searching for a way to lose themselves in this tropic limbo and linger like another grain of sand, another buoy tangled in the mangroves.

No one wants the story to end. They drink enough to forget what they have read or tear out the pages and tuck them away. Paradise, after all, is a matter of perspective. It lasts only so long as there is ice for the rum.

The post The Southernmost Point appeared first on The Fine Print.

Above: Carlos, 6, plays outside with his three-month-old puppy, Max. When his grandmother, Mary Ann Jones, bought their house and moved in with her extended family, she was not warned of the infamous Superfund site across the fence.

Gainesville’s Dirty Little Secret

When Mary Ann Jones bought her house in Northwest Gainesville, the real estate agent said there might be noise every now and then due to the nearby industrial facility. She was okay with that. She wasn’t warned that her grandchildren could be exposed to a dangerous concentration of dioxins, which are known to cause cancer and a wide range of health problems, especially in small children.

“I felt like this man signed me a death sentence,” she said.

Slightly over a year ago, Jones moved to 3118 NW 4th St. with her extended family, which includes three grandchildren. The top of her fence is wrapped in barbed wire, which separates her backyard from the 90-acre Superfund site previously owned by Koppers, Inc. She wants to move away but lacks the financial means to do so.

For 93 years, Koppers operated a wood-treatment facility at 200 NW 23rd Ave, releasing industrial toxins—including arsenic, hexavalent chromium, creosote and dioxins—into Gainesville’s air, water and soil. The area is now ranked as one of the nation’s top-100 polluted sites. It’s been designated a Superfund site—a place so heavily polluted with toxic waste that it poses a threat to human health and the environment—for 27 years.

“I’m scared to death,” she said. “I like to garden, but now my plants are dead because I’m scared to touch them. We’re pretty much stuck here.”

Her two youngest grandchildren—Carlos, 6, and Aaron, 3—play outside each day without understanding the situation.

“We’re always telling them—if you drop anything on the ground, don’t pick it up and definitely don’t put it in your mouth. And always wash your hands when you come inside.”

Jones said she feels like no one has been there for her—not the local or state government, and certainly not the EPA. Her front yard is peppered with signs, which say things like, “Governor Crist – Where Are You?” and “Gainesville’s Dirty Little Secret is Out!”

In 1988, Koppers sold its property to Beazer East, the company currently responsible for cleaning the site. According to disclosure forms filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Beazer was previously known as Koppers Company, Inc. and has an agreement to absorb environmental liabilities from the current incarnation of Koppers.

Legal battles over contamination have followed the companies around the country. Koppers currently faces lawsuits in Texas and Mississippi, though many of the claims have been dismissed. In its latest annual report, Koppers warned investors that, “Litigation against us could be costly and time-consuming to defend, and due to the nature of our business and products, we may be liable for damages arising out of our acts or omissions.”

Years of Uncertainty

Chris Bird of the Alachua County Department of Environmental Protection said the fact that Koppers was allowed to operate its facility for so long, despite the property’s Superfund status, has hindered the clean-up process.

“You can’t make a bed while someone is still sleeping in it,” he said.

Mitchell Brourman, a representative from Beazer East, said there are many reasons the process has taken so long, from Gainesville’s unique geology to discrepancies between state and federal regulations. He acknowledged, however, that the continued operation of the Koppers facility was one of them, “to some degree.”

Local activist groups, including Protect Gainesville Citizens, Ban CCA and the Stephen Foster Neighborhood Protection Group, have documented a variety of health complications among people who live near the site, from cancer to skin problems. They also contend that an unusually high number of dogs and cats near the site have malignant tumors.

Tests performed by the city and state health departments indicate hazardous dioxin levels in an easement between NW 26 St and NW 30 Ave, which serves as a buffer between Koppers and nearby neighborhoods. In 2009, the Alachua County Health department issued a press release warning parents not to let their children play in the easement.

The press release also states, “Incidental ingestion (swallowing) of very small amounts of surface soil in the neighborhood north and west of Koppers is not likely to cause harm.”

Scott Miller, the EPA’s regional project manager, said evidence of cancer in the neighborhood residents has been “anecdotal” and that the EPA “has not observed that effect.”

“The Florida Department of Health is doing a study of cancers in the area,” Miller said. “They will probably be making a response to that specific question with respect to folks living there as well as animals.”

Local resdents say they have waited too long for answers. Protect Gainesville Citizens has received an EPA grant to hire technical advisers, but the grants cannot be used to pay for additional testing. Advisers can only help community groups make sense of existing reports.

“We need more data,” said Cheryll Krauth, one of the group’s officers. “There are reports of health problems, and we don’t know if they’re worse than the average neighborhood or not. The problem is that the entities responsible for testing aren’t telling us.”

For decades, the Stephen Foster Neighborhood Protection Group has not trusted the state, Beazer or the EPA. Last year, they sought help from the Law Offices of Robert H. Weiss, a firm that specializes in environmental justice.

In January, Xenobiotic Laboratories, Inc., an environmental consulting firm hired by the legal team, tested fine dust particles from inside nine randomly selected houses within a two-mile radius of the Superfund site.

“This is unique,” said Stephen Murakami, a Weiss attorney. “Indoor tests are rarely performed [by government agencies]. Outdoor soil testing is their standard, as opposed to indoor tests where it counts—where people live, breathe and make their beds.”

The state has determined that the maximum dioxin concentration for soil outside to be safe is seven parts per trillion. Inside the nine houses tested, the average dioxin concentration was 400 parts per trillion. In one house, they were as high as 1.2 parts per billion.

While toxins can dissipate in the environment, they can accumulate indoors. Murakami said that while outdoor levels may take this into consideration, he believes the results reveal a substantial risk to human health, and he called for additional testing. The test results have not yet been made public.

According to the World Health Organization, long-term dioxin exposure is linked to impairment of the immune system, the nervous system, the endocrine system, and reproductive functions. Chronic exposure may lead to several types of cancer. Small children face the greatest risks.

Mary Ann Jones was recently informed of the tests by Stephen Foster residents. She’s left to wonder whether her family’s ailments, from skin rashes to nosebleeds, are mere coincidences, or signs of toxic contamination. The uncertainty fuels her fears.

“The more I think about it, the angrier I get,” Jones said. “You can’t put no price on my life or my family. Why would you try to cover up something that you know is so deadly? Why do you think money is more important than the lives of my grandkids?”

Above: Aaron, 3, climbs the truck in his family’s backyard. On the other side of the fence behind him, a layer of bushes conceals the edge of the Cabot/Koppers Superfund site.

Water Contamination

The Superfund site is dotted with retention lagoons—unprotected pits where toxic waste is stored, a legacy of lax environmental regulations before the 1970s.

Local agencies had warned that creosote and other compounds could reach the Floridan Aqufer, 200 feet below the surface. The EPA contended until 2001 that the underground Hawthorne clay layer would provide a protective seal.

“We and some citizens had been telling them we didn’t believe that—you haven’t done the right investigations to know what’s happening that deep under the site,” said Rick Hutton, an engineer from Gainesville Regional Utilities.

After further investigations, experts from the EPA, Beazer East and Gainesville Regional Utilities all agree that the Floridan Aquifer is already contaminated. Now, chemicals are slowly moving towards the Murphree Wellfield, where Gainesville Regional Utilities draws the city’s drinking water supply.

“We have wells in between our site and the Murphree Well Field,” said Mitchell Brourman of Beazer East. “Those monitoring wells are consistently clean. The protection of Gainesville’s water supply is one of the premises of our work.”

Hutton said Beazer will probably need to dig more wells to contain “hot spots” of underground pollution and pump groundwater out of the aquifer at a faster rate to ensure it can be treated at the surface before contaminants reach the water supply.

“We don’t think the low-rate pumping will work,” said Hutton. “The EPA wants to give it a chance. If it doesn’t work, we expect them to take further steps.”

What can we do?

Groups of concerned citizens, including the Stephen Foster Neighborhood Association, Ban CCA, Protect Gainesville Citizens and the Stephen Foster Neighborhood Protection Group, have been working for decades to spread awareness of the issue and encourage community activism.

“Over 158 other sites have been closed since ours was declared a Superfund Site,” said Maria Parsons of the Gainesville Neighborhood Protection Group. “We’re still not cleaned up. Why? People coming together matters. You need to get active. Dig your heels in. Protest. Write letters. Make phone calls.”

Tia Ma, an officer of Protect Gainesville Citizens, has proposed the idea of using the property previously owned by Koppers to build an environmental research center, which would commemorate decades of anxiety and suffering, transforming them into a learning experience.

Brourman said Beazer East has “no problem” with that idea.

“There are going to be some public meetings where people can talk,” he said. “We’re all ears to those sorts of things.”

Update: On Feb. 2, the EPA issued its Record of Decision, a 703-page document detailing their plans to remedy the Superfund site. Have we reached the end of the road? Check out A Haunting Past, Pt. 3: The Record of Decision.

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