In the recent Season Two fall release, the Southern Wyoming episode explored and briefly explained a process called “fracking”. For those who have not yet heard the Wyoming episode, or for those who need a refresher on what fracking is, you can visit our Wyoming episode page to listen to the full episode, or choose to listen by segment.

You can click on Segment C and skip ahead to 6:25 to listen more specifically about fracking.

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One of the major issues about fracking concerns a precious commodity – water. The issues range from the millions of gallons of water consumed by the fracking process, to the contamination left behind in the water that is intended for human consumption.

There has been a great battle going on between the people of Wyoming living on the land and those who believe that the fracking process outweighs concerns because of the greater benefits it produces in the form of oil and gas.

Since the Wyoming episode aired, some interesting results about fracking have surfaced, so we’re passing on a quick synopsis on the latest developments surrounding the process. Although this study was done in a different part of Wyoming than that of the episode, the results of fracking are interesting, regardless of location. To read this article from ProPublica by Abraham Lustgarten in its entirety, click here. Following is an excerpt from Lustgarten’s article.

“As the country awaits results from a nationwide safety study on the natural gas drilling process of fracking, a separate government investigation into contamination in a place where residents have long complained that drilling fouled their water has turned up alarming levels of underground pollution.

“A pair of environmental monitoring wells drilled deep into an aquifer in Pavillion, Wyo., contain high levels of cancer-causing compounds and at least one chemical commonly used in hydraulic fracturing, according to new water test results released yesterday by the Environmental Protection Agency.

“The finding is consistent with water samples the EPA has collected from at least 42 homes in the area since 2008, when ProPublica began reporting on foul water and health concerns in Pavillion and the agency started investigating reports of contamination there.

“Last year — after warning residents not to drink or cook with the water and to ventilate their homes when they showered — the EPA drilled monitoring wells to get a more precise picture of the extent of the contamination.

” The Pavillion area has been drilled extensively for natural gas over the last two decades and is home to hundreds of gas wells. Residents have alleged for nearly a decade that the drilling — and hydraulic fracturing in particular — has caused their water to turn black and smell like gasoline. Some residents say they suffer neurological impairment, loss of smell, and nerve pain they associate with exposure to pollutants …

“The information released [recently] by the EPA was limited to raw sampling data: The agency did not interpret the findings or make any attempt to identify the source of the pollution. From the start of its investigation, the EPA has been careful to consider all possible causes of the contamination and to distance its inquiry from the controversy around hydraulic fracturing …

“The EPA said the water samples were saturated with methane gas that matched the deep layers of natural gas being drilled for energy. The gas did not match the shallower methane that the gas industry says is naturally occurring in water, a signal that the contamination was related to drilling and was less likely to have come from drilling waste spilled above ground …

“The EPA’s research in Wyoming is separate from the agency’s ongoing national study of hydraulic fracturing’s effect on water supplies, and is being funded through the Superfund cleanup program.”

“The EPA says it will release a lengthy draft of the Pavillion findings, including a detailed interpretation of them, later this month.”

We’ve heard a variety of stories on fracking and similar practices since our Southern Wyoming episode aired, and welcome your comments and input on this controversial subject. Are there similar issues affecting your community? Keep the conversation going by sharing your comments below.

In lieu of School Spotlight, State of the Re:Union is honoring our brave active duty troops, reservists and veterans this Veterans Day by telling stories about how those who serve our nation are also serving each other.

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Veterans Day Special

Our Veterans Day Special, produced in 2010, goes beyond the news headlines to tell the stories of the emotion, challenges and victories that occur when our troops return home from duty.

You can listen to the full episode below, or visit our Veterans Day episode page to listen to it broken up by segment.

Listen Here….

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Cowboy Soldiers: From the Wyoming Episode

Additionally, our 2011 fall season also featured an episode from Wyoming, where we were introduced to two talented National Guard Soldiers. They met on deployment to Iraq and decided to start a country group.  Skip ahead to 9:33, where the story of the Joe Speed Band starts.

Listen Here

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All of us here at State of the Re:Union would like to thank our brave soldiers and veterans for their service and sacrifice.

For those of us who live in small towns, national news of coverage of something happening near our home is a relatively rare thing. And when the media does come to town, often drawn by some crisis or natural disaster, it can be a surprise what they do —and don’t— pick up on. This has been a theme in many of the towns SOTRU has visited that have weathered hurricanes or tornadoes, oil spills or destructive mining practices: the version of the story told to the American public is one heavily filtered through an outsider’s lens.

For residents, it often doesn’t feel like their story, the one they would choose to tell, if they were the ones with the television cameras and the microphones. On the Gulf Coast — a region so battered by disasters in recent years that the national news media is nearly omnipresent — some residents decided to seize those cameras and mics for themselves.

A group of community leaders, led by documentary filmmaker Leah Mahan, started Bridge the Gulf, a citizen journalism project intended to give residents more ownership over the telling of their stories. The project has been around for just over a year now, and has seen contributions from up and down the Gulf Coast. SOTRU’s Tina Antolini spoke with Bridge the Gulf’s Ada McMahon about the difference the project is making in the region.

SOTRU: Bridge the Gulf (BTG) was created to give Gulf Coast residents a voice in bringing their stories to the greater public. Now that the project is a year in, what range of perspectives has the Project given voice to, which might otherwise have gone unheard?

Ada McMahon: The perspectives on Bridge the Gulf are mostly about environmental issues and social injustices, and what community leaders are doing to create a more sustainable and just future.  The site covers the impacts of the BP disaster and community organizing for environmental justice, and also discussions about the prison system, housing issues and workers rights.  At BridgeTheGulfProject.org you can read the story of a casino waitress who quit her job rather than serve seafood from the oiled Gulf; you can watch a video about formerly incarcerated people who are learning legal skills to help their loved ones in the prison system; and, you can hear why people who were displaced by Hurricane Katrina are still living in Houston.

Covering these stories is important, but equally important is how they are told and who they are told by. The casino worker wrote her story herself with editing support from Bridge the Gulf.  The prison video was made by a community organizer who helps run the legal training program and learned how to produce a video through a Bridge the Gulf training session.  The interviews with displaced Katrina survivors were conducted by someone who was evacuated to the Houston Astrodome during the storm.

It’s important to Bridge the Gulf that each community has an opportunity to present stories from their own perspectives.  So on the site you’ll see fishermen and environmentalists, you’ll see contributors from Texas and from Alabama, you see African American, Native American, white, Cajun, Vietnamese and Latino contributors. The site is not just about the stories.  It is about giving ownership and control of media to Gulf Coast community members.  It provides a platform where they can use their stories and experience and expertise to make an impact.

SOTRU: How do you feel Bridge the Gulf has contributed to the coverage of ongoing events in the Gulf Coast region, like the impact of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill?

Ada McMahon with Bridge the Gulf contributors (and fishermen's advocates) Michael Roberts and Tracy Kuhns

Ada McMahon: Bridge the Gulf contributes a unique voice – that of people and communities who are directly facing social injustices and environmental issues.

For readers, it is a refreshing alternative to the mainstream media. For members of impacted communities, it is an opportunity to say what’s really going on, in their own words. 
In the case of the BP disaster, mainstream news is routinely based on BP press releases, statements or reports.   Bridge the Gulf’s coverage is centered on the people who are most impacted by the disaster – commercial fishermen, response workers who are falling ill from chemical exposure, coastal residents who are still seeing dead turtles and dolphins wash up. 
If we want to know how the Gulf Coast is recovering from the BP disaster, aren’t these the people we want to hear from?

SOTRU: Is what’s being covered on Bridge the Gulf related to the oil spill providing a different perspective than what’s in the mainstream media? How so?

Ada McMahon: You can get stories on Bridge the Gulf that you just won’t see elsewhere — commercial shrimpers like Mike Roberts and Tracy Kuhns, who live on the bayou and are trying to protect their waters and their livelihood. Andre Gaines, who saw so many safety and environmental violations as a supervisor on the clean-up operation and has fallen ill from his exposure to toxic oil and dispersants. Cherri Foytlin, the mother of six and wife of an oil worker who walked to Washington D.C. to raise awareness about the ongoing disaster.

Immediately after the BP disaster, the mainstream media covered some of these people and issues. You could find a few good stories about commercial fishermen, some good investigations into poor safety regulations.  But a lot of the coverage was focused on technical aspects of capping the well – remember “junk shot” and “static kill”?  Once the well was capped, mainstream media began to act like the story was over, which was the message coming from BP and government agencies.

Now, the mainstream media rarely covers the BP disaster. You won’t find many stories about the health issues – seizures, headaches, memory lapses, nausea – that people began experiencing after being exposed to BP’s oil and dispersants.   You won’t find stories in the mainstream media that are based on the lived experiences of communities on the Gulf Coast.  At Bridge the Gulf, we build our coverage on the stories and experiences of Gulf Coast communities, from people who have direct experience and knowledge of ongoing issues and events.

SOTRU: What sort of impact has Bridge the Gulf had on communities in the Gulf Coast? How can you measure such things?

Ada McMahon: We’ve seen material impacts, like community groups getting donations because someone read about them on Bridge the Gulf. Bridge the Gulf has also had an impact by connecting to larger media outlets.  For example, State of the Re:Union and the BBC picking up on stories from Gulf Coast communities and getting them to a larger audience. We measure our web traffic, so we can say 1,000 people visited this blog post, 20,000 people saw that video.  But we also measure our impact by just asking people how we are doing.

Mississippi Gulf Coast

We just finished an evaluation of our first year, based on in-depth interviews with community members who contribute to or read the site. They talked about being empowered by having their points of view valued and shared.  They talked about concrete skills they gained through one-on-one training and editing support – video production, writing, web editing.  For some, telling their story has been a first step, leading to deeper community organizing, advocacy and leadership.

 Bridge the Gulf also has had an impact for communities by connecting them to each other, keeping them informed of each others’ struggles and stories and issues and perspectives. It has been surprising to me how much Bridge the Gulf has really helped strengthen a movement for social and environmental justice on the Gulf Coast, by connecting people across geography, background and issue.

SOTRU: What are the Project’s goals going forward?

Ada McMahon: Our goal is to multiply those impacts. To grow. To reach more communities, cover more issues, train and support more community journalists.  Another key goal is to build our readership. We want hundreds of thousands of people to engage with our contributors and their views. 
We also want communities to be empowered to affect change. The story is just the beginning.  Once someone documents an injustice, how do they use that documentation to get justice?  Our goal is to have a project that is influential, so that community members have a strong voice in public debate.

How do we get there? We’re figuring it out as we go, but in the next several months we are working to build new partnerships, improve on our beta Website and expand the support we provide to community media-makers.

For more information on Bridge the Gulf, visit their Website. To hear more stories from the Mississippi Gulf Coast, listen to SOTRU’s recent episode there.

This week’s School Spotlight features a school that was mentioned in our recently released Cleveland, OH: Entrepreneurs at Work episode. The Near West Intergenerational School (NWIS)  is a new charter school that was born of parents’ aspirations to obtain a better community and future for their children. (To hear this podcast segment, click Here.)

Modeled after a highly regarded school in Cleveland, NWIS is currently in its first year of operation as a publicly funded charter school, offering children in grades K-4 an opportunity to be involved in a better education right now. While there is availability in public schools around them, those schools didn’t exactly tout high expectations of students’ developmental achievements. And the schools that did have waiting lists that are ridiculously long. Instead of forsaking their neighborhood in search of a better school zone, these parents, and later founders, opted to create a school dedicated to the heart of their community’s future.

A brief explanation of the reinforcing reasons for starting NWIS resides in the Founders’ Statement found on Website. It states that school was “founded by a group of neighborhood parents who desire a school rooted in and reflective of the physical and social fabric of the local community it serves.” Its goal is to  provide quality, free and accessible education to all children. The school intends to serve the children and families of that community, but not exclusively to that area. The founders want it to serve “as a cornerstone for continued community development, economic and neighborhood stability, and a gathering place for lifelong learners.”

According to an article from Cleveland.com, “Many of the parents are young professionals. At a time when Cleveland is emptying out, they are dedicated to urban life and have found a pocket where it thrives with historic houses and clusters of shops and restaurants.” You can read more about the school in the article here.

While opening a school is not the obvious or even right choice for others facing a similar situation, it is a working solution for this community of Cleveland parents. However, as wonderful of an accomplishment as this is, the school will need support to survive the rounds of voting and scrutiny it will encounter from city officials, sponsors and residents since it is publicly funded.

To that point, NWIS and its founders are the very reason that there will be money staying in and promoting growth in this Cleveland neighborhood area. Of course this situation begets controversy. Some wonder if this is an appropriate answer to the educational dilemma. The families whose lives have been positively affected through NWIS would say “yes.”

Is this a feasible solution for your community? Or is there another approach that could offer a better solution? Do you think your family or community would benefit from a program like this, or do you think public schools and the communities they serve would benefit from a different approach? We don’t have a one-size-fits-all answer, so we want to hear from you.

Sacramento Focuses on Grade-Level Reading

I see that State of the ReUnion has been doing some reporting on Sacramento, California, exploring some of the tough challenges facing the community, so I thought I’d mention that Sacramento is joining the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading, a national effort to get more low income kids to read at grade level by third grade.

Last month, Mayor Kevin Johnson launched the Sacramento Reads! 3rd Grade Literacy Campaign, one of the largest communitywide reading initiatives in the United States. Currently only about 37 percent of third graders in Sacramento read at grade level. The goal of Sacramento Reads! is for 80 percent of third graders to be reading at grade level by 2020.

Sacramento’s ambitious plan is part of a collaborative effort by dozens of funders and nonprofit partners across the nation known as the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading. Other communities that have answered the call include New Britain, Connecticut; Springfield, Massachusetts and Los Angeles, California.

The campaign focuses on three preventable causes of the performance gap between low income readers and other students:
•    The readiness gap: The fact that many low income kids who show up for school are already behind because they haven’t had as much access to books or high quality pre-kindergarten programs that help prepare students to learn.
•    The attendance gap: I’ve already written a blog post about this problem. Research has found that one in 10 kindergarten and first grade students nationwide misses nearly a month of school each year in excused and unexcused absences.
•    The summer slide (summer learning loss): Lots of students lose ground over the summer if they are not reading at home or engaged in enrichment programs.

The National Civic League has also joined this nationwide effort. Our part will be to encourage communities to address the reading gap by focusing the 2012 and 2015 All-America City Awards on grade level reading efforts. Ordinarily, the award programs let communities choose the issue areas they want to present to our jury of civic experts at the annual event. In 2012, we’ll be doing things a little differently.

In 2012, the All-America City Award program will be a little different. NCL is asking communities to develop comprehensive plans that focus on the three critical areas identified by the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading. Winners must demonstrate capacity to use data, deploy effective interventions, build strong cross‐sector partnerships, and mobilize public will to improve reading proficiency in the early grades.

Since the late 1990s, NCL has asked All-America City finalist communities to list at least one project that benefitted or engaged young people. Consequently, we’ve had more than a few past winners present reading or literacy projects.

For example: Marietta, Georgia, a winner in 2006, touted “Marietta Reads!” program. Participants selected books from approved lists and are tested on reading comprehension. Students earned points on the basis of the book’s difficulty and test scores. Goals were set for students at each grade level in all the city’s schools, and students earned awards by reaching those goals.

Hollywood, Florida, a winner in 2007, presented its “Born to Read” program, which positioned a fulltime librarian at the Memorial Primary Care Clinic, to interact with each family of young children. New families were given an application for a library card, a resource guide and a first book for the child. Families were given instructions on ways to encourage reading and this is reinforced with every subsequent visit to the clinic.

El Paso, Texas, a winner in 2010 has its annual Día de los Niños/ Día de Los Libros to improve literacy and health awareness in the community. The event involves a free giveaway of books and opportunities for young people to sign up for the Summer Reading Club.

Tupelo, Mississippi, a winner last year, featured two projects from the mayor’s task force on education:  “Read Tupelo” which provides a morning of learning for approximately 400 four and five year olds, including art activities, a music demonstration with various instruments, and story time presented by local officials and volunteers. Another initiative provides every baby born at North Mississippi Medical Center’s Women’s Hospital a copy of the book, Goodnight Moon.

Our hope is that more and more communities will do what Sacramento is doing and organize community-based efforts to address the reading gap. (Another difference in 2012 is that the campaign and its partners are offering technical assistance and peer learning opportunities to cities that participate in the award process.) To qualify, communities must submit a letter of intent by October 14.

For more information on the All-America City Grade Level Reading Award, visit the campaign’s website or the All-America City Award blog.

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Mike McGrath is senior editor and chief information officer for the National Civic League. A former newspaper reporter and magazine writer, he is editor of the quarterly National Civic Review, which will be beginning its centennial year of publishing this spring.

Mike’s posts will appear every Thursday on the State of the Re:Union website.

We are so pleased to bring you State of the Re:Union’s 2011 Fall Season with the following episodes:

The Bronx, NY: Still Rising from the Ashes
The Bronx has long been seen as a symbol of America’s failings.  For many people here, ‘making it’ means escaping the crime and poverty of their borough.  But some have refused to flee. This episode shines a light on the hold-outs and the dreamers, people who’ve committed their lives to keeping chaos at bay in the Bronx.

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Mississippi Gulf Coast: Defending the Gulf
After Hurricane Katrina ravaged the area, Mississippi Gulf Coast residents were forced to come together to deal with the aftermath. Then, just as they were starting to get back on their feet, the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster dumped millions of barrels of oil into the water just off their shores. Cumulatively, these events have made environmentalists out of a whole lot of Gulf Coast residents who may not have considered themselves as such. We tell an hour of stories about the fight for the natural world bringing Gulf Coast residents together … both with one another and with unlikely partners. And how, in some instances, that fight is turning out to be exactly what a community needed to survive.

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Wyoming: The New Old West
People are few and far between in Wyoming.  Those that do live here prize tradition, self-reliance, and their connection to the land.  So when change comes to the high plains—an oil boom, a minister with new ideas—communities here are tested.   And neighbors have to strike a balance between preserving their independent way of life and learning to rely on one another. We trek to the small towns and remote ranches of Wyoming, meeting people as they adapt to the New Old West.

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Cleveland, OH: Entrepreneurs at Work
Cleveland, Ohio, is a city that was made by entrepreneurs. But for decades, it’s been known as a city that’s a shell of its former manufacturing-era glorious self. However, Cleveland is being embraced by a new generation of entrepreneurs as a place to put their dreams in motion. This is a now a city of entrepreneurship in a range of incarnations … in their kids’ education, in the environment, even in beer. This is an hour of entrepreneurial stories, taking a look at that go-get-em-seize-your-dreams energy in a variety of forms.

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Sacramento, CA: All Hands on Deck
There’s been a lot of bad news coming out of Sacramento lately: homelessness, the foreclosure rate, unemployment, and political gridlock in a state crippled by the recession.  Add to that a stubborn case of political fatigue, and you’ve got a lot of reasons to write this cityoff.  But we trekked to California’s beleaguered state capital to take a peek behind the national headlines and find out who keeps this city running—day in, day out—despite all that’s going wrong.  And we left with the realization that people in Sacramento are remaking the American city, in surprising and deeply moving ways.

We are perpetually moved by the incredible stories, people and communities we encounter in making each SOTRU episode. This season is no exception and we are sure that you will be as surprised as we were to learn the things happening in our communities.  You can visit the above pages to listen and download full episodes. There will also be some additional goodies (pictures, articles, and in some cases, a video documentary) you can peruse, adding even more insight into each episode.

Please listen for State of the Re:Union on your local public radio station. In the event your local station isn’t carrying us, you could always give them a call and request it! We’re sure they would love to hear from their listeners anyway. Thanks again for supporting SOTRU. We hope you enjoy the new episodes, documentaries and other bonus features from our travels.

*Listeners in Northeast Florida, you can celebrate the launch of the fall season with us at our annual fundraising event.  Together, Jacksonville’s Museum of Modern Art (MOCA) with SOTRU’s very own, Al Letson, will be hosting and entertaining with a live performance. ‘State of the Re:Union Live’ on Saturday, Oct 22, 2011, will have two shows: the first begins at 7:00 p.m. and the second is at 8:30 p.m. The seats are VERY  limited, so to make sure you don’t miss out, you can purchase tickets in advance for $15 here, or $20 at the door (provided there are seats still available).  See you there!