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Can renewable energy projects find homes on Mississippi farms?

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mississippitoday.org – Alex Rozier – 2024-11-13 09:29:00

Abbott Myers has been farming on his land in the north Mississippi Delta since 1969. Between the rising costs of everything from land to equipment to chemicals, as well as the toll of recent droughts, Myers knows his industry is in a precarious place.

“The next couple of years are really going to be some hard years in agriculture it looks like,” he told Mississippi Today over the summer. “Unless something changes.”  

With a growing market for clean energy and a medley of financial obstacles for modern agriculture, farmers in Mississippi and elsewhere are exploring the potential of putting renewable power projects on their land. 

Earlier this year, energy company AES partnered with Amazon to open the state’s first utility-scale wind power facility on land that includes Myers’ farm. Myers, who lives in the small town of Dundee, admitted that he’s not much of a renewable energy enthusiast himself – “They’re too inefficient,” he said – but he was thrilled by the business opportunity. He’s being compensated, he said, for not only the space but with a cut of the power revenue, too. 

Abbott Myers stands in front of wind turbines on his farmland in Dundee, Miss., on Oct. 14, 2024. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today

Relative to a solar farm, he explained, wind turbines don’t take up much space. There are 19 turbines scattered across 1,600 acres of his farm, but just about 10 of those acres will be unfarmable, Myers said. By next year each of the machines will be surrounded by the rice he’s growing. 

“I had a good friend come by and tell me I was ruining the aesthetic value of the Mississippi Delta skyline with these ugly things sticking up 700 feet,” he said. “Well, I told him we got transmission lines, we got cell phone towers sticking up everywhere. I can’t see a whole lot of difference in that, but some people don’t like them.”

Myers said he had some concerns going into the endeavor, such as noise from the turbines or their threat to flying birds. After looking at some research, though, he found out that “a lot more birds are killed by kitty cats than by wind turbines.”

“You’d be amazed how many kitty cats kill birds,” he said, adding that his house is within half a mile from the turbines and he mostly never hears them.

Elsewhere in the state, farmers are looking into the potential of “agrivoltaics,” a growing practice that merges farming with solar power generation. Kendall Garraway and Ted Kendall head their family’s Bolton-based company, Gaddis Farms, and recently leased land mostly made of pine timber to a solar developer. 

Farmland in Dundee, Miss., is overlooked by rotating wind turbines on Oct. 14, 2024. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today

They’re unsure exactly what kind of farming they’ll be able to do around the solar panels – traditional row crops like soybeans and cotton are out of the picture – but they believe there’s potential to have grazing animals like sheep or a pollinating setup with honeybees. Either way, the solar panels, managed by Apex Clean Energy, will bring in a new source of revenue.

“We just saw this as a further diversification of our operation,” Kendall said, explaining that the market for pine timber has gone downhill in recent years. “You can’t get anybody to pay you for pine timber that needs thinning.” 

Protesters against the building of a solar farm in their area gathered outside the Chancery Court building, Monday, June 17, 2024. The Hinds County Board of Supervisors voted 3 – 2 in favor of the solar farm. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today

Many nearby residents, though, weren’t pleased with the decision and protested Hinds County’s approval of the solar project earlier this year (one protestor is appealing the move in circuit court). Their objections ranged from the panels being an eyesore to the potential impact on the surrounding wildlife and to the land itself. 

“A lot of the stuff that people are worried about, like screening and cleanup… We’re not planning on leaving,” Garraway said, adding that the project will include wildlife-friendly fencing and that, under their contract, any cleanup of the project would ultimately fall on Apex. “We’re not looking to devalue our property.” 

The agreement with Apex lasts for 30 years, Kendall said, and he feels comfortable that they could still farm on the land again if they decide not to renew the lease. 

Commissioner of Agriculture Andy Gipson, discusses the current status of farming and its future in the state, Monday, Nov. 27, 2023 at the Mississippi Department of Agriculture and Commerce in Jackson. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today

Others, like Agriculture and Commerce Commissioner Andy Gipson, worry that the expansion of solar facilities especially may displace farmland. During a “Solar Summit” the Public Service Commission held over the summer, Gipson quoted a 2022 study projecting that 83% of the country’s new solar projects will likely end up on farms. His concern, he explained, is that solar companies are using temporary federal funds to take advantage of a struggling agriculture industry.

“Farmers are being faced with these pressures, they’re being approached with financial payments that would be many times what (they would make) continuing to farm that land,” Gipson said. “One of the questions we as a state have to answer is, what happens when that money dries up?

“We understand there is a place for solar in our power grid, but we also must consider the long term impacts on agriculture. For every acre we convert to solar energy, that is an acre of land we do not have or may not have for food production.” 

Others are less concerned. Ex-Central District Public Service Commissioner Brent Bailey, for instance, said later at the Solar Summit that existing and proposed solar projects make up just a small fraction of the state’s farmland and yet provide significant public economic benefits. 

Wind turbines are seen near powerline transformers on farmland in Dundee, Miss., on Oct. 14, 2024. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today

“We actually rank 37th in the nation as far as the amount of solar installed in Mississippi, our four neighboring states have more solar on the ground and operational than we do,” Bailey said. “So the perception that we have all this solar just coming up everywhere, and the timescales for development, it’s misleading, I think.

“Solar farms actually occupy 0.056% of (Mississippi’s) agricultural land… If all projects approved and under review are built, still only 0.22% of agricultural land will be impacted. These projects total $4.5 billion in private sector investments in Mississippi, leading to millions of dollars of local revenues to public schools and county budgets.” 

The potential for renewable projects on farmland has also caught the eyes of the state’s academics. Last year, a Mississippi State University student began working with the company Cubico at its solar plant near Greenwood to study how well turfgrass can grow alongside the panels. 

Cory Gallo, assistant dean for the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at MSU, explained that the dual purpose of farming on a solar company’s land can deliver financial benefits in both directions. 

“Whether it’s animals (that graze the land) that can be sold for protein, or turf that’s sold as a product, that’s a win economically,” Gallo said. “You have soil (around the panels) that’s less erodible, you’re managing the land. There’s a lot of overlap there in that it’s a benefit for the (solar companies), and also a win for farmers and food production and environmental management. Which, in my mind, is the best of both worlds.”

Wind turbines tower above silos on farmland in Dundee, Miss., on Oct. 14, 2024. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today

Gallo clarified that he doesn’t advocate for or against the practice. He said it’s important to mitigate any impacts to surrounding natural life, and said he hopes the university’s research will help inform landowners interested in using their land for wind or solar farms. 

“How do you preserve the character of a place at the same time you’re doing these (projects)?” he said. “That comes back to leaving environmental corridors for habitat as well as water quality, which could be a good practice that helps to mitigate the impact of essentially clear cutting a large area of land. At the end of the day, these (facilities) are in large parcels that change the nature of what’s on the ground.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Mississippi Today

On this day in 1961

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mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2024-11-22 07:00:00

Nov. 22, 1961

Credit: Courtesy: Georgia Tourism & Travel

Five Black students, made up of NAACP Youth Council members and two SNCC volunteers from Albany State College, were arrested after entering the white waiting room of the Trailways station in Albany, Georgia. 

The council members bonded out of jail, but the SNCC volunteers, Bertha Gober and Blanton Hall declined bail and “chose to remain in jail over the holidays to dramatize their demand for justice,” according to SNCC Digital Gateway. The president of Albany State College expelled them. 

Gober became one of SNCC’s Freedom Singers and wrote the song, “We’ll Never Turn Back,” after the 1961 killing of Herbert Lee in Mississippi. The tune became SNCC’s anthem. 

After her release from jail, Gober joined other students, and police arrested her and other demonstrators. Back in the same jail, she sang to the police chief and mayor to open the cells, “I hear God’s children praying in jail, ‘Freedom, freedom, freedom.’” 

Albany State suspended another student, Bernice Reagon, after she joined SNCC. She poured herself into the civil rights movement and later formed the Grammy-nominated a cappella group Sweet Honey in the Rock to educate and empower the audience and community. 

“When I opened my mouth and began to sing, there was a force and power within myself I had never heard before,” a power she said she did not know she had. 

Other members of the Freedom Singers included Cordell Reagon, Bernice Johnson, Dorothy Vallis, Rutha Harris, Bernard Lafayette and Charles Neblett. On the third anniversary of the sit-in movement in 1963, they performed at Carnegie Hall. 

“This is a singing movement,” SNCC leader James Forman told a reporter. “The songs help. Without them, it would be ugly.” 

Today, the Albany Civil Rights Institute houses exhibits on these protesters, Martin Luther King Jr. and others who joined the Albany Movement.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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IHL deletes the word ‘diversity’ from its policies

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mississippitoday.org – Molly Minta – 2024-11-21 14:32:00

The governing board of Mississippi’s public universities voted Thursday to delete the word “diversity” from several policies, including a requirement that the board evaluate university presidents on campus diversity outcomes.

Though the Legislature has not passed a bill targeting diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in higher education, the Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees approved the changes “in order to ensure continued compliance with state and federal law,” according to the board book

The move comes on the heels of the re-election of former President Donald Trump and after several universities in Mississippi have renamed their diversity offices. Earlier this year, the IHL board approved changes to the University of Southern Mississippi’s mission and vision statements that removed the words “diverse” and “inclusiveness.”

In an email, John Sewell, IHL’s communications director, did not respond to several questions about the policy changes but wrote that the board’s goal was to “reinforce our commitment to ensuring students have access to the best education possible, supported by world-class faculty and staff.”

“The end goal is to support all students, and to make sure they graduate fully prepared to enter the workforce, hopefully in Mississippi,” Sewell added.

On Thursday, trustees approved the changes without discussion after a first reading by Harold Pizzetta, the associate commissioner for legal affairs and risk management. But Sewell wrote in an email that the board discussed the policy amendments in open session two months ago during its retreat in Meridian, more than an hour away from the board’s normal meeting location in Jackson.

IHL often uses these retreats, which unlike its regular board meetings aren’t livestreamed and are rarely attended by members of the public outside of the occasional reporter, to discuss potentially controversial policy changes.

Last year, the board had a spirited discussion about a policy change that would have increased its oversight of off-campus programs during its retreat at the White House Hotel in Biloxi. In 2022, during a retreat that also took place in Meridian, trustees discussed changing the board’s tenure policies. At both retreats, a Mississippi Today reporter was the only member of the public to witness the discussions.

The changes to IHL’s diversity policy echo a shift, particularly at colleges and universities in conservative states, from concepts like diversity in favor of “access” and “opportunity.” In higher education, the term “diversity, equity and inclusion” has traditionally referred to a range of efforts to comply with civil rights laws and foster a sense of on-campus belonging among minority populations.

But in recent years, conservative politicians have contended that DEI programs are wasteful spending and racist. A bill to ban state funding for DEI in Mississippi died earlier this year, but at least 10 other states have passed laws seeking to end or restrict such initiatives at state agencies, including publicly funded universities, according to ABC News.

In Mississippi, the word “diversity” first appeared in IHL’s policies in 1998. The diversity statement was adopted in 2005 and amended in 2013. 

The board’s vote on Thursday turned the diversity statement, which was deleted in its entirety, into a “statement on higher education access and success” according to the board book. 

“One of the strengths of Mississippi is the diversity of its people,” the diversity statement read. “This diversity enriches higher education and contributes to the capacity that our students develop for living in a multicultural and interdependent world.”

Significantly, the diversity statement required the IHL board to evaluate the university presidents and the higher learning commissioner on diversity outcomes. 

The statement also included system-wide goals — some of which it is unclear if the board has achieved — to increase the enrollment and graduation rates of minority students, employ more underrepresented faculty, staff and administrators, and increase the use of minority-owned contractors and vendors. 

Sewell did not respond to questions about if IHL has met those goals or if the board will continue to evaluate presidents on diversity outcomes.

In the new policy, those requirements were replaced with two paragraphs about the importance of respectful dialogue on campus and access to higher education for all Mississippians. 

“We encourage all members of the academic community to engage in respectful, meaningful discourse with the aim of promoting critical thinking in the pursuit of knowledge, a deeper understanding of the human condition, and the development of character,” the new policy reads. “All students should be supported in their educational journey through programming and services designed to have a positive effect on their individual academic performance, retention, and graduation.” 

Also excised was a policy that listed common characteristics of universities in Mississippi, including “a commitment to ethnic and gender diversity,” among others. Another policy on institutional scholarships was also edited to remove a clause that required such programs to “promote diversity.” 

“IHL is committed to higher education access and success among all populations to assist the state of Mississippi in meeting its enrollment and degree completion goals, as well as building a highly-skilled workforce,” the institutional scholarship policy now reads. 

The board also approved a change that requires the universities to review their institutional mission statements on an annual basis.

A policy on “planning principles” will continue to include the word “diverse,” and a policy that states the presidential search advisory committees will “be representative in terms of diversity” was left unchanged.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Closed St. Dominic’s mental health beds to reopen in December under new management

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mississippitoday.org – Gwen Dilworth – 2024-11-21 13:54:00

The shuttered St. Dominic’s mental health unit will reopen under the management of a for-profit, Texas-based company next month. 

Oceans Behavioral Hospital Jackson, a 77-bed facility, will provide inpatient behavioral health services to adults and seniors and add intensive outpatient treatment services next year. 

“Jackson continuously ranks as one of the cities for our company that shows one of the greatest needs in terms of behavioral health,” Oceans Healthcare CEO Stuart Archer told Mississippi Today at a ribbon cutting ceremony at its location on St. Dominic’s campus Thursday. “…There’s been an outcry for high quality care.” 

St. Dominic’s 83-bed mental health unit closed suddenly in June 2023, citing “substantial financial challenges.”

Merit Health Central, which operates a 71-bed psychiatric health hospital unit in Jackson, sued Oceans in March, arguing that the new hospital violated the law by using a workaround to avoid a State Health Department requirement that the hospital spend at least 17% of its gross patient revenue on indigent and charity care.

Without a required threshold for this care, Merit Health Central will shoulder the burden of treating more non-paying patients, the hospital in South Jackson argued. 

The suit, which also names St. Dominic’s Hospital and the Mississippi Department of Health as defendants, awaits a ruling from Hinds County Chancery Court Judge Tametrice Hodges-Linzey next year. 

The complaint does not bar Oceans from moving forward with its plans to reopen, said Archer.

A hallway inside Oceans Behavioral Hospital in Jackson, Miss., is seen on Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024, during the facility’s grand opening. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today

Oceans operates two other mental health facilities in Mississippi and over 30 other locations in Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas. 

“Oceans is very important to the Coast, to Tupelo, and it’s important right here in this building. It’s part of the state of Mississippi’s response to making sure people receive adequate mental health care in Mississippi,” said Lt. Governor Delbert Hosemann at the Nov. 21 ribbon cutting.

Some community leaders have been critical of the facility. 

“Oceans plans to duplicate existing services available to insured patients while ignoring the underserved and indigent population in need,” wrote Hinds County Sheriff Tyree Jones in an Oct. 1 letter provided to Mississippi Today by Merit Health. 

Massachusetts-based Webster Equity Partners, a private-equity firm with a number of investments in health care, bought Oceans in 2022. St. Dominic’s is owned by Louisiana-based Catholic nonprofit Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System.

Oceans first filed a “certificate of need” application to reopen the St. Dominic’s mental health unit in October 2023. 

Mississippi’s certificate of need law requires medical facilities to receive approval from the state before opening a new health care center to demonstrate there is a need for its services. 

The Department of Health approved the application under the condition that the hospital spend at least 17% of its patient revenue on free or low-cost medical care for low-income individuals – far more than the two percent it proposed. 

Stuart Archer, CEO of Oceans Healthcare, speaks during the grand opening of Oceans Behavioral Hospital in Jackson, Miss., on Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today

Oceans projected in its application that the hospital’s profit would equal $2.6 million in its third year, and it would spend $341,103 on charity care.

Merit Health contested the conditional approval, arguing that because its mental health unit provides 22% charity care, Oceans providing less would have a “significant adverse effect” on Merit by diverting more patients without insurance or unable to pay for care to its beds. 

Oceans and St. Dominic’s also opposed the state’s charity care condition, arguing that 17% was an unreasonable figure. 

But before a public hearing could be held on the matter, Oceans and St. Dominic’s filed for a “change of ownership,” bypassing the certificate of need process entirely. The state approved the application 11 days later

Merit Health Central then sued Oceans, St. Dominic and the State Department of Health, seeking to nullify the change of ownership. 

“The (change of ownership) filing and DOH approval … are nothing more than an ‘end run’ around CON law,” wrote Merit Health in the complaint. 

Oceans, St. Dominic’s and the Mississippi Department of Health have filed motions to dismiss the case. 

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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