The Lowdown #1
News and happenings around the Southlands
When the new year begins, one of the top items on my to-do list is begin formal planning for the first print issue of Southlands—and that’s got me eager to revamp this newsletter as the digital arm of that print publication. (It’s in hibernation, but if time allows I’m going to shift my more personal writings over to this other Substack—as if you don’t have enough subscriptions in your life.) That means relaunching my old bi-weekly news round-up,1 so here’s edition #1
The reading list
Curl up at the campfire and spend some time with these stories
🧑🏾🌾️ Black Earth (Bitter Southerner): One of the important stories in the years to come is how—and whether—farmers in the South move away from commodity crops toward actual food. Another is how—or whether—we get more agricultural land back into Black hands. So glad to see my friends at Bitter Southerner publish, in the same issue that carries my Ozarks piece, this profile of Patrick Brown, who in the North Carolina county that is often viewed as the birthplace of environmental justice has bought the plantation where his grandfather was enslaved—and how he’s bringing better approaches to farming there.
See also: A Black farming corridor emerges in rural Maryland (Civil Eats)
👷 When knocking down homes is actually a step in the right direction (Dwell): Okay, so this is set in St. Louis, but there’s a strong argument to be made that, thanks to the Mississippi River, that crossroads city is both hydrologically and culturally linked to the South. Particularly when it comes to this story’s focus, Indigenous moundbuilding: Near St. Louis, the Osage are working to regain access to a sacred earthwork.
See also: Saving the “Indian peach” that left Georgia on the Trail of Tears (Grist)
⛰️ The wonderful river of Oz (Bitter Southerner): I already noted this one last week: my look at how the Walton family—the wealthiest family in the country—has turned its eyes toward the Boston Mountains, and the Buffalo River, in the Arkansas Ozarks with dreams of building a new recreational wonderland by creating a new national park. It’s a reminder—for all the joy of outdoor recreation, it has impacts; though public lands are beloved, they’re also complicated.
See also: Might a new national park in Georgia bring gentrification? (The Macon Telegraph)
See also: America’s national parks—including Great Smoky, the most popular—increasingly depend on private donations (Roll Call).
See also: Back in August, the state of Utah filed an interesting—and potentially consequential—lawsuit with the Supreme Court: They claim that the federal government, and in particular the Bureau of Land Management, is holding land to no specific purpose, it’s legally obligated to turn it over to the states. I tend to think that would be disastrous for both public access and for ecosystems, but I haven’t covered it much, since it’s generally seen as a Western issue. (That’s where the big chunks of pulic land lie, and almost all of the BLM’s holdings.) Nonetheless, attorneys general in Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas have all signed on to support the case (Idaho Capital-Sun).
In season
What’s on tap this month
🚰 Unleash the pumps?
The U.S. Army Corps is collecting public comments on the latest iteration of the Yazoo Pumps until December 30. This is a step forward in a long drama, as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has completed its environmental impact statement on a new, compromise approach—one that the Corps suggests is a “balanced and implementable” project (Mississippi Free Press). One still unanswered question, though, is how much the project will cost.2
The briefing
Southern developments
🦆 Un-ducky
T. Edward Nickens notes in Garden & Gun how studies show how the genes from farm-released mallards seem to be trickling into—and diluting—wild gene pools. That can be reversed, but only if we stop releasing domesticated ducks for hunting.
🦐 Shrimp shame
An investigation into 44 Mississippi restaurants advertising “local” shrimp found that only eight delivered on the promise (WLOX). The names of those eight restaurants have been announced, but the 36 who failed the test remain anonymous—which, according to my sources on the ground, has some restaurants uninvolved with the kerfuffle worried they’ll be tainted by association.
🐊 Refill the swamp!
While down on the coast fights continue over Louisiana’s largest land-building effort (Nola.com), a different project is quietly coming to fruition upstream of New Orleans (The Lens): Last week, the state broke ground on a smaller diversion, which brings water and sediment into Lake Maurepas, one of the South’s largest freshwater swamps—and a former duck-hunting heaven. In this case, there seems to be no controversy.
Long term, I’d potentially like to bring someone else on board to help with these roundups. If you might be interested, shoot me an email.
I’m agnostic on this one. I do think, after years of strife—and devastating flooding—it’s good to see a new compromise. As I note in The Great River, though, the Yazoo Pumps in any form will be a enormous expenditure whose economic benefits mostly accrue to a few already wealthy people; I wish that at the same time we’re thinking about infrastructure, we were considering what kinds of social projects can serve justice in this region. And it certainly would be good to know the cost!