Esther Mwedzi sits on the front veranda of her home in eastern Zimbabwe separating her laundry. The large, modern brick house stands out against the dusty yard. “I built this house with my hardwork,” the 38-year-old mother of three told TriplePundit. 

Mwedzi belongs to Mutekwatekwa, a savings group in Chitiyo village near the capital of Zimbabwe’s Manicaland province, Mutare. With no access to banks, she borrowed low-interest loans from the informal savings group to buy materials like bricks, cement, windows and doors. A year and a half later, she had built a four-bedroom home for her family.

Informal savings groups — popularly known as “mukando” in Shona, a local language — offer small loans to their members at a 10 percent interest rate. And unlike commercial banks and other registered financial institutions, they do not ask for collateral. Thousands of these groups exist across Zimbabwe.

Interest rates for commercial banks, on the other hand, are as high as 46 percent annually. Lending from them also requires payslips, letters of employment, and proof of residence, which are significant barriers in a country with a high unemployment rate where many people work in the informal sector. 

Zimbabwe’s financial sector, and especially access to capital, is inaccessible for many, said Rashweat Mukundu, a social commentator. Formal banking is limited to the few who hold formal jobs and businesses, so savings groups are a long-standing method community members can use to support each other. 

“The poor, urban, and rural communities mobilize whatever they have to support investment and to support food security,” he told 3p.

Lending to your neighbors

Informal savings groups allow people to pool money regularly to access low-interest loans and earn returns based on trust and agreed rules. 

Established in January 2024, the Mutekwatekwa savings group that Mwedzi belongs to serves 50 members. They are divided into four, 12-person groups, and each group manages its own funds. Every member contributes at least US$5 monthly to the shared pool. 

Each small group lends money to its own members, expecting them to repay it within a month with an additional 10 percent in interest. The 12 members share the extra income from the interest at the end of the year.

The initiative helps people access capital, acquire assets and start up small businesses, said Jeremiah Chitiyo, chair of the Mutekwatekwa savings group. “At the end of the year, members’ savings normally double,” he added. “Small loans have enabled people in this community to build houses, buy cows and goats, pay school fees and drill boreholes.”

The clubs encourage people to work hard so that they can contribute something to the group at the end of the month, Jeremiah said. Most of the members make their money from farming and keeping livestock, but the Mutekwatekwa savings group also runs a garden, where members grow vegetables and fruits to eat and sell to pay for their monthly contributions.

Some members also run their own informal savings group outside of Mutekwatekwa. Senior Chitiyo, a relative to Jeremiah and another Mutekwatekwa savings group member, is in a separate six-member club made up of smallholder farmers. The area is dry and water is scarce, so the members are taking turns loaning out the group savings to each other to drill boreholes to irrigate their crops. 

Each borehole costs about $2,000, which is beyond the reach of what Senior can afford on her own. Using lessons from Mutekwatekwa savings club, she pays $25 a month towards the borehole drilling initiative. So far, the group has drilled boreholes at three members’ homes, and Senior is next in line. Construction is scheduled for August  2027.

Senior is not new to informal savings groups. She has participated in different clubs for more than a decade, using the proceeds to build her house and feed and clothe her four children.

The broader impact 

Village savings groups were the first step to improving community members’ livelihoods, alongside climate-smart agriculture and ability to sell produce in more towns, said Delilah Takawira, country director at the international humanitarian aid and development organization CARE Zimbabwe.

CARE Zimbabwe built the Mutekwatekwa garden and helped establish its savings groups with funding from a United States Agency for International Development (USAID) program designed to reduce poverty and improve food security and climate resilience. “Our role is facilitator, not financier,” Takawira said. “We train groups, support them to develop their own constitutions, and step back. Members own and manage their money.”

USAID funding cuts imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump in early 2025 disrupted the effort, which was supposed to run from 2020 to 2027.  But because long-term sustainability was designed into the program from day one by encouraging local ownership and self-managed structures, like the village savings groups, much of what it built continues to live in the communities without additional support. 

“Savings groups do not require external funding to operate,” Takawira said. “They belong to their members.” 

Tsitsi Mahari, another member of the Mutekwatekwa group in Chitiyo village, built her family a three-bedroom house with loans from her group. It’s a modern home with tiled floors, sectional couches, and a smart television powered by a solar system.

“I bought building materials for this house and the furniture,” said the 23-year-old mother of two. To do so, she borrowed loans as high as $300, which is more than what most Zimbabwean government workers like nurses and teachers earn a month. 

CARE Zimbabwe established similar programs across many communities. As of 2025, its programs have supported 47,777 village savings members in 5,013 groups around the country. Combined, they have saved over $1.1 million and circulated nearly $2 million in loans among themselves.

Beyond the numbers, the real impact is seen in people’s lives. Across rural communities, women who once relied solely on seasonal farming are using savings group loans to start small businesses — like chicken farms, tailoring shops and grocery stores — creating new and more reliable sources of income.

Many members have also improved their financial literacy skills, learning how to budget, save, invest, and manage household finances more effectively, Takawira said.

Savings groups also help households build resilience during difficult times, Takawira said. “During recurring droughts and economic shocks, many families have been able to draw on their savings or access loans to purchase food and pay school fees,” she added.

What if someone defaults? 

The benefits of informal savings groups come with a fair share of risk. Some people take advantage of the absence of legally binding agreements and guarantors. Across the country, many borrowers have failed to pay back the loans, resulting in financial losses for the savings group. Others may intentionally target the groups to steal money.

“This is a system entirely based on trust and promoting the common good,” social commentator Mukundu said.

The Mutekwatekwa group in Chitiyo village has experience with members who refused to pay back loans, Jeremiah said. To safeguard members’ money as much as possible, the savings group avoids giving loans to non-members, as it is difficult to follow up when they default. Members also develop, agree to, and sign a constitution that clearly states the program is owned by its members, only open to its members, and does not accept money from external parties. 

“All transactions happen in front of the full membership,” Takawira said. “The funds sit in a lockbox with three keys, held by three members.” Groups that lend within themselves experience less theft cases compared to those that lend to non-group members across the country. 

Right now, the loans in Chitiyo village are small and can only help boost small businesses, but access to any funding is better than nothing, Mwedzi said. She plans to borrow from her group to start a chicken farming project and tap into the larger market in the province’s capital, Mutare. 

“Now that I am done building, I want to invest in a broiler project” she said, smiling. “I want to diversify my sources of income.”

TriplePundit]]> Megan Amrich https://triplepundit.com/?p=71467 2026-08-17T17:36:15Z 2026-08-17T17:36:13Z

With so much information in the news and online about nutrition, it’s easy for caregivers to feel confused and overwhelmed about making the best choices for their kids. Fortunately, clear, evidence-based resources like the Guiding Stars nutrition guidance program are available to help.

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Lunch is a critical part of a child’s healthy diet, supporting physical growth, brain development and immunity. But with so much information in the news and online about nutrition, it’s easy for caregivers to feel confused and overwhelmed about making the best choices for their kids. Fortunately, clear, evidence-based resources — such as the science-backed Guiding Stars nutrition guidance program found in more than 2,000 U.S. grocery stores — are available to help families check “nutrition” off their busy list of back-to-school tasks.

School lunch: Buy or bring?

The National School Lunch Program provides 22 million free or reduced-price lunches to students across the United States every single day. The school lunch program is a lifeline for the millions of U.S. families facing food insecurity and one of the largest food and nutrition assistance programs in the nation. Along with federal assistance, nine U.S. states offer free breakfast and lunch to all students regardless of their family’s ability to pay.

School-provided meals are shaped by consistent guidelines, and research shows they’re the most nutritious food source for American kids. By law, all public school meals must adhere to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s school nutrition standards, which are based on the federal dietary guidelines updated every five years. The most recent update, for example, focused on reducing added sugars and sodium while promoting whole grains, produce and proteins.

These standards make school meals a reliable and affordable source of nutritious food, Lunches brought from home, however, can vary widely.

It may surprise some parents to learn that home-packed lunches have lower nutritional quality on average when compared to what’s provided at school, according to a 2024 meta-analysis of more than a dozen studies published over two decades. While studies like these are helpful reminders for families, the big decision to buy or bring comes down to a number of factors, from medical considerations and personal preferences to cost and access.

“Ultimately, the decision about whether to bring lunch or eat the school lunch is a family decision,” dietitian Kitty Broihier, a member of the Guiding Stars scientific advisory panel , assures caregivers. “And there are no right or wrong answers.”

Evidence-based guidance helps families take the stress out of shopping

Many families find that combining homemade and school-made lunches strikes the right balance for them. “When my children were in public school, we reviewed the school menus together,” Broihier shares. “They’d decide which two or three days to eat school lunch and which days to bring lunch from home. This allowed them some autonomy in food selections. It also encouraged them to learn to eat food someone else had prepared.”

Children involved in selecting and preparing their own food are building skills that support their health over the long term. Research including a widely cited 2018 literature review of 15 studies finds a positive association between getting kids involved with home meal prep and a greater consumption of fruits and vegetables, along with “higher self-efficacy” for cooking and choosing foods that support a healthy diet.

Still, knowing what to purchase and pack in a school lunch can easily start to feel overwhelming. Fortunately for busy families, some of the top grocers in the United States make evidence-based nutrition guidance available right on the shelf.

Celebrating 20 years in 2026, Guiding Stars is the longest-running on-shelf rating program in the U.S., leveraging the latest nutrition science to rate tens of thousands of products in a consumer-friendly system that helps shoppers make informed choices that support good health.

Guiding Stars uses credible, evidence-based nutrition science and standards from leading national and international health organizations. The system’s patented algorithms calculate nutrient density across ingredients to score food and beverage products based on attributes to encourage (such as fiber, whole grains and Omega-3 fatty acids) and attributes to limit (such as added sugars, chemical preservatives and artificial colors). The findings are overseen by an independent scientific advisory panel, including Broihier and her colleagues, and are updated regularly to reflect the latest standards.

You may have seen Guiding Stars icons in your local grocery store aisles. The apple icons with highlighted stars above are found on price tags, star-earning store brand product packaging and online. Products that meet transparent nutrition criteria earn one, two or three stars, indicating “good,” “better” or “best” nutritional value.

Research in both the U.S. and Canada has shown that featuring this type of one- to three-star nutritional guidance program at the point of purchase can effectively shift consumer behavior toward making more nutritious food choices.

That’s largely because the system helps consumers make more informed choices in a single glance, ideal for busy families making a quick grocery stop between after-school activities.

Guiding Stars is also one of the few nutrition guidance programs accessible in multiple places — not only on grocery store shelves, but also on product packaging, on the Guiding Stars website, and in the Guiding Stars app — making it even more accessible to simplify everyday food decisions based on the latest dietary guidelines.

As Broihier reminds overwhelmed audiences: “We are bombarded with more information, more messages, and a wider variety of opinions than ever before. So no wonder it feels next to impossible to sort through it all! But take heart, because you can simplify the role of nutrition in your life. It really is possible to eat well without too much stress, time, or mental energy.”

TriplePundit]]> Tina Casey https://triplepundit.com/?p=71446 2026-08-13T17:46:03Z 2026-08-13T17:46:02Z

A community cancelled their contract with Flock Safety almost every single day last month. While Flock is getting the most press and community blowback, it’s far from the only company assisting U.S. law enforcement with surveillance technology.

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A bipartisan wave of opposition to the security technology startup Flock Safety is growing across the United States. Critics say the Georgia-based company’s vast network of automated license plate readers, or ALPRs, collect personal data in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Flock says what it does improves public safety and is perfectly legal, but the system has proven ripe for error and abuse.

Though its name is seemingly everywhere right now, Flock is just one part of a growing disconnect between the expectation of constitutional protections and the reality of life in the 21st century.

Flock cameras are already active in thousands of U.S. communities

Surveillance cameras in public places are not a new phenomenon, but the rise of artificial intelligence provides Flock and companies like it with new and infinitely more powerful tools that have raised alarms among civil rights advocates.

Flock has approximately 120,000 ALPRs operating in 7,000 communities across the U.S. The cameras capture license plates and details like paint colors, bumper stickers and visible damage to recognize vehicles and allow for law enforcement tracking. The latest Flock devices can also focus on and follow pedestrians.

Though it indiscriminately records millions of people’s daily movements, Flock says it does not violate the Fourth Amendment. Part of the Bill of Rights, the Fourth Amendment prohibits the U.S. government from conducting searches, including the use of digital footprints such as cell phone location data, without a warrant.

As a private company, Flock is not subject to the same legal framework that applies to the government. Regardless of its position on this heavily debated topic, though, the company’s core business is built around contracting with law enforcement. That’s where the model collides with civil rights, including putting lives at risk.

License plate reader errors create dangerous community encounters

Increased use of automated license plate readers is followed by a worrying pattern of dangerous roadside encounters and wrongful detainments of innocent people.

Last week, a Wisconsin woman was stopped on a busy interstate and surrounded by police with their guns drawn after Flock’s system wrongfully linked her car to a homicide. She told local reporters it was the second time she’d been stopped at gunpoint in less than two weeks.

“I haven’t been asleep since this has happened,” she said, holding back tears. “Every time I close my eyes, all I can see is guns.”

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A few weeks before, automotive journalist Joel Feder of The Drive said he and his wife were surrounded by armed officers while test-driving a Range Rover in Minnesota, which Flock’s system had erroneously reported stolen. “Flock isn’t just at the center of a national debate, it hit at the center of my life,” Feder wrote.

In a July analysis of 24 traffic stops linked to license reader errors, the Institute of Justice found that officers drew and pointed their guns at innocent people in two-thirds of them. “Every one of those stops is a high-risk encounter where a wrong move, a misunderstanding, or a moment of fear can turn deadly,” Michael Soyfer, an Institute of Justice attorney, said in a statement. “No one should have to prove their innocence on the side of the road because a camera couldn’t tell a zero from an O.”

Law enforcement traffic stops are dangerous regardless of why the person was pulled over. More than 800 people died in the course of traffic stops between 2017 and 2025, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. “Despite representing only 12 percent of the population, Black people make up more than a quarter of those killed in these encounters,” the organization notes.

In one particularly horrifying incident earlier this year, a Black driver in Ohio feared for his life when an erroneous Flock alert led police to pull him over. Exiting the car at gunpoint, he was attacked by a police dog and suffered life-changing injuries. He was then jailed for hours before being released.

Though Flock’s marketing materials boast a 93 percent accuracy rate, the company’s camera network reads more than 20 billion license plates every month, adding up to over a billion inaccurate readings.

Overall outcomes can also mask more substantial shortcomings in individual jurisdictions. In Roseville, California, for example, a customized Flock system generated 1,427 alerts regarding stolen or felony-linked vehicles from 2023 to 2024. More than 70 percent of the alerts were later found to be erroneous. Flock reportedly attributed the problem to the deployment of older equipment in a configuration requested by Roseville officials.

Police misuse of Flock systems is the last straw for many communities

Beyond mistakes and equipment failures, Flock’s data is also vulnerable to intentional abuse by law enforcement officers. Recent cases in Georgia jurisdictions alone include a former police officer charged with accessing the system multiple times for non-enforcement reasons, three sheriff’s employees who resigned after an audit of Flock usage, the arrest of a former deputy charged with tracking a person known to him, three officers fired after an audit revealed unauthorized searches, and more.

This spurt of arrests, charges, and terminations follows the rollout of a new auditing tool from Flock. Effective as the tool may be, it can only catch abuse after the damage is done. Combined with terrifying cases of mistaken identity, publicity over intentional misuse of the system created mounting backlash in communities.

More than 100 municipalities have cancelled their contracts with Flock since 2021, according to the civic engagement organization Deflock. More than half of them cancelled this year, with over a quarter in July alone. The ACLU also posted an advocacy toolkit to help concerned residents press for action against ALPRs.

Flock is getting the most press and community blowback, but it’s far from the only company assisting law enforcement with surveillance technology. Vigilant Solutions and Rekor Systems also operate broad ALPR networks in the U.S., while the drone surveillance company Skydio partners with more than 1,200 government and law enforcement agencies across the country.

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Whatever happened to the Bill of Rights?

Adding to the fraught environment is the specter of U.S. President Donald Trump’s immigration policy and the wanton abuse of constitutional protections by federal immigration agents. Though Flock claims it does not work with immigration agencies, local law enforcement has been documented sharing ALPR data with agents.

Other vulnerable populations are also at risk of persecution through surveillance tracking. In 2022, for example, women were warned to delete popular menstrual tracking apps after advocates raised the potential for law enforcement to use the data in abortion cases. More recently, a sheriff’s deputy in Texas searched more than 83,000 Flock cameras across the country in an effort to find a woman suspected of having an abortion.

People seeking gender-affirming care are also increasingly vulnerable to interstate data collection and sharing, civil rights advocates say.

Surveillance companies like Flock Safety, Skydio, and others operate in a legal grey area as legislators and the courts are slow to keep pace with rapidly advancing technology. Though the Supreme Court has ruled there are few reasonable expectations of privacy in public, some legal experts say mass AI-powered surveillance networks go beyond security camera feeds to provide a searchable account of a person’s daily movements before there is any probable cause of a crime.

“While companies can manipulate you, they cannot put you in jail. But the U.S. government can, and it now purchases massive quantities of your information from commercial data brokers,” Anne Toomey McKenna, an affiliated faculty member of the Institute for Computational and Data Sciences at Penn State University, wrote in The Conversation.

Far beyond ALPRs, McKenna describes a lifestyle of continuous personal data collection that includes Ring cameras, smart phones, automotive sensors, and more.

While ordinary people can reduce some of the risks, completely disconnecting from the modern world is virtually impossible. It will take continued public pressure, and aggressive legislative and judicial action, to rein in the growing threat of surveillance data abuse.

TriplePundit]]> Tina Casey https://triplepundit.com/?p=71265 2026-08-11T18:27:03Z 2026-08-10T12:00:00Z

Balcony solar systems help people reduce their utility bills, with solar power feeding directly into a standard wall outlet to replace energy from the grid. The balcony solar movement in the U.S. is growing, but not all states are on board (yet).

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Solar panels are not just for rooftops any more. In Germany, for example, thousands of apartment dwellers are hanging solar panels from their balconies to help reduce their electricity bills. So-called “balcony solar” is booming across Europe. Interest in the technology is growing in the U.S., too, but several obstacles need to be cleared before it can be widely adopted.

What is balcony solar?

Balcony solar is shorthand for solar panels designed to be hung from a railing or fence and plugged into an ordinary power outlet. Sometimes called plug-in solar, these panels can also be propped up on a patio or any other space where sun is available.

Why is it popular? 

Balcony solar systems help people reduce their utility bills. The panels feed directly into a home, apartment, or commercial space’s standard wall outlets, allowing the solar energy generated to replace part of the grid-supplied electricity for the building. Balcony solar systems can also be combined with batteries to store energy for later use.

The online solar marketplace EnergySage estimates that a typical balcony solar system, ranging in size from 400 to 800 watts, costs about $500 to $1,500. Those systems reduce electricity bills by approximately $15 to $50 per month, depending on local utility rates and the location.  At that rate, a $1,500 system that reduces energy costs by the lowest estimated monthly amount, would pay for itself in about eight years. 

At an average of 12 kilowatts, rooftop solar systems are far more powerful and can save a considerable sum over time. But residents of apartment complexes and  multi-family buildings with no roof access have no place to install them. Depending on state laws, homeowner associations can also prohibit rooftop solar outright, or require a cumbersome approval process. Commercial tenants are also generally precluded from the rooftop solar market. For these ratepayers, balcony solar offers a partial solution.

What’s the catch?

In the early 2000s, balcony solar occupied a small, niche position in the solar market due to the relatively high cost of solar panels at the time. Today’s solar panels cost less, and balcony solar adoption has skyrocketed accordingly. Germany is the standout example, with an estimated 4 million units registered, and growing.

In contrast, balcony solar has barely registered in the U.S. Homeowner association and rental property restrictions are part of the reason. Cumbersome and costly utility permitting requirements are another factor. And state and local electrical codes can require an inspection and permitting process.

While balcony solar can offset some household energy use — roughly the amount consumed by the appliances constantly running in a home, like refrigerators and wifi routers — they are not powerful enough to offset the majority of a building’s energy use as rooftop panels are known to do. 

The state of play

Altogether, the U.S. balcony solar movement is a long way from the simple plug-and-play model envisioned by its advocates. Still, change is slowly snowballing as obstacles fall.

Last year, Utah became the first state to pass legislation aimed at removing utility and property-based obstacles, to widespread acclaim. But so far, uptake is limited by a requirement that solar devices be certified as safe to operate by a recognized testing laboratory, and no such program existed throughout much of last year. 

While Utah put the cart before the horse, the required lab testing framework was finally established in December 2025. In January, the leading laboratory, UL Solutions, announced the launch of a dedicated plug-in solar program. 

“UL 3700 marks a major step forward, helping remove regulatory uncertainty and making plug-in solar a potential choice for consumers across the U.S.,” Robert Slone, UL Solutions chief scientist and vice president, said in a statement.

The UL Solutions program is a system-level approach for an entire balcony solar device, not to be confused with other certifications that only cover the components piecemeal. As of  April 2026, no holistic plug-and-play certification was registered, though determined ratepayers could work with a licensed electrician to install a balcony solar system.

With the Utah experience in hand, the trickle of balcony solar legislation became a flood. According to a legislation tracker from the balcony solar advocacy organization Brightsaver, lawmakers in 10 states passed legislation to support the technology, with some still awaiting signatures by governors. Similar legislation is introduced in 35 others.

That doesn’t necessarily mean a free-for-all is in store. Enabling legislation can provide homeowner associations and rental property management with some latitude for restricting the size and placement of balcony solar systems, tenants must provide notice before plugging in, and the number of plug-in panels per ratepayer can also be limited.

What’s next for balcony solar? 

Despite some limitations, balcony solar is poised to support the growth of distributed energy resources in the U.S. These are small-scale and local energy systems that generate, store and manage energy where it’s used instead of at a traditional power plant. Rooftop solar arrays, for example, have contributed an estimated total of 46 gigawatts in installed solar capacity to the nation’s power generation profile so far.

When Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger signed Virginia’s new balcony solar bill into law in May, she drew attention to the combined benefits of small-scale solar. The signing ceremony included several separate bills that will streamline Virginia’s permitting process for rooftop solar and expand the state’s shared solar programs. All three bills passed the legislature with bipartisan support.

“By diversifying our energy usage, we can make sure that Virginia families are less exposed to volatility,” Gov. Spanberger said in a statement. “That is what energy independence means in practice, and that is exactly what we are building toward.”

Feature image credit: Nikolai Twin/Wikimedia Commons

TriplePundit]]> Tina Casey https://triplepundit.com/?p=71417 2026-08-07T16:16:07Z 2026-08-07T16:16:06Z

Amid heavy criticism, the USDA plans to go ahead with a massive reorganization and forced relocation of nearly 3,000 workers. Advocates say it couldn’t come at a worse time, as a Super El Niño threatens a return to the Dust Bowl and a parasite eradicated 60 years ago reemerges on U.S. livestock farms.

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Recent changes at the U.S. Department of Agriculture threaten farmers who are already struggling. Though framed as an efficiency measure, advocates say a proposed drastic re-organization of the agency would destroy the USDA from the inside and weaken, if not eliminate, crucial support systems that farmers and rural communities need now more than ever.

What is the proposed USDA restructuring, and how does it impact farmers?

Agriculture Secretary Susan Rollins first announced the USDA restructuring plan last summer, without consulting Congress, farmers or other stakeholders. Among other things, the plan would move about half of the agency’s Washington, D.C.-based employees to “regional hubs” in North Carolina, Missouri, Indiana, Colorado and Utah.

The Donald Trump administration says the change will save taxpayers money due to the lower cost of living outside the D.C. area, while simultaneously framing the plan as a way to reduce Beltway bureaucracy and centralize more USDA employees near rural areas.

But farming advocates and union groups warn that many of the most skilled workers would sooner leave the agency than take a pay cut to uproot their lives and families with a cross-country move, which is essentially what happened the last time the U.S. tried to do this.

Trump initially took steps to dismantle the USDA during his first term, including the relocation of essential research offices from Washington, D.C. to Kansas City. About 75 percent of workers facing relocation chose to leave the agency instead, including highly experienced researchers and staffers. Though promoted as a $300 million savings for taxpayers, experts estimated a loss of up to $182 million due to staff attrition, with a knock-on effect of $2.8 billion due to a shortfall in USDA guidance for farm bill expenditures.

Farmers, federal workers and concerned citizens fear the same thing will happen this time around. Out of more than 46,000 public comments on the plan, 82 percent expressed serious concerns over staffing, oversight and the loss of experienced personnel at the USDA.

When the American Federation of Government Employees union surveyed its members in Washington, around three-quarters said they would not relocate.

“By forcing this move on an accelerated timeline, with no promise of financial help or job security, the USDA is effectively dismantling decades of institutional knowledge, jeopardizing the very data and funding that farmers, policymakers and land-grant universities rely on,” the union told the Federal News Network this spring. The Food Research & Action Center similarly warned of a “significant brain drain” at the agency.

Death by a thousand cuts: Though few support it, USDA pledges to go ahead with the reorg

Despite the unpopularity of the idea, at the end of July the USDA confirmed it plans to go ahead with the massive reorganization and forced relocation of nearly 3,000 workers.

Advocates say it couldn’t come at a worse time. The USDA is already down more than 24,000 workers since the beginning of last year. Most left as part of the Deferred Resignation Program, a budget-cutting effort led by the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Headed by billionaire Elon Musk and staffed mostly by young tech workers with no policy backgrounds, DOGE offered buyouts to around 15,000 USDA employees and summarily fired thousands of others.

Despite the supposed focus on shifting the agency from Beltway-centered to be more closely connected with rural communities, almost all (98 percent) of the USDA staff lost since last year were based outside of Washington, D.C., according to a National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition analysis.

As the agency lost 1 in 5 staff, farmers are facing a financial strain at levels not seen in decades. Farm debt is at an all-time high, and 70 percent of farmers said they couldn’t afford the fertilizer they needed this spring. That’s all while a Super El Niño weather event threatens a return to the Depression-era “dust bowl” conditions of the 1930s, while a parasite eradicated 60 years ago has reemerged on U.S. livestock farms.

Critics of the USDA reorganization are concerned it will further cripple the inspection services that contain disease and delay program delivery when farmers most need it.

Disease outbreaks put even more pressure on farmers while risking public health

Screwworm, a species of fly that lays eggs in mammals, can spread quickly through livestock populations and is often deadly in animals such as cows, sheep, pigs and horses. It was virtually eradicated in the U.S. by the 1960s, but constant vigilance is needed to prevent spread from South America, where the parasite is still endemic.

The dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) last year effectively halted all joint screwworm monitoring and containment efforts in Central America.

By June, the first U.S. screwworm case in over half a century was reported on a Texas farm, and the parasite has since been detected in 45 cases of animal infection in Texas and New Mexico. Critics say the USDA is far behind on measures needed to control local outbreaks amid already ongoing staffing shortages at its agencies.

The agriculture industry is also threatened by ongoing diseases including HLB, which has systematically destroyed orange groves in Florida and is now attacking California. Other pests of rising concern include the glassy-winged sharpshooter, recently spotted in California wine country.

Those threats have largely flown under the radar of the general media, but the recent “explosive diarrhea” parasite outbreak brought the consequences of reduced oversight squarely into the spotlight.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 6,707 laboratory-confirmed cases of domestic-sourced cyclosporiasis infection from May through July, far eclipsing the total recorded during the last major outbreak in 2019. Two people have died, and the CDC is investigating more than 11,000 additional cases of the parasitic infection across 15 states.

This comes roughly a year after the Trump administration “stopped tracking the parasitic infection cyclospora through the CDC, USDA, FDA and 10 state health departments,” The Hill reported last month. “Surveillance of cyclospora had previously been mandatory since 1997.”

Advocates fight back

Ultimately, it is up to Congress to exercise its authority to direct how and where the USDA spends its funds, but that is unlikely to happen as long as Trump-allied Republican representatives hold the majority.

The federal judiciary may yet provide some relief. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union is among those going to court to stop the USDA reorganization plan.

“This administration is trying to gut the agency that helps farmers stay in business and puts food on working families’ tables so it can hand out even more tax cuts to billionaires,” AFSCME President Lee Saunders said in a July press statement.

A request for an injunction filed against the USDA reorganization will be heard in federal court in California on September 1.

In the meantime, U.S. farmers will simply have to wade through the consequences of diminishing oversight and converging external factors: a rise in farm debt and bankruptcies, a 63 percent increase in the cost of diesel fuel, and a spike in the cost of fertilizer alongside the impacts of Trump’s tariff wars and his terrorization of migrant farm workers.

Image: Justin Simmonds/Unsplash

TriplePundit]]> Elyse Hauser https://triplepundit.com/?p=71372 2026-08-06T17:52:02Z 2026-08-06T12:00:00Z

In one Alaskan village, turbines have harnessed electricity from the river since 2019. This summer, a second village is testing its own turbine in an attempt to reach 100 percent renewable power.

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Every year, millions of salmon return from the ocean to Alaska’s rivers to spawn. Species like Chinook and sockeye fight upriver in some of the world’s largest salmon runs, their silvery scales turning to warm shades of copper and red before they breed. After breeding, the salmon die far upriver, where their bodies feed scavengers and fertilize trees. The fish are critical to this habitat, and they sustain Native communities that have lived and fished in the region for thousands of years. 

This summer, the salmon in Alaska’s Kuskokwim River will swim past something new: a spinning hydrokinetic turbine that turns the flowing water into electricity for the village of Napaimute. Local experts will watch closely to see if the fish can safely navigate around the turbine. If this test project succeeds, Napaimute is poised to become the second Alaska Native community to draw energy from a powerful local river, joining the village of Igiugig.

The village leading the way

Igiugig sits where the Kvichak River flows out of Lake Iliamna in southwest Alaska. Diesel fuel was once floated up the river in 55-gallon drums to power the village. Now, it’s often shipped in by barge. 

“Fuel getting to Igiugig has been an everlasting issue since electricity was introduced,” said Jonathan Salmon, Igiugig Village Council energy director. 

Shipping anything to the remote village is costly. But the price skyrockets when the river is too shallow for the barge, and fuel needs to be flown in — which is even more inefficient and dangerous than the barge. “When we fly in with fuel, that’s a very high-risk situation,” Salmon said.

Still, the village needs reliable power for everything from online education to food security. One missed fuel delivery puts essentials like the annual food supply at risk. “I have my whole winter’s worth of salmon stored in my freezer. I have my whole fall moose in my freezer,” Salmon said. “We store lots of our food throughout the year frozen.”

The community had long recognized the Kvichak River as a possible source of consistent energy. So, in a quest to create a local energy system that doesn’t depend on fuel deliveries, Igiugig applied for an Alaska state grant to develop river energy in 2007.  

“River hydrokinetic energy is essentially a new way of harnessing some of the energy that’s available in rivers,” said Craig Hill, an aquatic energy technology expert who isn’t involved in the Igiugig or Napaimute projects.

Historically, that energy was captured using dams, but dams can come with environmental tradeoffs like blocking fish from migrating or changing the natural ecology and characteristics of the river. Early research suggests that turbines are a safer alternative. River turbines function similarly to wind turbines. Instead of wind, water spins the blades, and the movement is converted into electricity. 

“The faster the water is flowing, the more energy is available,” Hill said. 

The Kvichak River near Igiugig was an ideal place for a turbine power project: fast-flowing water, deep sections, plenty of room for boat traffic to get by, and not much plant debris. Still, given the newness of the technology, the remote location, and the permits required to put a new device in the river, launching the turbine was a slow process. After receiving the state grant in 2012, the Igiugig community hosted four companies to explain their turbine designs, then chose two of those companies to move forward and demonstrate their technology in the Kvichak River in 2015.

One company ignored local knowledge about the river’s strength, and when its turbine design failed, it left the village with the cleanup. The other company, Ocean Renewable Power Company (ORPC), had a vastly different approach. The company started the conversation by asking the community, “What can we do to help you?” Salmon said. 

“It’s really important from our perspective that it’s their project,” said Nathan Johnson, ORPC’s vice president of development. “They’re the ones that are leading the project. They’re the ones that are guiding the project.” 

In 2019, after several rounds of testing and redesigning the technology, Igiugig and ORPC officially deployed the first RivGen turbine that sends power straight from the Kvichak River to the local grid. It was followed by a second one in 2023.

Since the installations, ORPC and the Igiugig community have watched for impacts to local salmon populations using underwater cameras and sonar. Research so far suggests that the turbines don’t significantly affect fish. Adult salmon migrating upriver usually don’t swim in the fast sections of the water where the turbines operate, Johnson said. Young salmon smolts migrating downriver can become disoriented after swimming through a turbine, but most smolts appear to swim above them instead. 

Even the noise from the turbines churning through the water doesn’t impact fish, because the natural sound of gravel moving in the flowing water is louder, Salmon said. 

The turbines also proved capable of holding up to the area’s harsh winter weather. “We’ve had ice completely form over the top of our technology, and we’ve had ice directly collide with our technology, we’ve had pieces of steel bent by ice,” Johnson said. “All that being said, we continue to operate.” 

Local experts handle the turbine operation and maintenance whenever possible. “We’ve really designed our systems so that they can be shipped and then reassembled using smaller local equipment, using things like local fishing vessels to deploy the systems, and really trying to utilize the capabilities and the workforce in the communities,” Johnson said. “The folks that are there know those waters much, much better than outsiders.” 

While the river turbines avoid the pollution and risk of explosion that comes with diesel, that doesn’t mean they’re completely safe. It’s important to have experienced experts handling the work. Many people in the community, like Salmon, have longstanding experience working on local waterways. They help maintain the turbines and train others. 

“It’s a very high-risk situation when you’re working on a device,” Salmon said. “If you were attached to the device and the water’s flowing, you’ll go to the bottom of the river and it’s gonna be three hours before we get you back.” 

Igiugig’s turbines have proven to be a valuable addition to the local energy mix, but they don’t meet all of the community’s energy needs throughout the year, and residents still rely on fuel. The Igiugig Village Tribal Council aims to cut electricity-related diesel consumption in half by 2030, Salmon said. Meeting that goal will likely require adding more solar panels, which are already another reliable source of renewable power for the community.

A second village tests a turbine

The village of Napaimute lies northwest of Igiugig on the Kuskokwim River, another important waterway for Alaska’s salmon. In summer, people from up and down the river gather in Napaimute to fish and take their catch home to sustain them through the year. 

“It is a really important site for seasonal activities,” said local biologist Dan Gillikin. Gillikin isn’t a tribal member, but he’s served as the environmental director for the Native Village of Napaimute for over a decade. 

The Napaimute area has no roads. As in Igiugig, fuel arrives by plane or river barge at high risk and high cost. When the village fills with visitors each summer, the need for electricity rises, and so does the expense. The community began exploring renewable energy options to help meet that need about 15 years ago, starting with solar panels and a wind turbine. 

“The wind turbine unfortunately didn’t pan out very well,” Gillikin said.  “It’s really hard to find equipment that can hold up to the environment that we’ve got out here.” 

After five years, a storm knocked the wind turbine down, and no one put it back up. Solar panels were a much better fit for the location, but they still don’t cover all of the village’s power needs. That left Napaimute searching for another option to rely on during busy summer days or cloudy days when solar doesn’t work.

Eventually, a representative from hydropower company BladeRunner Energy reached out to Gillikin to pitch a turbine project in Napaimute’s fast-flowing river. The village agreed to give it a try. 

That pilot project is officially launching this summer, with one turbine — a different, smaller design than those in Igiugig.

“We’re pretty certain that between the solar side of things and then the river turbine side of things, we can produce 100 percent renewable power,” Gillikin said. 

He estimates that switching to renewable energy could save Napaimute $25,000 to $30,000 a year. “At $10.50 a gallon for diesel fuel, 10 percent of your power generation coming from a river turbine throughout the year can be a big deal,” Gillikin said.

This summer will test whether maintenance can be handled locally and whether the turbine impacts fish traversing the river. If the fish are negatively affected, the project will shut down. “Fish are so vital to all the communities out here,” Gillikin said. “We want to be sure we’re not impacting any of the fisheries or any of the species migrating either upriver or downriver.” 

Local experts will trap fish smolt migrating toward the ocean and examine adults caught in a traditional fish wheel to see how they fare after passing by the turbine. “The ladies that typically process the fish that come out of that wheel, they’re very familiar with what those fish should look like,” Gillikin said.

If the turbine is still running when winter approaches and the village slows down, it will be removed before the river freezes, ready to be reinstalled next summer. 

Though Gillikin doesn’t anticipate any negative impacts, his outlook is cautious. “It’s a pilot,” Gillikin said. “You never know how it’s gonna go. This could all go sideways real quickly.” 

Will rivers power the future?

Napaimute will know later this year whether its turbine will stick around for the long run. But it’s not yet clear what the future looks like for river turbines in the region. The successful project in Igiugig has a 10-year pilot license that ends in 2029. With no existing model for turning pilots into long-term river turbine installations, the community will need to figure out the next steps from scratch. 

Motivation to make it happen is growing as fuel prices continue to rise, pushing up the local cost of living. “It’s becoming very unaffordable for people to stay out here,” Gillikin said. “You’re starting to see people actually leave the villages and move into places like Anchorage and Fairbanks and outlying areas on the grid or on the road system, and that’s really unfortunate.” 

Interest in riverine energy is slowly expanding elsewhere in the world, too. In 2018, a modern river turbine was installed at a World Heritage watermill site in Germany. It generates enough hydropower for about 300 homes, without disrupting the site’s historic look. This year, ORPC plans to install two turbine devices in Montreal’s St. Lawrence River — a much more urban location than the Alaska sites. The company is also working on a project on the Niagara River, which runs between New York and Ontario, Canada. 

 With these early projects as proof of concept, river power could gain the momentum to become part of the renewable energy puzzle for many communities. “There’s a tremendous amount of energy in our rivers around the world,” Hill said. 

TriplePundit]]> Abdulaziz Bagwai https://triplepundit.com/?p=71345 2026-08-06T19:25:45Z 2026-08-04T12:00:00Z

Nigerian farmers are facing all-time high fuel prices, hindering their ability to grow in the dry season. Some are looking to solar-powered irrigation systems as a more affordable way to boost their yields.

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On an early May morning, 55-year-old Alhaji Bashir Sule walks excitedly through his five-hectare farm in Kano State, northwest Nigeria, watching a solar-powered pump gush water into the fields.

Bashir used a water pump powered by fossil fuels to irrigate his farm for over a decade, but rising fuel costs became a burden. In Nigeria, 140 million people equivalent to (63 percent  of the population) live below the poverty line. After the government ended the national fuel subsidy in 2023, the dramatic rise in fuel prices led to higher costs for transporting goods, which affects the entire food production and supply chain. Even staple foods are becoming unaffordable for many households, and rural communities across the country are at the brink of hunger crisis.

Many of Bashir’s neighbors in the Bauje farming community don’t even cultivate their land in the dry season because they can’t afford the fuel. 

“I spent about ₦12,000 [US$8.70] every three days on petrol to irrigate this land last year,” Bashir said. “This is why most of my neighbors didn’t use their lands because they can’t afford the amount. But now, with just ₦2,500 [US$1.80] per day, my rice farm is always wet.”

As Nigeria’s rural farmers reckon with rising fuel prices and increasingly irregular rainfall patterns tied to climate change, more of them are turning to solar-powered irrigation to save and earn more money.

Adopting solar-powered irrigation helps farmers like Bashir cut fuel costs by more than 60 percent while extending their growing seasons and boosting crop yields, according to the Energy Commission of Nigeria.

Among more than 10,000 smallholder farmers who tried solar irrigation in the rural northwestern state of Kebbi, over 70 percent reported higher incomes, researchers from the YELF Climate Trust Foundation told the Nigeria Guardian earlier this year. Farmers saw their crop yields rise and operational costs drop, and most saved more money with solar compared to other energy sources for irrigation, the study found.

Improving incomes while curbing emissions 

In Sauki Dabula, another community in Kano State, 39-year-old farmer Saidu Abba also saw healthier crops and bigger payouts when he switched from a petrol-powered water pump to solar for irrigation. Last year, the cucumber and maize he harvested from his two-hectare farm were smaller in size because he couldn’t afford enough petrol to keep the pump running. 

“If not for this solar, with the way the petrol price is surging, the crops might have even become much more stunted than last year’s because I can’t afford the price,” Abba said. 

Ibrahim Badamasi, 36, also saw improved harvests at his onion farm in Sauki Dabula. He usually gets three or four large sacks of onions from the farm each season. “This year, as a result of proper irrigation, I made six similar sacks from the same farm,” he said.

Nigeria’s National Economic Council is now urging more farmers to use solar and has directed the Minister of Budget and Economic Planning to fund the production and distribution of pumps to farmers across the country. And Horti Nigeria, a Dutch-funded program working to enhance food and nutrition security, has already provided solar irrigation systems to more than 2,000 farmers in Ogun, Oyo, Kaduna and Kano states. 

Along with helping farmers grow more food, expanding access to solar-powered irrigation reduces the use of diesel generators on farms, which emit greenhouse gases and harm local air quality. 

Nigeria’s agricultural sector creates nearly 86 million tons of carbon equivalent emissions each year, roughly three times the annual emissions of Nigeria’s commercial and economic hub, Lagos. Along with contributing to climate change, the country’s federal government says emissions from agriculture are driving a severe public health crisis through air pollution.

Rural communities can feel it. 

Nearby resident Haruna Muhammad said the fumes from Abba’s old petrol pump often blew in his face as he passed by the farm. “The air around his farm was discomforting, but why would I be the only one to speak it out,” he said. “But when, in the last few months, I noticed that he replaced the petrol-powered pump with a solar-powered one, I felt happier.”

Similarly, at Bauje, Bashir described the air around his rice farm as “sickening” when the petrol pump was on. “When I was using a fuel-based pump, I rarely spent an hour in the farm,” he said. “But now, whenever I come visiting, I could spend hours because the air quality has improved.”

Increasing access could lessen brutal climate impacts

Agriculture accounts for about 22 percent of Nigeria’s gross domestic product and more than a third of its total employment. Farming is the backbone of rural livelihoods and national food security, as the majority of the country’s staple foods are produced domestically. Yet Nigeria’s rural farmers are threatened by the worsening impacts of climate change, including heatwaves and irregular rainfall that ravages fields with both floods and drought. 

In this context, solar-powered irrigation systems offer multiple benefits: They extend the growing season by allowing farmers to irrigate their crops when the fields go dry, while reducing the use of polluting diesel fuel. If solar-powered water pumps were used across all of Nigeria’s irrigated maize fields, that alone would eliminate 4 million tons of carbon emissions annually.

John Olaoye, a professor in the department of agricultural and biosystems engineering at the University of Ilorin in Nigeria, agrees that solar-powered irrigation systems are a promising solution for farmers, but only if rural communities are actually able to access it. And access remains an issue. 

While solar generators and irrigation eliminate regular petrol purchases, the high upfront cost of these systems is often too much for smallholder farmers, meaning most dry-season farmers in Bauje and Sauki Dabula still use petrol generators to irrigate their lands. 

When Bashir checked the prices earlier this year, the lowest he could find was more than half a million Nigerian naira, too high for him to afford. Instead, he was able to rent his solar system from Women In Mechanized Agriculture (WIMA). The Nigerian nonprofit rents solar equipment to small-scale, male farmers and uses the income to fund women-focused agricultural programs in other parts of the country, as cultural norms often limit women in northern states like Kano from operating farming machinery.

Bashir expects the solar setup to save him money, even with the cost of renting it. “I’m still excited about it because it saved me the worries about fuel costs,” he said.

But cost isn’t the only barrier for farmers when it comes to using solar. Though they pollute less, solar irrigation systems are often new technology for rural communities, so there’s typically a learning curve in making them work on the farm. 

When Bashir first rented his system, for example, he worried it would be stolen if left unattended in the fields overnight, so he opted to carry the panels from his home to the farm every day. “The panels are large, and one day while carrying them on my motorcycle to the farm, one of them slipped away,” he said. “A part of it broke and it stopped working.” He had to pay to replace it, which led him to hire a local security guard instead. “Not every farmer can afford that,” he added.

A shortage of local technicians to repair malfunctioning solar equipment is also a growing challenge that can hinder more widespread adoption in rural communities, said Muhammad Hamza Abubakar, a Nigerian sustainable agriculture and agribusiness strategist. 

Though the Nigerian government is exploring subsidies for solar-powered pumps, experts like Hamza say more policy support and federal funding are needed to meet the need among farmers. 

For those who have been able to access the technology ahead of this year’s dry season, it has made all the difference. “If not for this solar intervention, farming would’ve been very much difficult for me this year,” Abba said. “I’m glad I came in contact with it and hope the government makes it easily accessible to everyone.”

As he walked through the field, a fluttering Kaftan rustling against his rice plants, Bashir shared similar hopes of more investment to support Kano State’s smallholder farmers. “It’s my life,” he said. “We’re intentional about what we do.”

TriplePundit]]> Taylor Haelterman https://triplepundit.com/?p=71322 2026-07-28T21:24:39Z 2026-07-28T20:53:10Z

Public buses and trains don’t usually extend into the outskirts of rural communities, if they stop in them at all. Microtransit helps more rural residents reach their local station, but it comes at a cost.

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Many rural populations would benefit from using the public bus or train, if only they could get there. Microtransit programs can help, but they’re not always successful. 

What is rural microtransit? 

Microtransit is not as complex as it sounds. Different versions of it have existed since at least the 1970s, but it’s slowly garnering new attention as modern technology makes these services easier to run. Similar to rideshare platforms like Uber and Lyft, microtransit is an on-demand vehicle service that picks up a rider where they are and takes them where they want to go. Users typically book a ride via an app or a phone call, and may sometimes ride alongside other passengers heading the same direction. 

The catch is: Microtransit programs only run in a specific region, like within a municipality or across a couple of counties. While a van might pick you up at the bus stop on the edge of town and bring you to the next town over, it might not take you on an hour-long ride to the city. These services are typically designed to fill the gaps between where residents live and where public transit runs, help people travel to set locations, or offer complementary paratransit services for people with disabilities. 

Filling public transit gaps is critical to accessibility and affordability in rural areas, where people often live miles away from grocery stores, hospitals, schools and workplaces. Less than 2 percent of all public transportation rides across the U.S. are in rural locations, but the majority of those rides are to critical services like work or medical appointments, according to a 2025 American Public Transportation Association report. That’s particularly important for older Americans, who make up about 20 percent of the rural population in the U.S., and people with disabilities, who make up a larger portion of rural populations than urban ones. 

Where are these programs running? 

While microtransit is far from a household term, it’s up and running in more rural locations than you may expect. On Washington’s west coast, residents of Gray’s Harbor County can schedule rides across several towns for free. The county-run program, called HarborFlex, travels through areas that do not have enough demand to justify a bus route. Officials say seniors often use the service to attend local events, and more than two dozen locals have used it to get critical medical treatment. 

On the other side of the country, the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation turned a successful 2023 pilot into a running microtransit program in two rural counties. The service provided over 48,000 trips over the 18-month pilot, with most riders hailing a van multiple times each week, according to a study from the department. Today, the participating transit agencies, Bay Transit and Mountain Empire Transit, offer on-demand rides across more than 10 counties. 

Up north in Vermont, the private nonprofit Rural Community Transportation provides fare-free microtransit rides across two counties. The nonprofit covers expenses like gas, but volunteer drivers make the program possible by donating their time and using their own cars. Rural Community Transportation also offers point-to-point transportation to medical appointments, essential services, and community events for Medicaid clients. Combined, the two programs make up almost 75 percent of the rides given by the agency, according to the nonprofit’s 2025 report. When the microtransit program expanded to Newport (a town of about 4,400 people) after the pilot, monthly ridership in the area reportedly grew by 200 people.

These are just a few examples. Just over 55 percent of public transit agencies are rural, according to the American Public Transportation Association report. And the vast majority of all urban and rural agencies offer demand response services, a category that includes programs like microtransit, late-night rides and point-to-point operations for people with disabilities. 

Is microtransit actually working? 

The examples above may make microtransit seem like a widely successful experiment, but that’s not the case. Research from 2020 found that 40 percent of these programs fail before the three-year mark, rising to a 50 percent failure rate over seven years. That statistic stands globally, with 50 percent of programs ending within two years. The researchers found a strong connection between failed programs and high costs. Simpler programs with less flexible routes were more cost efficient and more likely to be successful. 

For example, a microtransit service that shuttles drivers anywhere within a given zone has the potential to go long distances with no passengers in the car, even in an area with high demand. Frequent long rides and driving without passengers leads to higher costs compared to a service that follows a set route of short stops on a set schedule, particularly in rural areas, according to a 2026 study of a rural microtransit service in California. High costs are an especially difficult hurdle to overcome while transit agencies across the country struggle with unstable funding. 

A 2025 study from the University of California Berkeley’s Transportation Sustainability Research Center suggests replacing microtransit services that bring riders anywhere in the region with services that stop at set locations along a schedule could help improve efficiency and reduce costs. 

Importantly, the researchers aren’t saying microtransit’s limitations mean rural programs aren’t worth the cost. They instead argue these programs should be carefully considered based on regional context and point out that metrics like accessibility, safety and user satisfaction may be a more appropriate measure of a program’s success. Whether microtransit “works,” seems to be a question each community must answer on its own. 

TriplePundit]]> Tina Casey https://triplepundit.com/?p=71311 2026-07-24T21:17:00Z 2026-07-24T21:14:19Z

The U.S. federal government is spending billions in taxpayer dollars on foreign wars and immigration enforcement while basic needs at home go unfunded and unaddressed.

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As U.S. President Donald Trump continues to wage war against Iran, public frustration is at a boiling point. Eighteen U.S. service members have been killed since the war began. Their deaths underscore the senseless harm and waste of taxpayer resources in the Middle East while basic needs at home go unfunded and unaddressed.

Urgent needs at home: America’s decaying infrastructure

The nation’s municipal wastewater infrastructure is among those basic needs going unaddressed. Regardless of partisan political posturing over social issues, wastewater management is an essential public health and quality-of-life function in a modern industrialized society. It transcends — or should transcend — the red-blue divide.

But wastewater systems have been falling into disrepair across the United States for decades amid debates over the use of federal funding to support local infrastructure projects. States, cities and utilities now shoulder more than 90 percent of the cost of wastewater upgrades and repairs, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Many can’t afford to pay, so they delay the expensive underground work that’s needed, often until it’s too late.

The urgent need to address civic infrastructure reached national headlines in January when a sewage pipeline collapsed and spilled more than 200 million gallons of untreated wastewater into the Potomac River in Maryland, near Washington, D.C. It was among the largest, if not the largest, such event in U.S. history.

Wastewater spills also left beaches and recreation areas closed in New York, Massachusetts and California ahead of the July 4 holiday. Just last week, another major spill into a tributary of the James River in Virginia alarmed residents and shuttered recreational areas nearby.

Researchers confirm these events are happening more frequently and will continue to happen until the U.S. invests what’s needed to bring its most basic systems into the 21st century. These investments aren’t glamorous, but they’re desperately needed and long overdue.

More U.S. infrastructure shows the signs of age

On July 2, a power system at a wastewater facility on the Hudson River north of New York City failed. The power loss sent an estimated 39 million gallons of untreated wastewater into the waterway, resulting in public health warnings and beach closures.

The same day on the other side of the country, a 2,000-gallon spill resulted when a wastewater pump failed in the city of Laguna Beach, California, leading officials to close a half-mile stretch of the coast to swimmers.

Dramatic events like these, though, are only part of the danger that outdated water systems pose to public health. Approximately 700 municipalities, largely but not exclusively concentrated in the northeast, have older drainage systems that combine wastewater with storm runoff. During periods of heavy rain or snowmelt, a combined system outruns the capacity of wastewater treatment plants, and the excess goes directly into local waterways, untreated.

These are so common in the U.S. they have a name: combined sewer overflows, or CSOs. While some have been remediated with holding tanks and other improvements over the years, they still happen regularly across the country. In April, for example, heavy rains led to a capacity overrun at a retention facility in Macomb County, Michigan, sending 1.2 million gallons of untreated wastewater into local waterways. Earlier this month, heavy rains led to CSO advisories covering parts of the Connecticut, Chicopee, and Mill Rivers in Connecticut.

For larger cities, the cumulative impact of CSOs is substantial. In Philadelphia alone, CSOs send an estimated 12.5 billion gallons of untreated sewage into the city’s waterways each year. And, despite substantial improvements since the 1970s, New York City’s CSO system continues to discharge an estimated 18 billion gallons of wastewater into the surrounding waterways annually.

Where does funding for wastewater upgrades come from?

The U.S. federal government once covered more than half the cost of wastewater and sewer system upgrades through direct grants to municipalities. But in 1987, the U.S. Congress replaced federal wastewater grants with loans through the Clean Water State Revolving Fund.

This fund totaled more than $160 billion in financial support for local water, wastewater, and stormwater infrastructure over its first 35 years. Through the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act of 2014, the EPA also began issuing loans to municipalities, distributing $43 billion in financing over its first eight years. The 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law carved out $50 billion for water system upgrades, including $13 billion earmarked for wastewater and stormwater management.

But this is nowhere near the levels of investment needed to upgrade systems serving tens of millions of people, many of them decades past their intended retirements. Localities often end up covering the entire cost of wastewater projects, if they ever happen at all. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates more than $625 billion — and up to $1 trillion — will be needed for upgrades and repairs to water, wastewater, and stormwater systems over the next two decades.

Follow the money…to the Middle East

Since taking office last year, Trump has summarily withheld or suspended federal water system funding while proposing steep cuts to the EPA’s revolving loan programs. Though the country’s wastewater problems far predate the current administration, the prospect of new infrastructure investment at the levels needed is unlikely as Trump diverts billions in taxpayer dollars to fund his war in the Middle East and mass deportation campaign at home.

U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has estimated the cost of the Iran war at $37.5 billion so far. NBC News is among those reporting the costs are far higher, in the range of $80 billion to $100 billion in just five months. That figure includes the rising need to replace destroyed U.S. aircraft, repair damaged military facilities, and replenish the depleted weapons stockpile.

Four in five Americans now say they expect the war in Iran to continue “for an extended period.” While public opinion polls do not necessarily reflect voter behavior, a new poll commissioned by the news organization Politico shows that even Trump’s MAGA base has soured on the economic impact of the war.

Meanwhile, Congressional Republicans have authorized more than $150 billion in funding for immigration enforcement over the past year alone, as public outrage rises over human rights and civil rights abuses by federal immigration agencies.

TriplePundit]]> Elyse Hauser https://triplepundit.com/?p=71113 2026-07-28T20:55:06Z 2026-07-21T12:00:00Z

Anyone in Washington can travel hundreds of miles by bus without paying a cent. As gas prices and the cost of living climb, transit ridership is rising in counties with zero-fare programs.

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Should you travel from Seattle to Long Beach Peninsula, a vacation spot famous for fresh oysters and coastal vistas, you can do it without a car and for less than the price of a cup of coffee. The nearly 200-mile journey crosses much of western Washington, passing through old logging towns and working-class river communities. Even in these far-flung places, public buses make their daily routes. Though the bus trip from Seattle to Long Beach includes six transfers and takes most of the day, you’ll only pay $3 thanks to the region’s free transit systems.

A combination of new funding sources and local political will allowed many rural counties in western Washington to get rid of transit fares in recent years. Whether the shift will have staying power, though, remains to be seen. 

The zero-fare decade

Eight western Washington counties now offer free transit options for all riders: Clallam, Grays Harbor, Island, Jefferson, Lewis, Mason, Pacific and Thurston. 

It may sound unusual for so many local governments to offer transit for free, but what’s even more remarkable is that it often helps them save money. “For the rural systems that don’t have a lot of [population] density, it can actually cost more to manage a fare system than what people actually collect,” said Don Chartock, director of the Public Transportation Division at Washington’s Department of Transportation.

In Thurston, the fare-free county with the largest population, officials were surprised to learn just how little fares contributed to their transit agency’s revenue. Thurston’s Intercity Transit agency serves more than 300,000 people across the state capital, Olympia, nearby suburbs, and small towns at the county’s edges. Back in 2018, Thurston residents voted to increase the sales tax by 0.4 percent to improve public transit. 

One of Intercity Transit’s goals for the new funds was to make fare collection more efficient. The cost and effort of handing cash was already an issue, but installing new fare card systems would run roughly $7 million, said Nick Demerice, Intercity Transit communications and outreach officer. When the city hired a consulting firm to run the numbers, “what they found is somewhere between 2 to 3 percent of our revenue was being recovered at the fare box,” he said. The majority of the agency’s funding actually comes from local sales tax, which is the case for many transit systems in Washington.

Intercity Transit opted to make all its buses free to ride at the start of 2020. Thurston County now serves as a transit hub connecting the surrounding rural counties, many of which are on the fare-free transit list. At the Olympia Transit Center, “if you sit there for an hour, you’ll see Mason Transit pull in, you’ll see Grays Harbor pull in,” Chartock said.

Shortly after Thurston went fare-free, new state transit funds made cutting fares possible for more counties. In 2022, a Washington transportation funding package dedicated $3 billion of state funds for addressing climate change to public transit across the state. The 16-year funding package included grants offered to transit agencies that made fares free for anyone under 18 years old.

“Our farebox recovery rate is so small and modest that when that extra funding source came along, it was roughly equivalent to what we’re making in fares,” said Eric Lint, communications specialist at Grays Harbor Transit, which serves a coastal county defined by its large bay. 

Like Intercity Transit, most of Grays Harbor’s funds come from local sales tax. Lint said the agency also uses funds from two Federal Transit Administration grants that support rural agencies providing local connectivity. With the new Washington state transportation grants added, Grays Harbor County made its transit free for all riders. 

A new transit era

Although small towns are often associated with cars, not everyone has the money or ability to use a personal vehicle. The median household income in the rural U.S. is lower than in urban areas, and seniors make up almost 20 percent of the rural population. Where necessities like schools and stores are rarely within walking distance, public transit puts necessary trips within reach for more people and offers access to new options for jobs, healthcare and recreation. When the transit costs nothing, that access is even greater.

“I have been using public transit here in Olympia for roughly 20 years,” said Mike Holbein, a local restaurant chef. “I remember when it was not free.”

Public transit is Holbein’s primary means of commuting to work, the grocery store and anywhere else outside of his neighborhood. Now that it’s free, “convenience is exceptionally high,” he said. 

Intercity Transit ran a community survey about two years ago, asking riders how the zero-fare program impacts them. Most respondents said the process is easier, and they appreciate not having to think about how much money is on their card or keeping the exact change on hand, Demerice said.

Getting rid of fares helps riders board the bus faster and with less stress, and it reduces the risk of arguments between riders and drivers. “If you look nationally, fare collection is one of the top reasons for operator assaults and disputes,” Demerice said. 

Free-fare counties have already noticed the difference. The Grays Harbor Transit safety training team, which interviews drivers when an incident occurs on a bus, has noticed a decrease in conflicts since fares were eliminated. 

At first, going zero-fare was a challenging transition for some long-term drivers, who were initially taught that collecting fares was an integral part of their role, said Robert Andrews, a former bus driver who now trains drivers in Thurston County. But once it became more familiar, drivers also started to see the benefits. 

“We see a lot longer retention of employees, not only because of the zero-fare, but just our agency in general and how it operates,” he said. “The zero-fare definitely helps on a deeper level because that’s one less stress that you have to worry about, and it’s only as stressful as you make it.”  

Making connections

In some parts of Washington, free transit even extends beyond ordinary buses. “There’s a new trend called microtransit, which essentially tries to do the public sector version of Uber and Lyft,” Chartock said. Grays Harbor County’s microtransit system, called HarborFlex, allows riders to order on-demand rides in a van or SUV outside of regular bus routes but within specific towns in Grays Harbor County. That system is fare-free, too. 

“We’re mainly operating it in the small rural towns where we can’t run a fixed-route bus,” Lint said. Even where demand isn’t high enough to justify a regular bus route, it can be enough to justify microtransit options. Seniors often use microtransit for things like meetups at the local library, he said. 

These smaller vehicles also allow for responses to extremely specific situations, like when a dialysis center in Grays Harbor County closed temporarily for maintenance in 2024. The clinic had funds for transporting patients to other treatment locations, but the funds ran out when the maintenance took longer than planned. The closest clinics were all about 50 miles away in places like Thurston County’s Olympia. 

“Immediately Grays Harbor Transit, Mason Transit and all the different [agencies] along the way got together,” Chartock said. “It’s like, ‘Alright, how do we get these folks to this service that essentially keeps people alive?’” 

The agencies and the clinic were able to arrange free rides for the 29 dialysis patients, coordinating schedules and pickup points between different transit providers, until the local clinic reopened.  

Even as public transportation becomes more accessible than ever in some places,  many of the most rural parts of western Washington lack public transit altogether. Others lack convenient, reliable options for riders — free or not. 

Buses often don’t meet local needs for small communities on tribal reservations, for example. “We have one up to Taholah,” Lint said. “It’s a really small fishing town on the edge of the national forest, and our service isn’t very frequent.”

People in Taholah, a coastal village in the Quinault Indian Reservation, say they do use the bus, but it doesn’t typically run when they need it to. 

“There would not be enough revenue in the world to meet all of the [transit] needs of a rural area,” Chartock said. The state works with regional transportation planning organizations every few years to figure out how local transit can better serve riders with the resources that are available. 

Even in places with longstanding bus routes, people still may not know there’s a bus nearby, much less a free one. “We meet people every single day who don’t know we’re zero-fare,” Demerice said. “We are always, always reminding them.” 

The agency hosts in-person events to spread awareness, and it recently sent mailers to every Thurston County home to announce an upcoming route change with a reminder about the free-fare program.  

But the people who most need these programs, such as those who lack housing, can be the hardest to reach. In Grays Harbor County, one of Lint’s tasks is reaching out to community members through events like resource fairs for unhoused people to spread the word about free rides. 

The road ahead

Given the rising cost of getting around as fuel prices are driven up by the war in Iran, public transit plays a growing role in people’s lives. “With traffic and gas prices, we’re seeing an uptick in ridership right now,” Demerice said. This holds true across the United States, with transit use recently jumping in places like California and Texas.

The fare-free parts of rural Washington see surprisingly high ridership, even compared to other rural regions in the U.S. Ridership per capita in southwest Washington far exceeds the national average for rural areas, Chartock said, citing data from the National Transit Database. 

Free fares may play a role in this. A 2026 review of global research on free transit found that eliminating fares can increase rider numbers while helping locals stay socially connected and physically active.

Western Washington residents may be getting used to the perks of free transit, but there’s no promise these programs will last. Intercity Transit’s zero-fare program is currently running until 2028, and the Grays Harbor County board of directors needs to approve its fare policy every year for the program to continue. 

Funding is subject to change, too. Anything from an economic downturn to a new board member could lead to reinstated fares. For some riders, that would be a serious financial hurdle. 

“The primary way in Washington state … that transits are funded is through sales tax, and it’s all locally passed and supported,” Chartock said. “So, it fluctuates.” 

Although cost was never a barrier to public transit for Olympia chef Mike Holbein, he recognizes the issue fares can pose for others.

“Everything has gone up in cost so much in our daily lives that adding another $2.50 or $3 — or whatever it ends up being — to our daily transit, it’ll be impactful for people that have to ride the bus every single day,” Holbein said.  

Given the success of fare-free programs so far, and the difficulties of reversing course toward a fare card system, hopes are high for the future of free transit in the region. “I hope we can continue this forever,” Lint said. “For an agency our size, it just makes sense.” 

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