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Mississippi, a state where natural gas dominates the energy supply, may soon be turning a corner in its transition to clean and renewable energy. But amid a global effort to reduce the future impacts of climate change, the state is letting the market, not emissions, dictate that shift.

The U.S. as a whole generates about 20% of its power from renewables, which includes wind, hydropower, solar and biomass, such as wood or plants. Renewable energy sources replenish themselves more quickly than traditional energy sources like oil, gas and coal, and significantly reduce emissions that are harmful to the environment.

But in Mississippi, renewable energy generates little, if any, political excitement: A little over 2% of the net electricity utilities generate comes from renewable sources, according to the latest federal data from 2021. State lawmakers have largely ignored the climate debate, even while other state legislatures tackle the issue directly.

But all that is slowly changing in this deeply conservative state. Last November, the state’s largest utility company — Entergy Mississippi — committed to source almost a third of its power from renewables by 2027.

Entergy and other power companies are embracing such a drastic shift largely because producing renewables, especially solar energy, costs a small fraction of what it did just a decade ago. Since 2009, solar power costs have dropped about 90%, and are now cheaper than natural gas, coal and nuclear energy production. 

The state’s Public Service Commission has approved several new solar projects since 2020, which combined would more than double the state’s solar capacity. The PSC is also developing programs to give renters and homeowners the ability to generate and sell their own solar power — it’s currently taking comments on an expanded net metering rule until Feb. 8, and is also starting the process to create a new community solar program. 

Simon Mahan, executive director of the Southern Renewable Energy Association, said he’s encouraged by the PSC’s recent work around renewables, which includes requiring utilities to submit annual forecasts of their future energy needs, also called Integrated Resource Plans. Mahan believes that Mississippi could soon set itself apart from other Southeastern states in its transition. 

“Had you and I had this conversation a year ago, things would be really different,” he said. “But now we’re starting to see things really take off in the state, in part again because we’ve got good commissioners in Mississippi, we’ve just gone through a good process, and utilities are starting to really value renewables.

“Mississippi isn’t a (renewable energy) leader just yet, but it’s on its way.” 

But clean energy advocates argue that the market-based approach is not enough, and that emissions need to play a bigger role in the state’s energy decision-making. 

Jennifer Crosslin, a regional organizer for the Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy, explained that data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) shows the need to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 to avoid the worst effects of global warming. In the U.S., a quarter of those emissions come from the energy sector. 

“We are way behind nationally, and then we look within the nation, we’re even further behind as a state,” Crosslin said. 

She pointed to the way investor-owned utilities, including Entergy and Mississippi Power are structured, where their profit comes from what they spend on new projects, and lacks incentives to lower emissions.  

“The way that (investor-owned utilities) are currently structured is not moving the needle fast enough,” she said. “That market-based approach is not working at all. It’s time for the state to step in.” 

Looking at rising sea-levels and more powerful storms, studies project that Mississippi, along with the other Gulf states, will be one of the hardest-hit parts of the country when it comes to climate change. 

Northern District Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley, the longest-serving of the three elected PSC leaders, explained that the economy, not environmental impacts, will always steer the conversation in Mississippi. 

“You have a better chance of getting these projects done because of the economic development side of it than trying to argue the merits of emissions,” Presley said. 

Last month, Presley approved a new solar facility in Union County, which will power a Toyota manufacturing plant in Blue Springs. 

Central District Public Service Commissioner Brent Bailey, a Republican, echoed his Democrat colleague’s sentiment. 

“You do get the environmental aspect as well,” Bailey said, “but being in Mississippi, you know that’s not the primary driver for a lot of this, in my view. It’s always going to get back to the economic benefits first.”

Most states, as well as the District of Columbia, have what’s called a renewable portfolio standard (RPS), which requires that a certain share of its power generated comes from renewable sources by a certain date. Thirty states have an RPS, and another eight have a non-enforceable version of it. Mississippi is one of twelve states, including all of its neighbors and most of the South, with neither. 

Presley contended that trying to pass an RPS in Mississippi is, politically speaking, a pointless effort. In most cases, RPS’ are adopted through the state Legislature. 

“It wasn’t politically, practically, going to happen,” he said. “If it wasn’t going to get done, why would we waste time chasing rabbits we’re not going to catch?”

Presley added that the state was at a disadvantage in terms of being an early renewable adopter; creating new facilities often means costs get passed down to customers, which in Mississippi means spreading those costs among fewer and poorer ratepayers than in most states. 

Mahan, who works with renewable developers across the Southeast, said RPS’ in other states are in part why renewable costs are so much lower now. Such a policy forces utilities to consider environmental benefits, and not just cost, he added; as it stands in Mississippi, no part of the state’s future resource planning requires power companies to weigh the emissions of different sources. 

But he also said Mississippi is moving in the right direction regardless. Georgia, for instance, is seeing a surge in renewable capacity despite no legislated mandates.

“The renewable industry has shown up in the state because we believe it’s going to be a good state to do business in,” he said. “Could it have been faster with an RPS? Maybe. But again, the economics of the projects alone is what’s driving the interest in the state and the growth in Mississippi.”

Commissioner Bailey, who’s spent time visiting different schools in his district that have added rooftop solar panels, admitted that he hasn't had much discussion with state lawmakers about creating new renewable incentives. Rather, he feels confident about the market-driven approach, and is excited about the economic spark renewables could bring to Mississippi. 

“We’re excited about the opportunity, we’re excited about the investments at the local level, the revenues that can be obtained from that, and hopefully leveraging and attracting new industry to the state,” he said. “You want your state, your community, your area to be seen as innovative, and I think these are some measures that allow that.”

The post The market, not climate concerns, is driving Mississippi’s slow push for renewable energy appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The Mississippi Arts Commission event will be held at the Two Mississippi Museums on Feb. 10.

Acclaimed costume designer Myrna Colley-Lee was in her late 20s when she got her start in New York alongside Hazel J. Bryant, a fellow trailblazer in black theater who produced hundreds of musicals and plays and founded the Richard Allen Center of Culture and Art.

“We forged a path for black theatre in the mid- to late-1960s,” Colley-Lee, a Charleston resident, recalls. “We were doing amazing shows, many written by and featuring African American writers and actors,” including Langston Hughes. Using her art background, Colley-Lee began designing posters and flyers for the productions, then graduated to scenery and finally costumes, where she found her niche.

On February 10, Colley-Lee will accept her latest honor, a Governor’s Arts Award for Excellence in Costume Design & Arts Patron, at the 34th Governor’s Arts Awards ceremony. The Mississippi Arts Commission will host the event at the auditorium at the Two Mississippi Museums in Jackson at 6 p.m., preceded by a reception at 4:30 p.m. Both events are free and open to the public.

The lineup for the awards ceremony also features the five-time Grammy-nominated Williams Brothers, a gospel singing group started in 1960 in Amite County that has recorded 43 albums and was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 1999. Brothers Doug and Melvin Williams, along with Andre Tate, will perform during the ceremony and take home the award for Lifetime Achievement in Music.

In the Arts in Community category, the ceremony will honor Alcorn State University Jazz Festival. Under the direction of David Miller, the festival has brought internationally renowned musicians Branford Marsalis, Esperanza Spalding, Chick Corea and Max Roach and many others to Vicksburg, where the festival is held. Miller will also perform during the ceremony.

Longtime event curator Holly Lange of Ridgeland will receive the Governor’s Choice Award. Lange, who founded the Mississippi Book Festival and has produced opening events for the Museum of Mississippi History and Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, the B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center and more, has dedicated much of her career to showcasing Mississippi’s cultural history.

“So many of us want to shine positive attention on our state and make people feel good about where they live,” says Lange, “and that’s what the Governor’s Arts Awards does. It draws attention to those who have had some success with their talent and helps expose them to a broader audience at the same time.”

Belzoni native and filmmaker Larry Gordon will receive the award for Lifetime Achievement in Motion Pictures & Television. Gordon is best known for production the Oscar-nominated drama “Field of Dreams,” as well as action movies like “Die Hard,” “48 Hrs.,” “Predator” and “Point Break.”

Abstract artist and arts educator Mary Lovelace O’Neal, a Jackson native, will be honored for Excellence in Visual Art. O’Neal’s work has been exhibited at the Mnuchin Gallery in New York and abroad in Italy, France, Chile, Senegal and Nigeria. The professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, has received the Artist En France Award and was selected to represent Mississippi in the Committees Exhibition at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C.

Due to Covid-19, some recipients will deliver their acceptance remarks via a video recording. In addition to the live event, Mississippi Public Broadcasting will air the ceremony on February 18.

Learn more about the 2022 Governor’s Arts Awards.

The post Governor’s Arts Awards to honor Colley-Lee, Williams Brothers and more appeared first on Mississippi Today.

A man who repeatedly bonded out of jail and allegedly attacked his ex-girlfriend will likely be offered a plea deal this month.

“We are attempting to reach an agreement on a global plea that includes his two unindicted cases,” said District Attorney Steven Kilgore, referring to the charges that resulted from the alleged rape and attempt to run over his ex-girlfriend, Kizzetta McClendon, with a car in Forest.

READ MORE: A disjointed justice system left this Mississippi woman fighting for her life

Tony Boyd’s next court date is Feb. 14. At that point he will indicate whether he will accept a plea offer or go to trial.

Kilgore also said he never filed a motion to revoke Boyd’s bond because he had a “hold” placed on him in jail. He said a “hold” on an incarcerated person is an internal designation by the jail to contact the sheriff before the individual is released.

Boyd was indicted on an aggravated assault domestic violence charge after allegedly shooting McClendon in Morton in March 2020. Over the course of a year and a half after the shooting, McClendon says she has been repeatedly attacked. Boyd allegedly attempted to run McClendon over with a car. Months later, he raped her in a grocery store parking lot, according to police documents.

After all three alleged violent crimes, Boyd was granted a bond by a municipal court judge and given the ability to walk free — despite the fact the Mississippi Constitution requires judges to revoke a person’s bond if he commits a felony while out on bond for a previous felony. 

Kilgore had told Mississippi Today in January he would be filing a motion to revoke Boyd’s most current bond of $150,000, but when he found out there was a hold on Boyd, he did not.

“I made sure he wasn’t going to be out before this term of court,” Kilgore said.

The post DA says plea offer in the works for alleged abuser featured in Mississippi Today article appeared first on Mississippi Today.

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The statue of one of Mississippi’s most outspoken segregationist politicians, former Gov. Theodore Bilbo, has quietly been removed from public view in the state Capitol.

The bronze, allegedly life-size statue of the diminutive Bilbo, standing with his right hand pointing toward the sky as if delivering one of his fiery speeches, apparently has been missing for the entire legislative session which began Jan. 4, though its disappearance was not noticed by most people until this week.

On Thursday, no one would publicly take credit for the removal. Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann said he did not know the statue had been removed. A spokesperson for the state Department of Finance and Administration referred questions to House members since it was in a House committee room.

“I don’t have any idea,” House Speaker Philip Gunn said Thursday afternoon. “I heard about it at lunch.” Gunn said he would investigate.

House Pro Tem Jason White, R-West, who chairs the Management Committee that administers House staff and the House’s portion of the state Capitol, also said he did not know about the disappearance.

Rep. Lee Yancey surmised that the removal of the statue was not an easy task.

“He is 5-foot-2 and weighs 1,000 pounds, so he did not go willingly,” Yancey, R-Brandon, said. “I don’t know anything about it.”

“I guess it is like where’s Waldo,” said Rep. Tom Miles, D-Forest. “That is the mystery.”

The controversial Bilbo, who fought off bribery charges to be elected governor twice and later to the U.S. Senate, died in 1947 in the midst of a standoff on whether his fellow senators would seat him after his re-election.

During a filibuster to try to block Senate passage of an anti lynching bill, Bilbo said, ”If you succeed in the passage of this bill, you will open the floodgates of hell in the South. Raping, mobbing, lynching, race riots, and crime will be increased a thousandfold; and upon your garments and the garments of those who are responsible for the passage of the measure will be the blood of the raped and outraged daughters of Dixie, as well as the blood of the perpetrators of these crimes that the red-blooded Anglo-Saxon White Southern men will not tolerate.”

Some said they hope the statue ends up in a museum.

“I haven’t heard anything about it being gone,” said Rep. Bryant Clark, D-Pickens, whose father, Robert, broke barriers in 1967 when he became the first African American elected to the Legislature since the 1800s. “Hopefully, he has been removed to a museum where he belongs.”

While no one would take credit for the removal of the statue, whispers from various sources indicated that it is still in the Capitol.

State Sen. Angela Hill, R-Picayune, who hails from Bilbo’s home county of Pearl River, said on social media, “It was removed by a House staff member without the authority to do so from what I gather.”

A joint legislative resolution passed in the early 1950s called for the statue to be displayed prominently on the first floor of the Capitol. Clark said his father recalled when the statue was located in the Capitol rotunda.

“It was the first thing you saw when you walked in,” Clark said.

But in the early 1980s, the Capitol was closed for renovation. During that time, the Legislature met in the old Central High School building blocks from the Capitol. When the building was reopened, then-Gov. William Winter — or at least his administration — had moved the statue to room 113, the largest House committee room in the building.

Multiple legislators who had attended committee meetings in room 113 this session said they did not realize it was missing. A bust of Thomas Bailey, who served as governor in the 1940s, is also missing from room 113. But apparently it had been returned to the Department of Archives and History, which owns the bust.

Besides room 113 being used for House committee meetings, the Republican caucus of the House and the Legislative Black Caucus often meet in the space.

“The Black Caucus for years has asked that the statue be removed,” said Rep. Robert Johnson of Natchez, the House Democratic leader. “We have never gotten a response.”

Johnson added, “We do not need a statue of Theodore Gilmore Bilbo, or whatever his name is, who said Blacks should not be educated and who reveled in racism in a place of prominence after we have changed the state flag and after all the progress we have made.”

Rep. Zakiya Summers, D-Jackson, said, “Every time I go in room 113, I look at the statue of former Gov. Bilbo, and I say to him as if he can hear me: ‘I am meant to be here and you can’t stop me.’”

Summers nor anyone else can tell him that at the time of this article’s publication.

The post Where’s Bilbo? Statue of racist former governor missing from Capitol appeared first on Mississippi Today.

In this basketball season of so much medical misfortune, Ole Miss coach Kermit Davis Jr. was hoping — maybe praying some, too — for some rare good news Wednesday.

He got the opposite. 

Freshman point guard Daeshun Ruffin, a Jackson native and most highly recruited player in the university’s basketball history, underwent an MRI to determine the extent of a knee injury suffered Tuesday night at LSU in Baton Rouge. The diagnosis: a torn ACL that will require surgery and a minimum of six months of rehabilitation.

The good news: The explosive Ruffin, clearly one of the quickest, most talented freshmen in all of college basketball, should come back as good as new.

The bad: Ruffin’s absence leaves a hole in the soul of this Ole Miss team that seemed to be turning the corner from SEC mediocrity to becoming a really dangerous basketball team starting to play its best when it begins to matter most.

The 76-72 road victory over No. 25 LSU came on the heels of 67-56 victory over Kansas State and gave the Rebels their third victory in four games — all against formidable competition. It moved the Rebels to 12-10 overall and 3-6 in SEC play heading into a Saturday afternoon game against Florida in Oxford.

For certain, Ruffin had been the catalyst of the Rebels’ significant and recent improvement. He was becoming more sure of himself, adjusting to the rigors of playing point guard in the SEC only a few months after playing high school basketball. And he was doing it despite missing about nearly 11 weeks of practice — and several games — because of previous injuries.

Given the physical woes, Ruffin’s adjustment — from being a shoot-first scorer at the high school level to point guard in the SEC — had been remarkable. He was averaging 12.6 points per game for the season, but nearly 17 a game for the last four. He was cutting down his turnovers, running the offense with more authority. 

His first half performance when Ole Miss sprinted to a 24-point lead on the Tigers was breathtaking at times. Simply put: LSU, one of the most athletic teams in the SEC or anywhere, had nobody who could stay in front of Ruffin. At times, he beat the LSU full-court press by himself. His lightning quick first step made the Tigers seem like statues at times.

Ole Miss has no other guard capable of that. That Ole Miss held on to defeat LSU with Ruffin missing the last 16-plus minutes seems improbable in retrospect. It was a titanic struggle.

“We gutted it out, I’m not sure how,” Davis said Thursday morning. “Daeshun was really playing at a high, high level. I don’t think there’s a faster, quicker player in the country. He was just hitting his stride, just starting to mature. He was starting to do the things a lot of fans might not notice, like his on-ball defense and how to play ball screens”

Davis paused.

“And here’s the thing that’s hard to explain,” he continued. “He was learning on the run. Because of all the previous injuries, he really didn’t have the opportunity to prepare for what he was getting into. In this league, he was learning on the run against some of the best guards in the country. The guards in this league are just phenomenal. He had so much on his plate and he was just really coming into his own.”

And with him, seemingly, so was the Ole Miss team, which lost senior forward Robert Allen to injury early, and had been without the team’s leading scorer Jarkel Joiner since Dec. 21. Joiner, who has missed 10 games with a back injury, is expected back for the Florida game.

“I was really looking forward to having Jarkel and Daeshun together for the stretch run,” Davis said.

Instead, Joiner must play a much different role from here on out. Often, he’ll need to handle the ball, run the offense in Ruffin’s absence. And he must do so coming off a painful back injury.

Expect remaining Ole Miss opponents, including Florida, to press the Rebels all over the floor, knowing Ole Miss doesn’t have a true point guard available.

Frankly, the outlook is none too bright. None of the rest of the schedule — which includes the likes of Alabama, Auburn and Kentucky, among others — will be easy.

Neither will Ruffin’s rehab.

“I know this about Daeshun,” Davis said. “I know how competitive he is. I now how strong the support system from his family will be. I know how hard he will work. He’ll be back, better than ever.”

But that’s next season. It is left to his teammates to make something of this one. That’s going to be a chore, perhaps an unachievable one.

The post Loss of Ruffin to torn ACL leaves hole in Rebels’ collective soul appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi’s ambulance system is falling apart, pushing more and more workers from a job that was a hard sell even before the pandemic. 

Several of the state’s emergency services leaders told Mississippi Today that while paramedic providers have been troubled for years by an incomplete reimbursement system, low wages and staffing shortages, problems have hit a critical point exacerbated by ongoing hurdles from COVID-19. 

They’re not sure how much longer the system can last before swaths of rural Mississippi are left with limited or no access to paramedics’ life-saving care and transportation to hospitals. 

“A whole bunch of things are converging at one time that we have never seen before,” said Clyde Deschamp, a licensed paramedic and director at the Mississippi Healthcare Alliance. “A lot of people are of the opinion that the system is going to crash.” 

Many in the field are desperate to see the system fixed before it busts, and some worry it’s too late. The root of the problem is a dwindling number of paramedics and emergency medical technicians struggling to get their numbers up in a stress-ridden field known for high turnover. 

The shortage nationwide has hit a crisis level, according to the American Ambulance Association. The turnover rate of ambulance workers nationwide was already more than 30% as of July 2021, according to the association. 

Mississippi’s rural counties, lower wages, and statistically unhealthy and poor populations have created an especially complex and dire reality for Mississippians. 

“When the domino tips, it’s going to be a huge tipping effect,” said Tyler Blalock, a paramedic who runs a 10-person ambulance operation in Franklin County. “One company caves, and an area goes without an ambulance, and the others are stretched too thin they won’t be able to compensate and help cover that area.”

Some ambulance companies in Mississippi say they have given up on job postings because no one is applying, making it harder to quantify just how large the holes are statewide. Mississippi has only about 3,800 people certified to work on ambulances, but providers say workers have been leaving steadily through the pandemic even if their credentials are still active. 

“You call 911 and you expect an ambulance to show up in a reasonable amount of time,” said Blalock, 41. “That might not be true right now.” 

READ MORE: ‘No one is applying’: Omicron pushes understaffed hospital system into crisis mode

Mississippi doesn’t have enough trained paramedics to fill gaps as emergency workers leave ambulances for better-paying hospital jobs or new fields altogether. 

Ambulances are usually staffed by two people: an entry-level or early career emergency medical technician — EMT — and a higher-trained paramedic. To become a paramedic, you first have to become an EMT.

“This is the first time I’ve had to compete with fast food restaurants for entry-level employees,” said Gregory Michael Cole, Covington County Hospital’s ambulance services director. “EMTs start at $14 an hour. You can make that a fast-food place or grocery store.” 

And you don’t need to be certified by the state to become a barista or stock shelves in a warehouse. It’s made it all the more difficult for ambulance operators to usher in the next generation of paramedics.  

As the highest-level ambulance worker, paramedics administer chest compressions to heart attack sufferers, stabilize broken bones and open blocked airways. They’re trained to deliver babies, authorized to administer medication and their quick-thinking actions can dictate life or death. 

Yet, in Mississippi, they’re likely not making much more than $22 an hour — and that’s after staff shortages pushed wages up a few dollars. Job-finder websites such as Indeed and ZipRecruiter put the national average closer to $25 an hour. 

“In order to attract a workforce, we need to pay these people,” Cole said. “It’s not that EMS providers and owners don’t want to pay paramedics and EMTs what they’re valued, it’s that they don’t have the financial resources available to do it.”

Ambulances are primarily paid back for their services from a patient’s Medicaid and Medicare plans, which reimburse based on the distance to the hospital. A smaller fraction – usually a quarter, according to Mississippi providers – come from private insurance payouts.

 That means if a 911 call doesn’t end with a transport, that ambulance company isn’t getting insurance reimbursements. It doesn’t matter how much time they spent or supplies they used. No hospital means no money. 

While the costs of operating ambulances have gone up, reimbursements payouts are stagnant. Wages are, too. And an eligible pool of for-hire paramedics is simply not there.

The latest data from the state’s emergency medical service information system shows there are 1,938 licensed EMTs in Mississippi and 1,765 paramedics. 

“Ideally, we would see two to three times as many EMTs as paramedics because, long term, those are the replacements for paramedics that leave the workforce while also filling the need for the EMT role,” said Ryan Wilson, the clinical manager for ambulance company American Medical Response-Central MS.

Even in 2011, when a state health department report showed about 1,200 more licensed ambulance workers than it has now, that ratio was still not at what Wilson described as ideal. 

COVID-19 has just compounded the existing shortfalls.

Health care worker shortages have been consistent across all disciplines. But the pandemic has highlighted them in a way most Americans hadn’t seen before: all-day waits to get into the emergency room or hours spent on stretchers in a hallway.

Mississippi hospitals’ nursing shortages have pushed the state’s health care system to new lows. Nurses have consistently left their local hospital jobs to become higher-paid travel nurses with temp companies, forcing hospitals to close beds because there are too few nurses to staff them. 

For at least the last five years, paramedics say they have had to deal with a problem they call “wall time.” It’s a direct result of the nursing shortage. 

“Wall time” is shorthand for the length of time EMTs and paramedics are waiting with patients before they’re admitted. 

Before the pandemic, that could be a 2-hour inconvenience. Now, it’s sometimes an 8-hour holding pattern eating up resources and exhausting workers. 

Wilson said it’s not uncommon to have one paramedic with several stretchers set up in hospital hallways managing transported patients who are waiting for a bed to open.
AMR workers set up the makeshift hospital wings so ambulances can get back on the road. But that sort of triaging isn’t sustainable, nor is it always an option – especially for rural county providers that might only have one or two ambulances and just a handful of workers. 

The wait times are also hours of work ambulance providers aren’t getting reimbursements for – even as they sit with COVID-19 transfers, using oxygen and other supplies to keep them breathing. 

“That’s a tough sell,” Wilson said. “Can you sit in this confined area with a known COVID-positive patient for seven hours? And it’s really kind of like that every day.” 

The long wait times hit rural ambulances, like Blalock’s team in Franklin County, the hardest. 

Blalock runs a small company – Rural Rapid Response – but is also one of its paramedics. He’s often working three-day, 72-hour shifts as a paramedic and another 40 to 50 hours a week on office and billing work. A lot of his EMTs work two ambulance jobs to up their income. 

Rural county drivers are used to long trips when a patient’s needs can’t be met at the local emergency clinic – heart attacks, car wrecks, any severe trauma usually means a trip to a bigger city hospital. 

But getting caught up waiting in the bay means hours that the ambulance isn’t around to serve a county that only has one truck to cover hundreds of square miles.

“Rural health care is probably where it’s the scariest because there is such a lack of money,” Blalock said. 

When other rural ambulances are held up waiting, he is often the one pitching in to take over their calls.

The tax dollars aren’t there to supplement the costs of a robust system with multiple trucks. and the small ambulance companies willing to work in rural areas themselves can’t easily turn a sustainable profit. 

Blalock is a father of four. He’s married to a nurse. He took over the small Franklin County ambulance operation from another paramedic-turned-business-owner who retired. 

On a recent weekday night, Blalock didn’t have much downtime. The calls rolled in one after another. His company is the 24-hour provider for Franklin County, which means he is often stepping in extra shifts himself if he’s too short staffed. 

He’s almost always short staffed. 

“They say I own an ambulance company,” he said. “But the ambulance company owns me.” 

The first call of the night came in around 5 p.m. Police wanted a driver checked out: Was he nodding from heroin use or low sugar from his diabetes? 

The next call: a woman sick with COVID-19 about 20 miles away. She was scared. Blalock told her to stay hydrated – “for every bottle of Gatorade drink a bottle of water” – he reminded her she could alternate between Tylenol and Ibuprofen to reduce her fever. He checked her vitals, her lungs. He coached her through the virus. 

Next, a car wreck. A young driver has a panic attack. Blalock gave her an examination, calmed her down and got her breathing under control. Another car wreck, another 20 miles, soon followed. This woman had severe neck and back pain. They took her to the county hospital. 

The last call of the night was an elderly woman with nausea and vomiting. Another 20 miles. But just as they arrived, the family decided to drive the woman to the hospital themselves. 

Only one of those trips – the one that ended in the trip to the hospital following the car accident – is eligible to get insurance reimbursements, Blalock said. But she was a Medicaid recipient, he explained, they often don’t pay out on car wrecks. He might have to go through the car insurance company. 

Another headache he will have to make time for. 

All the other trips that night? 

“I tell myself: That was charity,” he said. “I’m a religious person. I contribute to good tidings. But as a business person, a CEO, the reality is: That’s just a loss.”

Emergency services advocates and ambulance providers say the reimbursement system is their biggest challenge. The current setup only contributes to crowded hospitals. A transport may not be necessary, but there is an obvious incentive to do it anyway.

Julia Clarke, the president of the Mississippi Ambulance Alliance, said that some states are creating laws so that ambulances can have treat and release options – a way to still get reimbursed costs without a hospital trip. 

People have increasingly been relying on paramedics as a resource to avoid the hospital, making 911 calls without any intention of ever being transported. 

The Mississippi Ambulance Alliance recently surveyed providers across the state and estimated total lost revenue from refusals to go to the hospital for last year was $104 million. The same survey and study estimates ambulance companies paid an extra $32 million to cover worker’s overtime costs to keep up with staffing demands.

“Now is the time to use 911 for life-threatening emergencies or limb-threatening emergencies,” Clarke said. “People think because they come in an ambulance they’re going to get put into the first line, that just isn’t true.”  

With the hospital system under pressure, paramedics say they’re left cleaning up the mess – their mantra has always been improvise, adapt and overcome. 

The Mississippi Healthcare Alliance is funding grants to help ambulances update their equipment. Deschamp, the group’s EMS director, said the alliance is trying to innovate and introduce high school seniors to EMT classes that will double as community college credits. The program’s biggest push will begin this fall.

Ideally, it will get students on the road as EMTs faster and set them up to be paramedics in the future. 

“Through workforce development and cooperation with the high schools and community colleges, I’m cautiously optimistic,” Deschamp said. 

At AMR, Wilson’s main focus is recruitment. The company handles training itself, covering the costs of the 10-week EMT program and also paying minimum wage to workers while they’re undergoing that training. 

The company will also cover the costs to get paramedic training. Paramedics need two years of training the way nurses do – but nurses are looking at all-time high wages four times that of a paramedic.

 Setting up a system that covers all educational costs has been the best way to encourage people to enter the pre-hospital path, Wilson said.

The state health department requires a 30-day notice from any ambulance provider if they decide they’re going to cease operation. Right now, the department says it doesn’t have any such pending notices.

It did say, however, it is getting consistent reports of staff shortages. 

Blalock says it’s the adrenaline, the calling to help people that keeps him and his lean staff going. Still, they’re desperate for change. 

“I think the most frustrating thing is the lack of knowledge or the lack of regard from the government side of things,” he said. “The people with all the power to fix the problems, they either know so little or care so little, and I’m not sure what it is.” 

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The state chapter of the NAACP is asking a three-judge federal panel to rule on whether the U.S. House redistricting plan recently approved by the Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Tate Reeves is constitutional.

The judicial panel will hear further arguments on the issue before ruling.

Carroll Rhodes, a Hazlehurst attorney and veteran of many redistricting litigation battles, maintains that the plan approved by the Legislature with a Black majority 2nd District that runs nearly the length of the state along the Mississippi River is not constitutional. He maintains the sprawling district will make it more difficult to elect an African American when Bennie Thompson, the state’s sole Black U.S. House member and the 2nd District incumbent, opts not to seek re-election.

Rhodes made his argument Wednesday in front a three-judge federal panel that has had jurisdiction of the state’s congressional redistricting process since the early 2000s when the Legislature could not agree on a plan. The Legislature also could not agree on a plan 10 years later to redraw the districts to adhere to population shifts ascertained by the 2010 U.S. Census.

This year the Legislature did pass a plan, and during Wednesday’s status conference in Jackson the panel of judges appeared ready to end its oversight of Mississippi’s congressional redistricting.

But Michael Wallace, a Jackson attorney representing the Republican Party, agreed with Rhodes that the three-judge panel should maintain jurisdiction long enough to hear the complaints of Rhodes and the NAACP. He said the panel could end its involvement, but it would not prevent Rhodes from filing a new lawsuit, necessitating the convening of a new three-judge panel comprised of members who would not have the background on the issue that the current judges have.

“It would be prudent for you to finish what you started,” Wallace told the panel, though he stressed he believes the plan approved by the Republican majority Legislature is constitutional.

Rhodes agreed that the panel should maintain jurisdiction. He argued that the panel should hold a hearing and allow depositions and other fact-finding.

He said there are questions about whether “the intent” of the Legislature with the plan it passed was to prevent African Americans from winning future congressional seats.

Rhodes argued that the Legislature violated one of the primary principles put forth by the panel of ensuring the compactness of the districts. He suggested that the judges could “tweak” the plan it adopted in 2011 to adhere to population shifts found by the Census while it heard the arguments of the NAACP.

Rhodes added the NAACP had proposed a plan that made those tweaks by adding all of Hinds County and a small portion of southern Madison County, a Jackson suburb, to the majority Black 2nd District. The plan approved by the Legislature instead added four counties in southwest Mississippi to the 2nd District, meaning the district encompasses almost the length of the state on the western border.

“The question becomes whether a Black candidate can raise the funds to campaign in a district that runs the length of the state,” Rhodes said.

The 2nd District was the only one of the state’s four congressional districts to lose population — about 65,000 people, according to the 2020 Census.

Appeals Court Judge E. Grady Jolly, a member of the three-judge panel, seemed skeptical of the claim that an African American candidate might not prevail in a district that has a Black population of more than 60% like the 2nd in the plan approved by the Legislature.

Rhodes indicated that Black voters in the four counties in southwest Mississippi added to the district might not turn out at the same level as those in some other parts of the state.

Wallace told the panel that it should allow the legislative plan to go into effect while hearing Rhodes’ arguments.

Both sides will present additional written arguments to the panel during February. The judges will have to make some type of ruling quickly since the qualifying deadline for candidates to run for Congress is March 1.

READ MORE: Lawmakers redraw congressional districts for first time since early 1990s

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Saying he still has concerns about it — and would have written it differently — Gov. Tate Reeves signed the Mississippi Medical Cannabis Act into law Wednesday afternoon ahead of a midnight deadline.

In a long Facebook post Wednesday, Reeves said he “committed to supporting the will of the people” who had passed a medical marijuana referendum only to have it overturned by the state Supreme Court. But he still doesn’t like it and has concerns it could lead to increased recreational marijuana use “and less people working.”

“I have made it clear that the bill on my desk is not the one that I would have written,” Reeves wrote. “But it is a fact that the legislators who wrote the final version of the bill (the 45th or 46th draft) made significant improvements to get us towards accomplishing the ultimate goal.”

Reeves said his goal “from day one (post Supreme Court ruling)” has been to help create a medical marijuana program and to “do everything in my power to minimize and mitigate — though knowing it is impossible to eliminate” recreational use.

Reeves listed “improvements we fought to include in the final version of this bill,” including reducing the amount of marijuana patients can get, regulations about doctors who certify patients and preventing dispensaries “within fewer than 1,000 feet of churches and schools.” He said he garnered “many other small (improvements) that I’m not mentioning” in the final bill he signed.

“I thank all of the legislators for their efforts on these improvements and all of their hard work,” Reeves wrote. “I am most grateful to all of you: Mississippians who made your voice heard. Now, hopefully, we can put this issue behind us and move on to other pressing matters facing our state.”

Reeves at one point during legislative negotiations on a medical marijuana program had threatened to veto it, saying it would allow patients to have too much marijuana. But lawmakers first reduced the amount from 4 ounces a month to 3.5 ounces a month, then down to 3 ounces before passing Senate Bill 2095 on to Reeves with overwhelming votes in both the House and Senate.

With the midnight Wednesday deadline approaching for Reeves to sign, veto or let the bill pass into law without his signature, Reeves had refused to say what he would do, even to legislative leaders.

But the House and Senate had passed the measure by overwhelming votes which, if they held, could have overridden a Reeves veto.

READ MORE: ‘Long time overdue’: Mississippi Legislature sends medical marijuana bill to governor

The effort for Mississippi to join a majority of other states that have legalized medical — if not recreational — marijuana has been long and contentious. For years, legislative efforts in this conservative Bible Belt state fizzled, despite growing support among the citizenry.

In 2020, voters took matters in hand and passed Initiative 65, creating a medical marijuana program and enshrining it in the state constitution. But the Supreme Court on a constitutional technicality in May 2021 shot down the initiative, and even the process by which voters could pass initiatives.

Promising to heed the will of the voters, lawmakers worked over the summer to draft a medical marijuana bill.

Reeves, who opposed Initiative 65, vowed also to heed the will of voters and call lawmakers into special session once they reached an agreement on a measure. They did so in September, but Reeves didn’t like the agreement and refused to call a special session. Among other complaints, he said the 4 ounces a month of marijuana it allowed patients to buy was too much, despite it being less than the 5 ounces voters approved with Initiative 65.

Lawmakers said they acquiesced to most of Reeves’ demands with the final version of the bill they passed Jan. 26.

READ MORE: Lost in the shuffle: Chronically ill people suffer as Mississippi politicians quibble over medical marijuana

The bill calls for the state Department of Health to begin accepting applications, registering and licensing ID cards and practitioners within 120 days. After 120 days, the department is required to begin licensing and registering cannabis cultivation facilities, processing facilities, testing facilities, research facilities, disposal and transport operations.

After 150 days, the Department of Revenue is supposed to begin licensing and registering dispensaries, within 30 days of receiving applications, or within 30 days after the initial 150 days, whichever is the later date.

The law requires all medical cannabis used in Mississippi to be grown and processed in state, so the earliest availability of it to patients is still months away, likely late this year.

The law allows people to receive medical marijuana for more than two dozen “debilitating conditions.” These include cancer, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, muscular dystrophy, multiple sclerosis, PTSD, HIV/AIDS, Crohn’s disease, sickle cell anemia and Alzheimer’s disease. It also allows it as treatment for chronic, debilitating pain. Conditions can be added to the list only by the Department of Health, not doctors.

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