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PETAL —The Petal Gas Storage Station lies halfway between the winding banks of the Leaf River and the International Checker Hall of Fame. It’s a warren of pipes, wellheads and metal buildings where noisy compressors pump gas underground and then suck it back up to the surface again. 

In the process, the Petal plant releases half a ton of a potent greenhouse gas into the atmosphere every hour—more than any other gas storage facility in the country.

Petal is one of hundreds of underground natural gas storage facilities across the United States, where operators pump gas into underground salt formations, aquifers or depleted oil and gas reservoirs, storing the gas until it is needed.

Underneath the Petal plant lies a vast dome of salt nearly two miles in diameter that formed millions of years ago, during the Mesozoic Era, when other layers of rock pushed down on the surrounding salt formation until it was squeezed upwards into a bulging dome.

A gas company began hollowing out the Petal Dome, creating the nation’s first salt cavity specifically designed for natural gas storage in 1951. Today, eight artificial caverns carved into the Petal Dome store up to 30 billion cubic feet of natural gas, fuel that provides a critical backstop for the region’s fluctuating energy needs.   

The Petal storage plant is relatively small as gas storage facilities go: It ranks as the 41^st largest underground gas storage facility in the country. However, its emissions of methane, the primary component of natural gas, are far and away the highest of all such facilities in the nation.

In 2020, Petal emitted 4,947 metric tons of methane, according to reports submitted by the facility’s owner, Gulf South Pipeline, and its parent company, Boardwalk Pipeline Partners, to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The emissions were three-and-a-half times higher than the methane released that year from any other U.S. gas storage facility.

The Petal facility has held onto the dubious distinction of being the largest such methane emitter for each of the last five years, according to data the companies have submitted to the EPA. In 2020, three of the seven highest emitting gas storage facilities in the country were owned by Boardwalk and its subsidiaries. 

Gulf South and Boardwalk have begun to curb emissions at the Petal facility, cutting them in 2020 by nearly 50 percent of what they were in 2019, a year when Petal’s emissions were more than five times larger than any other underground gas storage facility in the country. Boardwalk executives said they slashed emissions again, this time by 54 percent, in 2021.  

The EPA has not yet verified Petal’s 2021 emissions. If they are correct, Petal would still be the largest methane emitter among gas storage facilities in the country when compared to the most current available data for all the others. 

The emissions are especially concerning because methane is an incredibly potent greenhouse gas that, unlike carbon dioxide, has an impact on climate change that is most acute in the years immediately following its release. Methane is 81 times more potent in warming the climate than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period.  

Over a 20-year time frame, emissions from the Petal storage station equal the annual greenhouse gas emissions of 87,000 automobiles, more vehicles than the population of Petal and its neighbor Hattiesburg combined.

The Petal facility’s emissions do not violate any state or federal laws, but they call into question the ability of the oil and gas industry to voluntarily curb its own climate pollution.  

Emissions from the transmission and storage sector account for approximately 25 percent of the total methane emissions from the natural gas industry.  A draft rule proposed by the EPA last November includes what would be the first mandatory methane emission reductions for existing gas transmission and storage facilities.

An environmental assessment by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for an expansion of one of the Petal compressor stations noted in 2019 that methane is not toxic, and that the compressors are not within 1,000 feet of any residences. 

But leading health organizations, including the American Lung Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and Physicians for Social Responsibility, wrote to EPA Administrator Michael Regan in July 2021, urging more stringent measures to reduce methane emissions from oil and gas operations. 

“Extraction, processing, transport and distribution of methane all contribute to emissions, both of methane and of accompanying pollution like volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and toxic gases,” the letter said. “These emissions pose serious threats to human health, directly as in the case of exposure to toxic gases as well as the smog formed from VOCs, and due to methane’s contribution to climate change.”

In January, after the EPA published its proposed rule change that would impose stricter standards, dozens of Black church leaders in Mississippi wrote to Regan in support of the proposed regulation, noting that their communities are heavily affected by natural gas facilities. They called the proposed regulation an “important step forward.” 

Gerald Steele, an alderman in Petal whose ward includes the gas storage site, expressed surprise that the Petal plant’s emissions were the highest from such facilities in the nation. He said that the company is an important financial contributor to the city through its employment and tax contributions. But the news about the emissions, he said, was “really alarming.”

The EPA has historically sought to partner with oil and gas companies through the Natural Gas STAR program to help the companies voluntarily reduce their emissions. An EPA and industry report published in 2006 showed how a facility like Petal could reduce compressor emissions by more than 90 percent. The capital costs for such fixes were so low—several thousand dollars per compressor—that operators could recoup their costs in as little as a month through reductions in the loss of valuable natural gas. 

Boardwalk did not respond to an inquiry about the Gas STAR report. Although the company has begun to reduce its emissions, EPA documents suggest that as of 2020, the most recent year for which data is available, they had not followed recommendations made in the report.

Simple economics make the facility’s outsized emissions perplexing: Natural gas released from the Petal storage facility had a wholesale value of approximately $500,000 in 2020. That would seem to represent a needless annual loss in revenue for either Boardwalk or its customers.  

Boardwalk and Gulf South are gas transportation and storage service providers. They don’t buy and sell natural gas, but store it and transport it for others, an arrangement that could reduce some of Boardwalk’s incentive to fix leaks.   

“My guess is Boardwalk Pipeline [Partners] does have financial incentives to prevent leakage because they would be liable for losing their customers’ gas, although contracts often include a permitted amount of gas lost in transportation and storage,” David Lyon, a senior scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund, said.  

Boardwalk said Gulf South’s terms for lost gas can be found in a gas tariff document held by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. However, as this article went to press, it wasn’t immediately clear which document they were referring to.   

Lyon, who spends his days pouring over emissions data and researching technologies and policies to reduce leaks from the natural gas industry, seemed baffled by why a company like Boardwalk would not have implemented such effective, low-cost fixes years ago. 

“It doesn’t make sense,” he said.

Daniel Zimmerle, the director of the Methane Emissions Technology Evaluation Center at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, is an expert at quantifying and finding ways to reduce emissions from oil and gas operations similar to the Petal facility. But he, too, said he had no explanation for the facility’s high methane emissions.  

“It just seems really unusual,” Zimmerle said.

Emissions from leaky valves

The reason that Petal’s outsized methane emissions have persisted for so long—more than a decade after other gas companies and the EPA showed how they could be all but eliminated—might remain a mystery, but the source of the emissions is well-documented. 

Geology is not to blame.  Whether salt caverns or other rock formations are used, underground storage is highly effective at trapping natural gas under layers of impermeable rock that prevent the gas from escaping. A recent study found the daily volume of methane percolating through the soil near underground storage wells was 0.1 kilograms per day. That is less than the amount of methane that a cow burps in a 24-hour period. 

However, at Petal, “reciprocating compressors,” which use pistons to pressurize natural gas  for storage or to push gas through the regional pipeline network, were responsible for 99 percent of the 4,947 metric tons of methane that the facility released in 2020.

The vast majority of these emissions came from the compressors’ “isolation valves,” which disconnect the compressor from both the underground storage and the regional gas network when the compressor is not in use.

Compressors in a storage facility that provides natural gas to a region only during periods of peak demand can sit idle most of the year.  This is the case with the Petal storage station, where the facility’s compressors sat idle for nine months on average in 2020. 

But Petal’s isolation valves are leaky. Instead of shutting off gas completely when closed, the isolation valves allow thousands of tons of methane to pass into the facility’s idled compressors. Once inside the compressors, the gas escapes into the atmosphere through open “blowdown valves.”  

When Inside Climate News first inquired about the emissions from Petal in June 2021, Boardwalk Pipeline executives said the facility’s outsized emissions were a reflection of the site’s size and the role it played in the regional gas network. The Petal gas storage facility used a larger than usual number of compressors, not only to pump gas in and out of storage but also to push gas through the company’s transmission pipelines, they said.     

“When the total emissions reported for this facility are broken out on a per compressor unit basis, they are comparable with other companies listed on the same EPA report,” Jillian Kirkconnell, a spokeswoman for Boardwalk Pipeline Partners said in a written statement.

But an analysis of emissions data from Petal by Inside Climate News found that the gas storage facility’s emissions in 2019 and 2020 were more than three times higher on a per compressor basis than the emissions rate from individual compressors averaged across each of the nation’s top 10 methane-emitting, underground gas storage facilities. 

In fact, methane emissions from just one compressor at the Petal Gas Storage facility emitted more methane in 2020—2,355 metric tons— than the total methane emissions from any other gas storage facility in the United States that year. 

Releases of such magnitude, Zimmerle said, typically cause frost to form on the outside of the leaking equipment as the pressurized gas escapes.

“You should see that if you’re at the site,” he said of the frost. “It should be pretty obvious to them.”

Zimmerle said he initially questioned the magnitude of emissions from the Petal facility, noting that individuals who make the measurements and report the data at any site sometimes accidentally add an extra zero, unintentionally inflating emissions. But after seeing that the company had elevated emissions year after year and recently acknowledged its high emissions and the efforts it has begun to reduce them, Zimmerle said, he changed his mind. 

Boardwalk Pipelines did not dispute the data they reported to the EPA for 2020. In fact, in a sustainability report published last year, the company highlighted compressor emissions as a problem it is now working to address. 

The company also did not dispute the conclusions reached by the Inside Climate News analysis, that emissions from the Petal facility are much higher on a per-compressor basis than other similar gas storage sites.  

However, the company noted its 2021 reduction of methane releases from the Petal gas storage facility and that it reported these reductions to the EPA. Taylor Gillespie, a spokeswoman for the EPA, said the agency is still verifying emissions from 2021 that Boardwalk and other companies submitted earlier this year, and so could not verify the reductions.  

Even if Boardwalk reduced emissions at the Petal facility as much as they claimed from 2020 to 2021, the plant’s methane emissions would still be 60 percent higher than any other underground gas storage site in the country, when compared to the most current emissions data available for other facilities. 

A ‘workable solution’ ignored

In the company’s first sustainability report, released last year, Boardwalk noted that it is modifying and replacing older compressor equipment to reduce methane emissions.

“Boardwalk is continuing to take steps to reduce emissions across its systems and compressor stations,” Kirkconnell said.

She added, “a number of compressor blowdown valves and isolation valves have been repaired or replaced and procedures at the facility have been modified to minimize methane losses when units are not in operation. This resulted in significant reductions in methane emissions from 2019 to 2020 to 2021.” 

Climate advocates say the reductions are welcome news, but they add that it’s unclear why it took the company so long for those emissions reductions to begin.

The 2006 Gas STAR report emphasized as a “prudent operating practice” that operators should keep compressors pressurized when they are not in use, something the report states will reduce emissions by as much as 68 percent, at no cost, by eliminating isolation valve leaks. The report added that maintaining gas pressure on idle compressors can introduce additional safety concerns inside compressor buildings. But it also discussed precautions that could be taken to mitigate any added risk.

“There is no reason to believe it is not a workable solution,” said Zimmerle, of Colorado State University.   

Zimmerle said there are a number of different strategies that compressor operators can pursue to reduce emissions. For example, gas company National Fuel recently reported 95 to 99 percent emissions reductions on two of its compressors by simply replacing leaky isolation valves with new ones.   

Still, nearly two decades after the EPA-industry partnership’s report detailing its emission reduction strategies, Boardwalk and most other gas storage operators continue to depressurize their compressors, and report high emissions, when their compressors are not in use.   

“It’s been over a decade since EPA published this report and there are still these significant emissions,” Lyons, the Environmental Defense Fund scientist, said.  

 A proposed rule might make a difference

In its most recent annual financial report, filed to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Boardwalk noted that failing to reduce its emissions could pose a risk to its business.

“Increased attention to climate change, environmental, social and governance (ESG) matters and conservation measures may adversely impact our business,” the company wrote in the report.  “Companies that do not adapt to or comply with investor or other stakeholder expectations and standards, which are evolving, or that are perceived to have not responded appropriately to the growing concern regarding ESG issues, regardless of whether there is a legal requirement to do so, may suffer from reputational damage and other adverse consequences.”

Boardwalk also noted that its emissions might soon be regulated under the EPA’s proposed rule to establish standards of performance for methane emissions from new and existing sources within the oil and gas sector, including gas transmission and storage. The agency is expected to issue a supplemental proposal containing proposed regulations “later this summer,” Joseph Goffman, the EPA’s principal deputy assistant administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation, said during a confirmation hearing last month. The agency expects to finalize the rule by the end of 2022.  

“The proposed rule includes several requirements relevant to our operations, including stricter emissions limits for various facilities and equipment (including pneumatic controllers, storage tanks, reciprocating compressors, and wet seal centrifugal compressors), more frequent leak detection and monitoring of fugitive emissions from compressor stations, and deadlines for repairing fugitive emissions,” Boardwalk’s financial report stated.

Lyon, of the Environmental Defense Fund,  said the rule will result in the reduction of  methane emissions by an estimated 60,000 metric tons from reciprocating compressors—the same type of piston-driven compressors used at Petal facility—at gas storage facilities alone. When measuring the climate impact over a 20-year period, that’s equivalent to taking just over 1 million automobiles off the road.  

Boardwalk noted in its sustainability report that it is an “active” member of the ONE Future Coalition, a group of natural gas companies working to voluntarily lower methane emissions across the natural gas supply chain. The group’s goal is to reduce methane emissions across the entire sector—from the wellheads of gas fields to the homes and businesses of end users—to less than 1 percent of total natural gas produced by 2025.

To align with this goal, Boardwalk will have to make significant additional cuts. Gas storage is a small subset of the gas industry and should make up a small fraction of the industry’s total emissions.  However, in 2020 Petal alone leaked approximately 0.6 percent of the natural gas it stored that year—a rate equal to 60 percent of the entire industry’s targeted emissions budget—based on the emissions and storage data Boardwalk reported to EPA.  

Danielle Fugere, the president and chief counsel for As You Sow, a non-profit shareholder advocacy organization, said the steps Boardwalk has taken in recent years are encouraging but that they still have a long way to go.

“You have to reduce your emissions to at least the level of other similarly situated companies, and even those companies need to do much more,” she said. “The first thing we would ask Boardwalk to do is to solve its compressor problems immediately, and then continue its work to reduce emissions year on year.”

This story was published in partnership with Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news outlet that covers climate, energy and the environment. Click here for the Inside Climate newsletter.

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OMAHA — For six innings sturdy Dylan DeLucia had pitched the game of his life. He had faced 19 Auburn batters and retired 18, mixing pinpoint control of his 92-93 mph fastball with a devastating slider. Ole Miss led 5-0.

Then, in the seventh, Auburn led off the inning with three straight hits to score a run and prompt a mound visit from No. 5, Ole Miss coach Mike Bianco. DeLucia had thrown 84 pitches to that point.

Would Bianco take him out? Or leave him in?

Bianco had no intentions — none at all, he said afterward — of lifting DeLucia.

“I just wanted to check him emotionally,” Bianco said. “He’s tough as heck, but, man, he can be emotional. And I just wanted to make sure that we kind of calmed him down a little bit and got him back in the zone. That was it. I knew his stuff was good. … And so, I didn’t see a reason for him to come out with that lead.”

Wise decision — one that helped the Rebels win 5-1.

DeLucia struck out the next batter, then got the next two with a weak fly ball and a pop-out. He fanned the first two Auburn batters in the eighth inning, too.

Said Bianco, “That’s what the good ones do. The good ones make pitches and get off the field. They don’t let it blow up on them. Dylan did that tonight.”

DeLucia — “Loosh” to his teammates and his fans — was only marvelous. He wound up going 7.2 innings, allowing four hits and striking out 10. He pitched ahead in the count throughout and didn’t walk a single batter.

“DeLucia threw his fastball above us and his slider below us,” said Auburn coach Butch Thompson, an Amory native and former Mississippi State pitching coach. 

Ole Miss got all the runs the Rebs would need in the first inning, plating two runs on Kemp Alderman’s smashed two-run, line-drive single to left field. Kevin Graham, who had doubled before that, then added a solo home run to left field in the third, and the Rebels scored two more in the sixth.

So this fairy tale-like Ole Miss postseason continues. After finishing the season with a mundane 32-22 record and coming within an eyelash of being left out of the NCAA Tournament, the Rebels have now won six straight NCAA games and have out-scored their opponents by a whopping 51-12. That’s right: 51 to 12.

The Rebels will face Arkansas, which earlier in the day slammed No. 2 Stanford 17-2, on Monday at 6 p.m. The winner of that one will be just one victory away from playing in the College World Series best-of-three championship series.

On paper, Arkansas is a better team. The Razorbacks’ victory over Stanford was the most lopsided CWS game in 34 years. Arkansas, which has won 44 games, won two of three from Ole Miss at Oxford the last weekend of April.

Clearly, this is a different Ole Miss team than it was a month and a half ago. These Rebels are playing baseball at a high, high level in every facet of the sport. They are pitching it well, pounding the strike zone. They are hitting it hard and doing so when it matters most. Take Alderman’s first inning single that came with two outs. Indeed, all three Ole Miss hits in that inning came with two out. That’s what coaches call timely hitting. The Rebels have done it throughout this 6-0 NCAA run. They are catching it and throwing it well, too. A case in point: If you didn’t see it, you should have seen catcher Hayden Dunhurst whip a pick-off throw to first base for the third out of the eighth inning. If you blinked, you missed it.

Another huge part of this Ole Miss run is the bullpen. Josh Mallitz, who replaced DeLucia with two outs in the eighth, struck out the side in the ninth inning. Mallitz has been practically unhittable in the postseason.

Something amazing: The Rebels have pitched and played so well here lately, closer Brandon Johnson has been almost like the Maytag repairman. You don’t bring in your closer when you have a big lead, and the Rebels have enjoyed one in nearly all these postseason games.

They are a confident team.

Asked how the Rebels felt about playing Arkansas again, Graham responded, “Good. At this point it doesn’t matter who you’re playing. Everybody is good. Everybody can beat everybody.”

Count Ole Miss very much in that number.

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OMAHA — If you’ve read it here once, know you could have read it 50 times or more over the years. Winning baseball championships is all about playing your best when it matters most — getting hot at the right time.

What happened in April matters not in June.

That’s why it says here: Ole Miss has as good a chance as anyone in the College World Series field of winning the whole shebang. Nobody has played better baseball through the NCAA Regionals and Super Regionals than the Rebels. What’s more, the Rebels began their championship-quality play in the late regular season.

In sports terms, they have peaked at the right time.

Ole Miss may have been the last team to receive an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. They may have squeaked in. They may have entered the tournament with one of the most modest records of anyone in the field at 32-22.

None of that matters now. None of what happened in April and early May matters. The Rebels were ranked No. 1 in the early season for a reason. They have the talent. They just had to put it together.

They have. They have won all five their NCAA Tournament games by a combined score of 46-11. That’s no misprint: 46 to 11. They have 13 of their last 16 games overall. 

Let’s look at how other CWS teams on the Ole Miss side of the bracket have done lately. (We’ll worry about the other side when the time comes — if it comes.) Keep in mind, they’ve all done pretty well or they wouldn’t be there.

Auburn, Ole Miss’ Saturday night opponent, has won five of six games in NCAA play, sweeping through the Auburn Regional and then winning two of three at No. 3 overall seed Oregon State. Of their last 16 games, the Tigers are 11-5. That’s really good — but not quite as good as Ole Miss.

Staying on the Ole Miss side of the bracket, Stanford, the highest seed left in the tournament, has lost twice in NCAA play and holds a 6-2 record. The Cardinal did end its pre-NCAA schedule on a 16-game winning streak, so there’s that. Also, Stanford is the only national seed remaining on that side of the bracket.

Arkansas, Stanford’s opponent Saturday afternoon, is also hot. The Razorbacks have won five of six in the NCAA Tournament. Bur Arkansas wasn’t playing that well coming in to the NCAA Tournament. The Hogs were two-and-out in the SEC Tournament and lost six of their last 10 regular season games before that. 

If you go by what happened all season long, Ole Miss is the long-shot on its side of the bracket. Stanford, Arkansas and Auburn — probably in that order — were better teams over the entire season. 

But if you go by what has happened lately, Ole Miss is the hottest team, a perfect 5-0 in the tournament and 13-3 over the last 16. That’s balling.

Much depends on the first two games, beginning with the Saturday night game against Auburn. Looking at the numbers, it doesn’t appear the Rebels have the pitching depth of the other teams in the bracket. For that reason, it’s critical that Ole Miss remain in the winners’ bracket. Dylan DeLucia and Hunter Elliott, who threw shutouts against Southern Miss in the Super Regional and have been sensational in May and June, need to continue their recent excellence in Omaha.

Win those first two — against Auburn and against the Arkansas-Stanford winner — the Rebels will be in the proverbial catbird’s seat. Lose either and they’ll have to go far deeper into their pitching staff to reach the best-of-three championship series. They would have to win against teams that have deeper pitching staffs, at least on paper.

Bottom line: Tennessee, the best team in the country, is not here. There is no prohibitive favorite. Any of the eight remaining could win it. And, of the eight, nobody has played better baseball lately than Ole Miss.

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Abortion advocates vowed at a rally Friday to ensure Mississippians retain access to abortion regardless of what the U.S. Supreme Court decides in the coming days.

Dozens of reproductive rights advocates from Texas, Louisiana, Alabama and Georgia traveled to Smith Park in Jackson on a sweltering afternoon for The “D-Day Rally,” organized by the nonprofits SHERo Mississippi and Mississippi in Action. 

“That D means that we’re going to continue to defend abortion access and abortion in Mississippi,” Michelle Colón, executive director of SHERo, said in an interview before the rally. “We’re going to continue to be undeterred in our efforts in helping Mississippians navigate through the process in going to clinics if that’s what they want. And we’re going to continue to be the ones to decide our destinies.”

The rally also attracted anti-abortion protesters who frequent the Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the state’s sole abortion clinic. They carried signs purporting to show fetuses following abortions and shouted over the speakers through megaphones.

“You women need to go home, and put on some clothes, and serve your husband, and be Godly,” one man yelled at the crowd as Colón took the podium.

“I don’t care what the Supreme Court says,” she said. “Abortion is health care. Abortion saves lives. Abortion is sacred.”

Amanda Furdge, 34, is a mother of three who grew up in Jackson. She moved to Chicago after high school, and only then did she understand that ending a pregnancy is an option people have. 

About one in four U.S. women have had an abortion by the time they are 45. 

Furdge terminated two pregnancies in Chicago. 

“Nobody was in my business,” she said. “It was like a regular doctor appointment.”

Every time she talks publicly about her experience with abortion, she said, “I meet 10 women who say, ‘Me, too.’” In Mississippi, she added, shame stops people from talking about it.

Her experience informed the poem she read at the rally.

“My body / my boat / That only I roe,” she read from the stage. 

“I, I, I, my, my, my,” screamed a protester with a megaphone. “You’re selfish!” 

“We have heartbeats, too,” she continued. 

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a Mississippi case, has set the stage for the Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark decision granting the constitutional right to abortion. Mississippi initially argued the Supreme Court could uphold the state law at issue in that case – a 2018 ban on abortions after 15 weeks, but changed its position in 2021 and asked the Court to overturn Roe. 

A draft opinion leaked in early May indicated the Court’s conservative majority is prepared to end the constitutional right to abortion in the U.S.

States could then decide on the legality of abortion. In Mississippi, a trigger ban passed in 2007 would almost immediately ban abortions in all cases except when the pregnant woman’s life is in danger or when she was raped and has reported it to law enforcement. 

Abortion rights supporters and the protesters at the rally seemed to agree on one thing: The fall of Roe is not the end of the national struggle over abortion. 

Ukwuoma Ukairo, caller engagement coordinator at Access to Reproductive Care-Southeast, one of the abortion funds that serves people in Mississippi as well as five other southern states, said that if Roe falls, she anticipates her organization offering “a lot of practical support” as people travel outside the region.

Advocates expect the closest clinic to Jackson if Roe falls will be in Carbondale, Illinois, a nearly seven-hour drive.

Heidi Miller, development manager for the Alabama-based Yellowhammer Fund, another fund that serves Mississippians, said she already sees Southerners forced to travel to Colorado and Washington, D.C. for abortions. She expects that to increase dramatically if Roe falls. 

A group of nearly 30 people with the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice started their trip to Jackson in Brownsville, Texas. A bus made stops in Hidalgo and Houston before finishing the drive to Mississippi.

“We’re here in solidarity,” said Paula Saldaña, a field organizer who traveled with her children. “This breaks that myth that Latinx and Hispanic people are against abortion.”

Dr. Coleman Boyd, a frequent presence protesting outside the Pink House with members of his family, said he would “love to see Roe overturned, but my hope’s not in Roe.”

“Abortion will end in this nation when the church stands up and establishes justice,” he said. “It’s not dependent on a judge or nine judges. It’s dependent on Christians saying you cannot murder children in our neighborhood.”

State Rep. Zakiya Summers, D-Jackson, who also spoke at the rally, said Mississippi has not done enough to help families. 

“Let’s expand access to health care,” she said. “Let’s stop locking up our men and putting them behind cages… 

“Let’s hold those accountable who take our precious taxpayer dollars out of the mouths of babies,” she continued, apparently referencing the welfare scandal in which state leaders misspent at least $77 million in federal funds intended for the poor and used the money to bestow gifts and favors. 

“If we really cared, those are the things we would be proposing.”

Valencia Robinson, executive director of Mississippi in Action, said she was glad people had traveled from across the country to attend the rally in Jackson. 

“We want to show the rest of the country that in Mississippi, there are organizers and supporters here, and work is being done,” she said. 

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Mississippi still has money left to spend from the 2002 settlement that was supposed to desegregate the state’s public universities, according to the budget presentation at the Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees meeting Thursday. 

The settlement stems from Ayers v. Fordice, a 1975 class-action lawsuit that alleged the state of Mississippi was systemically underfunding Mississippi’s three historically Black universities, Jackson State University, Alcorn State University and Mississippi Valley State University. 

After nearly thirty years of litigation, the state and the private plaintiffs, led by U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, settled in 2002. Mississippi agreed to pay the three HBCUs about $417 million in additional funding over the next 20 years for capital improvements, endowments, and summer school programs. 

That money was projected to run out at the end of this month, but on Thursday, the IHL board members approved the additional allocation of funding, about $1.6 million, that the universities had not spent. IHL also allocated another $3 million in interest from an endowment that the settlement created, which the board will allocate in perpetuity. 

It is not clear why the funds are unspent; IHL did not respond by press time.

Ever since the lawsuit was settled, many advocates have maintained the payout was not enough to bring the HBCUs to a level playing field with Mississippi’s predominantly white institutions. Alvin Chambliss, the attorney who brought the lawsuit, didn’t want to settle, but the state of Mississippi cut a deal over his objections. 

Chambliss’s sentiment is echoed today by many HBCU alumni, faculty and administrators. They point out that as the HBCUs were receiving the settlement funds, state lawmakers were making deep cuts to funding for higher education. To make up for the loss, the HBCUs had to use the settlement funds as yet another appropriation, rather than a way to catch up to the PWIs. 

The wind down of the Ayers settlement this year comes as all eight universities are seeing an increase in state appropriations. This is mainly due to funds from the American Rescue Plan Act, John Pearce, IHL’s associate commissioner of finance, told the trustees on Thursday. 

This session, lawmakers allocated the universities about $176 million in capital funds to make infrastructure improvements and repairs, a 1,230% increase on capital funds appropriated last year. 

“There’ll be a lot of investment that’ll be able to be made in the capital operations of the institutions,” Pearce said. 

All eight universities are also seeing more revenue from tuition, according to IHL’s fiscal year 2023 budget. Every university but Jackson State has increased tuition the last two years, while Jackson State has seen increased enrollment. 

The tuition revenues represent “a real increase in the ongoing operations of the institutions,” Pearce said, adding that “this is all a strong increase.” 

Pearce added that this still doesn’t change the decades-long trend of state appropriations making up a decreasing share of the universities’ budgets. 

“Just for context, even though we improved year over year, we still have a change in the long-term funding of the university system away from the state of Mississippi and toward tuition,” he said. 

Excluding Ayers funding, the three HBCUs are seeing some of the biggest budget increases this year. After the University of Mississippi, which will see about an 8% budget increase, Alcorn State and Valley State will have the next highest increases at around 7%.

Jackson State is receiving the largest share of unspent funds and endowment income, according to an email from IHL Spokesperson Caron Blanton. Jackson State is receiving about $3 million, Valley State is receiving $1.3 million, and Alcorn State is getting about $300,000. 

Most of those funds are from an endowment created by the settlement. The settlement stipulated the universities could not control the income from the endowments until they reached at least 10% “other-race” enrollment. Until then, the income had to be spent on advertising and scholarships for “other race,” meaning white students. An ad hoc committee under IHL would be in charge of the endowment income for each HBCU until the university reached the enrollment requirement. 

Jackson State and Alcorn State met the enrollment requirement, but Valley State never has been able to, so the IHL committee still oversees its endowment income. 

As for the private endowment, the IHL board was supposed to raise $35 million that the HBCUs could also receive once they met the enrollment requirements. To date, it has only raised $1 million. The settlement contained a provision specifying that the board didn’t have to raise all the funds in order to meet its obligations. 

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Faculty at Mississippi universities will see pay raises this coming school year, after the Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees approved increased spending on salaries at the regular board meeting Thursday. 

The raises comes as IHL is pursuing pay increases for professors over the next several years, with the goal of bringing salaries to the regional average. Ultimately, the decision of how to spend this additional money, whether through increasing existing faculty pay or hiring additional people, is up to each university.

“The Board has authorized higher salary spending,” said IHL spokesperson Caron Blanton via email. “Whether and how much of that will actually be spent is up to the universities.”

At the IHL board meeting on Thursday, John Pearce, associate commissioner for finance, said IHL appropriated about $57 million for pay raises, which he estimated could amount to an average 4.6% salary increase for faculty at the eight universities.

Last year, Pearce said faculty received an average 2.5% salary increase. 

The funding increases are part of IHL’s six-year plan to bring faculty salaries in line with neighboring states, Pearce said at the meeting. To that end, the IHL will be asking the Legislature for a 6.4% increase in the upcoming fiscal year. 

At the meeting, Alfred Rankins, the IHL commissioner, said he appreciated lawmakers for allocating enough funds to make the pay increase possible. 

“I want to take this opportunity to thank our Legislature for appropriating additional funds to help increase salaries for our faculty and staff on our campuses,” said IHL Commissioner Alfred Rankins. 

Faculty at Mississippi universities are paid far less than their peers in neighboring states. The most recent data from Southern Regional Education Board shows that in 2020, the average salary of faculty at universities with the most doctoral programs was $99,100, while in Mississippi, it was $78,600, the lowest in the region. 

When comparing with faculty salaries for similar universities in neighboring states, the average salary is at least $10,000 more in every state.

Pearce presented this data on Mississippi’s  universities with the most doctoral programs, Mississippi State University, University of Mississippi, and the University of Southern Mississippi, at the board meeting. They focused on these institutions since 80% of faculty in Mississippi teach these three schools.

After the meeting, Blanton provided additional data on comparative salaries for the other Mississippi universities. Jackson State University, where faculty make an average of $63,800, ranks second to last compared to its peers and is also about $10,000 behind most neighboring states. The remaining universities — Alcorn State University, Delta State University, Mississippi University for Women, and Mississippi Valley State University — also rank last in their category, but are closer to some neighboring states. The average faculty salary at those universities is $56,500.   

The comparatively low salaries of professors in Mississippi have made it difficult for universities in the state to recruit and retain faculty. This is an issue at every university in Mississippi, but in general, the regional universities struggle to stay competitive more than the top-tier research universities. 

The highest faculty salaries in Mississippi are offered at the University of Mississippi, where the average tenured professor made about $115,000 during the 2020-21 school year, according to data from the U.S. Department of Education’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System. (The salary data from IPEDS includes the University of Mississippi Medical Center.) 

The average tenured professor at Mississippi Valley State University made about $64,000, the lowest salary at a state university. 

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The 3rd Congressional District runoff between U.S. Rep. Michael Guest and upstart candidate Michael Cassidy has devolved into a bitter affair featuring attack ads, name-calling and pointed questions about who is a true Republican.

For a few hours after it became apparent last week that upstart candidate Cassidy had garnered the most votes in the 3rd District U.S. House seat and had forced a June 28 runoff against incumbent Guest, policy — not politics — appeared the focus.

The Cassidy campaign sent out a news release the day after Election Day touting his “improved pro family policy,” a $10,000 per child federal tax deduction “for working families not currently receiving government assistance.”

But as the candidates and their supporters maneuver ahead of the June 28 runoff, focus is not on the child tax deduction nor any other policy. The two sides are slamming each other with negative attacks — including support for the child care policy.

PODCAST: Mississippi’s high-profile congressional runoffs

The Congressional Leadership Fund, an influential national super PAC dedicated to electing Republicans to Congress that has close ties to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, has rushed to Guest’s side with a TV ad attacking Cassidy for his support of costly programs, such as Medicare for all health care and a $20,000 payment for newlyweds.

“Another lying RINO,” the ad said, referring to the oft-used attack term that stands for “Republican In No Only.” The ad continues: “Michael Cassidy is hiding his socialist agenda.”

Cassidy, who says he will caucus with the ultra Conservative Freedom Caucus if elected to the U.S. House, has called Guest the “RINO.”

Cassidy, a former Navy fighter pilot, has said on his campaign website he supported what he thought would be the same health care for all Americans as what members of the military have.

“Within a week or two, I determined that this would cost too much money and that there were more conservative options, such as tort reform and allowing insurance to be purchased across state lines,” Cassidy said in response to the charge of him supporting Medicare for All. “I never raised this issue on the campaign trail or in any ads, literature or mail we sent out.”

U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi also is joining the fray in defense of Guest. According to the Federal Election Commission website, Hyde-Smith’s Mississippi Victory PAC is spending $6,800 in opposition of Cassidy.

And, of course, the candidates are attacking each other in dueling ads. Cassidy blasted Guest for joining Democratic President Joe Biden in sending funds to Ukraine to combat Russia’s attacks.

“Ukraine is not in our national interest, but fighting inflation and illegal immigration are,” the Cassidy ad said.

A Guest ad countered, “Mississippi doesn’t need a carpetbagger. It needs a conservative. A conservative like Michael Guest.”

The ad references that Cassidy is from out of state.  He moved to Meridian as part of his Navy military commitment and registered to vote in the state last year, according to the Guest ad.

Both sides are hitting each other with other charges as they campaign for the runoff on June 28. The runoff is needed because neither candidate garnered a majority in the June 7 Republican primary.

All registered voters in the 3rd District who did not vote in the June 7 Democratic primary will be eligible to cast a ballot in the runoff.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated when Cassidy’s health care proposal was removed from his website.

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Operation Shoestring has been providing after school and summer activities to children in Jackson for decades  – but this year, they’re doing things a bit differently.

The new undertaking is called “Project Rise,” and activities focused on physical and mental health are peppered throughout the summer. That includes integrating conversations about wellness into camp activities such as academic enrichment, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) activities, outdoor sports, swim classes and mentoring programs.

This year’s camp is serving about 125 third through fifth graders over a six-week period – free of charge.

Its programs during the summer and school year support kids in the Jackson Public School system and metro area. Students in Jackson are mostly from low-income families of color: 95% of students are Black, and 73.8% of students are on free or reduced lunch. 

For Laquinta Williams, the camp has been a tremendous help for her family. Williams is a single working mother of Markeem and Akirahs, students at Walton Elementary School who also attend Operation Shoestring’s summer programs. 

She believes the summer programming is especially important for her son Markeem, whose father recently passed away. 

“He likes to talk to them, and he doesn’t usually like to talk to people,” she said of the camp staffers. “He feels comfortable with them.” 

She also said the camp helps her to be able to work.

“It’s a lot of money raising children with no help,” she said. “ … We appreciate everything. This is the best service we have had hands down. They even offer us breakfast when we drop our kids off.” 

Supporting children is difficult to do alone, she said, and in past summers she’s paid for other summer camps and activities. The free activities at Operation Shoestring mean she doesn’t have that extra expense this year. 

Robert Langford, executive director of Operation Shoestring, said that the pressures that the COVID-19 pandemic had on communities of color, compounded by the immense stress caused by the murders of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery in 2020 and the ensuing social justice movement, created an urgent need within families across the country – especially in the Jackson community. 

Recent research shows that young people’s depressive and anxiety symptoms have doubled during the pandemic, with 25% of youth experiencing depressive symptoms and 20% experiencing anxiety symptoms. 

Suicide rates among Black children were increasing even before the pandemic, and Black children are now almost twice as likely to die by suicide than white children, according to the U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory. And children from low-income families are two to three times more likely to develop mental health disorders than those who are from higher income families – a startling statistic for a state like Mississippi, where around 30% of its children are poor.

To respond to the need for mental health support, Operation Shoestring weaves “positive, affirming language” into its classrooms and activities, as well as focusing on physical health and wellness, Langford said. 

The organization has partnered with a dietitian from the University of Mississippi Medical Center to illustrate the importance of nutrition in overall wellness, such as conducting cooking and nutrition classes and creating healthy recipes. 

Kids at camp will also partake in a baking class at Urban Foxes, a local family-owned pie shop. 

Langford said that Operation Shoestring values being able to provide students the ability to explore outdoor spaces, which they do through partnerships with St. Andrew’s Episcopal School and the Pearl River Keepers, an organization that works to protect the biodiversity of the Pearl River through cleanups and water testing and monitoring. 

At St. Andrew’s, students are encouraged to engage in different activities, such as basketball, soccer or wellness classes. 

During a wellness class on Monday, Lauren Powell, the school’s director of wellness and upper school counselor, had the children reflect on what it means to practice wellness and to be mindful – including laughter, physical activity, dancing and positive affirmations. Students then created a drawing that incorporated five to six positive characteristics about themselves, such as brave, curious, intelligent and kind. 

Students enjoy doing the cupid shuffle and other dances to wake themselves up and get ready before any other activities, she said, and the dances set the tone for the campers to be more self-expressive. 

Powell said she enjoys working with this age group because they’re able to express their emotions without embarrassment. 

When asked how to deal with children who may come from different backgrounds, Powell explained that St. Andrew’s employs something called “asset framing,” a way of enabling children to first be defined by their assets and aspirations before their challenges or deficits. 

“These kids come from very rich cultures, and very, very rich family traditions,” she said. 

Operation Shoestring is also continuing its tradition of offering support to campers’ parents. It provided cash support to families in need during the height of the pandemic and is now hosting two separate support group sessions for parents, one in Cultivation Food Hall and the other in the Ecoshed.  

“We really are about figuring out how we can build a world that is equitable for everybody. And we have a special responsibility in Mississippi because of our past to do what we can with what we have where we are,” said Langford. “So we see ourselves as an organization, as a place to provide direct services and to broker relationships with other people for building a healthier, more just, more compassionate world.” 

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GRAMMY® -nominated country singer/songwriter and Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee Rivers Rutherford will visit GRAMMY Museum® Mississippi on Monday, July 11, as the featured guest for the next installment of the Museum’s Words & Music: A Songwriter Series. The event will feature an evening of music and conversation with Rutherford, who has penned hits for artists, such as Brooks & Dunn, Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw, Brad Paisley, Dolly Parton, and Gretchen Wilson, among many others. 

 “We are so thrilled to welcome country music icon Rivers Rutherford to our museum for a special evening of music and performance,” said Emily Havens, Executive Director of GRAMMY Museum Mississippi. “Rivers has written hit songs for a remarkable number of artists and is a talented singer in his own right, and we’re looking forward to having him here to share his music and stories of his career.” 

Words & Music: Rivers Rutherford will take place on July 11 at 7 p.m. in the Sanders Soundstage. Tickets are $15 for GRAMMY Museum Mississippi Members and $20 for non-members. Tickets are currently on sale at grammymuseumms.org. 

Growing up in the shadow of Elvis Presley’s Graceland homestead in Memphis, soulful storyteller Rivers Rutherford came out of the gates swinging at 21 years old, landing his first cut with American legends Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and Kris Kristofferson (aka The Highwaymen). What followed were a dozen No. 1 hits, multiple GRAMMYs^®, CMA and ACM nominations, and over 20 ASCAP awards, including both of the coveted awards for Country Song Of The Year and Songwriter Of The Year, all of which have firmly established Rutherford’s position within the upper echelon of Nashville’s most lauded songwriters.

You’ll see Rivers’ name on No. 1 songs by Rodney Atkins, Trace Atkins, Brooks & Dunn, Kenny Chesney, Faith Hill, Montgomery Gentry, Toby Keith, Tim McGraw, Brad Paisley, Dolly Parton, and Gretchen Wilson. Rivers has also enjoyed success with country giants such as Lady A, Gary Allan, George Jones, Reba McEntire, Carrie Underwood, Keith Urban, Hank Williams Jr., and many others.

Currently signed to Verse 2 Music, Rivers continues to write with and for the biggest names in country music and in 2019 he was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.

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