Where the Shit Hits the Fan

At this moral moment in America, I'm going back to work to report on the effects a despotic regime's dictates will have for the environment of coastal NC

We are at a moral moment in America. I can’t sit idly as a despotic regime hides and twists the truth in a full-throttle attempt to dismantle our democracy because if we lose the truth, we lose it all.

So, I’m going back to work reporting and writing about what I see. It’s all I know to do.

After eight years of retirement, I’m teaming up with my old colleagues at Coastal Review, the award-winning online news service that I helped start more than a decade ago. The national media gives you the view from 30,000 feet. We’ll take you on the ground with a series of occasional stories about the effects some of the wanton cuts in federal programs, agencies, and staff are having on us in North Carolina. We’ll focus on the environment because that’s what we know.

I’m calling this series Where the Shit Hits the Fan. My friends at Coastal Review will likely come up with a more genteel name for their site. All stories will be posted in both places. (Here, by the way, is an interesting aside about that interesting idiom.)¹

My first story will likely be ready next week. I’m looking into the sudden, unprecedented cancelling of a federal grant program that helped towns and counties better fortify themselves against the damage of a stormier future triggered by a changing climate. Preparing for the havoc that will come is about all we reasonably can do now, and dozens of N.C. communities were hoping to raise structures and roads, move sewer pumps stations out of flood zones, strengthen building codes, and control flooding from stormwater. They applied for the FEMA grants, were promised more than $185 million, and now likely won’t see a dime. Because they can’t afford to do all this on their own, we’ll all pay for this shortsighted decision for decades to come.

Other stories will look at the effects of staff and budget cuts at our two national seashores and coastal national forests and wildlife refuges. The tourist season will soon be upon us, and millions of people will be visiting those places, spending their dollars in local communities, to enjoy our state’s natural beauty. We’ll examine what might change when they get there because of cuts in services and programs.

We’ll look at the planned closure of NOAA’s famed research lab on Pivers Island near Beaufort. The second-oldest NOAA research center in the country, the lab has done seminal studies on dozens of marine species with data going back decades. What will we lose if those studies end? The center’s scientists and staff have deep roots in the community. How will their lives be uprooted?

The Army Corps of Engineers are the main drivers of beach renourishment and shore stabilization projects that protect billions of dollars of waterfront real estate from a rising sea. Local governments rely on the Corps’ scientific and engineering expertise and on the federal dollars that come with it. How will the cuts affect the Corps’ districts in N.C. and their ability to continue providing money, guidance, and protection?

The regime threatens to all but kill the EPA by getting rid of rules it doesn’t like and ignoring others. Will North Carolina have the money and political willpower to fill the gap? If so, what would it cost state taxpayers to pick after EPA? If not, what are we likely to lose?

Other stories will examine the federal cuts in scientific research at our universities, the effects on coastal tourism if foreigners cancel vacations to N.C., the loss of federal money to conservation groups that buy and protect environmentally sensitive land, federal inspections of dams and water supplies. Many others will become apparent as we move forward. If you have an idea, please feel free to share it in the comments below.

A central feature of many of these stories will be the chill that has settled on the federal establishment. Usually talkative sources have been ordered to remain silent. Others are fearful of poking a vengeful bear. Those in the regime responsible for these decisions hide in the shadows. They leave no contacts or even working phone numbers on their press releases and website. They don’t return emails. They appear only on Fox or other propaganda outlets. Putin’s Russia, I think, must have started like this.

If you live on the N.C. coast, vacation here, or just want to know what’s happening on the ground after the headlines you see in the news, check back often. Consider subscribing to this site and to Coastal Review. Both are free.

Time to get to work.

1. My wife, Doris, is an inveterate reader. Sometimes, she has two books going at a time. One morning not too long ago, she looked up from her book and asked me about the origins of the idiom “where the shit hits the fan.” I had no idea. “Writers should know that kind of stuff,” she said, before returning to her book.

Never one to ignore a challenge, I got to researching. Like with so many idioms, the origins of this one are obscure. Because it first started appearing in print in English in the late 1920s, some etymologists speculate a popular joke of the era may be the fountainhead.

I guy walks into a crowded speakeasy and asks the bartender about a bathroom. It was a seedy joint and didn’t have one. The guy, though, really had to go. He wandered to the back and up a flight of stairs to an empty room. He saw a convenient hole in the floor in the floor and defecated into it.

When he returned downstairs, the bar was empty, and the bartender was hiding behind the bar.

“Where’d everybody go?” the guy asked.

“You must not have been here when the shit hit the fan,” the bartender said.