New England Public Radio

Not For The First Time, Mass. Governor Pushes To Run Federal Water Program

Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker is again pushing an environmental bill that — if funded — would allow the state to take the reins of a federal water protection program.

Massachusetts is one of four states that leaves it to the federal government to administer a clean water permit program. New Hampshire is another.

Baker’s bill, which failed last session , would increase staff at the state Department of Environmental Protection, allowing sewage permits, for instance, to be more frequently reviewed, and water to be tested more often.

Environmental Groups Divided

While the Conservation Law Foundation said lawmakers should reject Baker’s proposal because it’s underfunded, the Connecticut River Watershed Council’s Andrew Fisk said his group supports the bill.

“The governor’s putting Massachusetts money forward which is great,” Fisk said. “He needs to put more money forward, that can’t be subject to political winds.”

The state effort is all the more important, Fisk said, because of proposed cuts at the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

Thoroughbred Owners and Trainers Looking To Build A Track In Spencer

A group of race horse owners and trainers are looking at the central Massachusetts town of Spencer as a location for a new race track.

Besides the track, the plan includes space for equestrian shows, riding trails and an area to retrain horses.

Paul Umbrello is the executive director of the New England Horseman’s Benevolent and Protective Association.

“We’re talking about $100 million in an economic boost to the economy, so that’s important to us,” Umbrello said. “But more importantly, it’s the jobs. The UMass study came up with, conservatively, 900 jobs.”

Umbrello is referring to a study by the UMass Amherst Center for Economic Development that was commissioned by the horseman’s group.

Besides the land, another important detail — financing — has yet to be finalized. At least some money from the state’s race horse development fund — money collected from casinos — could be used to help pay for the park.

Young Man Walks Across America to Listen, Reflect, Understand

Five years ago, at 23, Andrew Forsthoefel decided to walk 4,000 miles across America with a handmade sign that said “Walking to Listen.” Along the way, he recorded dozens of stories from the people he met.

Now settled in Western Massachusetts, Forsthoefel has a new book about his journey.

Andrew Forsthoefel lives above a beer supply shop on a busy commercial strip in Northampton, so we walked to a bike path, where we had a few quiet miles to chat.

This is familiar terrain for Forsthoefel — walking and talking. It’s how he spent 11 months wandering from Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania — where he waved goodbye to his worried mother and set off on the railroad tracks — all the way to Half Moon Bay, California.

Andrew Forsthoefel on the first day of his cross-country hike – in a photo by his mother, Therese Jornlin.

“Before I walked across the country, walking was something I had done in sort of fits and starts, little hiking trips,” he said. “And then when I committed to a long-distance through-hike, walking became both my lover and my enemy. It became my teacher. It became a meditation, and it was miserable too! I don’t want to romanticize how miserable the experience was.”

When he started, Forsthoefel was a recent graduate of Middlebury College in Vermont, still grieving his parents’ divorce and looking for wisdom to guide him into adulthood.

He’d hoped to travel to a small village in Africa, but he lost a well-paying job and needed a cheaper adventure. That’s when he decided to fill a backpack with outdoor gear, a flip-phone, a mandolin and three books of poetry.

With $4,000 in savings, he planned to camp when necessary, accept a free couch when offered and record people’s stories.

“What sort of began to happen was that the walking primed me for connection with people,” he said. “All the hours I spent alone walking, sort of put me in this state of — well, basically — loneliness. I was just damn lonely out there, you know. To meet someone at the end of a day was just a miraculous thing to experience. Because there was no guarantee that I’d be with anyone that night. Maybe I was going to be under a bridge alone again.”

Forsthoefel followed a few self-imposed rules. He wouldn’t accept any ride that would shorten the trip. He would use only paper maps — no internet or GPS. And he wouldn’t listen to recorded music or podcasts.

“I wanted to be approachable. I wanted people to feel they wouldn’t be interrupting me, if they stopped and said something,” he said. “So I chose not to wear ear buds.”

That also helped him focus on self-reflection and random observations.

“I’d be walking along and I’d see a little strand of spider silk floating by, and just be mesmerized,” he said. “I would hear sounds I wouldn’t have heard otherwise. I’d feel things in my body I wouldn’t have felt otherwise. So it all became a pretty entertaining spectacle.”

He kept mostly to a southern route. Halfway through the trip, he bought a used babystroller to help haul his stuff, which must have been quite an image, he conceded, especially during the occasional bout of crying along the lonely highway.

He ate deep fried squirrel, got lost in the desert, and sang Amazing Grace with an old woman in Alabama.

He met many people outside the bubble of his middle-class youth: a trucker, prison guard, astrologer, Christian missionary, ceremonial dancer, retired bounty hunter, among others. He said they were often colorful, generous and contradictory.

“There was one woman and her husband who took me in to their home, took me out to dinner at Applebee’s or something. We had a great interview that night, cooked me breakfast in the morning,” he recalled. “And just as I’m heading out, she said, ‘You should think twice about walking through this town coming up ahead. All the whites left and the help stayed, and the Southern black is a whole different animal than the Northern black.'”

Forsthoefel said that kind of bigotry tended to shock him into silence, and he regrets not engaging people more in a discussion of their beliefs, and his. He said that’s one reason he wrote the book — to link the different perspectives he came across.

“I wished so many times that people I’d been with just the day before, who were warning me about people in the next town over, I wished they could be with me that night when I went to that town and got to meet some of these people and actually listen to them,” he said.

He emphasized that not only Southern conservatives could use a wider lens on the world, which is why he hopes his own example inspires future extreme-walkers.

“It would humble the most bleeding-heart liberal,” he said. “It would have the potential to complicate things for them in a way that’s very important, I think. Sort of erase the notion that anything is black and white. — including a Trump supporter. A Trump supporter is more than a Trump supporter. What else are they?”

Today, at 28, Forsthoefel is a full-time writer and public speaker. After a spiritual awakening on his big hike, he studies Buddhism and meditates.

If he were to take another cross-country listening walk, he said, he’d do it with other people.

Andrew Forsthoefel dedicated his book, “Walking To Listen,” to his mother.

Note: Thanks to Transom.org for interview clips from Forsthoefel’s journey, used in the broadcast version of this story. You can listen to Forsthoefel’s 2013 audio documentary about his trip.

Resettlement Agency Hopes To Bring In More Refugees Ahead of Trump’s Order

A resettlement agency in Western Massachusetts is hoping to welcome more refugees into the country before President Trump’s latest executive order goes into effect next week. The order suspends the arrival of new refugees for at least 120 days.

Kathryn Buckley-Brawner, executive director of Catholic Charities in Springfield, said her agency is trying to figure out what the order means for people who are waiting to get here.

“I’m trying to zero-in on whether there is any possibility that those who are in the pipeline — in other words, already have been approved by the State Department –whether within the next 10 days or so those families could still move,” said Buckley-Brawner.

Buckley-Brawner said she wants to get three refugees from Afghanistan here, who have been approved by the State Department.

Since the president’s last executive order was blocked by the courts, more than 200 refugees have resettled in New England.

The Week Ahead On Beacon Hill

This week, a state commission in Massachusetts will meet to set the official health care cost benchmark. This system was put into place a number of years ago to keep a close watch on rising health care costs. For more, we checked in with State House News Service reporter Matt Murphy, as we do most Mondays.

Also this week:

  • The legislature’s transportation committee takes up road construction funds.
  • Governor Charlie Baker’s $40.5 billion state budget proposal gets its first public hearing on Thursday.

Click the audio player above to hear Carrie Healy’s conversation with Matt Murphy about the week ahead on Beacon Hill.

Small Town Comes Together After House Fire Kills Mother And Four Children

The exact cause of an early Saturday morning fire that nearly wiped out an entire family in rural western Massachusetts is not yet confirmed. Investigators said the blaze in a single family home on a dirt road deep in Warwick could have started at a wood stove in the kitchen. It appears to be accidental.

On Sunday, residents turned out to mourn the loss of a mother who was active in town activities, and her four children.

While authorities have not identified the victims of the fire by name, everyone in this small town knows whose house burned down, and many know the family personally. The father — Scott Seago — survived the blaze, along with one child.

They were among the crowd at the elementary school in Warwick Sunday afternoon, along with at least 100 others — a large portion of this town of just 800 residents.

State Senate President Stan Rosenberg from Amherst was here, as was state Representative Susannah Whipps, who lives in nearby Athol. On her way out, Whipps said most of the towns in her district are small, like Warwick. And people really look out for each other.

“You have to when you live out here,” Whipps said. “I mean, we’re in a community with virtually no broadband service, [a] small school. It’s a beautiful place to live. It’s a quiet place to live. It’s a true village.”

Warwick is right at the New Hampshire border, one of several sparsely populated towns with a lot of land in what’s called the North Quabbin region. Fire departments from all around show up to help out, as they did Saturday. But the blaze had consumed the house by the time they arrived.

Whipps said a woman who was inside the school sold the Seagos their home a few years ago. She lives nearby, and she brought pictures over. This family has lost everything, Whipps said.

“Everybody comes together, and everybody’s hurting,” she said.

One Warwick resident who came out of the school said he worked with Scott Seago on the town’s broadband committee. Another was a substitute teacher at the elementary school, and knew the kids. But almost no one wanted to speak with the media.

David Young, the town coordinator in Warwick, would talk — a little. Standing outside the school, after almost everyone left, he said the event was helpful. For him, uplifting.

“A lot of people from the community turned out. We’re trying to figure out what to do next. I know the school is pretty well prepared for helping the kids through this [Monday],” Young said.

But Young on Sunday didn’t mention the family by name. He said he can’t, until the district attorney releases that information. But as an official, he said, he knew the family well. He described the mother, Lucinda Seago, whose name is on the town website, as business-like.

“Very much on top of things. Competent and smart, and a member of our Board of Health,” he said. And she had recently completed her degree to become a registered nurse.

Like their parents, Young said, the kids are incredibly bright. He said he he thinks they range from ages 6 to 15.

“I felt terrible for the surviving child who was here, in our midst,” Young said. “She held up well by all appearances, but I can’t imagine…I can’t imagine…” he trailed off.

Inside the school, after the politicians spoke, Young said people sat around talking to each other. A couple of residents who worked on the broadband committee left early to buy Scott Seago a new cellphone.

Where the house stood is now a mound of burned debris, with nearby cars licked by flames. There are no hydrants in Warwick, Young said. There are “fire ponds.” That’s part of rural life, he said.