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News law requiring drug testing for welfare recipients stalls
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ATLANTA — Georgia won't immediately enforce a new law that would make applicants for welfare pass a drug test before they can receive benefits.

Brian Robinson, spokesman for Gov. Nathan Deal, said Tuesday the governor still supports the law, but wants to hold off on implementation pending the outcome of legal action against similar legislation in Florida.

The Florida law took effect in July 2011 but was blocked by a federal judge in October. The ruling has been appealed to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Robinson said the state is trying to avoid needlessly wasting taxpayer dollars.

“The governor feels confident that the law in Florida, and therefore in Georgia, will be upheld,” Robinson said. “We plan to move forward on this as soon as we can, but we’re willing to wait a little bit longer on the federal courts. There’s just no need in us hopping in.”

The Republican-controlled Le0gislature passed the law this session, arguing that the state should ensure that welfare benefits are used for their intended purpose, not to subsidize drug use and associated criminal activity. Supporters also said the legislation would protect poor children and help addicted adults rebuild their lives.

Democrats blasted the law as an unfair burden on the poor, and opponents vowed early to challenge the law in court after it is put into practice.

Under the law, the state Department of Human Services must create a drug-testing program that would be paid for by welfare applicants unless they receive Medicaid. Applicants who test negative for drugs would be eligible for reimbursement.

Those who fail would be ineligible to receive benefits for a month. A second positive result would result in a three-month ineligibility period, and a third violation would ban someone from applying for a year. Any applicant who fails would not be eligible until they can pass a drug test.

The state would have to provide individuals who test positive with a list of substance-abuse treatment providers in their area, but does not have to provide or pay for treatment for those individuals. Test results cannot be used to prosecute people and must be destroyed in five years.

According to the language in the bill, there is no specific date attached for when the department must create guidelines for the drug testing program.

Courts have struck down similar laws in other states, but supporters in Georgia have said the law here would be upheld. Random drug testing is banned for constitutional reasons, but the U.S. Supreme Court has defined special exceptions to that rule, such as when a serious public need outweighs a person’s right to privacy. What qualifies as such an exception can be murky.

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Book review: Author digs into mining's complicated past and present in 'River of Lost Souls'
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Jonathan Thompson will speak about his book "River of Lost Souls" at the King's English Bookshop on Tuesday, April 3 at 7 p.m. - photo by Amanda Olson
"RIVER OF LOST SOULS: The Science, Politics, and Greed Behind the Gold King Mine Spill," by Jonathan Thompson, Torrey House Press, 275 pages (nf)

Plenty has been written about the very small world of a mining town and the very broad reach of a beleaguered industry. From Loretta Lynns iconic song "Coal Miners Daughter," to the 2010 nail-biting coverage of 33 trapped Chilean miners, to the hit Broadway musicals "Paint Your Wagon" and "Billy Elliot," mining is a global story, and its one of heartbreak, hard work and hard times.

Jonathan Thompsons "River of Lost Souls" examines the many facets of risk involved in taking resources from below the earths surface. An environmental journalist, Thompson has reported on southwest Colorado for over 20 years. This book is special, however, because the Four Corners area of Colorado is his current and ancestral home. Thompson is writing about minings ecological, social, financial and political impact on his land, his landscape, his water, his people. That makes "River of Lost Souls" more than a regular reporting job.

Thompson begins with the Gold King Mine wastewater disaster of 2015, which the EPA caused while attempting to drain water near the mines entrance. The spill sent 3 million gallons of waste and tailings into Cement Creek, a tributary of the Animas River and part of the San Juan River watershed which drains into the Colorado, affecting the Utah, Colorado and New Mexico parts of that watershed as well as the Navajo Nation.

From there, Thompson jumps into far stretches of time to 1765, when a Spanish explorer named the Animas River; to 10,000 years earlier, when Paleo-Indians roamed the rivers valley; to the meridian of time, when the ancestors of the Zuni, Hopi and Rio Grande Pueblo people inhabited the land for 500 years; to the mid-1800s and the Swedes who came to Silverton, Colorado, to mine.

Its a grand scope, but telling any story of landscape is telling a very grand story.

It also makes a complex story difficult to follow. Thompsons time warps are important, but they are jarring. His time jumps need clear dates, and Thompson doesnt always make them available. A map would also be useful. Thompsons writing is good, but his sentences can be dense and require readers to do their own mining for the riches the writing embeds. The work is worthwhile, however, as there are many moving parts in any story about mines land, culture, policy, history, money, inevitable disaster and Thompson works to examine all of them.

"River of Lost Souls" is a thoughtful read, but not a quick one. Because Thompsons writings come from 20 years of his newspaper reports, the overall feeling can be disjointed and sparse, which is distracting if one is expecting to follow a tenable thread. This is not a typical narrative with a cast of characters and a traditional story arc. Readers should approach this text as the investigation it is: puzzle pieces of a larger-than-life story that is eons old. If you are the kind of reader who wants it laid out cleanly, this is not that book. But, to Thompsons point, nothing is clean about mining that has never been the case.

Thompsons best writing is in his descriptions of people and places. His telling of how he came to Silverton is familiar and engaging. If readers approach the book with care and attention, they will be rewarded with savoring these descriptive passages when they happen.
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