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Turnout strong early across Georgia
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ATLANTA -- Millions of Georgia voters are set to crowd polling sites across the state Tuesday amid warnings that some residents could wait in lines that could stretch hours long.

The lengthy lines have fast become a familiar sight in Georgia as computer glitches and higher-than-expected turnout forced voters to wait as long as eight hours during advance voting last week.

But Georgia's early voting strategy is also expected to relieve the crush of voters descending on Georgia's more than 3,000 polling precincts Tuesday. More than 2 million people have already voted, accounting for 36 percent of Georgia's 5.6 million electorate.

Polls in Georgia opened at 7 a.m. and close at 7 p.m., but some voters could still be waiting deep into the night.

"Our plan is to vote every voter that's in line in the time period that's allotted," said Annie Bright, elections director of Clayton County. "We're doing anything we can to get them all voted. Even if it takes all night."

Early Tuesday, voters waited in line up to two hours long to cast their ballots across the state. Most polling locations were running smoothly, though some computer problems were reported as voting got underway.

At Bible Way Ministries in Atlanta, voters had to fill out paper ballots for about half an hour after polls opened because election workers were using the wrong procedure to create voter access cards, said Matt Carrothers with the Georgia Secretary of State's office.

Both political parties are dispatching hundreds of election monitors and attorneys to voting sites. The nonpartisan group Georgia Election Protection is also planning to deploy more than 600 volunteers to help resolve voting disputes on Tuesday. And Secretary of State Karen Handel's office said it has sent monitors around the state to help handle any problems.

Handel, a Republican, has been under fire by critics who say she should call for longer voting hours.

The Democratic Party of Georgia's chair proclaimed a voting "crisis," and other prominent Democrats have called for federal intervention to clear the way for extended hours, more voting machines and more staff.

Handel, though, has accused the critics of "grandstanding" and noted that any changes to election procedure first need to be cleared by the Department of Justice.

Voters, meanwhile, seem to be crossing their fingers in hopes the day will go off without a hitch.

"I would hope that we can act in an adult, responsible way," said Millie Rogers, a 61-year-old Marietta Republican who waited three hours to vote last week. "This is a right we have, and I hope everyone will behave in an appropriate way so nothing will happen."


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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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