Edge of the Story
True stories of overlooked witnesses at pivotal moments in history and the events they quietly observed.
Edge of the Story
The Gap - Bonus Episode
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A discussion of the book, The Gap. A conversation between Julia and Darrell talking about the book, an introduction to Gap2 and The Seven which comes out on Audio in August.
Have you ever been in a room where something shifted—but no one said it out loud?
Share your story at www.edgeofthestory.com/heard
.
If we feature it, we’ll send you an Edge of the Story notebook—because some observations are worth writing down.
Twelve Gallons And No Ending
SPEAKER_00No. Say it again because I don't think people believed you the first time.
SPEAKER_0112 gallons.
SPEAKER_0012 gallons of water. To write the book about the guy whose well ran dry.
SPEAKER_01Somewhere between half a gallon and 12. Nobody knows exactly. That's kind of the point.
SPEAKER_00That's a hell of a way to end a book you spent a year reporting.
SPEAKER_01I didn't want a clean ending. Clean endings are how you know somebody's lying to you.
Why We Made A Bonus Talk
SPEAKER_00Welcome to the bonus episode, everybody. I'm Julia.
SPEAKER_01I'm Daryl. All four parts of the gap are out now. The paperback's been up since June, and Julia and I figured, before we move on to whatever's next, we'd sit down and actually talk about this one. Not a chapter breakdown, just us.
SPEAKER_00What's stuck? What's happened since? What people keep asking about.
SPEAKER_01The comment I keep getting, almost word for word, no matter who's saying it. This was rounded. Fair to both sides. Stuff they'd never heard, never once thought about.
SPEAKER_00That's the review that actually matters to me. Not I agree with you. I didn't know this.
SPEAKER_01Because I wasn't trying to win anyone over. I was trying to hand people what I found and let them do something with
Vicky Who And The Spreadsheet
SPEAKER_01it.
SPEAKER_00That's a good place to start, actually, because when people bring up a specific voice from the book, it's never the data. It's the people.
SPEAKER_01No argument there.
SPEAKER_00So out of everybody. Crawford, Morris, Who, Gibson, who hit you hardest? Be honest. Don't give me the diplomatic answer.
SPEAKER_01Vicky Who.
SPEAKER_00The spreadsheet.
SPEAKER_01The spreadsheet gets people. But it's the line after the spreadsheet that got me. She's holding up three numbers, January 24, 25, 26, 64% in two years, and then she just puts it down. And says, thirty years ago I came here searching my American dream. I never thought about fighting Power Company as part of that.
SPEAKER_00That's not the American dream. That's a bad dream she's been living inside for a year.
SPEAKER_01That's exactly it. Nobody moves to this country planning to spend their Tuesday nights reading transmission easement law.
SPEAKER_00You know what people bring up to me? Not the spreadsheet. Say what he actually said.
SPEAKER_01Dominion Rep calls her out of nowhere, tells her a tower's going in 65 feet from her back door. She asks how he got her number. He says, I know who you are. We Google you. Then tells her they Googled her neighbors too.
SPEAKER_00In a neighborhood that's what? 70% first generation.
SPEAKER_01Nearly 70% first generation Asian immigrants. Yeah. 5,000 households. And the first thing anyone from the utility says to her is I know exactly who you are.
SPEAKER_00That's not a customer service call. That's a message.
SPEAKER_01She said it gave her a certain creepy feeling. I believe her.
The Route Decision Lands
SPEAKER_00Okay, we have to update this one because it didn't stop where the book stopped.
SPEAKER_01No. Golden to Mars. That's the actual project name. The line everybody in the book just calls the transmission line. The SCC made its final route call.
SPEAKER_00When?
SPEAKER_01July 1st, three weeks ago. And they picked Route 3A, Hughes Route, the one that runs past her back door.
SPEAKER_00Not Route 4, the one they said they preferred.
SPEAKER_01That's the part that got me. The Commission's own order calls 3A clearly inferior to Route 4. Their words. By almost every objective measure. And they picked it anyway, because the school board wouldn't hand over the land for Route 4 in time. And the Commission said further delay put the grid at risk.
SPEAKER_00So the worst Route won because a deadline won.
SPEAKER_01The worst Route won because a deadline won. Dominion's got 30 days to file the actual map. There's a joint public meeting on the 29th. That's two days from whenever you're hearing this.
SPEAKER_00So when we said the law will pay her for the strip of ground, it won't pay her for the rest.
SPEAKER_01That's not a metaphor anymore. That's the current draft of her life.
Hood County Votes With No Conditions
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Let's just Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay, Crawford, Hood County? What's the update there?
SPEAKER_01Two things happened, and they cut in opposite directions, so hold both.
SPEAKER_00Go.
SPEAKER_01June ninth, Hood County Commissioners voted three to one to approve the Comanche Circle concept plan. No conditions. Meeting got heated. Somebody in the crowd asked point blank if officials were being paid off, and the county attorney snapped back, not a dime. You're accusing people of being crooks. I'm tired of that. We don't have one iota of evidence. The developer didn't even show. Sat home and typed into the live stream chat instead. Glad you guys are having fun. Something about a commissioner's Armani watch, then where do I get my reputation back?
SPEAKER_00While his own project's getting approved.
SPEAKER_01While his own project's getting approved.
SPEAKER_00That's a gut punch. Why the rush though? No conditions at all.
SPEAKER_01Crawford's got a line for that, and it's not the one you'd expect. Everybody assumes this is a race against China, what he actually told me. It's not just a race against China, it's a race to beat the rule changes.
SPEAKER_00Meaning get it approved before anybody writes a rule that could touch it.
SPEAKER_01Get the concept plan filed, the water claim, the power requested. So whatever a future legislature decides, the developer answers grandfathered in.
SPEAKER_00So June 9th wasn't really about the data center. It was about beating a clock nobody's even put a number on yet.
SPEAKER_01That's exactly it.
SPEAKER_00So what happened next?
SPEAKER_01Nine days later, June 18th, NRG polled its permit for the gas plant that was supposed to power the whole thing. Two gigawatts gone. Officially, it's routine site evaluation. Unofficially, over eleven thousand public comments against it.
SPEAKER_00So the data center's still coming, but the specific plant that was going to run it isn't.
SPEAKER_01Right now, today that's exactly where it stands. Crawford's group is calling it a win. It's a real win. It's just not the whole fight.
SPEAKER_00Both things true at once. Story of this book.
SPEAKER_01Story of this
Indianapolis Zoning And Tax Break Math
SPEAKER_01book.
SPEAKER_00What about Metroblocks? Indianapolis.
SPEAKER_01Zoning went through in the spring. Now it's about money. The city's floating a $56 million tax break. Real property and the equipment both. And the city's own economic development director says publicly she doesn't support it because the council's trying to slow walk a moratorium on data centers at the same time.
SPEAKER_00Wait, her own department wants the deal and she's against it.
SPEAKER_01The Commission votes August 5th. Metroblox has offered somewhere between two and a half and 20 million for affordable housing, depending on how big a tax break they get to keep.
SPEAKER_00So the bigger the break, the bigger the thank you check.
SPEAKER_01Paid for with money, the city gave up in the first place. Watch that one.
Bloom Energy’s Money Moves Fast
SPEAKER_00Let's do something we haven't done on this show. Talk about the side that's winning without a fight.
SPEAKER_01Bloom Energy.
SPEAKER_00You buried them in the technology chapter. One paragraph.
SPEAKER_01Because when I wrote it, they were still a bet. They're not a bet anymore. 7.65 billion dollars in signed contracts in a single 90-day stretch this year.
SPEAKER_00Say that slower.
SPEAKER_01$7 billion, $650 million, AEP for a gigawatt of capacity, 20 years, $2.65 billion. Brookfield put $5 billion behind them in March just to finance deployment. Oracle signed on in April for up to 2.8 gigawatts. That's the comparison I want people to sit with. Local fights move in months and public comment periods. That money moved in 90 days. I
No One Gets A Pass
SPEAKER_01don't get to write that from outside it, but the reader or listener don't get a pass either. I may have used twelve gallons of Becky's water, but how many gallons have you used streaming movies, checking your bank account, sending emails, and posting on Facebook? No one gets a pass, that's the point.
SPEAKER_00Okay, what's
What We Want You To Do
SPEAKER_00next? Gap two.
SPEAKER_01Same method, same rooms. Just watching where these threads go. NRG. Metro blocks, wherever Vicky Hughes' route ends up. I'm not closing the file on any of it.
SPEAKER_00And the seven.
SPEAKER_01August. Different subject, same method. Find the room nobody's looking at, go stand in it. The seven is a fictional account of the 1957 All-Star Ballot scandal in Cincinnati, Ohio. Real event, fictional characters, easy listening for hot summer days.
SPEAKER_00For anybody just catching this after finishing the Gap Audiobook, what do you actually want them to do with it?
SPEAKER_01Don't pick a side because of this book. Pick aside because you looked at what's happening in your own county, your own utility bill, your own backyard, and you decided, I closed the information gap where I could. I didn't come here to close the argument.
SPEAKER_00The headline is never the story.
SPEAKER_01It never is. It's the moments noticed.
SPEAKER_00That's
Send Us Your Fence Line Moment
SPEAKER_00the show. Thanks for sticking with all four parts of this one. If you've got your own version of Vicky Who's phone call, a moment where the thing arrived at your fence, we want to hear it.
SPEAKER_01Edge of the story. We'll see you next week.