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Local food, local goods, local everything is in, as you’ve no doubt heard. Local is fresher. Local burns less shipping fuel. Local keeps the wealth nearby.

Naturally, there’s money to be made off local, so big businesses are muscling into the game. The emerging term is localwashing—a variation on greenwashing wherein businesses claim to be local when actually ... you get it.

“The ingenuity of the food manufacturers and marketers never ceases to amaze me,” said author Michael Pollan, who’s done more to articulate the need for local in the food realm than maybe anyone else. “They can turn any critique into a new way to sell food. You’ve got to hand it to them.”

Here’s a look at some prime examples of that ingenuity/absurdity/deception.

Courtesy NEAFP.comCitgo: “Local. Loyal. Like it should be.” The crop of new billboards from the petroleum company owned by Hugo Chavez’s Venezuelan government makes sense only if the rather undemocratic president lives around the corner from you. Which he doesn’t.

Maybe you’ve heard of this cute little bookstore around the corner. It’s got a DIY-looking video blog with the tagline, “All bookselling is local.” Except when it isn’t.

“Hellmann’s Mayonnaise, a U.S.-based subsidiary of European processed-food behemoth Unilever, has seen fit to subject Canada (Canada?) to an eat-local campaign,” reports Grist Food Editor Tom Philpott. He’s dumbfounded. Here are those locally sourced ingredients of which Hellmann’s is so proud:

WATER, MODIFIED CORN STARCH, SOYBEAN OIL, VINEGAR, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, EGG WHITES, SALT, SUGAR, XANTHAN GUM, LEMON AND LIME PEEL FIBERS, COLORS ADDED, LACTIC ACID, (SODIUM BENZOATE, CALCIUM DISODIUM EDTA) USED TO PROTECT QUALITY, PHOSPHORIC ACID, NATURAL FLAVORS.

The Hellmann’s campaign also asks Canadians to take a hard look at the food-kilometers of the non-mayonnaise portion of their diet.

Potato farmers pitch chips fresh from the field in a series of ads from Frito-Lay North America, a subsidiary of PepsiCo. The five regional ads reportedly feature farmers who really do grow potatoes in those areas. “By this logic, all of us here in Iowa can begin referring to high fructose corn syrup as a local food as well,” writes Kurt Michael Friese.

Courtesy PSFK.comThese green “local” signs in a New York Whole Foods might point to brands that are local. But the coffee they’re selling wasn’t grown anywhere near Union Square. Blatant deception? No. But one blogger asks for a little clarity please.

In a bit of un-branding that caught the attention of its hometown, Starbucks stripped its name and logo from a Seattle coffee shop and reopened as the “rustic” 15th Ave Coffee and Tea.

Courtesy The Stranger.Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood greeted indie-Starbucks with mockery.

The “We buy local” website of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce includes such mom-and-pop establishments as Wal-Mart. Stacy Mitchell’s superb reporting on localwashing exposes how regional booster groups, through campaigns like this, enable multinational companies to brand themselves as local.

Photo: Whyibuylocal.comIn central California, the Economic Development Corporation of Fresno County launched its Buy Local campaign at the Fashion Fair Mall, with Macy’s in the background. Nearby chains Anthropologie and The Cheesecake Factory added to the confusing message, Mitchell reports.

Banners saying simply “Local” hang above the produce sections at some Wal-Marts. Don’t ask questions. Writes Mitchell: “The chain's local food offerings are usually limited to a few of the main commodity crops of that particular state—peaches in Georgia or potatoes in Maine—and sit amid a sea of industrial food and other goods shipped from the far side of the planet.”

Finally, HSBC calls itself “the world's local bank.” It’s a very large bank--one of the world's largest. This sign is from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

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A re-consecration ceremony was held this past weekend at a damaged Indian mound in Oxford, Ala. As we reported last month, the 1,500-year-old sacred and archaeologically significant site was partially demolished during a taxpayer-funded economic development project, with the excavated dirt to be used as fill for construction of a Sam's Club, a retail warehouse store owned by Wal-Mart.

Following protests, the city appears to be backing away from the destruction, with a local landowner reporting that his property would be the source for the fill instead.

But it turns out the incident in Oxford is not the first time Arkansas-based Wal-Mart has been involved in the controversial destruction of sacred and/or archaeologically significant Native American sites.

Reader Marlin Mackley brought to our attention a similar incident in Fenton, Mo., a picturesque historic town along the Meramec River in the eastern part of the state. Inhabited for over 1,000 years, the area was home to the Fenton Mounds, two earthen burial structures dated between 600 and 1400 A.D. But in 2001, the Fenton Mounds were leveled for a Wal-Mart Supercenter.

Mackley wrote on the website he created to document what happened:

As a 15 year resident of Old Town Fenton I watched in tears as the Former Fenton Indian Burial Mounds Mesa as I call it was excavated. Over and above the crimes against human history perpetrated by these preditory developers we in my city have to look at the back of a plain block building set on top of a pile of rocks.

The St. Louis Riverfront Times newspaper reported how workers with SCI, the engineering firm hired to determine whether there were remains at the site, grew short on time so began digging less carefully -- and soon struck human bone. Recalled Debra Magruder, a member of the crew who later filed a complaint with the state:

"The story I heard was that the guy working in that area thought it was a tree root and used some root clippers and snapped it in half. Then, when they figured out it was a femur, they just covered it and left it, half sticking out, and a looter came and ripped it out of the mound." The femur was indeed protruding from within a stone box chamber. On Feb. 17, a survey crew lifted the tarp and found that someone had dug horizontally into the vault and stolen the bone.

Doing a little digging of our own, Facing South discovered that what happened in Oxford and Fenton were not isolated instances. There have been numerous cases involving destruction of Native American burial grounds and other culturally significant sites by Wal-Mart:

* An Indian burial site in Nashville, Tenn. was demolished to build a Wal-Mart Supercenter on Charlotte Pike in the late 1990s. The company behind the project was JDN Realty of Atlanta, a developer for Wal-Mart stores since purchased by Developers Diversified Realty Corp. of Ohio. By the time excavations were completed in August 1998, the remains of 154 people including children had been taken from their graves, according to the Alliance for Native American Rights.

* In the mid-'90s, Wal-Mart developer JDN was involved in the relocation of numerous native graves while building a store in Canton, Ga., Wal-Mart Watch reports. The store set up a permanent display of unearthed Indian artifacts next to its layaway counter.

* When an Indian burial ground was discovered during construction of a Wal-Mart Supercenter in the northern California community of Anderson, the company proceeded with the project anyway, opening the store in 2007. In June of this year, to make up for the site's desecration, the store erected a bronze statue of a native Wintu feather dancer that was vandalized before the dedication ceremony.

* In 2004, Wal-Mart opened a store in Mexico within view of the 2,000-year-old pyramids of Teotihuacan despite months of protests by local residents as well as prominent Mexican artists and intellectuals. In an interview with the Associated Press, novelist and poet Homero Aridjis compared the store's opening to "nailing globalization's stake in the heart of old Mexico."

* About five years ago, while building a Sam's Club and Wal-Mart Supercenter in Hawaii, workers unearthed 64 native Hawaiian graves, reports Wal-Mart Watch [pdf]. For at least three years afterward, the bones remained locked in a trailer, awaiting reburial.

"What if they built a Wal-Mart at Arlington? How would people feel?" Hawaiian activist William Aila told the AP at the time. "Those individuals were buried there with the thought that they would be undisturbed for the rest of the eternity."

There were other cases where Wal-Mart would have disturbed sacred sites but was dissuaded by protest:

* In 2001, Wal-Mart relocated a planned store in Morgantown, W.V. because it would have destroyed a Native American burial site, according to the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility [pdf]. The decision came after company shareholders and indigenous leaders wrote letters to Wal-Mart and West Virginia state leaders protesting the chosen location.

* Five years before that, Wal-Mart scrapped a plan to build a store in the Hudson Valley community of Leeds Flat, N.Y. after Mohican remains were found, according to a website about the Stockbridge Munsee Tribe of Mohican Indians. For more on the case, read the account by Mohican historian and educator Debra Winchell.

* In the early 1990s, Wal-Mart canceled plans to bulldoze a large Indian mound in Paso Robles, Calif. after leaders of the Chumash and Salinan Indian nations protested, Wal-Mart Watch reports [pdf]. The company complained the mound was blocking motorists' view of the store.

And it's not only Wal-Mart who's destroying native cultural sites. Others who've been involved in damaging or threatening sacred lands:

* An Indian burial site along the Cumberland River in Nashville, Tenn. was disturbed in the late 1990s by construction of a stadium for the Tennessee Titans, the National Football League team that was formerly the Houston Oilers. Though the project drew protests from local Indian rights advocates, then-Mayor, now Gov. Phil Bredesen defended it on the grounds that part of the site had already been disturbed by previous construction.

* When Whole Foods broke ground for its first store in the state of Hawaii, it discovered the remains of more than 20 indigenous people, according to the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. But the Texas-based company continued with the construction anyway, storing the bones in a trailer to rebury at the site later.

* WMAC radio reports that Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue is using federal economic stimulus funds to build a four-lane highway near the Ocmulgee National Monument, a site of great significance to the Muscogee (Creek) people where human occupation has been recorded for 12,000 years. The road would divide the monument from surrounding traditional cultural property, leading the nonprofit National Parks Conservation Association to place the monument among America's most endangered national parks.

Why would the U.S. allow so much of its cultural heritage to be destroyed by development? After all, there's no shortage of federal laws designed to protect sacred and archaeologically significant sites. They include the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978, the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, President Clinton's Executive Order on Indian Sacred Sites, the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979, and the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969.

But a fact sheet on sacred sites [pdf] prepared by the Morning Star Institute for the Coalition to Protect Native American Sacred Places during 2002 hearings by the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs points out there are no existing legal protections for certain sacred places -- and "none that provide a specific cause of action to defend sacred places against desecration or destruction."

Unfortunately, until those protections are strengthened, America's ancient sacred places will continue to fall to the bulldozer.

(This story originally appeared at Facing South.)

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Following local protests and international outcry, the city of Oxford, Ala. appears to be backing away from plans to destroy an ancient and archaeologically significant Indian mound in order to use the dirt as fill for a new Sam's Club, a retail warehouse store operated by Wal-Mart.

A local landowner says his property will now serve as the source for construction fill dirt, according to the Anniston Star:

Landowner Charlie Williams confirmed to The Star Wednesday that Oxford-based Taylor Corp. is negotiating with him for dirt for the Sam's site. The company has the contract to do site prep work for Sam's Club. He said the dirt would come from his property on McIntosh Road in Oxford. He said he has not received money for the dirt but expects to eventually.

The paper also reports that a sinkhole has been discovered at the Sam's Club construction site. The city's Commercial Development Authority -- the force behind the controversial construction project -- has authorized setting aside $350,000 to reimburse Sam's Club for the cost of fixing the hole.

As Facing South reported earlier this month, the demolition of the 1,500-year-old structure drew protests from Native Americans and others concerned about the site, which a University of Alabama report found to be historically important as the largest of several ancient stone and earthen mounds throughout the Choccolocco Valley. Preservation advocates have called such structures "prayer in stone."

However, city leaders have disputed the site's archaeological significance, with Mayor Leon Smith insisting it was not man-made and was used only to "send smoke signals." An Anniston Star investigation documented financial ties between the CDA, firms it does business with, and Smith's political campaign.

In the meantime, a protest and reconsecration ceremony are planned for this Sunday, Aug. 30 from 2 to 5 p.m. at the Oxford mound, according to the Alabama-based blog Deep Fried Kudzu.

(This story originally appeared at Facing South)

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City leaders in Oxford, Ala. have approved the destruction of a 1,500-year-old Native American ceremonial mound and are using the dirt as fill for a new Sam's Club, a retail warehouse store operated by Wal-Mart.

A University of Alabama archaeology report commissioned by the city found that the site was historically significant as the largest of several ancient stone and earthen mounds throughout the Choccolocco Valley. But Oxford Mayor Leon Smith -- whose campaign has financial connections to firms involved in the $2.6 million no-bid project -- insists the mound is not man-made and was used only to "send smoke signals."

"The City of Oxford and its archaeological advisers have completed a review and evaluation of a stone mound that was identified near Boiling Springs, Calhoun County, Alabama, and have concluded that the mound is the result of natural phenomena and does not meet the eligibility criteria for the Natural [sic] Register of Historic Places," according to a news release Smith issued last week.

In fact, the report does not conclude the mound is a result of "natural phenomena" but says very clearly it is of "cultural origin." And while the University's Office of Archaeological Research does not believe the site qualifies for the National Register of Historic Places, the Alabama Historical Commission disagrees, noting that the structure meets at least three criteria for inclusion: its "association with a broad pattern of history," architecture "embodying distinctive characteristics," and for the information it might yield to scholars.

The site is also significant to Native Americans. The Woodland and Mississippian cultures that inhabited the Southeast and Midwest before Europeans arrived constructed and used these mounds for various rituals, which may have included funerals. There are concerns that human remains may be present at the site, though none have been found yet.

United South and Eastern Tribes, a nonprofit coalition of 25 federally recognized tribes from Maine to Texas, passed a resolution in 2007 calling for the preservation of such structures, which it calls "prayer in stone." Native Americans have held protests against the mound's demolition, and last week someone altered a sign for the Leon Smith Parkway that runs past the development to read "Indian Mound Pkwy."

A local resident named Johnny Rollins told the Anniston Star how his Native American grandmother taught him that when she died he could "go to that mountain" to talk to her:

"It seems like it's taking part of you away," he said of the demolition. "I always felt I had ties to that there."

Since the media began reporting on the site's demolition, city officials have revised their story and are now claiming that dirt from the mound is not being used as fill, despite earlier statements to the contrary. But eyewitnesses say they have seen workers hauling dirt from the mound to the Sam's Club development.

"I mean really, I went there, saw the giant trucks deliver the earth straight from the mound to the construction site, and I still can't believe what they are doing," writes the seventh-generation Alabamian behind the blog Deep Fried Kudzu, where she shares photos from her visit to the site.

'More prettier' than an Indian mound

Deepening the development's controversy is how the contracting has been handled. The force behind the project is Oxford's Commercial Development Authority, a public board that uses taxpayer money to lure businesses to the area. The CDA owns the land where the mound is located.

Alabama law exempts CDAs from bid requirements, which means contracts can go to whomever the board chooses. A recent Anniston Star investigative series about the CDA  revealed among other things that the group has awarded nearly $9 million in contracts since 1994 but has taken bids for none of them.

The newspaper also detailed the financial ties between the CDA, firms it does business with, and Mayor Smith's political campaign.

For example, the $2.6 million contract for preparing the Sam's Club site went to Oxford-based Taylor Corp., with the money for that coming in part from the sale of city property to Georgia-based developers Abernathy and Timberlake. Taylor Corp. owner Tommy Taylor, who has received thousands of dollars in city contracts for non-CDA work, donated $1,000 to Smith in 2004 and $1,000 in 2008, while Abernathy and Timberlake donated $1,000 to Smith's re-election campaign in 2004, the paper reports.

The Anniston Star also found that the CDA paid engineering firm Goodwyn, Mills and Cawood of Montgomery, Ala. $45,000 in engineering contracts for the Sam's Club project, with part of that money paying for the archaeological study. The firm contributed $500 to Smith in 2004.

An Alabama Ethics Commission official said the relationships could violate state law "depending on facts," but the mayor said he's done nothing wrong.

Meanwhile, the controversy over the damaged mound's fate rages on. After getting an earful from alarmed preservationists, Alabama Gov. Bob Riley (R) forwarded their concerns to the state Historical Commission -- but said his office has no intention of getting involved. According to the National Institute on Money in State Politics, Tommy Taylor contributed $1,000 to Riley's 2006 gubernatorial campaign, while Goodwyn, Mills and Cawood contributed $1,500.

For now, it appears Oxford officials are pressing ahead with the project. As Mayor Smith said in its defense, "What it's going to be is more prettier than it is today."

(A version of this story originally appeared at Facing South.)

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Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott, who has presided over the company in its era of greening efforts, announced Friday that he is stepping down. Mike Duke, currently head of Wal-Mart's international operations, takes over Feb. 1. To read up on what was, check out Grist's interview with Scott and our coverage of Wal-Mart.

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Retail behemoth Wal-Mart announced Thursday it will soon purchase up to 226 million kilowatt-hours of wind power each year from a nearly completed wind farm in Notrees, Texas, that will provide about 15 percent of the energy needed to power 360 of its stores and distribution centers in the state.

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Wal-Mart announced this week that it will scale down its expansion plans in fiscal 2009 and 2010 due to concerns about a weaker economy. This year, Wal-Mart built 243 new stores, but in these relatively uncertain economic times, the retailer said it plans to construct just 212 new stores in 2009 and 177 in 2010. Before the economic crisis ramped up, one of the only things to successfully slow Wal-Mart's sprawling juggernaut was threatening to unionize its stores.

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Huge-mongous retailer Wal-Mart is back at its favorite activity of all time (besides counting its money and sprawlin', of course): setting environmental goals for itself and its suppliers. At a company confab in Beijing, Wal-Mart execs promised a host of eco-improvements in the next few years. Soon, they said, suppliers will have to be certified by a third party to ensure they're complying with local environmental and labor laws; suppliers will also have to start providing Wal-Mart with information on where all their products come from. Eventually, suppliers will also have to improve their energy efficiency and, by 2012, 95 percent of their products will have to come from factories that receive the highest ratings from Wal-Mart and third-party audits of environmental and social practices. Company spokesfolks also said that all 113 of Wal-Mart's Chinese stores will aim to use 30 percent less energy by 2010. "I don't expect people to immediately jump off their chairs and say this is wonderful," said CEO Lee Scott. "There will be a healthy dose of skepticism on some people's part."

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Wal-Mart aims to cut plastic-bag waste in its global operations by an average 33 percent over the next five years, the retail behemoth announced Thursday at the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative. And if you ever doubted that Wal-Mart is big, consider this: The move is expected to eliminate some 9 billion plastic bags each year, equating to more than 135 million pounds of trash by 2013. Wal-Mart will give out fewer bags, offer plastic-bag recycling, and encourage customers to use reusable totes (it will offer its own line of reusable bags for 50 cents each). In the words of one exec, the goal is to "encourage consumers to change their behavior, just one bag at a time." That appears to apply particularly to non-American consumers: The 33 percent average will be attained by cutting bag use 50 percent in international operations and 25 percent in the U.S.

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Don't take Grandma to Wal-Mart: the big-box store's new Hewlett-Packard laptop "will be displayed on shelves wearing only the HP Protect Messenger Bag." Scandalous! But actually, there's no need to avert your eyes: the HP Pavilion dv6929 is served up in a recycled, reusable messenger bag instead of a box, cutting cardboard and plastic packaging by 97 percent. Thinking outside the box helped HP win Wal-Mart's Home Entertainment Design Challenge, which judged suppliers' products on attractive design, environmental innovation, and less-wasteful, less-toxic packaging. Wal-Mart says 25 percent less truck space is now needed to schlep the computer to stores, cutting transportation costs by 31 percent. In addition, purchasers of the $798 laptop, which is available only at Wal-Mart and Sam's Club, can recycle an old PC for free.

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In comments to the Federal Trade Commission earlier this year, Wal-Mart asked the agency not to define the terms "carbon offsets" or "renewable energy certificates" in order to keep the terms flexible and to retain their "less tangible nature." The Federal Trade Commission has been in the process of updating its green-marketing guidelines and asked Wal-Mart and others to weigh in. Consumer advocates like Consumers Union have been advocating for clear, specific definitions to avoid misleading green claims. "Claims are already being made on products that are confusing, misleading, and potentially deceptive," the group said in its comments to the FTC. Among many other green goals that Wal-Mart's announced over the last few years, the FTC's definition of carbon offsets could most affect the retailer's ultra-ambitious goal to someday run on 100 percent renewable energy -- a huge amount of which would likely have to come from offsets or renewable-energy certificates.

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Retail giant Wal-Mart is joining with Conservation International as well as mining companies Rio Tinto and Newmont Mining to launch a pilot project that lets customers trace the path of their jewelry from mine to mega-store. Marketed as Wal-Mart's "Love, Earth" brand jewelry, the items stand out from others in that once they're purchased, customers can go to the Love, Earth website, plug in the tag number from their jewelry item and see what mine it came out of and the path it traveled from refiner to manufacturer to retailer. Wal-Mart has been marketing Love, Earth items as more eco-friendly, but there's some reason to question the designation. Some of the gold used in the Love, Earth items comes from Newmont's Nevada mines, which, among other techniques, use cyanide heap-leach mining to extract gold. Project partner Conservation International says of the practice, "Cyanide ... can filter into the surrounding ground, water, and air if not properly contained." However, despite questionable greenness at the Newmont mine, Wal-Mart maintains that a more open supply chain will eventually lead to industry improvements.

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