Nebraska Chapter

Clyde Anderson, Chapter Chair

Sierra Club has many allies who assist us in our conservation efforts. At our annual chapter awards banquet last November 23 in Omaha, two community leaders were honored. Tom Foster, owner of McFoster’s Natural Kind Café in Omaha received the Master Conservationist Award for his enduring dedication to the Omaha and Nebraska Environment. In addition to running for the OPPD Board last fall on a platform supporting renewable energy, Tom was one of the founders of Earth Day Omaha in 1990 and served a four-year term on the Papio-Missouri River NRD Board.

Senator Nancy Thompson was honored with the Environmental Leadership Award for her outstanding effort supporting environmental legislation in Nebraska’s legislature. She was a key ally in Sierra Club’s effort to get $2 million of the Nebraska Environmental Trust Fund saved for environmental projects. The Governor attempted to divert all of the money.

A special Chapter Service Award was presented to Bob Warrick for his dedicated service and leadership to the chapter for 29 years. In addition to being a member of the Chapter ExCom, Legislative Chair and NPRCC Delegate, Bob was Chair of Sierra Club’s Agriculture Committee and had considerable influence on drafting of national farm legislation. Bob and his wife, Gudrun, retired from their farm in Meadow Grove, NE and this January settled in a new home in Oceanside, CA. We will miss Bob and Gudrun very much, and we wish them a pleasant and active retirement in California.

By Mark Welsch

Are you tired of going to smoky restaurants? Are you worried that you might have an asthma attack while breathing toxic tobacco smoke pollution? Or do you just want to encourage more places to become smoke free by spending your money in a restaurant where you can smell the food instead of acrid smoke?

We have a new tool for those folks suffering from large confined animal feeding operations and it comes in the form of property value tax protest. This one of those 'the truth is stranger than fiction" stories.

A hog confinement owner in Jefferson County, Bruce Livingston, built his hog confinement in 1990. In 1999 he built a new $346,000 home just a half a mile from his own confinement. The county did an assessment and valued it at over $600,000. Livingston did not agree with this value and filed a tax protest. Jefferson County denied the protest. So, he went the next step to the Nebraska Tax Equalization and Review Commission (TERC) seeking a lower value. The TERC denied him also. Livingston does what anyone can do if you don't agree, appeal. The Nebraska Appellate Court heard the case and agreed with Livingston. What is interesting is that the Appellate Court raised the issue of odor from the confinement and its impact on the value of the home. They stated in their finding of fact to the TERC that the property's proximity to the hog confinement should be a factor in lowering the value of the home. They directed the TERC to give him a 30% reduction.

This gave us the opportunity to put together property tax protest packets and have done several workshops across the state. I will keep you posted on the progress of these protest.

Feisty Holt County is continuing their battle with the Premium Farms hog confinement. It appears that they may be kicking that facility out of the county. There is one more Commissioners hearing left before we know for sure.

I have been working with Steve Virgil an attorney with the Appleseed Center on possible litigation in Wheeler County. They have zoning regulations that say the manure waste "shall" be knifed into ground application. We believe shall means must. The county commissioners gave two Premium Farms sites there a conditional use permit for a spray field. We don't believe they have the authority to issue such a permit. Steve and I will be going up to Wheeler later this month to meet with the local activist and see how they want to proceed.

Lastly, Sierra Club provided an expert witness for a Pierce County Commissioners hearing on an application for a large hog confinement there. Kathy Martin is a M.S. Civil Engineer with a B.S. in Petroleum Engineering. She is phenomenal! Kathy knows the science of these lagoons and waste pits inside out. The owners of the proposed facility had their engineer there and she wiped up the floor with him. The commissioners did grant the application but put several conditions on it because of points that Kathy made.

My passion for environmental issues began 5 years ago and since then I have been working hard towards a career to make a difference in our world. My name is Natasha Marshall and I began volunteering for the Sierra Club of Lincoln in March. My experiences with Laura Krebsbach, Chapter Organizer, and the Sierra Club have allowed me to broaden my horizons of the possibilities out there to help the environment.

I am a second-year student at Nebraska Wesleyan. Last year I took some great environmental classes that taught me how to make a realistic approach to the issue at hand and to truly make change, not just talk about it. Volunteering with Laura has taught me hands-on about Nebraska's environmental issues and what people are doing to help out. One big project I helped with was our informational Earth Day picnic. We had a great turnout and I learned a lot on the way about unsafe meat products.

In late May, I ventured out with Laura to Broken Bow, Nebraska to volunteer at a workshop. My experience was very interesting because I heard people's stories first hand about how their lives are affected by the odors. I now have faces to go with the stories we hear everyday about what people live with, which makes the problem so real and urgent.

This past year, I had the opportunity through Wesleyan to meet two amazing environmentalists. Robert Kennedy, Jr. visited Wesleyan in the spring and he had a very important message for Nebraska. He spoke on the issues of CAFO's and the United States' views of the environment. One of the groups that Mr. Kennedy has helped through the years is Waterkeepers, who work in coalition with the Sierra Club. Mr. Kennedy's speech was great and it was inspirational seeing him express his views without being afraid of criticism.

I also had the opportunity to meet Winona LaDuke, the Vice President of the Green Party, when I had lunch with her and some other students during last fall. Mrs. LaDuke is now one of my idols after learning the history of her environmental accomplishments. She is one of those people who stand up for what she believes in at all costs, which is so important with environmental issues. Both of the experiences of meeting such strong and vibrant environmentalists helped me decide that my whole life will be dedicated to the environment.

In the future, I plan to go into either environmental education or conservation. I am still researching the different possibilities of careers so that I know for sure what my major should be. I am interested in the environmental issues that directly affect people because whether society wants to believe it or not, we are all connected to the environment and everything that we do to harm our world will eventually negatively affect our lives.

Although I am a very busy college student, I make time to volunteer because it makes me feel good that I have began at such a young age in the fight for our environment. I am excited to see where my future career will take me because I know that I have so much to give to this cause. The Sierra Club gives me the opportunity to make a difference, which I am very grateful for!

The new farm bill breaks new ground in conservation programs and spending. The new program adopted in the 2002 farm bill is the Conservation Security Program. This new and highly innovative program finally initiates the "Green Payment" idea that has been floated for over 30 years. It provides farmers and ranchers with new options for conservation of natural resources on their working lands. By implementing a conservation security plan, producers can receive cost share payments, maintenance payments, and bonus incentives for protecting specific resources of concern appropriate to that farm or ranch, and the regional environments.

The new farm bill also increases payments for the Wetland Reserve Program, Conservation Reserve Program and the Environmental Quality Incentive Program (EQUIP). The only problem with EQUIP is that it funds large animal confinement waste facilities to the tune of millions of taxpayers dollars.

The losers in the farm bill debate are the taxpayers. This farm bill is by far the most expensive farm bill every passed with billions of dollars to be passed out to the largest land owners that farm the main cash crops (corn, wheat, rice, cotton and soybeans).

The Sierra Club's Agriculture Committee was deeply disappointed that so much money was spent on this farm bill that will benefit so few. The only redeeming feature of the bill in the Conservation Security Program that hopefully, in the future, will redeem this farm bill folly.

The Nebraska Game and Parks Commission voted on more than was on the agenda, at the July 24th meeting. In a 5-1 vote the staff's duties were stripped of dealing with prairie dogs. The ramifications of that action are beginning to sink in since the staff biologist's job is to deal with the Wildlife of Nebraska. Since the pd biome is found within at least six different ecosystem types in the state it will be difficult for the G&P staff to adhere to that directive. The G&P staff must, after the dust settles, revert back to their duties defined by the statutory acts signed by the Governor. In the mean time, pandemonium rules. This new directive released the state from our Compact with other Great Plains states developing Conservation Plans, having the defined goal of getting the btpd out of danger for listing under the Federal Endangered Species Act.

Expectedly, the Commission voted 5-1 to reject their staff's recommendation to change the status of the black-tail prairie dog to a [species in need of conservation]. That change would have been needed to achieve the desired goal of our now 'moot' Compact. The NE Chapter of the Sierra Club spoke in favor of the staff's recommendations at the meeting.