Nebraska is having a Flint, Michigan moment
by Sally Herrin
The environmental emergency unfolding 30 miles northeast of Lincoln could read like the screenplay for a dumb and dumber adventure some dudes dream up to pay their gambling debts. AltEn scored over a billion tons of toxic waste since 2015, nearly all the unsold/unused bags of seed treated with fungicides and pesticides from North America, all cheap or free! They made ethanol and lime green toxic sludge causing stench and bee die- off and dead birds. State officials declined to be interviewed by British paper The Guardian, but a water permit specialist at the Nebraska Department of Energy and Environment (NDEE) said he believed AltEn officials were only “hardworking people just trying to make a living.”
AltEn has ambition and ruthlessness, sure, but those folks just aren’t that bright. Maybe that will be AltEn’s defense in court. “We didn’t know that stuff is poisonous! If we call our project safe and legal, it is!”
Not funny. If Mead is the new Flint, Anytown could be the new Mead. A lasting wound to the Earth. A cautionary place.
Anne Hubbard ‘s powerful “Midlands Voices” piece in the Omaha World-Herald says, “State regulations seem lax regarding the use of treated seed. Government regulators seemed slow to respond and ineffective in their enforcement until very recently. According to what I have read, there were plenty of tests showing very high levels of contamination.” Hubbard, retired doctor of environment and health, is gravely concerned about neonicotinoids, “the most prominent pesticide found at the site, [which] are known to affect the neurologic system of bees, neurologic and reproductive systems in deer and probably developmental abnormalities in infants. Pipes broke in February, releasing millions of gallons of manure- and pesticide-laden water into the adjacent stream.”
The Guardian reported, “Some of the levels recorded are just off the charts,” said Dan Raichel, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), which has been working with academics and other environmental protection groups to monitor the situation in Mead.
Clearly there is plenty of blame to go around, all the way back to Reagan and the delusion that deregulation creates prosperity. Failure to study, foresee, legislate and prepare to act on clear and present dangers magnified by climate change may fairly be charged against federal and state governments alike. Today’s EPA considers such matters best left to the states. Currently “the label is law.” Seed producers, wholesalers, retailers and growers alike are charged with making sure the end disposers of unsold/unused seed have the correct certificates. Say what?
Some of the blame here must go to District 44 Sen. Dan Hughes, former chair of the Legislature’s Natural Resources Committee, who agreed to schedule LR. 4 first brought by District 3 Sen. Carol Blood in 2016, but he reneged. Sen. Blood first proposed a statewide water quality study over concern for cancer patients who lived along the state’s waterways. Had the Unicameral had a chance to see the results of such a study earlier, law may well have been in place to prevent this disaster at Mead.
However, the new Natural Resources chair is Sen. Bruce Bostelman of District 23—which includes Mead. To say the least, Sen. Bostelman does not often prioritize environmental protection. But he may be moved by his constituents to conclude a statewide water study is critical now, beginning perhaps with the waters, above ground and below, impacted by AltEn’s criminal scam. He may schedule such a resolution so it can be debated and voted upon.
Sen. Bostelman can benefit one of the state’s great economic drivers, even through the pandemic—the ethanol industry which doesn’t deserve the black eye. Mead is an outlier, not the norm. Nebraska is the #2 ethanol producing state in the U.S. Increasing replacement of liquid fossil fuels with biofuels is critical. Princeton’s Carbon Mitigation Initiative promotes turnkey practices available NOW and recommends increasing ethanol use by a factor of ten, or even one hundred! Right now Nebraska produces plenty of ethanol to meet state needs and export more. But obsolete pump infrastructure is a major barrier against our state’s market for E-30.
Some friends disagree, but I applaud the wisdom of our state’s Environmental Trust reaching out to rural Nebraska, funding upgraded pumps to dispense 30% ethanol blend, preventing carbon uptake into the atmosphere and growing the rural economy.
As I go to press, NDEE has filed suit against AtlEn. By contrast the governor of Texas blamed renewables for the collapse of that state’s energy grid. Not unlike the Mead disaster, the greatest part of blame in Texas is down to lax law, lax enforcement and deregulation.
Nebraska’s governor understands this matter is serious. He may be late to the party, but a dear friend pointed out it’s neither helpful nor sporting to beat on a guy who just woke up.
The environmental emergency unfolding 30 miles northeast of Lincoln could read like the screenplay for a dumb and dumber adventure some dudes dream up to pay their gambling debts. AltEn scored over a billion tons of toxic waste since 2015, nearly all the unsold/unused bags of seed treated with fungicides and pesticides from North America, all cheap or free! They made ethanol and lime green toxic sludge causing stench and bee die- off and dead birds. State officials declined to be interviewed by British paper The Guardian, but a water permit specialist at the Nebraska Department of Energy and Environment (NDEE) said he believed AltEn officials were only “hardworking people just trying to make a living.”
AltEn has ambition and ruthlessness, sure, but those folks just aren’t that bright. Maybe that will be AltEn’s defense in court. “We didn’t know that stuff is poisonous! If we call our project safe and legal, it is!”
Not funny. If Mead is the new Flint, Anytown could be the new Mead. A lasting wound to the Earth. A cautionary place.
Anne Hubbard ‘s powerful “Midlands Voices” piece in the Omaha World-Herald says, “State regulations seem lax regarding the use of treated seed. Government regulators seemed slow to respond and ineffective in their enforcement until very recently. According to what I have read, there were plenty of tests showing very high levels of contamination.” Hubbard, retired doctor of environment and health, is gravely concerned about neonicotinoids, “the most prominent pesticide found at the site, [which] are known to affect the neurologic system of bees, neurologic and reproductive systems in deer and probably developmental abnormalities in infants. Pipes broke in February, releasing millions of gallons of manure- and pesticide-laden water into the adjacent stream.”
The Guardian reported, “Some of the levels recorded are just off the charts,” said Dan Raichel, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), which has been working with academics and other environmental protection groups to monitor the situation in Mead.
Clearly there is plenty of blame to go around, all the way back to Reagan and the delusion that deregulation creates prosperity. Failure to study, foresee, legislate and prepare to act on clear and present dangers magnified by climate change may fairly be charged against federal and state governments alike. Today’s EPA considers such matters best left to the states. Currently “the label is law.” Seed producers, wholesalers, retailers and growers alike are charged with making sure the end disposers of unsold/unused seed have the correct certificates. Say what?
Some of the blame here must go to District 44 Sen. Dan Hughes, former chair of the Legislature’s Natural Resources Committee, who agreed to schedule LR. 4 first brought by District 3 Sen. Carol Blood in 2016, but he reneged. Sen. Blood first proposed a statewide water quality study over concern for cancer patients who lived along the state’s waterways. Had the Unicameral had a chance to see the results of such a study earlier, law may well have been in place to prevent this disaster at Mead.
However, the new Natural Resources chair is Sen. Bruce Bostelman of District 23—which includes Mead. To say the least, Sen. Bostelman does not often prioritize environmental protection. But he may be moved by his constituents to conclude a statewide water study is critical now, beginning perhaps with the waters, above ground and below, impacted by AltEn’s criminal scam. He may schedule such a resolution so it can be debated and voted upon.
Sen. Bostelman can benefit one of the state’s great economic drivers, even through the pandemic—the ethanol industry which doesn’t deserve the black eye. Mead is an outlier, not the norm. Nebraska is the #2 ethanol producing state in the U.S. Increasing replacement of liquid fossil fuels with biofuels is critical. Princeton’s Carbon Mitigation Initiative promotes turnkey practices available NOW and recommends increasing ethanol use by a factor of ten, or even one hundred! Right now Nebraska produces plenty of ethanol to meet state needs and export more. But obsolete pump infrastructure is a major barrier against our state’s market for E-30.
Some friends disagree, but I applaud the wisdom of our state’s Environmental Trust reaching out to rural Nebraska, funding upgraded pumps to dispense 30% ethanol blend, preventing carbon uptake into the atmosphere and growing the rural economy.
As I go to press, NDEE has filed suit against AtlEn. By contrast the governor of Texas blamed renewables for the collapse of that state’s energy grid. Not unlike the Mead disaster, the greatest part of blame in Texas is down to lax law, lax enforcement and deregulation.
Nebraska’s governor understands this matter is serious. He may be late to the party, but a dear friend pointed out it’s neither helpful nor sporting to beat on a guy who just woke up.
