SCROLL DOWN FOR TRANSCANADA XL PIPELINE UPDATE. News items and contact information for needed communication with specific elected officials are below in District 3 Green Notes. Note the Omaha Education and Action Forum on Tuesday, May 3, 2011.
Lincoln area: Congressional District 1
VOTE . . . Early voting for City elections began Monday, April 18,2011, at the Lancaster County Election Commission office, 601 North 46th Street, Lincoln. A sample ballot is here. [pdf]
VIGIL AGAINST THE DEATH PENALTY . . . Every Monday, from noon to 1:00pm, Nebraskans for abolition of the death penalty meet in front of the governor’s mansion when weather is good, 1425 H Street, Lincoln. In winter, the vigil is inside the capitol, near the Information Desk. The lunch-hour presence reminds the governor of a constituency that does not want state killings. Weekly vigils have taken place year-round since July, 1991. All abolitionists are welcome to participate for a few minutes, or the hour. For information about Nebraskans Against the Death Penalty, click here.
WATER AND NATURAL RESOURCES SEMINARS . . . The final UN-L seminar focused on urban stormwater runoff, gobal climate change, and related environmental issues is Wednesday, April 27, 2011, 3:30 to 4:30pm, in the first-floor auditorium of Hardin Hall, on the northeast corner of North 33rd and Holdrege Streets, Lincoln. For more information, phone the UN-L Water Center, 402.472.3305.
LINCOLN GREEN DRINKS . . . Wednesday, April 27, 2011, starting at 5:30pm, Lincoln Green Drinks will meet at Lazlo’s Brewery and Grill, 210 North 7th Street, in the Haymarket. Green Drinks is an informal self-organizing network now active in 793 cities worldwide. For more information, e-mail Rick Yoder, ryoder [at] mail [dot] unomaha [dot] edu.
LINCOLN PEACE VIGILS . . . Lincoln peace vigils continue at the Federal Building, 15th and O streets, every Wednesday from 5:00 to 6:00pm. Contact Mark at 402.499.6672 or e-mail mark [at] weddleton [dot] com for more information.
THINK GREEN IT’S THURSDAY . . . TGIT is a new happy hour for planning a sustainable future at the EcoStores Conference Room, 530 West P Street, Lincoln. This is an informational, educational, and social weekly event, with locally grown food and beverages. (Beverage donations will be accepted.) Learn about the latest green products, businesses, policies and practices every Thursday from 5:00 to 6:00pm. For the spring schedule of TGIT speakers, click here. For more information, e-mail Mitch Paine at mitch [dot] paine [at] ecostoresne.org.
WEEKLY WALKABOUTS AT WILDERNESS PARK . . . Friends of Wilderness Park is hosting weekly hikes through the Park, led by Adam Hintz, starting at 1:00pm every Saturday from now through October. Each week will focus on a different area, highlighting the diversity of life in the Park. Hikes will start in parking lots according to the following schedule: the first and second Saturday of the month, meet at the Pioneers Boulevard entrance; the third Saturday, meet at Old Cheney Road; the fourth Saturday, meet at 14th Street north of Rokeby Road; and every fifth Saturday, the hike will start at Saltillo Road east of the Jamaica Trail. For more information, contact Adam at 402.421.8464.
NEAC ANNUAL MEETING AND BANQUET . . . This year’s Nebraska Environmental Action Coalition Annual Meeting is Saturday, April 30, 2011, 10:00am to 4:00pm, in Lincoln at the Unitarian Church 6300 A Street. Morning speakers include Ted Thieman, and Laura Krebsbach,a from NEAC. The 1:15pm Keynote is by Lynn Henning, Sierra Club Michigan Chapter, winner of the 2010 Goldman Prize for North America. The movie Food, Inc. will be shown at 3:00pm. Please make reservations for the noon local food lunch–vegetarian pasta salad or roast beef–by calling 402.276.7321, or e-mail chrisneac [at] gmail [dot] com. The meeting is free and open to the public, with a small charge for the lunch.
FUNDRAISER FOR MATT TALBOT KITCHEN . . . Local actress Pippa White will perform her one woman show “Women Who Make a Difference,” at a benefit to raise funds for a new piano at Matt Talbot Kitchen and Outreach, Saturday, April 30, 2011, from 2:00 to 4:00pm. The piano will be used in a new music outreach program for homeless people in Lincoln. Tea with a dessert bar will follow the performance at Matt Talbot, 2121 North 27th Street. Reserve tickets online here.
WORKING CLASS SOLIDARITY MARCH . . . There will be a Solidarity March starting at 2:30pm, Sunday, May 1, 2011, at the north steps of the State Capitol Building. The rally is sponsored by the IWW and the LUNk Collective.
Omaha area: Congressional District 2
HIKE STANDING BEAR LAKE . . . Wednesday, April 27, 2011, there will be a 9:00am hike around Standing Bear Lake, one of the early trail systems built around Omaha lakes. This will be a good hike for beginners, lasting approximately 2 hours, covering between 5 and 6 miles. E-mail omahahikingclub [at] cox [dot] net for more information.
OMAHA PEACE VIGILS . . . Omaha peacemakers vigil every Wednesday, 4:30-5:30pm, at StratCom/UN-O, 6801 Pine Street, east of the Scott Technology Center on the UN-O campus. Free parking is available at the NE Corner of 67th Street and Pine in a student lot. For more information, phone Jerry Ebner, 402.502.5887. Every Saturday, 1:00-2:00pm, there is a Peace Vigil at 72nd and Dodge Streets. Park next to 72nd Street, in the pet store parking lot. Contact Steve Horn at 402.426.9068 for more information about Saturday vigils.
OMAHA PEOPLE’S FILM FESTIVAL . . . There is a People’s Film Festival every Wednesday evening, 7:00pm, at McFoster’s Natural Kind Cafe, 38th and Harney in Omaha. The event is always free and open to the public. This week’s film is “Bugsy Malone.” A cast of child actors, including Scott Baio as Bugsy and Jodie Foster as a speakeasy songbird, sends up Prohibition-era mobster flicks in this Alan Parker musical. For more information, click here. The People’s Film Festival – Expanding Political Consciousness Since 2004.
PROTEST KEYSTONE XL PIPELINE . . . Omaha protests with Guardians of the Good Life continue. E-mail japlapoo [at] netzero [dot] net for details. STOP THE PIPELINE yard signs are available in Omaha by calling Nebraskans for Peace Coordinator Mark Welsch, 402.453.0776, or e-mail NFPOmaha [at] nebraskansforpeace [dot] org. SAVE THE DATE: An Omaha Pipeline Education and Action Forum is scheduled for Tuesday, May 3, 2011, 7:00 to 8:30pm, at First Unitarian Church, 31st & Harney, in Omaha.
BENSON COMMUNITY GARDEN . . . Omaha’s newest community garden is at 60th & Lafayette, at the south side of the historic Benson neighborhood. The Benson Community Garden is looking for individuals and families interested in garden plots. The garden needs sponsors to help with the costs of building (hardware, lumber, etc.). For more information, phone 402.714.0290 or e-mail goetzinger2 [at] cox [dot] net. To get involved, or help support the garden, please register here.
Greater Nebraska: Congressional District 3
KEYSTONE XL PIPELINE UPDATE . . . “We are entering a 45-day review period for comments to the State Department on the risks of the Keystone XL Pipeline to our Sandhills and Ogallala Aquifer. We are up against a corporation that has spent millions of dollars on an aggressive political and public relations campaign in D.C. and Nebraska (the primary lobbyist for TransCanada served on Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign staff.)” So begins Mary Pipher’s April 24, 2011 letter to the Lincoln Journal Star urging “all readers to do what they can to motivate our state senators and governor to act now.”
In response to the 320-page Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement on the proposed pipeline through Nebraska’s fragile Sand Hills and Ogallala Aquifer, on April 19th, the Journal Star editorialized “The statement is unfairly dismissive of the unique characteristics of Nebraska’s Sand Hills.” “Pipeline impact statment disappoints” also encourages “Nebraskans — actually all Americans –” to comment on the ESI during this final comment period. A five-page Executive Summary is here. The official State Department Comments Page is here. Comments may also be submitted via e-mail at keystonexl [at] cardno [dot] com, by US Postal to Keystone XL EIS Project, P.O. Box 96503-98500, Washington D.C. 20090-6503, or fax (206) 269-0098. In comments, please invite Secretary of State Clinton to visit the Sand Hills, see our unique ecosystem, and meet the people who will be most effected by XL pipeline construction.
More than 150 people participated in the April 17 Pipeline Education and Action Forum in Stuart, Nebraska. They stayed until after 5:00pm asking questions, continuing the discussion, and preparing activism in District 3. Norfolk Daily News coverage of the event is here.
In other news of the week, one of two Nebraska mayors who signed a letter supporting the pipeline has taken his support back–and he noted that TransCanada essentially lied to him about the letter. “Further review” reverses mayor’s pipeline support,” by Joe Shearer, The Gateway, April 21, 2011, reported that “after …consulting with others, Ralston Mayor Don Groesser retracted previous support of TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline expansion in an April 13 letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.” The Lincoln Journal Star revealed “TransCanada has encountered problems with the reclamation phase on a 50-mile stretch of a new natural gas pipeline through southeast Montana and western North Dakota that even its own spokesman calls severe. Erosion and …”very severe subsidence,” or settling of the soil, are visible in photographs taken by the Billings Gazette.”
A 13:26 minute interview with John Hansen, President of coalition member Nebraska Farmers Union, was broadcast on NET News Capitol Comments. Hansen discussed the three pipeline regulation bills stalled in the Unicameral’s Natural Resources Committee.
Nebraska has no legislation on the books for regulating the current Keystone I pipeline, nor the proposed XL tar sands pipeline. A Study and Memo from the Congressional Research Service dated September 20, 2010 determined that primary authority over location of interstate pipelines belongs to individual states. A BOLD Nebraska blog post [pdf] includes background information, a transcript of the media roundtable held upon discovery of the memo, and an action alert.
It is important to write your state senator urging that oil pipeline regulations be in place, not only to govern the existing pipeline, but also any future pipeline proposed by TransCanada or other environmental exploiters. Find your state senator’s contact information at the map linked here. Also contact members of the Natural Resources Committee asking that they move the pending bills, LB 340, [pdf] LB 578 [pdf] and LB 629 [pdf] out for floor debate. And please contact Governor Dave Heineman, PO Box 94848, State Capitol Bldg., Lincoln, NE 68509, 402.471.2244 asking him to be responsive and join opposition efforts.
Secretary of State Clinton has the power to approve or reject the Keystone XL pipeline. She needs to stand up to Big Oil and stop it. Click here to tell her NOT to grant a permit to TransCanda. You might want to remind her that the “European Union may blacklist tar sands because of higher greenhouse gas emissions.”
An April 2011 Prairie Fire article by Julie Myers concludes “If TransCanada can put a pipeline anywhere as they claim, then they can move it off the Sand Hills, and Nebraska should demand that. The upcoming hearings for the Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement will offer Nebraskans a good opportunity to tell what they know of the Sand Hills and its water, and to demand a safer route.” Read “The XL Shellgame,” by a writer who grew up in the Sand Hills, here. “Tar Sands Make Their Mark,” by Ellen Cantarow, was published April 7. The Nation article quotes Nebraska organic rancher Ben Gotschall: “My family has been producing grass-fed beef for five generations. We do this organically, without chemicals and with minimum fossil fuel inputs…. Nebraska farmers and ranchers were producing food long before we had the benefit of fossil fuels and we can and will find a way to produce food long after fossil fuels are gone. But we will never be able to produce food without clean water. To me, this pipeline is an issue of national security that threatens our domestic food and water supply.”
“Koch Industries, Keystone XL Pipeline … a BP on the Prairie?” reports “Tar sands are plentiful in the US and Canada, but environmentally treacherous to mine and transport – yet, this is the ‘green energy’ the Obama administration has leaned toward.” “US-Canada oil pipeline – water source threatened,” is an excellent new 2:49 minute AlJazeera English report featuring Nebraska property owners Randy Thompson, Cindy Myers, and Nebraska Audubon representing the issue. Thompson’s letter to TransCanada in response to their “final offer” for his land in Merrick County ends “Until a court of law determines otherwise, your arbitrary claim to condemnation powers is nothing more to us than an empty threat. We feel very strongly that this pipeline could place our property and way of life at risk. Therefore, we are unwilling to succumb to such a threat and respectfully decline your final offer. Our conclusion is that the courts need to make the final determination on this issue.”
The New York Times joined citizens, experts and opinion leaders in opposition to the pipeline in an editorial “No to a New Tar Sands Pipeline,” concluding “Last July, an older bitumen pipeline in Michigan spilled 800,000 gallons of the stuff into the Kalamazoo River. A new TransCanada pipeline that began carrying diluted bitumen last year has already had nine spills. …From all of the evidence, Keystone XL is not only environmentally risky, it is unnecessary.” Read the entire editorial here.
Nebraska Greens John Carlini and Shari Schwartz have produced a 30-minute public access tv show “Cornhuskers vs. Dirty Oil.” It airs on cable channel 13, Sundays at 8:00pm, and Wednesdays at 9:30pm.
What else can you do? Keep writing letters to the editor of your local newspaper. Excellent recently published letters to the Lincoln Journal Star are here, here, and here. Keep the issue alive in conversations at the kitchen table, in cafes, churches, and clubs around Nebraska.
Click here for a Bold Nebraska XL Pipeline Action page with resources and background information. E-mail actions [at] boldnebraska [dot] org to get yard signs, bumper stickers and t-shirts. More actions EveryOne can take are listed here. For comprehensive references in media since May 30, 2010, click here and scroll from the bottom up for links to each week’s Green Notes coverage.
Be a community educator and organizer. Let’s change the world together.
Remember, every man-made by-product of the petroleum industry could be replaced by hemp. “Help Save the Earth, Time to Subsitute Hemp for oil.“
PETITION THE EPA . . . Tell the Environmental Protection Agency to immediately prohibit the use of clothianidin and conduct a full scientific review to determine its impact on honey bee populations. Learn more about clothianidin and sign the petition here.
TELL PRESIDENT OBAMA NOT TO CAVE TO MONSANTO AND THE BIOTECH INDUSTRY . . . In the past 3 weeks, the Obama administration has unbelievably chosen to approve three biotech crops, Roundup Ready genetically modified alfalfa, Roundup Ready genetically modified sugar beets and a new industrial biotech corn for ethanol production. These decisions are a devastating blow to our democracy and the basic rights of farmers to choose how they want to grow food on their land and the rights of consumers who increasingly choose organic and sustainably grown food for its positive health and environmental impacts. Please tell the President it’s time to stand up to Monsanto and reject GMO crops.
AGENCY SCIENTISTS OPPOSE GENETICALLY ENGINEERED SALMON . . . The following quotes are from Fish and Wildlife Service scientists themselves: “The environmental impact of escaped GE salmon is of great concern.” – Gregory Moyer, Regional Geneticist, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; “…approval of the proposal is premature, given the unknowns and uncertainties regarding the possible ecological and environmental effects of these fish.” – Jeff Adams, Branch Chief, Fairbanks Fish and Wildlife Field Office, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; and “…I do think the chance of escapement is huge” – Deborah Burger, Manager, Chattahoochee Forest National Fish Hatchery, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Ask the President to stop the GE salmon approval process.
BUY FRESH. BUY LOCAL . . . . Farmers, gardeners, and craftspeople meet through The Nebraska Food Cooperative, an on-line, year-round farmers’ market and local food distribution service offering the best in local freshness. For ordering and pickup schedules, refer to the calendar here. Click here for products and prices from North Star Neighbors, a Cooperative member that doesn’t therapeutically medicate or unduly confine animals. Click here for Tomato Tomäto, Omaha’s year-round indoor Farmer’s Market at 156th & West Center. Shop for fresh foods grown in or very near your own community at Open Harvest, Lincoln’s member-owned natural foods retail cooperative at 1618 South Street. Buying local grows family farming, grows the local economy, and is thousands of miles fresher.
HELP NEBRASKA GREENS WITH GOODSEARCH . . . Each time you search the Internet (or shop online at a participating store), a donation can be made to Nebraska Green Party at no cost to you! To help NGP in this way, enter Nebraska Green Party where it says WHO DO YOU GOODSEARCH FOR? here. Bookmark the GoodSearch Homepage, or make it your own Home Page. Enter the url you want in the GoodSearch search box. Each time you do, one penny will be donated to Nebraska Greens. THANK YOU for your support!
We are no longer the alternative; we are the imperative. –Rosa Clemente
STOP THE PIPELINE