Water driving land purchases in Nebraska despite industrial ag poisoning pollinators, Gulf

Ethanol is ecocide.

Back in 2012 it was announced that landowners and the US Fish and Wildlife Service joined in a partnership to protect groundwater that recharges the South Platte River. 

Today, the Ogallala or High Plains Aquifer is being depleted six and a half times faster than its recharge rate and nearly all the groundwater sampled from it is contaminated with uranium and nitrates from industrial agriculture.

Plans are being drawn for a canal to bring South Platte River water from Colorado to Nebraska. That protection is based on a century-old interstate compact between the states which allows Nebraska to take 500 cubic feet per second of water from the river during the non-irrigation season, from October 15 to April 1 every year, but only if Nebraska builds the canal. Colorado officials have promised to defend that state’s water rights vigorously. So far, they have not filed a lawsuit over Nebraska’s plans for the canal. But Lawrence Pacheco, spokesman for Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, agrees that it would be good for the two states to agree on how to proceed. The compact does give Nebraska the right to use eminent domain to acquire land in Colorado. But Nebraska officials say they are prioritizing making purchases on a willing buyer-willing seller basis. [Perkins County Canal plans spark enthusiasm, skepticism in Ogallala]

On a Sandhills property in 2021 Turner Enterprises, Inc. and Turner Ranches announced the launch of the Turner Institute of Ecoagriculture, Inc. a 501(c)(3) public charity and agricultural research organization that will share a formal agreement, facilities and staff with the Center of Excellence for Bison Studies. Turner is the largest private landowner in Nebraska with some 445,000 acres just shy of what We, the People own.

Recently, farmland Realtor Steve Linden said he’s seen an uptick in interested buyers from states like Oklahoma and Texas – states where groundwater is becoming increasingly scarce. Surface water falls under the jurisdiction of the Nebraska Department of Natural Resources, while local natural resources districts – a system unique to Nebraska – manage groundwater. [Water’s worth: It sits beneath Nebraska’s farmland and has serious value. But who owns it?]

At a defunct AltEn ethanol plant just west of Omaha in eastern Nebraska 150 million gallons of water contaminated with 84,000 tons of pesticide residue have been determined to be too toxic to be spread on area farm ground. In February, 2021 two tanks at the facility burst releasing some 4 million gallons of polluted slurry downstream.

Ethanol factories are giant distilleries that consume corn. The grain is ground up, soaked in water, and fermented, releasing alcohol. What’s left, a mash called distillers grains or wet cake, normally goes into cattle feed, along with nutrients recovered from the stream of liquid waste. But this plant, run by a company called AltEn, was different. It functioned as a disposal site for unsold seed corn, all of it coated with pesticides. Some of the biggest names in the seed business, including Monsanto (which was later acquired by Bayer), Syngenta, and Pioneer, were sending AltEn thousands of truckloads of excess inventory each year. Meanwhile, researchers were linking neonics to piles of dead bees at hives in Germany, Canada, and in the U.S. corn belt. Those bees, like the ones in Judy Wu-Smart’s experiments years later, were getting massive doses of neonics, enough to kill them outright. AltEn tells a story about everything that created it: leveraged farmers looking for security; seed companies selling it in the form of insecticides; compliant regulators; and a style of agriculture that treats the ecosystem as if it’s expendable. [Buzzkill: A bee researcher's colonies kept dying, and she couldn't figure out why. Then, she looked at the ethanol factory down the road.]

In August the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico is approximately 3,058 square miles. Nevertheless, Nebraska hopes to create an inland port authority that would move even more poison grain to the Gulf.

Bill Gates is buying land in Nebraska for the water, too.

He has access through 191 existing wells, which add to the value of the land for farmers and investors alike by providing crop irrigation. [Spilling Bill’s beans: Tech billionaire spent $113 million on Nebraska farmland]

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