You know it’s a good week when I can’t decide which story to share with you first. Let’s start here: I love our stories that burrow deeper into an issue, past the superficial place where it’s simply left vs. right, when it functions as a blunt weapon that we bludgeon one another with on social media.
Such it is with small-town hospitals, which care for Nebraskans in places like Pender.
You may have heard that they are all closing. You may have heard that they have all been saved.
Sara Gentzler’s story today shows that the reality is more nuanced — but still concerning if you, like me, feel it important that small-town hospitals survive.
These hospitals got a lifeline last year, when the State of Nebraska unlocked as much as $1 billion in federal funding for them. But the funding has been slow to trickle out — and in the meantime, Congress has put an expiration date on that support while approving other cuts likely to harm rural hospitals.
“We’ve got about five years, then there’s a cliff,” State Sen. Mike Jacobson, a Republican of North Platte, told Gentzler. “And that’s going to be a challenge.”
This cliff really matters in places like Pender, Gentzler reports.
Lead’s legacy: You may not know it, but the residents of east Omaha, including yours truly, live inside one of the biggest environmental disaster zones anywhere in America. The culprit: A lead smelting plant, located on the riverfront, that for more than 100 years spewed toxic metal across the city. Thanks a lot, 20th century.
Lead is terrible for kids. It damages their brains and nervous systems. It causes IQ loss, delays development, causes behavioral changes.
We have been cleaning up this mess for decades now as part of the largest residential Superfund site of its kind in the country. If you live in east Omaha, there’s a good chance you have had your yard “remediated,” a fancy term for “removing the soil and replacing it with new.”
But it turns out that lead is dangerous at lower levels than we once knew. And it turns out that our government knows that tens of thousands of additional Omaha properties may need to be cleaned up if we care about better protecting today’s newborns — the EPA was until recently studying that very thing, public records uncovered by Flatwater reporter Chris Bowling show.
But a new Trump administration directive appears to have stalled that work. Tens of thousands of Omaha families may continue to live endangered — most without realizing it.
Flatwater’s Bowling, in partnership with the acclaimed national investigative newsroom ProPublica, is going to spend a year digging into this toxic Omaha dirt. He’s going to show us what this lead contamination has wrought and the dangers it continues to pose.
Here is his first story in the yearlong project.
And if you live in or near the Superfund site: Want us to come test your soil for free? Sign up right here.
A note on ProPublica: It’s so exciting to partner with them. I have found their editors and staff to be kind, diligent and devoted to detail and accuracy. And their partnership is such a vote of confidence in Flatwater, another sign that we are coming into our own. This week, Chris’ first story appeared on two home pages: Flatwater’s and ProPublica’s. It will now be republished in news sources across the state and country. As the editor of a nonprofit newsroom that will celebrate its fifth birthday next year, that is so gratifying.
Rebekah Allick’s journey: If you, like me, know Rebekah Allick mostly for her thunderous spikes, the story we published this week is well worth your time.
Allick is surviving despite a difficult and tragedy-filled childhood. She and her twin sister are surviving despite political differences that threaten to divide them. As the undefeated Husker volleyball team enters the Sweet 16 — hopefully, by the end of the weekend they are back in the Final Four — correspondent Greg Echlin tells us much more about the young woman behind those signature sports glasses and that smile.
If you’re still here: Look above you. A story that seeks to explain the current reality of Nebraska’s smallest hospitals. The beginning of a yearlong series, with a national partner, that will shed light on what has been a slow-motion environmental and public health disaster. And a story peeling back the layers of one of Nebraska’s favorite athletes.
All available to you for free. All republished by newsrooms across this state for free. I can tell you a bunch of reasons why you should donate to Flatwater Free Press if you haven’t already done so this year. (Thank you if you have!)
But this week, I will shut up and let the work speak for itself. If you find it valuable, and want more of it, here’s the link to give to our year-end campaign.
Best news: Because of matching funds, every $1 you give becomes $3 for us.
Thanks to our sponsor: This week, it’s my absolute very favorite movie theater in the world, Film Streams. I’m not kidding. I love this place, love it so much so that I have long been a member and donor to this nonprofit devoted to the presentation and discussion of film.
Sarah and I are gonna go see the new Knives Out movie there this weekend. See you soon, Film Streams, and thank you for supporting the mission of nonprofit news in Nebraska.
Questions wanted: Some of our best story ideas come from readers, and they typically start with a burning question that just cries out for an answer. Have a question that our reporters need to look into? Complete this form or reach our newsroom at [email protected].
Sincerely,
Matthew Hansen, Executive Editor
Thanks to this week’s sponsor
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Here’s what we’re into this week: News from around Nebraska
Every week, we like to share great Nebraska journalism, no matter who made it. Here’s what caught our eye this week:
- The New York Times came to McCook this week to talk to residents there about converting the Work Ethic Camp into the so-called “Cornhusker Clink” — an ICE facility. They found support, frustration, a lot of worry.
Now when people think of McCook, this is all it is — it’s ICE detention,” City Manager Nate Schneider told the Times. “But for us, it’s a lot more than that. McCook is home. McCook is a place that I want my kids to think is a good place to live. We’ve been working so hard to make McCook a draw, and now this.” - The Nebraska Examiner’s Cindy Gonzalez simply will not stop churning out good stories. I think I put one in the newsletter almost every week. This week, Gonzalez is tracking efforts to reduce Nebraska brain drain, which is now happening in our cities, too.
And lookee there, here’s yet another one from Cindy, who also wrote about Habitat for Humanity Omaha’s largest affordable housing development built during its 40-year history. - Here’s a fascinating and timely one from the Journal Star’s Amie Just. The state of Nebraska produces more all-star women’s volleyball players per capita than anywhere else on Planet Earth. Why? (You may need Journal Star subscriber access to view this story.)
- The state has been making serious progress in Mead, Gov. Jim Pillen told an audience there this week, reports the Examiner Editor Aaron Sanderford. (Aaron’s over here making me feel lazy … I can’t remember the last time I wrote a story.)
- An eye-opening one out of Columbus, where a lawsuit alleges a school counselor at the Catholic school there was retaliated against and fired after she blew the whistle on a teacher sharing “inappropriate sexual and obscene materials” with eighth graders, court documents say.
Story by the Columbus Telegram’s David Golbitz, reprinted here in the Journal Star. (You may need Journal Star subscriber access to view.) - The Obamacare cliff is upon us, reports the Atlantic. (If you don’t subscribe to the Atlantic, you should.)
- And finally, good news in Grand Island: A cool-looking affordable housing project there got a boost from one of the world’s richest men.
Story by Nebraska Public Media’s Dale Johnson.
