“As far as I can see, we have a water quality issue in the state, and that water quality issue has potential health impacts, especially on children. My goal in all of this: How do we reduce risk in those kids? That’s the first thing I want to try to tackle.”
— Jesse Bell, director of UNMC’s Water, Climate and Health program and native of Bloomfield, Nebraska.
I have been thinking about this quote a lot in the past few days, since Bell said it to me during a phone interview for today’s Flatwater Free Press story.
After months focused on the problem of of high nitrate in Nebraska’s drinking water, today we pivoted to something that journalism far too often fails to address: Solutions.
We asked farmers, ranchers, NRD leaders, ag interest groups, soil experts, water experts, water law experts, ag economists and state lawmakers some variation of the same question: The median nitrate level has doubled in Nebraska’s water in the past 44 years. How do we clean up this mess?
I keep thinking about what Bell said in part because he and I come from similar places. I’m from Red Cloud, pop. 1,000 if we count a few cattle. He’s from Bloomfield, which evidently didn’t count any cattle and is thus pop. 986. I cut musk thistle out of pastures with my grandma, irrigated with my dad, did some shoddy tractor work. Bell, who has worked for the CDC, also once had a job building hog barns. We know full well that agriculture is in the DNA of small-town Nebraska. It is the DNA. It’s practically written into our own genetic code.
And I keep thinking about the quote because how it simply and smartly refocuses the issue back where our project, “Our Dirty Water” began:
Nebraska kids.
Nebraska kids who get pediatric cancer at higher rates than children in any other state west of Pennsylvania. Nebraska kids who live on farms and might drink nitrate-laced water without knowing it, and Nebraska kids who live in an increasing number of towns and cities whose leaders struggle to keep nitrate levels below the federal limit — even as research suggests that nitrate in water may be dangerous at levels below that limit.
Nebraska kids, like Jesse and I once were.
The truth is, if we’re gonna clean up Nebraska’s water, it’s gonna take a lot of effort by a lot of different people with different beliefs and expertise who come at this serious, serious issue from disparate points of view.
And the truth is, we need to. Because every Nebraska kid deserves to grow up healthy and become a farmer, or write this newsletter, or become an expert researching and grappling with Nebraska’s next big public health issue.
That’s why it matters.
I’m very proud of our 2022 series, “Our Dirty Water,” chiefly authored by reporter extraordinaire Yanqi Xu. If you haven’t yet: Read her series’ first three parts, on kids and cancer, Nebraska’s lack of nitrogen police, and the high price of clean water, as well at exec director Matt Wynn’s column on a lawsuit we filed as part of this work. I assure you that we will continue to follow this issue, and related issues, in 2023. It’s simply too important not to.
News that you can use…to keep yourself safe: New FFP reporter Sara Gentzler today answers a question many readers have asked us since we started our nitrate-in-water project. How do I test my water? How do I treat it? How do I keep myself and my family safe?
Sara and our friends at Hanscom Park Studio built us this incredible map, which allows you to access more help and information based on what Natural Resources District you live in. Click around and learn more!
And grizzled FFP veteran Natalia Alamdari — Yanqi and Natalia have now been with us 14 months! — delivers a related sidebar that asks the question: Can we science our way out of this nitrate problem?
A heartwarming skater story: This month’s Flatwater Free Conversation, hosted by Mike’l Severe, goes deeper into the story of a new skate park on the Omaha Native Reservation, in the poorest county in Nebraska. Severe talks to author Joe Starita, who spearheaded the project, and Belinda Hinojos, a psychologist on the reservation who speaks about teen mental health and why the skate park matters. Watch the video of their conversation or read an edited transcript here.
And read our first story on the new Walthill skate park, written by yours truly. Being there on the day of the grand opening, and witnessing what happened, remains one of my most cherished moments of 2022.
Still time to give in 2022: Our year-end fundraising drive for the Flatwater Free Press, Nebraska’s first statewide independent nonprofit journalism news source, has gone stupendously.
Here’s the scoreboard: 360 Nebraskans have donated for the first time since Nov. 1, far surpassing our goal of 250 new donors. And hundreds more have re-upped their 2021 donations in 2022, powering our ability to continue to tell even more important stories next year. (Stay tuned in January for exciting news about how we are gonna do that.)
If you have given to FFP to further the mission of Nebraska nonprofit journalism this year — thank you so much.
If you haven’t yet, I get it. I have been known to buy my Christmas presents on Christmas Eve, too.
But you are in luck! You can still play Santa Claus for FFP and nonprofit journalism by clicking here and then doing a few further clicks and clacks.
One more way to help: Because we like goals, at this time last year we set a goal for this newsletter. We wanted it to double in 2022, growing to 7,200 subscribers by year’s end.
As of today, we are so close: This newsletter was delivered to 7,144 Nebraskans. Have you liked the journalism you found here, not to mention the witty banter, since you signed up for our free newsletter? Help us by forwarding it to your friends, and telling them to sign up here.
Last but not least: Thank you to this week’s newsletter sponsor, American National Bank! That’s where FFP does our banking. We also require all FFP employees to honk their horns when they drive by the giant American National Bank Christmas tree on Dodge Street.
OK. I’m gonna go buy some last-minute Christmas presents, pour myself a spiked egg nog and watch the greatest Christmas movie ever made… Die Hard. Have a wonderful holiday season.
Happy holidays,
—Matthew Hansen, Executive Editor
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:
- Big news week in Omaha. Federal agents raided the home of an Omaha city councilman as part of a probe into a nonprofit closely tied to current and former Omaha police officers. Our friends at the Omaha World-Herald have been all over this story.
- And a sprawling, 408-unit apartment complex was condemned this week, forcing hundreds of Omaha families out in freezing temperatures just days before Christmas. KETV reporters have covered the plight of Legacy Crossing residents, a timeline of what happened and efforts to help.
- And finally, Nebraska Public Media with more news, and quite a photo, from that Keystone oil pipeline spill near the Nebraska border.
