Nebraska Bird Partnership

Sierra Club, Bold Nebraska, and the National Wildlife Federation have joined Senator Mike Johanns in criticizing a Canadian pipeline company for what they called threatening letters to Nebraska landowners on the route for a proposed 36-inch crude-oil pipeline.  Sen. Johanns chastised the company, TransCanada, for the letters that threatened to use eminent domain to gain easements for the pipeline unless landowners agreed to terms within 30 days.

Read more about the criticism of TransCanada's letters to landowners from the Omaha World-Herald.

The Nebraska Supreme Court is expected to decide whether to scrap state-mandated restrictions that have kept a long stretch of the Niobrara River basin off-limits to new irrigation development for more than two years.  On Thursday, state attorneys will square off before the high court against four natural resources districts in a significant test of how the state decides whether river basins are able to withstand more irrigation without hurting existing water users.

Read more about the Niobrara arguments from the Omaha World-Herald.

The deadline for amateurs to enter the University of Nebraska State Museum’s Wildlife and Nature Photo Contest is this Wednesday.  Images may include animal behavior, plant life, landscapes, wildlife in a natural habitat and people interacting with nature.

Nebraska’s dove-hunting season begins Wednesday.

Read the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission's reminders for dove hunters from the Omaha World-Herald.

Firefighters continued Saturday to battle wildfires that scorched about 1,500 acres in western Nebraska and South Dakota.  The largest of the five fires that broke out Friday evening swept through an estimated 1,200 acres near Chadron, in the northwest corner of the Panhandle.

Read more about the Nebraska wildfire from the Lincoln Journal-Star.

Gov. Dave Heineman said he expects to make the final decision within the next two or three weeks on a Nebraska Game and Parks Commission bid to lift a 15-year ban on alcohol consumption. The commission voted 8-1 during a May hearing to allow alcohol, with restrictions, in state parks and wildlife management areas.

Read more about Governor Heineman's upcoming decision from the Omaha World-Herald.

Opponents of the controversial plan to allow drinking in state parks want to discuss it Tuesday, when the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission meets near Ogallala, but the alcohol issue is not on the meeting agenda.

Read more about the Game and Parks Commission agenda omission from the Lincoln Journal-Star.

Wildlife officials are hoping a new online program will help reduce the number of antlerless deer in the state. The online program matches up hunters seeking antlerless deer with landowners wanting to thin out populations.

Learn more about the antlerless deer hunter tool from the Omaha World-Herald.

The latest issue of the Project Learning Tree/Project Wet newsletter is now available.  Articles include:

• Join the New PLT Online Community!
• Educator Workshops, Fall 2010
• PLT Activity for the Fall #78:  Signs of Fall
• Try this Project Wet Activity!
• Green Living Tip
• PLT/WET Impact Survey

The purple martin migration in Omaha is peaking at about 65,000 birds, more than double what was expected, local birders say.  The birds roost nightly in a small group of trees along 44th Street, immediately south of Farnam.

Read more about witnessing the purple martin migration from the Omaha World-Herald.

Residents spoke Monday night at a Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality hearing for expansion of a uranium mine north of Crawford.  The hearing was for the “exemption” step of the application process for the North Trend expansion of the Crow Butte Resources mine, owned by Cameco Resources. An exemption means that the portion of the Chadron Aquifer specified in the application is declared permanently off-limits for use as a drinking water source.

Read more about the uranium mine expansion exemption from the Scottsbluff Star-Herald.

A new website focused on the Republican River Basin offers education and information about the contested river.

Development of the Republican River Basin Water and Drought Portal was led by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln-based National Drought Mitigation Center, in collaboration with Nebraska's Lower, Middle, and Upper natural resources districts.

State Sen. Tony Fulton of Lincoln has joined the chorus of those concerned about a proposed crude-oil pipeline that would cross part of Nebraska’s fragile Sand Hills region.

Fulton, in a letter Monday, asked the U.S. State Department to address several questions raised by Nebraskans about the proposed Keystone XL project, including whether it could bypass the Sand Hills entirely.

Read more about Fulton's concerns about the Keystone pipeline from the Omaha World-Herald.