Nebraska Bird Partnership

The U.S. EPA has just completed a draft strategic plan for their agency... in reading through the plan, it does not include anything on environmental education.

One of the key funding sources for the environmental education field is the National Environmental Education Act. This Act creates and funds the EPA Office of EE – which in turn funds the National Environmental Education Foundation (NEEF), the Environmental Education Training Partnership (EETAP), and the EPA EE Grants Program including the regional grants so important to many agencies, organizations, and groups conducting environmental education in Nebraska.

The EPA is currently accepting public comments on their strategic plan... Please take a few moments to read the strategic plan and submit a comment. We need to let the EPA know that environmental education today is vital to creating an environmentally literate citizenry and adults who are knowledgeable and ready to solve the environmental problems of the future! The deadline for comments is July 30^th – this Friday. 

Click here for the strategic plan

Click here for the news release and instructions for how to submit a comment

The Nebraska Public Power District is asking for public input on new transmission lines that will supply power to new pumping stations for the TransCanada Keystone XL Pipeline.  NPPD is conducting public hearings in Osceola, Central City, Bartlett and Albion this week. These are the county seats for the counties where the proposed final transmission line route is planned.

Learn more about NPPD's public hearings from the Grand Island Independent.

The Upper Big Blue Natural Resources District has been awarded a $5 million Agricultural Water Enhancement Program (AWEP) grant from the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service that will help pay for new water saving programs in water quality priority areas in the NRD.

The AWEP grant will support a five-year, $5 million project that will pay incentives to landowners for several water saving practices throughout 10 townships in York County and two townships in southeastern Hamilton County as a first priority component of the grant.

Learn more about the Upper Big Blue AWEP grant from the York News-Times.

Free beach fun at Nebraska's biggest lake is being offered by the state Game and Parks Commission on the last day of July.

Sand sculpting and kite flying will be highlighted at the annual Kites and Castles event July 31 at the Martin Bay area of Lake McConaughy.

Read more about Big Mac fun from the Omaha World-Herald.

Thirty people who have driven over the Platte River countless times found themselves closer to the water last week, paddling in a flotilla of kayaks.  They were participating in the inaugural kayak tour of the Platte River, sponsored by the Lower Platte River Corridor Alliance, a consortium of state agencies and natural resources districts working to protect the 110-mile stretch of the river from Columbus to Plattsmouth.

Read more about the Platte kayak flotilla from the Lincoln Journal-Star.

PETERSBURG, Neb. – July 21, 2010 – State and local officials and community leaders attended a ceremonial groundbreaking held today for the Laredo Ridge Wind project near Petersburg.  All of the electricity produced at the site will be sold under a 20-year contract to the Nebraska Public Power District (NPPD).

The Nebraska Forest Service at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, along with partners in a national consortium, has received a $1.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to develop hybrid hazelnuts as a perennial crop in Nebraska and across the U.S. for use as food, animal feed and biofuel.

Hazelnut plants require less water than annual crops, are drought resistant and can be grown on hilly, sloping or marginal soils. Research in Nebraska has shown that hazelnuts can be a high-yielding dry-land crop.

State Conservationist Steve Chick announced that three project areas in Nebraska will receive support for farmers and ranchers to conserve water and improve water quality on farm land through the Agricultural Water Enhancement Program (AWEP), which is administered by the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). 

NRCS will provide more than $4 million for three AWEP project areas. Farmers and ranchers with land located within the AWEP project areas have until August 6 to apply for program assistance.  

Sarah Sortum is the fourth generation to raise her kids on her family's ranch near Calamus Lake.  She grew up watching the grouse, the owls and the hawks on the 106-year-old Switzer Ranch and wanted to make sure those birds were around for future generations.  "The Sandhills is one of the last major strongholds for some of these birds," she said.

That is why Sortum pursued getting 50,000 acres of the Switzer Ranch and neighboring Morgan and Gracie Creek ranches designated as an Important Bird Area by Audubon Nebraska.

She said she was pleasantly surprised at the ready cooperation she received from neighbors. She said that although many didn't talk about it before, apparently her neighbors had a passion for wildlife and birds on their property. Bob Price runs the Gracie Creek Ranch and brothers Ronnie and Dan Morgan head up the Morgan Ranch.

"Now when we meet on the road, we are as apt to talk about birds as cattle," Sortum said. "They have taken a genuine interest in bird populations."

Read more about Calamus ranches and birds from the Grand Island Independent.

A Pheasants Forever-sponsored wildlife habitat project in the Rainwater Basin region of south-central Nebraska has received $3.25 million in financial assistance through the Wetlands Reserve Enhancement Program (WREP).  The multi-year pilot program will allow center pivot irrigation systems to travel across wetlands and upland buffers restored and protected through the USDA's Wetland Reserve Program (WRP) as a reserved right.

The project was one of five announced by the Department of Agriculture to restore and enhance wetlands in five Midwestern states through WREP.

Read more about the Rainwater Basin Wetlands Reserve Enhancement Program from the Omaha World-Herald.