SACRED SOUNDS - Gregorian Chants

"Gregorian chants are a hit at this Nebraska seminary" PBS NewsHour 11/27/2017

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Spending 13 weeks at the top of the classical music charts, a group of priests are reinvigorating an early musical genre.  Special correspondent Dennis Kellogg of NET reports from eastern Nebraska.

Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary

AMERICAN WATER SUPPLY - Cleaning the Heartland

"Using sensors to spoon-feed crops with extreme precision" PBS NewsHour 10/19/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  To profitably produce corn in on Midwestern farms, nitrogen must be added to the soil.  But the practice has an unwanted environmental impact:  water contamination.  A University of Nebraska professor thinks he may have a solution.  Special correspondent Ariana Brocious of Harvest Public Media in Nebraska reports.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  Now:  a look at trying to clean up the water supply in the country's heartland.

For decades, American farmers have been applying nitrogen fertilizer, in some cases too generously, to crops.  Much of that fertilizer has found its way into runoff, contaminating water supplies and forcing many communities to invest heavily in water treatment plants.

From NET in Nebraska, Ariana Brocious of Harvest Public Media reports on new technologies farmers are using to reduce contamination from their fields.

It's part of our series about the Leading Edge of science and tech.

ARIANA BROCIOUS, NET Nebraska:  When University of Nebraska professor Richard Ferguson looks at a cornfield, he has no illusions.

RICHARD FERGUSON, University of Nebraska – Lincoln:  To profitably produce corn in Nebraska, we have to apply nitrogen fertilizer.  In many cases, in the past, we applied more than we really needed.

ARIANA BROCIOUS:  Ferguson wants to reduce the chance that excess nitrogen will get into the groundwater.  His high-tech approach, called Project SENSE, uses sensor technology to help farmers fertilize during the growing season as timely and precisely as possible.

RICHARD FERGUSON:  If we can make them more money by the use of sensor technology, we think that's something they would adopt.

ARIANA BROCIOUS:  Project SENSE is being put to the test in areas where groundwater nitrate levels are high.  Today, it's at the Seim family farm in Central Nebraska.

The machine's arms have sensors that gauge how much nitrogen the plants need.  A computer fires applicators to deliver fertilizer, practically feeding plants one by one.

For Anthony Seim, SENSE is another tool for his family to try.

ANTHONY SEIM, Seim Ag Technology:  I don't think there's any farmer that wakes up in the morning and says, I'm just going to go dump 1,000 gallons of fertilizer down a ditch.  Everybody's trying.  It's just that it doesn't always work.  There's a lot of things that we can't control, weather being the biggest one.

PHILANTHROPY - Howard Buffett, Feed the World

"How farmer-philanthropist Howard Buffett is planting hope in Africa" PBS NewsHour 5/2/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Howard Buffett, son of billionaire Warren Buffett, has an ambitious life goal: ending world hunger.  As a farmer and philanthropist, his focus is on reviving African agriculture, which has suffered massive production failures.  In collaboration with The Atlantic, Judy Woodruff charts Buffett’s efforts to boost food security for billions.

HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour):  Africa has vast agricultural potential, yet, over the past half-century, its per capita food production has declined drastically.  In fact, it’s gone from being a net food exporter to now importing much of its food.

The reasons are complex, but they include rapid population growth, political strife and weak institutions.

As part of our ongoing collaboration with The Atlantic, we profile an American farmer and philanthropist who has made it his mission to reverse the trend in Africa.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  Howard Buffett is a serious farmer.  He is a conservationist, intent on finding better, more sustainable ways to grow food.

And he is a teacher, sharing what he knows with farmers in Africa, giving them tools to better feed their people.

HOWARD G. BUFFETT, Philanthropist:  This is all going to take nutrients out of the soil.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  He is also a man with a lot of money to spend on making those things happen.

It’s been described that one of your goals or your main goal is ending world hunger.

HOWARD G. BUFFETT:  Well, you got to have a goal.

(LAUGHTER)

HOWARD G. BUFFETT:  But we’re not going to end world hunger, but, you know, I think every step we can take in that direction is something positive.

Just slam it.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  You just slam it?

HOWARD G. BUFFETT:  Hard.  There.  You got it.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  So, now, what do you call this machine again?

HOWARD G. BUFFETT:  8225-R John Deere.  It’s a tractor.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  Howard Buffett loves his toys.

HOWARD G. BUFFETT:  My mom always told me I didn’t have enough Tonka toys when I grew up, so I think I have them now.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  Mom would be the late Susan Buffett, who died in 2004.  And dad, you guessed it, is Warren Buffett, one of the world’s richest men.

You grew up in Nebraska.  What was it like?  I mean, what do you remember about being in this family?

HOWARD G. BUFFETT:  I think people think it was different because of my dad.

And the truth is, when I was growing up, my dad wasn’t well-known at all.  We grew up in a very normal environment, went to public schools, walked down to the bus stop and went to school.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  At the same time, your dad — because of your dad’s success, you were leading a pretty comfortable upbringing.

HOWARD G. BUFFETT:  Oh, we didn’t have to worry about anything.  And we were always told that, if we wanted to go to college, it would be paid for, if we wanted to go to medical school, it would be paid for, which is kind of funny, because none of the three of us actually finished college.  We all started, but we never quite made it all the way through.

I just had a hard time adjusting in college.  So I went out and I bought a bulldozer, and I started building terraces on farm ground and taking out trees and building basements.  And it was something I always wanted to do, so I went out and did it.

SMALL-TOWN U.S.A - 'No' to Industrial-Scale Jobs

"Tiny Nebraska town says no to 1,100 jobs, citing way of life" by Scott McFetridge (AP), MSN News 5/2/2016

Cedar Street in the center of the village of Nickerson, Neb., is seen at night, Tuesday, April 19, 2016.  When regional officials announced plans to open a $300 million chicken processing plant employing 1,100 workers, residents packed the firehall and the village board unanimously voted against the plant, and a week later the company gave up, saying they’d take their plant and jobs elsewhere.

NICKERSON, Neb. — Half-ton pickup trucks crowd the curb outside the One Horse Saloon, a neon Coors Light sign in the window and rib-eye steaks on the menu, but otherwise Nickerson, Nebraska, is nearly silent on a spring evening, with only rumbling freight trains interrupting bird songs.

Regional economic development officials thought it was the perfect spot for a chicken processing plant that would liven up the 400-person town with 1,100 jobs, more than it had ever seen.  When plans leaked out, though, there was no celebration, only furious opposition that culminated in residents packing the fire hall to complain the roads couldn't handle the truck traffic, the stench from the plant would be unbearable and immigrants and out-of-towners would flood the area, overwhelming schools and changing the town's character.

"Everyone was against it," said Jackie Ladd, who has lived there for more than 30 years.  "How many jobs would it mean for people here?  Not many."

The village board unanimously voted against the proposed $300 million plant, and two weeks later, the company said they'd take their plant — and money — elsewhere.

Deep-rooted, rural agricultural communities around the U.S. are seeking economic investments to keep from shedding residents, but those very places face trade-offs that increasing numbers of those who oppose meat processing plants say threaten to burden their way of life and bring in outsiders.

"Maybe it's just an issue of the times in which we live in which so many people want certain things but they don't want the inconveniences that go with them," said Chris Young, executive director of the American Association of Meat Processors.

Nickerson fought against Georgia-based Lincoln Premium Poultry, which wanted to process 1.6 million chickens a week for warehouse chain Costco.  It was a similar story in Turlock, California, which turned down a hog-processing plant last fall, and Port Arthur, Texas, where residents last week stopped a meat processing plant.  There also were complaints this month about a huge hog processing plant planned in Mason City, Iowa, but the project has moved ahead.

The Nickerson plant would have helped area farmers, who mostly grow corn and soybeans, start up poultry operations and buy locally grown grain for feed, said Willow Holliback, who lives 40 miles away and heads an agriculture group that backed the proposal.

"When farmers are doing well, the towns are doing well," she said.

The question of who would work the tough jobs was at the forefront of the debate, though many were adamant they aren't anti-immigrant.  Opposition leader Randy Ruppert even announced:  "This is not about race.  This is not about religion."

But both were raised at the raucous April 4 meeting where the local board rejected the plant.  One speaker said he'd toured a chicken processing plant elsewhere and felt nervous because most of the workers were minorities.

More overtly, John Wiegert, from nearby Fremont where two meat processors employ many immigrants, questioned whether Nickerson's plant would attract legal immigrants from Somalia — more than 1,000 of whom have moved to other Nebraska cities for similar jobs, along with people from Mexico, Central America and Southeast Asia.

"Being a Christian, I don't want Somalis in here," Wiegert, who has led efforts to deny rental housing to immigrants in the country illegally, told the crowd.  "They're of Muslim descent.  I'm worried about the type of people this is going to attract."

Others pointed out that, given Nebraska's unemployment rate is among the nation's lowest near 3 percent, few local residents would accept the entry-level jobs.  While the projected wage of $13 to $17 an hour was above the region's current median wage for production workers, opponents argued meat processors generally have high turnover.

"We aren't against jobs," farmer John Schauer said.  "We want clean, stable jobs."

The land is flat and rich around Nickerson, which is a half-mile off a narrow state highway about 30 miles from Omaha.  The town's tidy but often faded single-story homes sit on large, grassy lots.  There's a small cluster of commercial buildings, most of them long shuttered, and a grain elevator.

Its school was demolished more than a decade ago, leaving only the old playground, but residents take pride in the regional school district.  Superintendent Jeremy Klein told the village board he worried new students would overwhelm local schools and that tax breaks would limit any extra money to hire more teachers.

"It's impossible to know what the size of that impact will be," Klein said days later.

People seem to be more willing than in earlier eras to fight developments they think could harm the environment or change an area's character, University of Nebraska-Lincoln economics professor Eric Thompson said, even if the development offers an economic boost.

Mason City official Brent Trout said he heard all the arguments against the $240 million plant planned some 200 miles northeast of Nickerson:  What's the environmental impact of an operation that will process up to 22,000 hogs daily?  How will 2,000 new jobs affect the isolated city of 27,500?

It's already hard to attract employers to Mason City, which has lost about 10 percent of its population over the last 30 years, he said.  But, like Nickerson, Mason City's best selling point is its focus on agriculture:  "This is what Iowa is.  This is what Iowa does," Trout said.  "We raise pigs and we process pigs."

Although Nickerson residents have succeeded in pushing away the industrial-scale operation, opponents said they're getting better organized to help the town that's targeted next.

"I've lived in exotic places, but I've never wanted to live anywhere but here," said Chuck Folsom, an 88-year-old former Marine and farmer.  "We've got to protect the land.  We're not making any more of it."

UNFORGIVING - The Long Life of Debt, Nebraska

"For Nebraska's Poor, Get Sick and Get Sued" by Paul Kiel, ProPublica 4/28/2016

A Greed File

Hay...  You Commie Pinkos, you don't understand, poor people are just lazy and want to be on the public dole.  (satire off)

Cheap court fees and looser rules make suing over medical debts as small as $60 easy.  Every year Nebraska collection agencies file lawsuits by the tens of thousands.

This story was co-published with The Daily Beast.

Two years ago, the president of Credit Management Services, a collection agency in Grand Island, Nebraska, presented a struggling local family with the keys to a used 2007 Mercury Grand Marquis.  To commemorate the donation, the company held a ceremony that concluded outside its offices, where the couple and their two young girls could try out their new car.

The family's story was dire; their eight-year-old daughter's failing kidney had led to multiple surgeries and a deluge of medical bills, according to an article in the local newspaper.

But CMS played another role in the family's life, one the article didn't mention.  The company had previously sued the couple eight times over unpaid medical bills and garnished both of their wages.  As recently as two weeks earlier, CMS had seized $156, a quarter of the girl's father's paycheck.

Shortly after the ceremony, CMS released the family from further garnishment, court records show.  But just four months later, the company filed a motion to start up again.  The couple, who did not respond to attempts by ProPublica to contact them, has since declared bankruptcy.

In almost any other state, such a barrage of lawsuits against a family in desperate financial straits would be remarkable.  Not in Nebraska.  There, debt collectors frequently sue over medical debts as small as $60 and a simple missed doctor's bill can quickly land you in court.

Filing suit is one of the most aggressive ways to collect debt, but no one tracks how frequently it happens or to whom.  An examination of Nebraska's courts, however, shows that where debtors live can have an enormous, and unexpected, impact on the quantity and types of lawsuits.

Nebraska's flood of suits isn't merely a reflection of residents' inability to pay their bills.  About 79,000 debt collection lawsuits were filed in Nebraska courts in 2013 alone, according to a ProPublica analysis.  In New Mexico, a state with a population, like Nebraska's, of around two million, about 30,000 suits were filed.  Yet by virtually any measure, households in Nebraska are significantly better off than those in New Mexico: Income is higher.  Poverty is lower.  And fewer families fall behind on their bills.

The reason for the difference is simple.  Suing someone in Nebraska is cheaper and easier.

The cost to file a lawsuit in Nebraska is $45.  In New Mexico, where suits are filed at about one-third the rate as in Nebraska, the fee for smaller debts starts at $77.

Nebraska lawmakers, of course, didn't set out to turn the Cornhusker State into the Lawsuit State.  Instead, it appears no one understood the consequences of having cheap court fees: Suing became an irresistible bargain for debt collectors.  It's a deal collectors have fought to keep, opposing even the slightest increase.

For debtors, unaffordable debts turn into unaffordable garnishments, destroying already tight budgets and sending them into a loop.  “It's just been a vicious cycle,” said Tanya Glasgow, a single mother in Lincoln, Nebraska who's been sued several times.  “It's been horrible.”

“I resent the stereotype that these are not hard-working people” said Katherine Owen, managing attorney in Legal Aid of Nebraska's Omaha office.  “Truly the majority of them simply cannot afford it.  That's it.”

Lawsuits over medical debts are, of course, filed in other states, usually by hospitals.  What makes Nebraska unusual is that almost all the suits are brought by locally owned collection agencies that pursue debts on behalf of medical providers.  Although ProPublica found collection agencies filing suits in large numbers in other states, particularly Indiana and Washington, none could match the sheer volume in Nebraska.

It's a difference that came as a surprise to researchers, consumer advocates, and collection professionals both in and outside of Nebraska.

“There's very little information, period” on the number of collection lawsuits in different states, said April Kuehnhoff, an attorney with the National Consumer Law Center.  Policymakers in Nebraska and other states should pay attention, she said.  “Being sued on a debt has very serious negative consequences for consumers.”

In a statement, the Nebraska Collectors Association said collection agencies file suits as “a last resort,” after attempts by the original provider and the agency to resolve the debt have failed.  “Cooperatively working with the consumer is always the preferred approach to the collection process,” it said.

Credit Management Services' offices are housed in a squat, brick building that's conveniently located just a block away from the county courthouse in Grand Island, a city of about 51,000 in central Nebraska.

Local businessman Michael Morledge has owned the company since 1995.  His son serves as president and his daughter as vice president of customer relations.  CMS, with about 200 employees, boasts of having “the industry's highest recovery rates” on its website and counts two-thirds of Nebraska hospitals among its clients.  In addition to other medical clients like doctor's offices and clinics, CMS also handles non-medical debts such as overdrawn bank accounts, utility bills and payday loans.

Like other collection agencies in the state, CMS employs collectors to persuade debtors to make voluntary payments.  And like those other agencies, CMS routinely sues those who don't.  But it's here that CMS sets itself apart.

In 2013, CMS filed almost 30,000 lawsuits in Nebraska, more than the rest of the collection agencies in Nebraska combined.  That would be a staggering number of suits in any state.  In New Jersey, with a population nearly five times larger, only one company, the nation's largest debt buyer, filed more than 30,000 lawsuits that year.

To file those suits – about 120 per working day – CMS has its own staff of six attorneys.  The complaints are prepped by support staff and then presented to the attorneys for review, CMS's general counsel Tessa Hermanson said in a 2012 deposition from a class action lawsuit against the company.

Debtors aren't sued unless “the individual has a means to pay,” she said.  But when pressed about how CMS determines this, Hermanson, who supervises the company's lawyers, said she didn't know if it was done by “one person or a department.”

A review of CMS's lawsuits shows the company is routinely aggressive even when it's obvious the debtor is poor.  In one case, CMS emptied a debtor's bank account 11 times over the course of two years, even though in all but three instances the debtor had under $100.  One garnishment netted the company $6.50.

Competition for clients can encourage this sort of approach, said Judge Craig McDermott, former counsel at a CMS rival and current presiding judge of the Douglas County Court in Omaha.  Companies may sue even when it's apparent the debtor can't pay just to prove to the original creditor that they are making an effort:  “Otherwise they'll go to another agency down the street,” he told ProPublica in a 2014 interview.

CMS's frequent use of the courts has brought millions back to the company, which retains a percentage of what it collects, and its clients.  From 2008 through 2014, CMS seized at least $88 million from Nebraskans' wages and bank accounts, according to court data analyzed by ProPublica.

In a brief response to a list of questions from ProPublica, CMS wrote that it “plays an active and important role in assisting creditors in Nebraska with recovering money owed for goods and services” and that it “strives to comply with all applicable laws and regulations” and only files suit after other collection attempts fail.  The company declined to discuss any individual debtor case.

Earlier this year, state Sen. Adam Morfeld introduced a bill in the Nebraska legislature that seemed too benign for anyone to oppose:  It proposed raising the fee for filing a lawsuit by $1.  The extra money would go to civil legal aid organizations to provide more services to low-income residents.

But, to Morfeld's surprise, his bill quickly encountered stiff resistance.  Tim Keigher, CMS's lobbyist in the state capital, made it clear the company would fight the bill every step of the way, said Morfeld, a Democrat.  Keigher did not respond to requests for comment.

At a February judicial committee hearing, CMS's Hermanson appeared on behalf of the Nebraska Collectors Association to oppose the bill.  Raising the cost of filing suit in county courts from $45 to $46, she said, would create a “burden” on the businesses that hire collection agencies.  Collection agencies ask, “is it worth it to pay X amount to recover a small, you know, medical debt of $200?” she said.  A higher filing fee may cause them to decide “it's just not worth it,” she said.

The gathered senators were skeptical.  After Hermanson testified that collection agencies filed thousands of suits each month, one senator volunteered that maybe increasing the filing fee “would be better” if it meant fewer suits.

Sen. Matt Williams, a Republican and former president of the American Bankers Association, asked Hermanson, “So your testimony is that a one dollar increase in this fee that your client is going to pay, not you, would stop you from filing claims for $200, $300 medical bills?”

Hermanson, perhaps betraying an industry fear that opening the door to a dollar would ease the way for further hikes, said “There's always a need for increased funds and at some point it becomes less practical to continue to pay for those fees.”

“So you would weigh that one dollar against the ability to provide legal services for the poor people of Nebraska?” asked Williams.

“No, certainly not,” she replied.

“But that's what your testimony is.”

“My testimony is that the legal services fund, we're not disputing that it's needed,” said Hermanson, “just that maybe there's a better way to do it than increasing the court cost.”

Ultimately, CMS's efforts to halt the bill were unsuccessful.  On a 40–0 vote, the bill passed the legislature earlier this month and was quickly signed by the governor.  But Morfeld said, “It's really been eye-opening.  I think we have a broader problem.”

ProPublica's review of court data across several states suggests a relationship between court costs and the number of collection suits filed.

In 2013, Cook County, Illinois, which contains Chicago and has a population of over 5 million, had about the same number of collection suits as Nebraska with its population of fewer than 2 million.  That year, it cost $172 in Cook County to file suit for the sort of small amounts that predominate in Nebraska, where the fee was $45.

Not surprisingly, lawsuits over debts of a few hundred dollars are extremely rare in Cook County.  The typical collection suit in 2013 sought around $3,000, according to ProPublica's analysis.

In fact, suits for a few hundred dollars are generally rare.  Debt buyers, for instance, usually don't file suits for debts smaller than $1,000 due to the costs involved in suing, said Jan Stieger, executive director of the industry's trade group, DBA International.  Debt buyers, which primarily purchase defaulted credit card accounts, file more collection suits nationwide than any other type of company.

Some states, like Missouri and New Jersey, have filing fees comparable to Nebraska's.  But even there the rate of suits, when adjusted for the population, was still substantially lower.

Kuehnoff of the National Consumer Law Center said the volume of suits in a state is also a reflection of how easy it is to sue.  Nebraska has a number of collector-friendly policies, such as looser standards for serving debtors with a lawsuit.  Tougher standards – such as requiring collectors to serve defendants personally with a suit or provide more documentation of debts – can decrease the number of suits and make the process fairer to consumers, she said.

In February, a federal judge deemed CMS's practices unfair, siding with the plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit against the company.  CMS, ruled U.S. District Judge Joseph Bataillon, had deceived consumers with its collection suits by wrongly claiming interest and attorney fees — charges that CMS adds to debts and keeps for itself.  CMS agreed to settle the class action earlier this month, but the settlement's details remain under seal.

In his ruling, Bataillon wrote that the extra charges were just one part of a process that can be bewildering for defendants, who are very rarely represented by an attorney.

“Without any special knowledge of the law, a layperson could not figure out, on the face of the collection complaint, what the claim was for or to whom he or she was indebted,” he wrote.

To get a sense of who is affected by collection suits in Nebraska, ProPublica reviewed 100 randomly selected cases where a collection agency had garnished the debtor's pay or bank account.  Most of the debtors were lower-income, more than half earned below a rate of $30,000 a year.

“I have to work two jobs just to try to make ends meet,” said Robin Kerr, 55, of Norfolk, a city of about 24,000 in northeastern Nebraska.  Kerr has been sued four times, three times by CMS, and in each case, the agency sought to seize a chunk of her wages at Burger King.

Most of the suits we reviewed sought less than $700, and 40 sought less than $500.  Four of the suits, all filed by CMS, were for under $100.  In one case, a $66 chiropractic bill transformed into a $275 court judgment after court costs, attorney fees, and interest were tacked on.

The vast majority of suits were over unpaid medical bills, the providers ranged from rural hospitals to the largest in the state, from specialists to family doctors.  Debts from multiple providers were often combined in the same suit, even bundled with non-medical bills.

The suits sometimes came quickly, in some cases only three months after the provider sent the patient a bill.  That speed is in contrast to recent national reforms meant to protect consumers from being penalized for medical billing errors.  Last year, the three main credit reporting agencies announced a new 180-day waiting period from the time a medical account is created until it can appear on a patient's credit report as in collections.

But in Nebraska, said legal aid attorneys, once an account is sent to a collection agency, the patient has little hope of sorting out a billing issue.  Instead, collection agencies often give them the option of paying in full or facing a lawsuit, they said.

Tanya Glasgow, 39, has had health problems for years, at one point requiring surgery to remove her gall bladder and recently suffering from epileptic seizures.  Making matters worse, she's gone for stretches without health insurance, which she's struggled to afford.  She has two teenagers at home and a third child in college and works the graveyard shift at a nursing home for $18.50 an hour.

Glasgow's tried various strategies for dealing with her medical debt, which she estimates at about $20,000, but any plan can suddenly fall apart.  “I'm paying on three of them and then the fourth one sues me,” she said.  She's been sued five times, four by CMS.

The worst blow came last fall.  CMS had filed its third suit, a bundle of radiology and emergency room bills, for over $1,000.  A week after obtaining a judgment, CMS moved to garnish her pay.  But the same day, CMS also filed to seize funds from her bank account.

The action froze Glasgow's account and secured the entirety of what she owed under the judgment, $1,315.  But because it took several weeks for CMS to actually receive that money through the court, CMS allowed the garnishment of her wages to continue.

Glasgow said she struggled for two weeks to put food on the table.  But when her paycheck arrived, it was short $226, because CMS had taken money she no longer owed.  CMS garnished her next paycheck, too, before the case was finally closed.

Glasgow said she had to call both the court and CMS to get her money returned, and then CMS took more than a month to do so.

The experience convinced Glasgow it was time to pursue something she'd put off considering, bankruptcy.

It's a step that wouldn't be necessary if she lived in a state where lawsuits over medical debt weren't so common, she said.

“The amount of stress this has brought into my life has been almost unbearable.”

EDUCATION - Food for Thought

"Students running small-town market know business" PBS NewsHour 3/7/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  As a sparsely populated Nebraska town in an equally sparsely populated county, Cody is not where one might expect to find a thriving retail business.  But the Circle C Market has been making a (small) profit there for the last three years.  Its secret?  It’s run by students from a nearby school, who work at the store as part of their curriculum.  Mike Tobias of Harvest Public Media reports.

AMERICA - Keystone Oil Pipeline Debate

"Keystone Oil Pipeline Project Divides Nebraska Residents" by Tom Bearden, PBS Newshour 10/10/2011

If your car ever dies in the middle of nowhere, you better hope you're in Nebraska.

While working on a story about the Keystone XL pipeline project, photographer Brian Gill and I stopped alongside a rural road to shoot video of the Sand Hills, a sprawling area of prairie and sand dunes in northern Nebraska. During the brief time we were there, three motorists stopped to ask if we were in trouble and needed a ride. Over the years, we've parked along many roads in many different states, but this was the first time anybody had stopped to help.

That sentiment does not extend to the pipeline project though. Many Nebraskans have little interest in helping TransCanada, the company seeking to build the pipeline, which would stretch 1,700 miles from northern Alberta to Texas. The Canadian company wants to transport billions of barrels of oil from the Tar Sands region in Alberta to refineries in Houston. The proposed route would go right through the Sand Hills and on top of the Ogallala aquifer, which is the major source of water for much of the agricultural Midwest.

Opponents wearing red T-shirts gave the State Department an earful during two late-September public hearings in Lincoln and Kirkland, Neb. They believe that an accident is inevitable and that the pipeline poses a serious risk to the all-important water supply. They also claim the oil will be of little benefit to Americans, because it will be exported.

But others in Nebraska want the pipeline built as soon as possible, because it will create badly-needed construction jobs. Union members wearing orange T-shirts turned out in force to show their support for the project. Both sides accused the other of busing out-of-staters to the hearings in order to artificially inflate their numbers.

TransCanada says this will be the safest pipeline in the U.S., or anywhere else, for that matter. They point to the fact that the State Department's Final Environmental Impact Statement says it can be operated without endangering the environment. TransCanada Vice-President Robert Jones also told us that the U.S. will benefit from having a reliable source of oil from a friendly neighbor. The claim that the oil would wind up overseas doesn't make economic sense, he said.

The State Department spent the last three years writing the impact statement and has held public hearings in all six states that the pipeline will cross to get citizen input before making a final decision.

We'll explore these issues in the story that Producer Mary Jo Books, Photographer Brian Gill, Editor Tim Smith, and I prepared for Monday's NewsHour.

COMMENT: This applies to ALL subjects that involve "construction jobs." Construction jobs are SHORT TERM. They last only as long as the construction of whatever lasts, just ask anyone involved in the home construction industry. In the case of this pipeline, the environmental risks for ALL the states it passes through last forever.

"Environment, Economy at Heart of Keystone XL Pipeline Debate"
PBS Newshour 10/10/2011


Excerpt from transcript

TOM BEARDEN (Newshour): Jane Kleeb says the pipeline won't just cross the aquifer, that, by being buried four feet deep, it will actually be in it.

JANE KLEEB, Bold Nebraska: That Ogallala aquifer is really close to the surface, so a rancher can literally stick a pipe in the ground and water will come out of it. And that's how they water their cattle.

TOM BEARDEN: Kleeb runs a citizen advocacy group called Bold Nebraska. She says the company has had problems with other pipelines it operates in the U.S. and Canada.

JANE KLEEB: So, TransCanada has already had 14 leaks in the United States, over 30, if you combine the leaks that have happened in Canada as well. There has been one leak here in Nebraska. They have also actually had to dug up the pipeline in three different areas in Nebraska for pipeline anomalies.

TOM BEARDEN: Kleeb and others claim the type of oil the pipeline would carry is far more toxic than the lighter crude carried by other pipelines.

JANE KLEEB: Tar sands oil is 16 times more corrosive than traditional oil, which means that there will be more pipeline ruptures, more leaks. And it also produces three times the amount of greenhouse gas emissions. And so not only is the oil not guaranteed for the United States. It's also a dirtier form of oil than traditional oil.

COMMENT: I don't usually agree with Republicans (an understatement) but Sen. Tony Fulton's (R) statement that states should have some say as to the routing of oil pipelines IS a good idea. I was surprised that this is not normal in these type of decisions.