News from

Vol. 1, No. 3 Spring 2013

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402.933.0080info@sustainabledesign.org

JISC joins Omaha Gives!The Joslyn Institute is proud to be

participating in Omaha Gives!—a 24-

hour charitable challenge organized by

the Omaha Community Foundation. The

online giving holiday will take place May

22 from midnight to midnight. Mark your

calendars because we will need your

help!

We will be joining nearly 300 local

nonprofits to raise money together and

compete for matching funds and prize

money. The more money we raise, the

larger percentage of the match pool we

will receive. The more donors we get to

give to us, the more likely we are to win

prize money.

It is a community-wide event to

show off Omaha’s spirit of giving, raise

awareness about local nonprofits, and

celebrate the collective effort it takes

to make this city great. Learn more at

OmahaGives24.org.

Thank you for your ongoing support

of JISC. We are eager to see the Omaha

community band together to give.

Latex Paint Exchange Do you have latex paint left over from

your last project? Do you need latex

paint for your next project? EcoStores

Nebraska is holding a Latex Paint

Exchange from 9 am to 2 pm on

Saturday, May 18. EcoStores is located

at 530 West P St. in Lincoln.

If you have usable latex paint to

exchange, follow these guidelines:

• Be sure it is usable latex paint. Check

the label: if it cleans up with soap and

water, it is latex.

• Paint cans must be at least 3/4 full.

• Paint cannot have been frozen.

• Paint cannot be lumpy when stirred.

• Labels must be readable.

• No rusty cans.

• Only households can drop off paint,

but anyone, including businesses, can

take paint.

EcoStores will dispose of unusable

paint for $2/can. Call (402) 477-3606 for

more information.

Drought Best PracticesDespite recent precipitation, much of

Nebraska is still facing dry conditions.

As we head into spring, farmers and

ranchers are planning how to best deal

with the dry conditions. Conservation

agencies including the USDA Natural

Resources Conservation Service

(NRCS) and Nebraska’s Natural

Resources Districts (NRDs) are working

together with farmers and ranchers as

they get ready to hit the fields. Faced

with limited water resources, farmers

and ranchers are turning to the NRCS

and NRDs for expert advice and

assistance to conserve water.

Both NRCS and the NRDs

encourage farmers and ranchers to visit

their local NRCS or NRD office for more

information on drought management

tools and cost-share

that may be available

to assist with best

management

practices.

For more

information, visit

www.ne.nrcs.usda.gov

or www.nrdnet.org.

Strong voices at Keystone XL Pipeline hearing in G.I.

Photo by Mary Anne Andrei / Bold Nebraska Nebraska landowner Randy Thompson stands together with BOLD Nebraska’s Jane Kleeb at the State Department Hearing in Grand Island on April 18

M ore than 200 people gave

testimony—most of it

against—at the U.S. State

Department’s hearing on the pro-

posed TransCanada Keystone XL

Pipelines in Grand Island on April 18.

The hearing pitted the concerns

of landowners and environmentalists,

who oppose the 1200-mile pipeline

carrying tar sand bitumen, against the

interests of labor unions, oil industry

lobbyists and some businessmen.

“The Sandhills overlay the Ogal-

lala Aquifer, the largest aquifer of its

kind in the nation,” said John Hansen,

president of the Nebraska Farmers

Union. “It is not only the source for the

majority of our state’s drinking water,

it also supplies water for livestock.

Running a potentially contaminating

tar sands pipeline through our water

supply is not only unnecessary, it is

downright foolish.”

A number of landowners also

spoke out against the power of

eminent domain being used to usurp

their rights as landowners in favor of a

foreign corporation.

Speaking in favor of the project,

Brigham McCown, former federal

pipeline administrator under President

George W. Bush, suggested it was

a practical necessity. “Pipelines are

by far the safest manner to transport

energy products in this country. And

ladies and gentlemen, they transport

two-thirds of all the energy supplies

we use,” he said. “Whether it’s that

plastic fork at breakfast or that iPhone,

that’s how we get what we need. And

we cannot turn our back on infra-

structure without understanding the

logistics and how things work.”

Chad Gilbert of Pipeliners Union

798 suggested opponents of the

project were misdirected. “Why protest

this job opportunity that my mem-

bers desperately need? Could it be

because of the Canadian oil sands,

or possibly the fossil fuels itself?” he

asked. “If that’s what you’re protest-

ing, it’s not going to change by holding

up a pipeline. The oil will be shipped.

This hearing will not change anything

to do with those issues. This issue will

determine how the oil will be trans-

ported.”

But opponents, whose numbers

exceeded 1000 at the hearing as

opposed to the dozen or so speaking

in favor of the pipeline, disputed the

potential for meaningful jobs created

by the pipeline, saying those jobs are

temporary, and only 35 to 40 jobs

would actually be created long-term.

And, said residents of Michigan

and Arkansas whose communities

have been devastated by pipeline

leaks of tar sands, no job is worth the

serious environmental hazards that

would occur in the case of a leak.

The fight over this pipeline goes

beyond jobs, said BOLD Nebraska

Executive Director Jane Kleeb, whose

group has been instrumental in real-

lying opposition the pipeline. “What

is really driving this fight is the basic

fundamental American principle that

our families have a right to own land

without a foreign company coming in

and taking it away.”

And there are serious environ-

mental concerns as well, she said.

Kleeb questioned the accuracy and

thoroughness of State Department

studies on such things as economic

risk to ranchers and others and the

lack of any kind of effective emer-

gency response plan, among other

concerns.

“The most disturbing failure of the

impact statement is that it does not

analyze oil spill planning for Keystone

XL specifically,” said Paul Blackburn,

an attorney who authored a 64-page

report showing a severe lack of oil

spill response equipment in Nebraska.

“We’ve been given only very generic

information prepared by TransCana-

da’s consultant in Texas – the same

group that planned the spill response

for BP. A student writing a class report

on how to respond to an oil spill might

find it useful, but we have no assur-

ance that TransCanada is actually

prepared for a spill.”

“TransCanada has a long history

of rhetoric for theoretical quality of

pipelines, as opposed to what they

have built in the United States,” said

Evan Vokes, a metallurgic engineer

and TransCanada whistleblower.

“TransCanada has not been honest

about its construction quality prob-

lems.”

The first Keystone pipeline Trans-

Canada built had 12 spills in its first

year in operation in the U.S., releasing

21,000 gallons of oil.

Chair of the “All Risk, No Reward”

Coalition, Nebraska landowner Randy

Thompson, spoke against allowing a

foreign company to transfer Canadian

tar sands oil through this country so it

can be shipped overseas.

“Families from Nebraska, Arkan-

sas, and Michigan have joined with

pipeline, water, and land experts to

speak in unison–Keystone XL is all

risk and no reward,” said Thompson.

A number of those testifying

spoke about the urgency of combat-

ting climate change and moving to

renewable sources of energy.

Said one man, “It’s as simple as

this: I oppose Keystone because I

drink water.”

Strategic Communications Design for

Sustainable Development is a new

initiative of the Joslyn Institute for

Sustainable Communities (JISC). The

project has been awarded funding

from the Nebraska Environmental

Trust Fund. It is one of 134 projects

across the state receiving lottery

proceeds in the form of grants from

the Trust.

The Communications Design

project, a two-year endeavor, is being

developed in target communities to

discern best practices for communica-

tion strategies that will be effective in

communities across Nebraska. The

final product will be an electronic

handbook for all communities.

“Research and practice in the

development of sustainable commu-

nity solutions has repeatedly dem-

onstrated that sustainability requires

more than the application of science,”

said JISC President and CEO W. Cecil

Steward. “Each problem-opportunity

in the quest for sustainability is a local

matter and, thus, requires a distinctive

understanding of what will work in a

particular place at a particular time.

This capacity is built up in certain

forms of deliberative and democratic

communication that increases un-

derstanding, facilitates democratic

skills and fosters positive community

attitudes.”

Steward said the hand-picked

team spearheading the project will

work with community partners to

establish a framework for fostering

appropriate, targeted and local com-

munication strategies to address their

specific problem and opportunities.

The result will be robust, innovative

practices that drastically increase a

Communication strategies at core of new JISC program decision-making capacity on sustain-

ability issues in a given community.

Success with sustainable de-

velopment projects requires holistic

approaches, partnerships and trans-

parent community communications.

Among questions for planners and

civic leaders intending to guide com-

munity conditions toward a path of

sustainable development are: Where,

how, and when is it most effective to

communicate with the citizens of a

community about their value and life

style choices and how their choices

impact the sustainability of their com-

munity in the future? How do we as

citizens in a democratic society come

to understand and embrace the ne-

cessity of balancing the requirements

of the natural systems, socio-cultural

values, human technology, trade and

commerce, and governmental regula-

tions and policies necessary for true

conservation to occur?