Let’s protect water, not crows
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Florida has endangered pan
thers; Californians struggle to
preserve condors; Nebraskans
are saving the crows.
Yes, crows, those delightful gar
bage-strewing, caterwauling carrion.
A group of environmentalists at the
University of Nebraska at Kearney
recently dressed up as crows and
staged a “die-in” to protest a local
policy that allowed citizens to shoot
Nebraska’sbiggestconsumersof road
kill.
Although crows have a habit of
flying out of range at the sight of a
shotgun, perhaps citizens should let
them rummage through the garbage
in peace.
Crows can then dehydrate along
with the rest of us.
The rights of crows are being de
fended while Nebraska’s greatest natu
ral resource is drying up. In city halls
and meeting rooms all over the slate,
lines have been drawn for the battle of
it can recover. Nebraskans have fared
belter than people in Texas, where
areas of the aquifer have dried up, but
several counties here have experi
enced falling water tables. Lower
water tables mean deeper wells that
become more expensive to operate.
Surface water becomes more valu
able.
Water quality is compromised by
agricultural chemicals such as nitro
gen, atrozene and alochlor. Livestock
production pollutes water sources with
feedlot runoff. Poorly managed crop
land can erode at rates as high as 30 to
40 tons per acre annually. Some of
that soil ends up in surface water.
Sediment is Nebraska’s major water
pollutant.
Farmers use more than half of the
water consumed in the state for pro
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*.-... ■■■ . .1
A group of environ
mentalists at the
University of
Nebraska at Kearney
recently dressed up
as crows and staged
a “die-in” to protest
a local policy that
allowed citizens to
shoot Nebraska’s
biaaest consumers
UUH.U..U6..W..U.V, * -
obvious target for critics, whom they
feed.
Overtwomillionpcoplcdrinkfrom
the Ogallala, but mostly Nebraskans
flush their toilets with it. Forty per
cent of the water consumed in homes
goes down the old porcelain throne.
We use another 30 percent for our
personal hygiene obsession with daily
bathing,although we should probably
just be washing our hands more often.
People insist on lush Kentucky
Blucgrass golf courses that depend
entirely on chemical maintenance and
extensive irrigation. They run auto
matic sprinkler systems with com
plete disregard for the rivers that run
off of the yard and into the sewer. A 3
a.m. summer tour of fast-food fran
chises provides a good example of
water wasted on strip landscaping.
Water depletion in Nebraska is
inseparable from the global condi
tions of the environment, and those
conditions are inseparable from our
traditional “plunder and don’t pul
back” consumption mentality.
Crows arc probably safe. We arc
probably in trouble.
McAdams is a sophomore news-editorial
major and a Daily Nebraskan columnist.
water rights.
Many farmers depend on diverted
surface — river — water for irriga
tion.
Municipal well-fields are being
depleted, and LB301 would allow
cities to divert surface water for the
recharge of those well-fields.
The drought in the late ’80s seri
ously diminished water reserves
throughoutlhc Midwest. Colorado also
looms large in Nebraska’s water-flow
picture. As the population grows on
the front range, so docs Colorado’s
need to dam the South Platte. Twin
Forks is not a dead issue.
There just isn’t enough water to go
around even though Nebraska virtu
ally floats on the Ogallala Aquifer.
The Ogal la la is a 225 ,(X X) square m i Ic
underground sea that flows beneath
Texas, New Mex ico, Oklahoma, Colo
rado, Kansas and most of Nebraska. It
was formed by the receding water of
the last ice age, some 10,00() years
ago. It is believed to be the largest
underground reserve of fresh water on
earth.
of road-kill.
The aquifer is recharged through a
cycle of rainfall and surface water
percolation. What nature took thou
sands of years to develop, people have
upset with a few turns of the the
moldboard plow. The grasses and
forbs that regulated the balance of
exponentiations on the Great Plains
were swept aside by the fossil fuel
age. Corn, soybeans and alfalfa, which
transpire at a greater rate than prairie
plants, replaced the native flora and
created a huge demand for water.
Nebraskans now irrigate 8.5 mil
lion acres, second in the country only
to California in the amount of land
under irrigation. High-pressure pivot
irrigation systems can pull water out
of the aquifer at a rate of 8(X) gallons
per minute, and much of it is lost to
evaporation.
< The combined effects mean the
Ogallala is being depleted faster than
,, I
Courts worked first time in LA
A city bums; thousands riot;
dozens are killed; millions
of dollars in damage arc
done, all in glorious living color on
our TV screens.
Los Angeles last April? Yes—but
I’m talking about Los Angeles in a
couple of weeks, at the close of the
federal civil rights trial of Los Ange
les Police Department officers Stacey
Koon, Laurence Powell, Timothy
Wind and Theodore Briseno.
Jury selection began last week in
their trial for violating the civil rights
of Rodney King. Coincidentally, the
four men accused of beating Reginald
Denny during the opening moments
of the riots will be tried simulta
neously.
It is time to address some of the
irresponsibility and idiocy surround
ing this whole affair. To begin with,
this is not the “Rodney King trial.” It
is four officers on trial. Rodney King
is not on trial here, and he is not the
center of the universe, as TV news
vidiots would have us believe.
»/• _- * _ i t_n_•_
So what happens if the cops should
get off, yet the four thugs who beat
Reginald Denny get convicted for
their acts? If one listens to the likes of
John Mack, president of the Los An
geles Urban League, Congressman
Maxine “Bum Baby Bum” Waters
and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the con
sensus is: “Well, if we don’t get any
justice, then we can’t guarantee that
people will accept this verdict, that
they won’t riot.”Or, as the signs being
dustedoffby would-be protesters read,
“No Justice, No Peace.”
Translation: If the four cops don’t
get hung out to dry by an all-black
jury, then the residents of South Cen
tral Los Angeles have every right to
bum and loot and pillage to vent their
rage over an unfair, racist system.
It is this kind of stupidity that
worries all concerned. To preordain a
verdict turns the affair into nothing
more than a Stalin-era show trial,
more for public humiliation before
one goes to the firing squad than for
justice. And what of the jurors? How
It is time to address
some of the
irresponsibility and
idiocy surrounding
this whole affair. To
begin with, this is
not the “Rodney
King trial.”
cnily unthinkable and far-fetched
proposition that the cops might just
beat this rap, too. A civil rights trial is
a lot different from a trial for the use
of excessive force. The prosecution
will have to prove that the police
deliberately and intentionally set out
to violate King’s civil rights.
More likely than not, they were
merely trying to subdue someone they
believed was dangerous. Remember,
if you will, that King led them on a
high-speed chase for miles and then,
when stopped, rushed the officers. He
was hit twice with a laser, 50,000
volts of electricity — enough to drop
an ox — and was still upright. The
cops believed, justifiably at the time,
that he was on PCP. After they started
hilling him with nightsticks and tell
ing him to remain down. King kept
trying to get up.
Brutal? Yes. Would I wish it on
anyone? No. A violation of civil rights?
Hardly. It was within the bounds of
police procedure, as the first trial
demonstrated.
just is it to tell them that they may be
responsible for the potential destruc
tion of a city and untold deaths if they
reach the wrong decision? How fun
damentally fair is that?
Let’s be clear about something.
The first time around, the system
worked. It did what Waters, Mack and
Jackson applaud when the defendant
is black — it let them go, on a techni
cality, after giving them the entire
benefit of the doubt. This time around,
we should hope that the same proce
dure is followed and live with it,
either way, without torching anything.
Innocent until proven guilty was
still the prevailing standard in Ameri
can justice the last time I checked. It
beats the hell out of trial by videotape,
which seems to be the alternative.
• „ - ~7 ■
Kepfldd is a graduate student in history
and a Daily Nebraskan columnist.
IVIIIg WU> IIUI Ull U IUI IU1 lining
arrest, nor was he tried for three sub
sequent offenses — one for trying to
run down a vice officer, one for beat
ing his girlfriend over a video cassette
recorder — looted, possibly? — and
one for theft. Rodney King has been
transformed into a sacred cow, who
could gel away with anything up to,
and maybe including, murder in Los
Angeles. Let’s call him what he is.
Not a “motorist,” but an ex-con out on
parole with the bad judgment and the
incredible good fortune of being aTV
star and martyr, thanks to a home
movie camera.
The entire Los Angeles Police
Department is not on trial here, either,
as black leaders suggest. While some
officers have been guilty of excesses
in the past, basing the prosecution on
the sins of fellow officers is a perver
sion of justice.
Let us also address here the appar
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