The Common Agenda

Nebraska Healthy Waters Initiative

Clean water is essential to public health and to industries such as recreation, tourism, and agriculture. It ranks at the top of nearly every survey in the state of Nebraskans' priorities for natural resources. Despite the importance we place on healthy water, every major river in Nebraska fails to meet water quality standards established by the state and federal governments; in short, every major river in Nebraska is polluted.

The Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality is responsible in our state for for development of watershed assessment and protection plans that would clean up our rivers, lakes and streams. But, with only one person assigned to this task it will take almost 300 years to complete the job. The budget for this problem is insufficient in the extreme.

We want to put Nebraska on a course to clean up our rivers, lakes, and reservoirs in our lifetime. The key objectives of the Nebraska Healthy Water Initiative are to obtain a commitment from Governor Heineman and the legislature to a reasonable timeline with a reasonable budget and enough staff to get this job done. We want to leave our children Nebraska waters they can swim and fish and boat in just as we have. We want a plan and funding for long-term pollution prevention and watershed cleanup. . . in our lifetime.