Earmarks: Interior

Name of Recipient: Arbor Day Foundation
Location of Recipient:  Lincoln, Nebraska
Purpose:  To enable a study documenting the developmental effect on children who attend schools that are comprehensively implementing the Nature Explore program.
Amount Requested: $500,000
Taxpayer Interest: Expanding a program that among other things seeks to address increasing rates of childhood obesity and diabetes and increased reliance on behavior regulating medication.

Name of Recipient: City of Omaha
Location of Recipient:   Omaha, Nebraska
Purpose:  To fund the design and construction of sewer separation projects to prevent sewage backups into homes and businesses.
Amount Requested: $6 million
Taxpayer Interest: Omaha is required by the Environmental Protection Agency to execute comprehensive sewer separation. Additionally, this project will alleviate the sewage backup that currently occurs in some residential neighborhoods during heavy rains due to a sewer system that is more than 100 years old.

Name of Recipient: City of Plattsmouth
Location of Recipient:    Plattsmouth, Nebraska
Purpose:  To complete the sewer separation plan in downtown Plattsmouth.
Amount Requested: $1.2 million
Taxpayer Interest: As required by the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality, this project will achieve water quality standards by removing the sanitary sewage component from the storm water flow that is currently being discharged to the Missouri River. 

Name of Recipient: Ducks Unlimited
Location of Recipient: Grand Island, Nebraska
Purpose:  For the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to acquire land in fee title or through conservation easements in the Rainwater Basin of Nebraska.
Amount Requested: $500,000
Taxpayer Interest: This project promotes wetlands restoration and protection consistent with the mission is the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Name of Recipient: University of Nebraska-Kearney
Location of Recipient:   Kearney, Nebraska
Purpose:   To establish research and conservation measures in the Rainwater Basin wetland complex and Big Bend Stretch of the Platte River in central Nebraska.
Amount Requested: $450,000
Taxpayer Interest: The Rainwater Basin is a high priority for the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Targeted research on the invertebrates, a critical food source for migratory birds in the Rainwater Basin and central Platte River, will lead to new adaptive management strategies that will aid wildlife in Nebraska and beyond.

Updated 6.11.09