UBB board talks about imposing 180-day moratorium
From the call to order until more than an hour into the session, the June meeting of the Upper Big Blue Natural Resources District (UBB NRD) Thursday night, boiled with controversy over water issues, especially the large water user permit granted to Synergen Green Energy late last year. After many minutes of at times heated debate between board members regarding issues surrounding the Synergen permit, the meeting moved on to more mundane matters, but not before the body had voted to send the matter of a large water user moratorium that was on the agenda, back to the Water Committee.
Shortly after the meeting began at the 7 p.m. starting time at the Upper Big Blue headquarters in York, controversy erupted. Following the roll call and other procedural matters at the top of the agenda, three members of the public went to the microphone during the public comment time. All of them spoke to the issue of the Synergen permit for a 2,300-gallon-per-minute water well approved by the NRD board on Dec. 21, 2023.
Public comment
The first to speak was Angie Joyce who read a list of news articles and recorded board actions over the past several months regarding water levels in the aquifer, and the Brown and Caldwell Engineering study that had preceded the permit and actions related to the Synergen permit.
“How many board members read the Olson hydrological evaluation before voting?” she asked. “Why such a rush to pass this permit?”
Also at the mic were Hamilton County residents Tina Oswald and Justin Elge, both of whom have been vocal opponents of the Synergen ammonia plant and have also been regular attenders at UBB board and committee meetings over the past several months. Oswald questioned the agency’s water permitting procedures and asked, “Who is reviewing these applications for completeness?”
Elge stated that at a recent UBB committee meeting he had attended, it was stated that Blue River Basin water data had not been updated since 2018. He said the water data needs to be updated annually.
“How many of your businesses run on data that’s six years old?” Elge asked.
When it appeared that no other members of the public wanted to speak, Chairman Lynn Yates prepared for the next order of business which was the adoption of the agenda. However, he was interrupted by board member Paul Weiss, the representative of Sub-district 4 from McCool Junction.
‘Amend the agenda’
“We as a board are supposed to represent these people and they’ve been here I don’t know how many meetings and we just basically blow ‘em off,” Weiss exclaimed. “We listen to the stuff and nothing more has been said. I find that kind of hard to believe because it’s people like that who are paying for the NRD... So I’m just wondering why we don’t listen to them and do something about it if we can?”
Weiss went on to say he wanted to amend the meeting’s agenda “to include a motion to rescind and/or amend the vote we took on the Synergen project and send (it) back to the whole board for reconsideration, and I want it on tonight’s agenda.”
Weiss’s motion received an immediate second from another board member across the room, after which he produced a book of Robert’s Rules of Order which he said explained how such a change could be made. He said, according to the book, the agenda can be amended prior to it being adopted, which had not yet occurred.
Following his remarks, a debate ensued between board members as to whether this was allowable with one board member stating that to do so requires an emergency and Yates arguing that Robert’s Rules was superseded by Nebraska open meetings laws which said the opposite.
Weiss was told by other board members that he should ask that the matter be put on next month’s agenda, however, both he and at least one other board member stated they had asked for items to be put on the agenda previously but it was never done.
Referring to the activists in the room, Weiss said, “They’re at least asking us to reconsider... but for some strange reason we just bypass them... Why don’t we at least talk about it and maybe reconsider voting or look at the data and do something after that. Why is the vote we took stamped ‘Okay?”’
When asked by Weiss for a reason why the board wouldn’t reconsider its vote on the Synergen permit, Yates responded, “I appreciate them coming, but we’ve listened to them, and we’re looking at making changes on the next one.” He also added that legal counsel had suggested the NRD not revisit the permit.
As the discussion continued, Weiss continued to question why the matter could not be brought back up for reconsideration by the board.
“There’s something going on here that I just can’t quite bring it to Hoyle what it is,” he said. “What is the reason for it not being on the agenda? There has to be a reason.”
Other board members also spoke up in support of Weiss’s position, including Rodney Grotz, who said he would like to see the matter be put on the agenda and stating he had also asked for it to be put there but it wasn’t done.
When Weiss formally asked that the matter be put on the next agenda, Yates responded that he would consider it after consulting with staff and legal counsel.
“I will make that decision in plenty of time to put it on the agenda,” Yates said.
“Something’s not right,” Weiss stated several times during the discussion and was backed up by board member Jeff Bohaty, who said at one point, “Something doesn’t smell right.”
About 18 minutes into the discussion on reconsideration of the Synergen vote, audience member Terry Elge asked to speak, and since it was still the public comment time he was allowed three minutes to make a statement.
Elge said he had been present in the May meeting when the same matter was also discussed.
“You have the same scenario (as in the May meeting); you say you’re going to consider re-evaluating it,” Elge stated. “You didn’t have the peer review, you didn’t have the water usage through 2023, why wouldn’t you want to reconsider this? It’s almost like you’re being held captive by some lawsuit from Synergen.”
Following the adoption of the agenda, in which Weiss was the lone no vote, the board moved on to other matters, eventually coming to the Water Regulations Committee Report which was read by board member Kevin Peterson.