On this special live episode we welcomed University of Nebraska law faculty Professor Anthony Schutz and Extension & Research Entomologist Dr. Judy Wu-Smart to discuss the environmental crisis caused by a new way of making ethanol in Mead, Nebraska – from discovering the impacts of the technology, to how states and cities are attempting to avoid it in the future.
Notes: In this episode Gus mentions the Nebraska Public Media story ‘The Smell of Money: Mead, Nebraska’s Fight For Its Future’ by Christina Stella, which can be found here.
On this special live episode we welcomed University of Nebraska law faculty Professor Anthony Schutz and Extension & Research Entomologist Dr. Judy Wu-Smart to discuss the environmental crisis caused by a new way of making ethanol in Mead, Nebraska – from discovering the impacts of the technology, to how states and cities are attempting to avoid it in the future.
Notes: In this episode Gus mentions the Nebraska Public Media story ‘The Smell of Money: Mead, Nebraska’s Fight For Its Future’ by Christina Stella, which can be found here.
Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and has not been thoroughly reviewed for completeness or accuracy.
[00:00:00] Gus Herwitz: This is Tech Refactored. I'm your host, Gus Herwitz, the Menard Director of the Nebraska Governance and Technology Center at the University of Nebraska. Today's episode is special for a couple of reasons. Uh, the biggest one is that we are sitting in front of a live audience here at the University of Nebraska College of Law.
We have a, a bit of an audience here, so thank you all for joining. And this is also a, uh, a great episode, a great topic that we have today because it's an unfortunate story, but it's a local story that has brought in expertise from a, a number of people around, uh, the university. Um, and I am. Pleased to be joined by Nebraska Extension and Research entomologist, Dr. Judy Wu-Smart, and my colleague, uh, law Professor Anthony Schutz to discuss the, uh, ecological and environmental crisis caused by a new way of making ethanol in mead to [00:01:00] Nebraska. And we will be talking about, uh, the, uh, uh, environmental story of, uh, this new ethanol production plant and facility that was transferred to different owners and went through various regulatory processes.
And, uh, over the last couple of years, has. Come to the for of both local and national discussions for, uh, the environmental impact that this technology has happened. So thank you all for joining us. Uh, thank you Judy, and thank you Anthony. I'm looking forward to, uh, this discussion with you.
[00:01:32] Anthony Schutz: Thanks for having us.
[00:01:34] Gus Herwitz: Okay, so I, I'm going to start with a, a little bit of background because this is a, a complex story. Um, and, uh, I'm going to, uh, commend to all of our listeners a recent Nebraska public media, uh, audio documentary by Christina, uh, Stella. On, uh, uh, this story. If you want to know more about it, you can find it there and we'll be, uh, linked in the episode notes for this [00:02:00] episode.
Basically, in the early two thousands, uh, a new company came to meet Nebraska, um, E three biofuels, and they promised a new technology for producing ethanol as a fuel using, um, uh, corn seed, uh, byproducts, uh, and basical. Processing that to produce something that would otherwise be waste into something that was productive.
Um, ethanol, uh, through a series of events, uh, the history, uh, and details, uh, are, uh, too nuanced for us to really get into. Uh, there were a couple of accidents at the plant that may or may not, uh, have been related to their, uh, production processes. It's unclear to me, uh, they. Going out of business. But as part of coming into business, they had gotten licenses and permits to operate this plant.
And through the bankruptcy process, those licenses were sold to another company, Alt N, that uh, took over [00:03:00] their production and operations and that. Really brings us to, uh, the, the story that we're going to be talking about today. Um, Anthony, can you start by, uh, giving us a bit of background just on what Alt N is and what they.
[00:03:15] Anthony Schutz: So all ten's an ethanol plant. Well, all 10 is the current owner of an ethanol plant that's existed near Mead Nebraska for, for a long time. Um, the original plant was called E three Biofuels, uh, and it was originally marketed as this closed loop system for creating ethanol. So what they were going to do, there was an existing feed lot that was nearby and that what they were going to do is harvest the methane from that feed lot's manure disposal.
Facility, uh, and utilize that to help power an ethanol plant that would in turn, uh, create fuel from, from corn, and then they would feed the byproduct distillers grains to the cattle, and then, The loop would continue and the circle of life would basically give off fuel for our car so we could drive around it and, uh, [00:04:00] do the things that we do.
That system never really got off the ground. It was defunct, I believe, within a few years of its, of its opening. The technical difficulties were difficult to solve, which meant that they were very expensive. The margins for ethanol production were. Uh, slim at the time, and basically it just, it just didn't work.
Um, ultimately while that plant was in basically bankruptcy, uh, there was somebody got this idea that, hey, we could utilize, uh, Seed corn, uh, treated seed for our feed stock, for our ethanol plant. And the good thing about that from a sort of business perspective is you could perhaps get the feed stock for, for very little cost, right?
Perhaps even free. Um, and that makes your margin much, much wider, uh, when it comes time to, to to pay the bills.
[00:04:51] Gus Herwitz: So this is basically surplus corn that the producers need to get. So they're willing to give it to the company, basically at local.
[00:04:59] Anthony Schutz: And it's not [00:05:00] really producers that need to get rid of it. Um, it's the seed corn companies that produce the, the product that need to get rid of it.
Um, so companies like Bear Agri Sciences and those sorts of folks have a large amount of, of leftover product that, that doesn't have an infinite shelf life. I think a lot of this seed could maybe remain. Uh, uh, maybe have the capacity for production, um, for about three years, but at some point, the seed's life just as a, as a seed ends, and they need to dispose of it because it's been treated with these coatings, these pesticides, neo nex, all sorts of different things.
Um, they can't just get rid of it in any, in any sort of way. Right? They, they, it needs to go to a landfill. It needs to be taken care of. Uh, and so there's disposal costs associated with it. That, or that the seed corn companies, uh, experience. They had an incentive to give this product to a company like Alta, in [00:06:00] which could then use it for whatever it was [indistinguishable] in, was going to use it for here ethanol production, because that saves them the disposal costs.
And so a plan was born.
[00:06:10] Gus Herwitz: So just to, uh, uh, make sure that we're all understanding, you said that the seed corn has coatings, and it's my understanding that one of the things that the producers of these seed corns do is they apply coatings of pesticides and, uh, other things to help the corn when you plant it, grow and thrive and be successful.
So this isn't just. The corn has grown in a field and then it goes to the market. But this is specially processed and treated
[00:06:36] Anthony Schutz: corn. Yeah. In fact, there's, there's fields of this stuff around Nebraska. You may have seen them as you, as you drive around seed. Corn fields very typically have, um, uh, different varieties planted, but they'll be a, a, a, there'll be two rows that are allowed to grow tall and tassel.
Right? And then there'll be six rows that are, that are not allowed to tassel. D uh, child [00:07:00] labor's often used to, uh, de-tassel, those rows of corn, uh, that are, that are situated between the ones that tassel. Um, and so that's the sort of production that we're talking about. That seed after it's harvested is then processed and coated with a coating that can help the seed ma, help the seed germinate, and then ultimately it can express traits.
Uh, that will kill pet kill insects and that sort of thing.
[00:07:28] Gus Herwitz: So, uh, Al Altan was acquiring all of this, uh, uh, seed corn, which was treated. They were processing it, and the, the process of processing it and converting it to ethanol, that produces some byproducts, some waste products. And, uh, Judy, let's bring you into the conversation right now.
Um, how did you discover, uh, these, um, byproducts, these waste product?
[00:07:50] Judy Wu-Smart: Well, I started my position here at the university in the fall of 2015. And so, um, I didn't start keeping bees. And my, [00:08:00] my appointment is, is 50 50% research and extension. So I do a lot of work related to understanding factors that inhibit bees from successfully over wintering and how um, we can encourage people to improve pollenator habitat.
I was doing research up at Mead, at the end rec center looking at ways to reduce pesticide contamination in pollinator habitat. Like Anthony said, we um, they come in these crop seeds, and it's not just corn, but a lot of crop seeds are treated with pesticides and that includes seed insecticides and, and fungicides that are called systemic.
They have this ability to. Um, incorporated through the entire tissue of the plant as it's growing. And so it offers a lot of protection for farmers because it keeps their, um, seedlings from damage from root feeding insects and diseases that are really hard to reach with traditional sprays. So often these chemicals are put in the seed or [00:09:00] in the water, and our research was looking at how, um, we could potentially mitigate some of the contamination of these products into pollinator friendly.
Um, so a lot of times when it's getting incorporated into the plant, it's not just showing up in the roots and the leaves or insect pet or eating it, it's also showing up in the nectar, in the pollen where bees are becoming exposed. So that's where we think our bees were becoming exposed to the toxins.
And then some of 'em, um, were dying in the field and some of them were bringing contaminants back into the hive housing, all sorts of problems as
[00:09:33] Gus Herwitz: well. And, and you, uh, were working at the time, uh, at a Nebraska extension facility in Mead, uh, independent of the fact that the ethanol plant was there. So you, you were doing your research.
Yes. And suddenly you. Huh? Something really big is, is going on here. Well,
[00:09:51] Judy Wu-Smart: yeah, it, it was kind of an unavoidable problem cuz here you're a bee researcher and you can't test anything. If you can't keep your bees alive, [00:10:00] you can't make any kind of comparative, uh, studies, uh, when this little location itself is, is problematic.
And we run anywhere from 40 to a hundred different highs, uh, across a dozen different locations in the. And we'll lose bees here and there. You know, we'll lose colonies at different locations. That happens. But what's not usually typical is that you lose all the bees every year in one particular location.
And that's when we started to have to actually shift our entire research program to figure out. Why are these bees dying? Despite every kind of management that we know of, trying to determine how they're becoming exposed, what are they becoming exposed to, when and how long they're dying for? That took several years for us to just rule off, rule out all of these on-farm practices as well as really common stressors that we know.
Are contributing to decline in our area and none of those fit.
[00:10:57] Gus Herwitz: Yeah. So what, what have you learned? What have you [00:11:00] discovered? What, what's the scope of the, the problem that you helped to, uh, uh, help us to learn about?
[00:11:05] Judy Wu-Smart: Well, when we reached out, when we ruled out all the on-farm practices and kind of common structures, we reached out to the state, uh, Department of Ag and EPA to help us because here, you know, we really still had no idea why these.
Um, we're dying. There was some pesticide testing that showed moderate levels of chemicals, but nothing red flag. And a lot of the times when you test pesticides for bees or incoming pollen, it comes in as a mixture. So it's not like a red flag. One compound is the direct killer. What we were finding with the research is that there's chemicals in the air, in the water, in the soil, and in the vegetation at like unprecedented.
Um, and so that kind of brought to our attention that there's probably broader impacts to the environment and to the community as a whole. If we can't keep these bees alive. These are bio indicator species that are highly sensitive. And so [00:12:00] there's potential ramifications, the entire area.
[00:12:02] Gus Herwitz: And your, your research, you, you focused on bees, but you study neo OIDs generally.
What, what are, why should we be concerned about, uh, them? That's a great question.
[00:12:13] Judy Wu-Smart: I think a lot of times we we're, we're familiar with the way that old chemicals, um, act on organisms and with older chemical, Um, acute toxicity, you'll see bees dying out immediately rapidly with these newer compounds. It's not typical that you see it like this, but in this case, the levels are so high, you are seeing acute toxicity, and yet we still can't tie the route of exposure.
Why the bees are exactly dying, how are they becoming into contact? So neo noise is a very interesting. Of chemicals, and I would say all a lot of these systemic pesticides are because they can move through an environment and translocate to different places. We don't know where the hotspots are. We don't know [00:13:00] how high these levels are in the environment, and we don't know what the mixtures are doing.
And so that's kind of the problem is, well, we do know is that for bees exposed to these types of chemical, Their ability to move to sink to function normally as a social unit is disrupted. So a lot of the research we focus on is the pesticide doesn't have to outright kill the bee to harm the colony.
And that's where we need to kind of change our regulation. It's not about does it kill the bee or not? Cuz that's how we assess risk in the. And sometimes we assess behavior or, or you know, offspring mortality, but in the field it's very different. You have a lot of factors contributing to it. So ruling out which exactly are the causal factors and what is causing the colony to die versus weakening a colony.
That's really hard to tease out.
[00:13:51] Gus Herwitz: So Anthony, I'd like to, uh, uh, follow up on something that Judy mentioned. Uh, Judy, you, you said you started by going [00:14:00] to the EPA and Nebraska regulators asking, do you know anything about this? Um, Anthony, you study state and local government and environmental regulation. Um, what.
It we, What would we expect regulators to know about this?
[00:14:15] Anthony Schutz: Well, it's in this particular, so I think the best answer to that question sort of like relates to when Judy first contacted me, we talked about, she told me this, this story basically, and my head on environmental law and agricultural law just sort of started to spin.
There's no like bee protection statute, right? In fact, our, our resources regulations are fragmented across lots of different pieces of the environment. So we have water protection and we have air protection. We have the Clean Air Act, we have the Clean Water Act. We have restrictions on the disposal of waste.
We have all sorts of restrictions that are geared at particular pieces of an ecosystem, but nothing that. [00:15:00] Really gets at the global problem that, that Judy was talking about, which is, what do you do when you have a toxin, a release or something that's in, in the system that is causing problems throughout?
Right. How, how legally do you deal with that? And I, and I mentioned that as a response to the question because. There's no one regulator that really has the power to, to deal with all of these problems at one time. So, for example, over the course of this story, um, at one point I think Objectors went to, or, or folks that were experiencing harm stakeholders went to the Department of Ag and said, We, we think there's an agricultural problem in here, here.
And they said, We don't regulate distiller's grains. Right. And that's true. They don't regulate distiller's grains and distillers grains were part of the problem. Those contam. Distillers, the wet cake that we're talking about. So their response was, Well, that's not in our wheelhouse. We don't regulate that.
Right. Um, and so it's just, it, it, [00:16:00] that's kind of the, the reaction I had when I heard this. Wow. Like, who, who in this grand scheme of things would have the knowledge necessary and the, and that's a function of the regulatory authority that they, that they have. So that fragmentation. Impedes the acquisition of a level of knowledge that would be helpful on a topic like this.
[00:16:21] Judy Wu-Smart: Yeah, and I, uh, just to add to that, I did reach out and because there is pioneer protection, but those regulations are under fifra, which for them, they're interested in, was there a misuse of a pesticide application and it, it wasn't, I suspect that there's systemic pesticide pollution causing these bees to die.
But like you said, there's no regulatory oversight or enforcer for systemic pesticide pollution in vegetation. When water, Yes. And air. Yes. And soil, yes. But when it goes into the vegetation, that kind of falls apart.
[00:16:55] Gus Herwitz: We are speaking with, uh, Anthony Schutz and, uh, Judy Woo. Smart [00:17:00] about the, uh, discovery of, uh, widespread neo oid.
Contamination in mid Nebraska, uh, and the, the history of ethanol production, uh, in connection to this. Uh, we will be back in a couple of moments to continue exploring the legal and regulatory dimensions of this and some of the research, uh, directions that we might be looking at.
[00:17:29] Anthony Schutz: Momentum it's building at the University of Nebraska Lincoln with game changing work in precision agriculture, nanoscience and digital humanities. We're unlocking mysteries in brain research, solving the impossible with remote surgery using robots, and we're creating bold futures with world leading research in early childhood education.
We don't slow down and we are not letting up. We are Nebraska.[00:18:00]
[00:18:06] Gus Herwitz: And we are back with, uh, Judy Woo, Smart and Anthony Schutz talking about, uh, Neo OID and other oid, uh, and other, uh, uh, toxin and, uh, chemical pollution discovered in meat Nebraska. Um, Anthony, I, I'd like to start with you. Talking a bit perhaps about the, the history and the process of this, uh, methane, uh, refinement and production, uh, capacity and kinda the history of this plant in, uh, a mead and perhaps, uh, a bit of the regulatory process that led up to it.
Okay. Can you tell us a bit about, uh, how we should be thinking about, or any thoughts that you have about really the, the creation of this industry and perhaps, uh, this, uh, uh,
[00:18:52] Anthony Schutz: Well the, I mean, the industry itself. A product of a number of different policy choices that we've made related [00:19:00] to, to oil policy really, as well as sort of the integration of agricultural policy with that.
And so when the 2007, 2008 farm bill, uh, was enacted, I, I remarked at the time that that bill basically, Paled in comparison to the, to the Energy Act of 2008 because it was the Energy Act of 2008 that drove, that mandated, uh, the use of ethanol as a blending fuel for, for gasoline. The market that we've created for ethanol is itself a, a policy choice, a legal choice that we've made, and then we've further supported that market through a number of tax credits and all sorts of different things that we've tried to come up with in order to.
Ethanol, uh, viable in order to basically force its consumption. And the reason why we wanted to force its consumption. I mean, you could, you could take a, a lot of different takes on this. One take on that is that it helps farmers, right? That the whole point of mandating ethanol [00:20:00] consumption, ethanol is blending and ultimately consumption is an agricultural policy geared at favoring farmers.
A bit more cynical take is it's a effort at facilitating. Uh, the agricultural industry, uh, which brings to bear benefits for seed companies, for chemical companies, for the massive, uh, financing structure that we've created in order to make agriculture, uh, work. So, I mean, that's kind of the big picture of ethanol production, uh, in the United States, is that it's, it's an effort at ag quasi financial, very large player player policy.
[00:20:40] Gus Herwitz: And it's, uh, it's worth noting that these questions, these are longstanding historical, uh, uh, questions in the United States, uh, and, and around the world. Agriculture as an industry, as a sector is necessary to feed the world and to feed the population. Um, so we have long experimented with price controls and [00:21:00] subsidies, and the, the ethanol component is one piece of that much
[00:21:05] Anthony Schutz: larger picture.
But of course, this isn't feeding. , right? This is putting fuel in, in cars. Now it's more, Oh, it's feeding my car, . Yeah. It's more complicated, right? Because of the, the co-products and the cattle feed and the meat industry and all of that. Mm-hmm. . But it's definitely constituted a massive expansion. I think in the, the, the areas of concern, the policy dynamics, I think of agricultural policy.
Um, it's also been painted, uh, as a, uh, environmental. Green sort of piece of our transportation fuels sector. There's a lot of folks that could, that could talk for a very long time about whether ethanol is a greener fuel than, uh, traditional hydrocarbons. But, uh, in any event, that's kind of the, you know, the big picture of what we're dealing.
Like why, why did ethanol become so profitable, uh, or becomes such a, such a big deal? Well, we made it that way, right? We [00:22:00] made that choice for a number of different reasons, which is, Put E three where it is. Um, and it's what put that ethanol plant in play. And then of course, this ethanol plant took a little bit different turn that had a lot, a lot of other impacts.
[00:22:14] Gus Herwitz: So, re returning to the discussion that the three of us were having, um, before, uh, the break, I, I'd like to ask, uh, why. Why is it so difficult to have regulators with omnibus or widespread authority? Why do regulators generally have specific statutory authority instead of, uh, regulate pesticides generally, or focus on these systemic concerns?
Anthony, perhaps, uh, uh, you could start with putting your, keeping your law professor hat on.
[00:22:47] Anthony Schutz: So, I mean, the, the root cause of that was one word that was in that, that long question, which was statutory, Um, statutory authority is the basis for all administrative action, right? An agency can't do anything [00:23:00] without a statute that enables it to do so.
The statutes that we have in our system come from two different levels of. One comes the fed from the federal government, which is, as we all know, a government of limited authority. It only has commerce clause authority, right? It doesn't have unlimited authority. States, on the other hand, can regulate basically everything, right?
They have that general police power. So what we find in an area like environmental law where the impacts and the problems extend beyond state boundaries is that there's a very strong case for federal intervention. But when it comes time to enable an agency to do things on the ground, literally on the ground, it becomes somewhat of a controversial aspect of our federal system.
That is, we don't very often want the Environmental Protection Agency dictating what happens on a farm in the middle of Nebraska. Right. Um, so in part it is the statutory aspect of it and the [00:24:00] separation. Of the vertical separation of powers that we have as a result of our federal system. Um, one answer to that would be, well, why can't states do it?
Right? Why? Why don't states just create the omnibus environmental protection regime, right? Uh, one reason why they don't is because the problems extend beyond their boundaries in many instances. For example, water quality is a good example. In Nebraska, we have quite an impact on water quality locally, but a lot of our impact combines with Iowa and Missouri.
And Arkansas to cause a number of different problems in the Gulf of Mexico. So it's not necessarily a very effective means of reaching environmental ends to have states do it, even though states do have the power, Thus the need for a federal government. The other limiting factor for states is resources, especially in a state like Nebraska.
Our state, uh, is I think, you know, on on net, a beneficiary of a larger fiscal policy that it, that draws in tax [00:25:00] revenue from places with a lot more economic activity than we have. That's how we fund many of the things that we do in this state. If we were to try to create an omnibus environmental protection agency, it would take a tremendous amount of resources in order.
To do that, whether we have the fiscal capacity to do that is a, is a very difficult question. So I think the federal system combined with. Limited fiscal capacity at the lo at the state level. Um, and a hostility, I believe to federal, what we often call overreaching, um, is pro the primary culprit when it comes to why we don't have this, this thing
[00:25:42] Gus Herwitz: does.
Uh, political will, for lack of perhaps a more delicate term, play into this, uh, as well. Is it easier or harder to pass? Uh, a regulation that targets one or two very specific things versus, uh, address these widespread, uh, environmental concerns.
[00:25:59] Anthony Schutz: Sure. I mean, [00:26:00] it, it's, it's, it's one reason why environmental law is so fragmented, right?
Is because it's easy to care about, to some extent water. But when you fully take into account all of the different things that have an impact on water quality, it becomes very far reaching in political will wanes. Uh, there is that tension I think between. Environmental values and. You know, short term economic gain, uh, that is one of the primary reasons why political will is so difficult to muster for environmental lands.
[00:26:30] Gus Herwitz: Uh, Judy, you had, um, uh, mentioned or drawn our attention to the, the approach to regulation that we have of focusing on discrete parts of an ecosystem. So water and land and air, instead of taking a systemic approach, um, I, I. Uh, I think you're interested as well in how this applies to kinda the substance of the regulations.
We tend to regulate specific chemicals and not look at the overall systemic interaction of chemicals [00:27:00] in any of these individual ecosystem, uh, components, let alone the entire ecosystem. Uh, would, would you, uh, care to say more about.
[00:27:08] Judy Wu-Smart: Yeah, so great. I, I, I just wanted to add a couple things in terms of the, what Anthony had mentioned as well is, and I really like the, the comparison between that, that the challenges between the state and the federal levels, because there is this federal exemption that is the root at all, the confusion.
There's federal exemption over treated articles, which is what treated seeds are. These are allowing these products to be, um, exempt from pesticide oversight at the birth. So it's, the oversight occurs when the product is put on the seed. Once it leaves, it no longer is, is regulated. And that's kind of what happens is how does a state regulate a product that isn't, that is exempt, that the federal's level, the language isn't clear when it needs to be regulated or when it becomes a hazardous.
Material or a [00:28:00] waste material. So there's a lot of things that I think at the federal level and the state needs to kind of work out because this miscommunication allows the process to continue for so long. One of the questions is how is this all been allowed to happen for year after year after year?
Well, that, that kind of unclear in the, in the regulations. I. Contributing to that. The other thing that's contributing to, to what, what you mentioned was how is, is the, is the complexity of the nature of everything. We assess risk of chemicals in a laboratory, sometimes field trials, often on an individual chemical or a select few chemicals that reg that those kinds of studies allows us to, um, Develop the guidance, the pesticide labels, the safety guidance, the environmental guidance.
However, all of that is very separate from how much of the exposure occurs in the field. Much of the exposure that is happening is happening in a [00:29:00] mixture. Farmers aren't using these compounds as an active ingredient. They're using it in formulated products. They're using them as tank mixture. Homeowners are using multiple products.
I mean, these aren't, you know, the, how we're testing the safety of them is not how we're using and finding them. And so one of the things that I think was really kind of upsetting in this case study was the response from EPA in, in a question that the Department of Environment and Energy posed to EPA regarding the safety of discharging the liquid effluent, as well as the use.
Solid waste products as soil amendments to land applicated, you know, to land applied to farmers. The, the question was, does this, um, will this cause, you know, risk or, uh, adverse harm to the environment or humans? And they were unable to conclude that. They basically said there's no uniformity of the chemicals.
There's no limit in the number or [00:30:00] the amount or the levels of chemicals that could be. products and these byproducts. So we can't rule out risk. But that doesn't sit well to me because Is that it? Is that, I mean, it's too complex, so we're not gonna act. Who is then who's gonna monitor and just, and figure out what to do about it.
It almost seems like a huge loophole that the messier it gets, the harder it is to do anything about it. I mean, it doesn't, that doesn't seem quite right
[00:30:29] Gus Herwitz: to me. Yeah. And I'm just thinking, uh, put putting on my comparative regulatory law hat. For a moment, uh, comparing that to, for instance, how the FDA does drug approvals.
Uh, much more comprehensive, uh, controlled trials, randomized, controlled, uh, trials. Lots of, uh, we're not going to allow this unless we can rule out the risk, as opposed to, we're not going to rule this out unless we can identify the risk. Uh, uh, one could write a, uh, at least a lengthy LAR review article, probably several books worth of, [00:31:00] uh, comparison, uh, on that.
Uh, it. Uh, fascinating difference, uh, in approach to think about, um, speaking about writing law review articles and research, uh, and fun stuff like that. Uh, what, where are we going from here? I know, uh, you, Judy, are continuing to work on work in this area. Um, what, what does your work looking like? What else might the university or other researchers be doing?
[00:31:29] Judy Wu-Smart: Well, the bees have definitely highlighted the fact that this issue is likely moving off. So, uh, in my lab we're focusing on still trying to determine the routes of exposure. How are these bees getting exposed Exactly. Uh, which are the highest priority risks? Is it mostly coming from the plants or the water or the air?
And then once we're able to kind of determine what's the highest risk of exposure, then we can kind of identify which systems are at highest risk of being impacted by them. So, you know, [00:32:00] not everybody cares about the loss of. Um, but these are, um, invertebrates. These are, uh, little critters that, uh, support a lot of other animals.
Think about the food web support that insects provide. So if the bees are dying, there's probably likely other insects and arthropods in this area that also are, um, declining in massive numbers, and that might be short term. But the long term ramifications in this area, I'm, I'm worried that we're gonna miss a lot of it, You know, if you lose your food, , you may not be impacted directly by the chemical exposure, but you might have ramifications due to malnourishment, disease uptake or things that cause you to die other than the chemical exposure.
The other things that might start to change is, uh, chemical resistance in. The insect pests, as well as the weeds, as well as the pathogens in this area, cuz consider if you have a chronic exposure or a [00:33:00] persistent exposure of chemicals, the systems that are going to survive are gonna build some sort of resilience to those toxins.
So over time you might see the really bad, problematic. Uh, insect pests and com and disease communities becoming worse and those beneficial systems that are more sensitive just becoming completely lost. And what happens when we lose pollinators? We lose the food support, we lose ecological functions. So there's a lot of ramifications that can, what the biggest problem is there's a lot of unknown still, really.
So we're taking the one health approach to kind of understand what this is, and that basically means. You know, the health of the environment, humans and wildlife are all in interconnected, so we can't approach the research in these vacuum. We also have to look at it kind of holistically how these, all these pieces can connect with one another so we can see how we can mitigate it and kind of prevent it from, um, declining further.
[00:33:55] Gus Herwitz: And what one would hope that, that this is. Uh, [00:34:00] substantial environmental, uh, impact and, uh, tragedy. But it's also a research opportunity that, uh, it's a very high concentration of, uh, pesticides and, uh, neo nicks in the environment, uh, in one spot. Uh, is, is there interest from outside researchers or collaborators or government regulators, uh, in study?
What's happened here and how it is impacting, uh, uh, the environment to hopefully translate this incident into broader knowledge?
[00:34:31] Judy Wu-Smart: I think there is, I think there's a lot of interest. I mean, this is a, an a local issue that is not a, a, you know, a practice that's widespread within the ethanol industry. Um, but it does have national implications.
So there is a lot of eyes on what's happening in Nebraska. Um, one thing that wasn't mentioned earlier was that this company was receiving, they were self touting that they were receiving 98% of all North America surplus, outdated seed. Think about how much ag happens [00:35:00] in the US and, and add North America to it.
You know, the. , this disposal is still there. The need to dispose of the treated seed is still there. The plant shut down. So where's the 98% of the seed going? , There's a lot of states that are starting to pop up with the same discussions about how do we become better stewards of these products that are stewards of our land?
And how do. Uh, develop or refine the regulations to make sure that this doesn't happen in our state or prevent it from, you know, starting up in our state. So there's a lot of interest there, not just in the research, but also in the policy side of things. Mm-hmm. , it's exciting. You know, I didn't really think I would get too this heavily into science policy.
But it's almost like I have to understand the policy in order to be effective with the research and vice versa. It just, it's very, and it's an interesting time to be a scientist.
[00:35:53] Gus Herwitz: Well, as the head of an interdisciplinary research center at the forefront of science and policy, I am glad to hear, [00:36:00] uh, that, um, and, uh, I, I, Unfortunately, uh, it's an unfortunate situation, but I'm glad to hear the endorsement of the need for, uh, science and policy, uh, work to come together.
Uh, and this is also really important on the other side of the equation, on the policy side of the equation, um, we frequently. Talk about the, the difference between exon uh, regulation and ex-post enforcement. The idea that for complex situations like this, we can either try and regulate it beforehand to prevent bad things from happening.
Or if bad things happen, we can rely on ex-post enforcement that is litigation, uh, to hopefully create an incentive so that bad things won't happen. In the first place, or if they do, to remedy the situation, which is my way of asking. Anthony, can you, uh, tell us a bit about the, uh, litigation going on in this.
[00:36:51] Anthony Schutz: Uh, yeah. So the attorney's general's, the attorney general's office did file a, a complaint. They filed it in, let's see, it was March of of [00:37:00] 2021. Um, the first big piece of media coverage on, on Altan really emerged in January of 2021. Um, and it was a piece in the Guardian. And that highlights, I think, the importance.
Robust media, uh, and what it can actually drive because this problem was three years old, uh, by the time this complaint was filed. And I think, you know, I think a fair assessment is. I, I don't know if this complaint was in the pipeline, uh, in January or if it's something that, that came about as a result of that media, uh, attention, but it definitely didn't, didn't hurt anything.
I think in terms of getting things, uh, moving forward on a legal perspective. Uh, At this point, uh, avoiding the problem going forward is, you know, that ship has sailed. Um, so now it's a question of, of cleaning it up, uh, and trying to figure out what we should do. The seed companies to their credit. And I think in part because of potential [00:38:00] liability, uh, have stepped in, uh, and are trying to lead an effort at getting this thing cleaned up.
Uh, there is at least some level. Public oversight associated with that. So, one difficulty that we might run into, if seed companies come in, big money comes in and, uh, wants to contain a problem, is that that process might not be totally transparent. Uh, but there does seem to be a lot of transparency involved with this cleanup.
The, the Department of Environment and Energy does have a portal where they post a bunch of, uh, information that they, that they've, uh, that they've gleaned. And where they are and actions that they've taken and plans that they're taking. So they are trying to facilitate, I think, a level of public oversight.
I don't know who calls those shots, uh, but hopefully the folks that we've elected or their appointees are the ones calling those shots as opposed to other interests that have, uh, things at stake. Um, so at this point, yeah, it's a matter of getting it [00:39:00] cleaned up and trying to figure out the. Least environmentally damaging way of, of doing so.
I think, uh, there is an effort, I believe to dispose of some of the wastewater, uh, through land application, which. It just involves a question of, of trying to figure out what the impacts of that might be before one permits, that sort of thing. There's a very large pile of wet cake that still exists, uh, and figuring out what to do with that.
[00:39:25] Gus Herwitz: So just to, it's be clear, the wastewater application that would be using the contaminated water, water contaminated with various pesticide. We could use that to treat land that needs, would benefit from the pesticides. And that the, uh, wet cake is the byproduct. It's the, the soil that has been contaminated and is just now sitting there. So it's basically mud that's contaminated.
[00:39:50] Anthony Schutz: Well, so, so the wet cake is, is left over distillers grains from the fermentation process. And so there's a big pile of that and it's. [00:40:00] everything in it. But the, the, is it the sugars or the starch? Right. Uh, that they used, uh, in the, It's converted to the ethanol.
Yeah, that's converted to the ethanol. Right. So it's a big pile of muck that's sitting there that smells really, really bad. Uh, and it's, we have to figure out what to do with that. I. They were trying at one point to incinerate it, um, hoping that that would be one way of destroying, uh, any harmful residues.
I don't know that they've had much luck with the, the incineration process. All of this, of course, occurs at a very large cost, and incineration becomes pretty expensive pretty quickly. Um, so they'll have to figure out what to do with the wet. Uh, and then the contaminated water with, figure out what to do with that.
If land application of it is too damaging, uh, then, you know, maybe there's some treatment mechanisms that they can use to, to try to deal with that. Uh, to dess credit, they are monitoring, uh, they've got all sorts of water sampling and things along those lines. Um, Judy and I were having a discussion earlier though about, [00:41:00] uh, sampling methodologies are an important aspect of trying to figure out if you have a problem or not.
So there are hopefully folks paying close attention to that, uh, folks that know more than the general public. Um, it is very interesting here because we have this portal that provides this information to the general public. But it's, it's science, right? I mean, I don't understand it. I've been in school for, I never left, right?
Um, Joe Smith out in the world can't look at that portal and understand whether or not there's a problem or the significance of the problem or, or any of the parameters. So there's a, a real need for the use of that data and it's synthesis, and then it's translation into terms. That people can understand.
Um, which is one of the things I think that your, your center works with quite a bit communicating difficult science to Yep. To the general public. That is to [00:42:00] drive
[00:42:00] Gus Herwitz: policy change one of our current focus areas. Indeed. Um, so my, my last question for our discussion, uh, and I, I'd welcome both of your thoughts on this.
Um, how does this. How we think about projects along these lines in the future. So, uh, the B3 idea, the, uh, uh, converting corn to ethanol for fuel purposes. There are pros and cons to it, but fundamentally, Uh, there, there are arguments for it. Um, it wasn't necessarily a inherently bad idea, and we, we can think, for instance, uh, or I'm thinking a lot right now about the need to recycle lithium batteries in, uh, automobiles.
Uh, we're converting our, uh, automobile infrastructure very rapidly to battery powered cars, and at some point, We're going to start running out of lithium and need to start disposing of these lithium batteries and we're going to need to find a way to recycle them. Um, you can imagine that's going to be an industrial process with, uh, [00:43:00] important benefits, but potentially substantial risks.
Looking at a situation such as, uh, we've, uh, had in Nebraska, how from a regulatory and scientific perspective should we be thinking about, uh, engaging in these sort of activities?
[00:43:17] Anthony Schutz: I, I, I think from a legal regulatory perspective, one thing to be cognizant of is, is whether or not the law is set up in a way to deal with the likely impacts of this particular process, right?
So, for example, rra, uh, the resource conservation and recovery. Its application to recycling is a very difficult application because it wasn't written with recycling in mind. Um, this worry about larger systemic ecosystem sorts of harms is a very difficult thing to regard the law is being set up to deal with because the law is so fragmented.
So when we start to think about some of the external costs or [00:44:00] external. Uh, impacts of a particular new industrial process. Uh, we need to have at least a handle on what those might be, which I think is where folks like Judy come in and then an assessment as to whether or not. The law can handle that.
Right? Has it ever dealt with something similar? What do we need that we don't have? Those sorts of assessments I think are, are important.
[00:44:23] Gus Herwitz: Judy, a last word?
[00:44:25] Judy Wu-Smart: I, I think with this case scenario, I think it, what's highlighted is that the, the protections and the focus are not equally on offsite and onsite impacts.
So while a lot of the cleanup and focus and testing has. On site. A lot of the seed companies are looking at how they can mitigate the levels and the, the, um, off the runoff of these chemicals on the property itself. But they're having discussions and I think they are filtering that water as much as they can to get rid of the, the residues as well as incinerating the solids to get rid of some of the residues.[00:45:00]
And their, the plan is to distribute that or offload it onto. Neighboring property so they can make room to dispose of more of it, right? They have to be able to get rid of it in order to offload, fix the lagoons and make the repairs. But I think the problem is, is that if we don't know what has happened, In terms of the spread and the contamination offsite as it is now, what's gonna happen when you start offloading more of it?
Are we just adding another layer of complexity? I think what we need to do is make sure that the focus is on the surrounding areas as much as it is on site. And make sure that those state regulators and the seed companies and whoever's involved in cleanup also monitor where the cleanup needs to happen.
First, , where's the boundaries of the cleanup? Is it strictly on the boundaries of the property line, or are we going to include all the properties that have. Suspected, um, to have problems or animal losses or [00:46:00] pet sicknesses or, you know, family community members that have been sick or reported to be sick.
These are happening miles out, you know, the furthest I've documented was six miles downstream. So are they going to look at all the area in between the six miles and, and up to the property, or who's gonna help look for the, the impacts of that and the spread of. Before we start talking about dis, you know, off offloading, effluent and incinerated, you know, white cake.
I think we still need a lot of work to do to figure out where it's gone and what we need to mitigate that.
[00:46:37] Gus Herwitz: Uh, thank you Judy. Thank you Anthony. And thank you those who have joined us in the audience. Uh, this has been a, a really wonderful discussion and, uh, for worse, but also hopefully some better. I'm sure this isn't the last of the topic that we've, uh, heard.
I've been your host, Gus Herwitz. Thank you everyone for joining us on this episode of Tech Refactored. If you want to learn more about [00:47:00] what we're doing here at the Nebraska Governance and Technology Center, or submit an idea for a future episode, you can go to our website at ngtc.unl.edu, or you can follow us on Twitter at unl_ngtc if you'd, if you enjoyed the show, don't forget to leave us a rating and review wherever you listen to your podcasts. Our show is produced by Elsbeth Magilton and Lysandra Marquez and Colin McCarthy created and recorded our theme music. This podcast is part of the Menard Governance and Technology Programming Series. Until next time, keep your methane production clean.[00:48:00]