Pflug Road interchange: Developers, activists debate possible environmental threat
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By RICHARD PIERSOL / Lincoln Journal Star
A portion of the corridor between Lincoln and Omaha that contains Lincoln’s site for future water wells has become an arena for conflict over the extent and kind of land development that will prevail there.
Sarpy County activists who are resisting a planned Interstate 80 interchange at Pflug Road, just east and north of the Platte River I-80 bridge, say the well fields could be threatened environmentally if the area develops as some people want.
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The land developer who owns hundreds of acres around where the interchange would be, Ted Seldin, said it wouldn’t make much sense to wreck the environment he would like to turn into an economic advantage for Sarpy County and the state of Nebraska.
Lincoln has no wells there yet, but owns several hundred acres of bottomland across the river from Mahoney State Park, in the lap of what the group of Sarpy County landowners consider the most scenic, agriculturally productive and environmentally sensitive part of the corridor, a part of the county where they are trying to establish sustainable “conservation development.”
“Our point is, the point to drive home is, in Nebraska if you’re talking about preserving anything between our two big cities, all we have is this corridor,” said Jarel Vinduska, chairman of the Schramm Association for a Viable Environment, or S.A.V.E. “Does it make sense to put truck warehouses and box stores in the only beautiful area between the two cities?”
The association is named for its mission promoting sustainable land use in the 10,000-acre Schramm Park Conservation Development of that part of Sarpy County.
For two years, they’ve been resisting what was called the “offramp to nowhere” in an expose’ by the Omaha World-Herald, the $10 million Pflug Road interchange proposed on Interstate 80 between the Platte River and the Gretna interchange, less than a mile from Pflug Road.
Seldin’s alliance of county officials and supporters wants to have federal money pay for most of a project that goes way beyond ramps on and off the interstate.
The Seldin Co. owns 935 acres around the site. It has plans for 400 acres of commercial or industrial development west of the interstate and residential development along the nearby high ground.
The Metro Area Planning Agency has the interchange in its long-term plan, said Randy Lenhoff, president of the Seldin Co.
Nebraska’s congressional delegation has moved the project along with federal budget earmarks. The state Department of Roads, which judged the interchange unnecessary, has softened its position, according to the S.A.V.E. activists.
So far, a bridge over Pflug Road, a gravel roadway, is the only concrete piece of the interchange in place, and that had to be done anyway, because of the I-80 widening project.
But what the association fears is relentless commercial development on fragile land between bluffs and river, flood plains that would have to be filled in to accommodate construction and more public expense to connect the interchange to U.S. 6, Nebraska 31 and, eventually, an interstate highway bypass south around Omaha.
That could include degradation of Lincoln’s water well land not far downhill and downstream from the site of the interchange, according to the Schramm association.
Jerry Obrist, chief engineer of Lincoln’s water works, acknowledged that irresponsible development could threaten the well sites, which are expected to be in service in the next 10 years.
“The key would be if they put in a massive amount of development and didn’t properly treat waste and discharged it into a stream,” he said. “Yeah, that could be a problem. ... I’d be concerned if they put a fuel farm in there.
“We’re definitely keeping an eye on it,” Obrist said.
Lenhoff expressed indignation at the suggestion, and said the company has never proposed, nor would it, anything in western Sarpy County that would be environmentally insensitive.
Seldin said his company has been in business for 84 years, has done master-planned communities and has carefully considered the environment in every respect.
“And we would take into consideration the Lincoln water wells,” he said. “We’re in the community for the long haul and intend to maintain our reputation as a quality developer.”
The Schramm association, too, intends to keep its eyes open.
A lot of people are sympathetic with their aims, Vinduska said, and about 14 local landowners are active in the organization. They claim the local planning process has been compromised in favor of the interchange.
“We are not anti-development and we have no particular animosity against Mr. Seldin or any developers,” Vinduska said in a recent e-mail. “We do however feel we are justified to criticize the conduct of our elected officials that have favored special interests and promoted this unjustifiable interchange at the expense of taxpayers and good land use planning.”
S.A.V.E. has had running procedural and policy skirmishes with Seldin; with former planning director Ken Tex, now a developer; the Sarpy County board; former County Commissioner Tim Schram, now on the Nebraska Public Service Commission; and others. Schram said his family farms Seldin’s land.
And, he said, the Pflug interchange idea emerged when two bridges had to be removed for the I-80 widening, and only one replaced. He said Sarpy County deserved something in return for the loss of a bridge: the interchange.
“I think it can be developed in an environmentally sensitive way,” Schram said.
The interchange is not a done deal, and S.A.V.E. members hope the attention they’ve drawn to the “offramp from nowhere” will influence future decisions.
There has to be an environmental impact statement, for example, and approval by the Federal Highway Administration, whose Nebraska office has acknowledged some government agencies objecting to the plan.
But the association still fears it could go through.
“We’re dealing with really powerful interests,” Vinduska said. “I don’t know what the chances of success are.”
He believes the environmental study should cover not just the interchange construction, but the entire scope of implications, like a connection to an interstate highway bypass around Omaha, through Bellevue, over a new Missouri River bridge to Interstate 29 in Iowa.
The potential for a bypass and for local industrial development are part of the conflict.
Looking at long-term needs of Omaha and Sarpy County, given the “immense” truck traffic on I-80, Schram said, there will be a need for a southern bypass to divert truck traffic away from the middle of Omaha on I-80.
“From an economic development standpoint, we do have quite a bit of potential for the I-80 corridor, but no large tracts of land, if a large company would come in,” he said. “The Pflug Road site does offer Sarpy County that availability in the future.”
The Schramm association wonders why an interchange wouldn’t be better put at 180th Street, farther east and away from the river bottom and bluffs.
Lenhoff says Pflug Road lines up well for the bypass.
Perhaps the prickliest point of contention is the Schramm association’s faulting Seldin’s political contributions and connections for pushing the project forward.
Seldin has donated to everybody who has any decision-making power, Vinduska said. “Anybody and everybody.”
According to federal election records, Sens. Ben Nelson and Chuck Hagel and Reps. Lee Terry and Jeff Fortenberry received political contributions from Seldin and Randy Lenhoff, president of Seldin Co.
Lenhoff said he resents the implication that contributing to candidates buys his goal.
“That’s just wrong,” he said. “I think it’s an insult to the elected officials in Nebraska, to say you made contributions to someone, that it would change their vote. Personally, I’m insulted. Certainly, we also get solicited. I’ve always believed in participating in the system.”
Next on the agenda for conflict is preparation for the environmental statement.
“We’re going to try to participate in that,” Vinduska said. “Hopefully, say the things that need to be said.”
Meanwhile, Seldin and Lenhoff hold out the hope and prospect of economic development in western Sarpy County.
“We have had at least one national company that has contacted us looking at eastern Nebraska or western iowa for a distribution facility,”Lenhoff said. “Nine hundred to 1,000 full-time jobs. They asked about that area between Lincoln and Omaha.”
John Yochum of the Sarpy County Economic Development Corp., an ally and tenant of the Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce, confirmed nothing specific, but acknowledged companies like that Lenhoff described have reviewed land parcels between Omaha and Lincoln for several years.
Neither he nor Lenhoff would identify the prospect.
Reach Richard Piersol at 473-7241 or rpiersol@journalstar.com.
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