washingtonpost.com
Want to know why George Bush won? Set sail into the crimson heart of America
By David Von Drehle
"All but one of the 93 Nebraska counties went for Bush, some by ratios of more than 4 to 1. Thurston County, home to the Winnebago Indian reservation, was the exception: Kerry won a narrow victory there. Our first stop was Waco, Neb., approximately 140 miles from that little island of blue.
"You ask why I voted for Bush? I think he has the right idea about the EPA."
This was Allen Stuhr talking.
He sat that late morning with his hands curled around an empty coffee mug at a table in the back of Hunters Lounge & Keno, which is across the street from the grain elevator in Waco, population 270-ish. At various times during the 40 years that this tavern has belonged to the Sackschewsky family, it has included the Waco grocery store, barbershop, beauty parlor, cafe, gun shop, liquor store, Kawasaki dealership and reception hall.
Now it's just coffee in the morning, a drink at day's end and keno nightly.
A minute ago there were 12 regulars seated in the puddle of light beyond the pool table. Seven men clustered quietly together while five wives chatted amiably at the table beside them. Turns out a good way to get folks moving in Waco, Neb., is to introduce yourself as a reporter from Washington, D.C.
But Stuhr remained, along with his old friend Merv Ocken, a retired seed salesman.
"I'm the village water officer," Stuhr explained. "For more than 100 years, we've lived with arsenic in our water. It is a naturally occurring element. It isn't contamination -- it's natural."
Day by Day - January 22, 2005
During the Clinton administration, the Environmental Protection Agency lowered the amount of arsenic allowed in water, from 50 parts-per-billion to 10. "Now all over Nebraska, villages are having to build new water treatment plants to remove a naturally occurring element," Stuhr said, which costs "millions of dollars."
Does Washington pay? I asked.
"They'll loan us the money," Stuhr answered. "And whose money is it to begin with? And once we get the arsenic out, why, then we have a hazardous waste problem, because there is nowhere to dispose of it."
Bush would like to restore the previous standard. You might recall that many Democrats howled that Bush was willing to poison people, but in these parts, Bush's proposal was greeted as simple common sense."
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