Gov. Pete Ricketts and the Nebraska Department of Veterans’ Affairs hosted a ribbon cutting ceremony Saturday for the Central Nebraska Veterans’ Home in Kearney. Ricketts said the project was a team effort and demonstrates the spirit of Nebraska.

“We seek to make Nebraska the most veteran and military friendly state in the country,” Ricketts said. “With the Central Nebraska Veterans’ Home we are living up to that promise to remember to take care of our veterans.”

New staff members led visitors on tours around the 225-bed, 330,000-square-foot (30,650-square-meter) facility. The campus is comprised of six neighborhoods, which each feature three homes that can accommodate 12 to 15 veterans in private rooms.

The facility has a special care unit, a skilled care unit and an independent living area. There’s also a chapel and physical therapy room.

The project moves the veterans home from Grand Island to Kearney.

“It’s going to be a different location which is something to look forward too,” said veteran Patricia Abbott. “We’re each going to have our own bathroom and it looks like we are going to have bigger rooms.”

Jose Trejo, a current resident at the Grand Island home, said the new Kearney facility is better.

Residents are scheduled to move into it in the fall.

49-year-old Charlie Red, of Sedalia, Colorado, and 29-year-old Damaisy De La Caridad Rodriguez, of Miami, Florida, pleaded no contest Friday in Buffalo County District Court to felony distribution of marijuana. They face up to 20 years in prison.

Authorities say a motorist saw and then picked up a package that fell from a flatbed trailer being pulled by a pickup on Interstate 80 on Jan. 19. It contained marijuana.

The pickup soon stopped on the interstate shoulder, and Red and Caridad Rodriguez eventually were met by a Nebraska state trooper. The trooper then discovered a false compartment on the bottom of the trailer and several plastic bags of marijuana.

The marijuana totaled around 122 pounds (55 kilograms), with an estimated street value of $366,000.

Eastern red cedar trees are native to the Plains but have spread out of control without the natural prairie fires that kept them in check centuries ago. The trees suck up sunlight and groundwater at the expense of other native plants and turn grasslands into barren patches of dirt.

The issue has caught the attention of state lawmakers, who will convene a hearing Friday at the Capitol to brainstorm ways to keep the problem from worsening.

“Once they get established, they just spread and choke out everything,” said Sen. Dan Hughes, of Venango, who is conducting a legislative study to see what the state can do. “It can cut your available rangeland by 60 to 70 percent, but you’re still paying property taxes on those acres. It has a pretty significant economic impact.”

Hughes said the trees can take root even on well-managed land if neighbors aren’t controlling them on their property. He said he doesn’t yet know whether he’ll introduce a bill in next year’s session but will consider suggestions he receives at the hearing. Senators may also review what other states have done, Hughes said.

Eastern red cedar trees traditionally survived on steep, north-facing slopes in canyons where prairie fires couldn’t reach. Then settlers started using them as windbreaks and doused the natural wildfires that kept them from spreading too quickly.

Conservationists have dubbed it “the green glacier” that started in Texas and Oklahoma and swept north into Kansas, Nebraska, western Iowa and the Dakotas. At one point in Nebraska, the trees expanded at a pace of nearly 40,000 acres a year — an area roughly half the size of Omaha.

They also produce highly flammable needles and resin, which were partly to blame for massive wildfires that burned city-sized swaths of land in Nebraska in 2012.

The trees are a major concern to ranchers who rely on the state’s sprawling, open grasslands to feed their cattle. In rural, eastern Nebraska, some advocates say the trees could lower property values, which over time would erode the tax base needed to finance K-12 public schools.

“We’re sort of on the cusp right now,” said Jessica Herrmann, a lobbyist for the Nebraska Cattlemen. “If we can get on a handle of the management side of this, we won’t have a larger problem down the road.”

Herrmann said legislation could include tapping into existing state money to pay for more controlled burns to keep the eastern red cedar population under control. Her group also hopes to raise awareness of the pitfalls of the tree. Many farmers and ranchers still plant them for use as windbreaks.

Landowners also have to worry about the trees re-growing in areas where they were removed, said Scott Stout, a rancher in Curtis, Nebraska, and president of the Nebraska Prescribed Fire Council. The group works with local landowners on controlled fires to clear the trees and restore nutrients to the soil.

“From a landowner’s perspective, the economic value (of the trees) is absolutely zero,” Stout said. “It’s tough to make a living off of ground that the cedars have encroached.”

Other groups have voiced concerns about the trees as well, including the Nebraska Forest Service, which has warned that eastern red cedars are creeping into the Sandhills, a region of rolling, grass-covered sand dunes and open prairie.

Stout said some parts of the state have been more proactive than others in fighting the trees. In the past, he said, some state and federal agencies provided incentives for landowners to plant more eastern red cedars as windbreaks, while other programs offered aid to cover the cost of destroying them. Some agencies may still have incentives to promote the trees, he said.

“It really doesn’t make sense,” Stout said. “Ultimately, everyone needs to work together and have the same outlook, instead of having their own agendas.”

Local resident Dave Schaff told the Scottsbluff City Council that the group hopes the facility will be operated as a private-public partnership

“We’re just a group of citizens in the Scottsbluff and Gering area that are working to help make the area a better place to live,” Schaff said. “We’re business owners that recognize the need for a better quality of life. This is a project we’ve all spent a lot of time on and are passionate about.”

The first part of the project would focus on the aquatics center and is estimated to cost about $20 million, Schaff said. The facility would feature recreational and competitive pools that could accommodate all age groups, he said. The group has negotiated for 40 acres of land to be donated to the project.

The project’s $25 million second phase would involve a 5,000-seat events center, which would be able to accommodate concerts, sporting event tournaments and other events, Schaff said. The project would also include parking for about 1,200 vehicles.

“We’ve met with all the local interest groups, such as Scottsbluff Public Schools, the YMCA, the hospital and college,” Schaff said. “We’re trying to promote a regional concept that will meet everyone’s needs.”

The project is expected to take three years.

A city proposal for a half-cent sales tax increase for infrastructure would partially fund the center. Scottsbluff voters will consider the measure in November.

The state Game and Parks Commission says even though the duck population may be down from last year, it is still above the long-term averages for most duck breeds.

The commission’s Mark Vrtiska says mallards and green-winged teal ducks are both doing very well, and those are the top two breeds hunters harvest in Nebraska.

The mallard population is 17 percent higher than its historical average, and the green-winged teal is 42 percent higher than its average.

More details about the duck population are available in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s report.