Republican River irrigators to get paid this month

April 2008

U.S. Water News Online

LINCOLN, Neb. -- Gov. Dave Heineman signed a bill that will make the state borrow $9 million from its cash reserve to pay Republican River irrigators.

The signing is expected to help close deals for the state to pay three irrigation districts in the same region a total of about $1.4 million for water, according to officials with the districts. Storing the water instead of using it for irrigation will help the state comply with a three-state compact that governs use of the Republican River.

Steve Henry, a director of the Cambridge-based Frenchman-Cambridge Irrigation District, lauded Heineman and senators such as Mark Christensen of Imperial and Tom Carlson of Holdrege for passing the legislation, saying it cleared the way for the deals to purchase water.

“We had voted not to enter into any new water contracts until we'd been paid and settled on existing water contracts,” Henry said, referring to the $9 million in payments.

Heineman said farmers should receive the money by April 17.
Because of a pending lawsuit, about 300 farmers in the Republican River basin haven't been paid that amount for sending water to Kansas last year instead of irrigating their crops.

The lawsuit alleges a new state law that allows property taxes to be collected for the purchase of water is unconstitutional.

If the state loses the lawsuit and the property taxes are ruled unconstitutional, the $9 million could be paid back to the state through a current tax on irrigated acres or through some other mechanism approved by the Legislature.

Under the deals close to being reached with irrigation districts, money would come from the state, not property taxes.

Farmers in the districts — Frenchman-Cambridge, Frenchman Valley and Riverside — would send water to Harlan County Reservoir to be stored instead of using it to irrigate crops. Increasing the amount of water in the reservoir would help the state avoid a so-called “water short” designation that makes it harder to comply with the compact that includes Kansas and Colorado.

Nebraska has overused Republican River water in recent years, and Kansas is asking for both money from Nebraska and an irrigation shutdown in parts of the Republican basin. The two states may go through a formal arbitration process that could lead to a lawsuit from Kansas.

The largest portion of the roughly $1.4 million would go to Culbertson-based Frenchman Valley Irrigation District. The district's board will consider approving a deal with the state this week.

If approved, the district would get $1 million for sending about 9,000 acre feet of Republican River water that would otherwise be used for irrigation to Harlan County Reservoir for storage, according to Don Felker, a manager with Frenchman Valley.

The diversion of water from farmland to the reservoir would last throughout the upcoming irrigation season, he said.

The same type of deal would apply to Riverside Irrigation Company, also based in Culbertson. The company's irrigation customers have already agreed to send 2,000 acre-feet of water to the reservoir in exchange for $165,000, said Roger Kolbert, president of the Riverside board. He said the state must still finalize the agreement.

The Frenchman-Cambridge Irrigation District agreed to a deal with the state that would send stream water to the reservoir instead of using it on cropland until June 16 or possibly later that month, Henry said. The irrigation district would receive $294,000, and Henry said he expects the state to finalize the agreement soon.