U.S. Water News Online
MCCOOK, Neb. -- Matt Harrison was too angry for small talk, so he instead asked a question state officials will likely hear repeatedly as they try to solve the state's water crisis.
"How many millions of dollars of economic devastation was there this morning?" Harrison, a farmer near Republican City asked Ann Bleed, acting director of the state Department of Natural Resources.
An ongoing drought, too many irrigation wells and a legal obligation to share water with Kansas have put Nebraska in a pinch.
Bleed suggested to more than 100 farmers and local natural resource district officials that reducing groundwater pumping by 15 percent across the Republican River basin would be one way to increase stream flows, eventually sending Kansas the water it is owed under a three-state compact.
Nebraska officials, including Gov. Dave Heineman, have conceded the state -- partly because of the ongoing drought -- will probably break the compact, making the state vulnerable to paying damages to Kansas. Nebraska officials are now scrambling for a way to meet its water obligations in the future.
The 1943 compact allocated the annual water supply in the Republican basin. Nebraska gets 49 percent, Kansas gets 40 percent and Colorado gets 11 percent.
Nebraska has been using more than its share.
Kansas filed a lawsuit in 1998, arguing that Nebraska breached the compact by allowing the proliferation and use of thousands of wells connected to the river and its tributaries along the state's southern border.
Nebraska argued that groundwater use was not regulated by the compact because it was signed before deep-well irrigation was used in the river basin.
The U.S. Supreme Court later approved the settlement of the dispute.
Nebraska did not have to pay monetary damages as a result of the settlement, but would be forced to if Kansas does not get its share of the water.
Earlier this year, members of the Nebraska Bostwick Irrigation District voted to sell their 2006 water allotment to the state -- which will send it down the Republican River to Kansas -- for about $2.5 million.
The Bostwick initiative was one of several efforts launched by the state to find enough water to balance the books with Kansas.
Nebraska officials are also hoping that stringent management plans will show good faith to Kansas and prevent the state from asking Nebraska to pay for the water it has failed to send.
The suggested regulations would be more drastic for irrigators within two miles of the river and tributaries. They would have to cut pumping in half if the preliminary plan comes to fruition -- representing a starting point in what are expected to be tense negotiations between the state and NRDs in the basin.
Many in attendance were visibly upset by the preliminary plan, and said it would poison the economy of the basin that has 65,000 people and 1.3 million irrigated acres.
Bleed said the regulations were "not a pretty picture" but said the irrigation amounts they would allow for are not far off what irrigators in the basin used last year.
"It's too drastic," Holbrook farmer Dale Helms said of the plan and Heineman's comments. "We've made a lot of cuts already and it's going to be next to impossible to do it."
The regulations would not be enacted until 2008 and could be in effect for three years. The state hopes to comply with the compact in five years.
Nebraska has overused its compact allocation the last three years, and estimates show the state could be short enough water to cover 200,000 acres of land -- more than 300 square miles -- with a foot of water.
Heineman quelled some concerns about whether the state will help pay for water woes in the area, saying that his budget will call for a fund to help pay for water problems in the Republican basin and elsewhere.
Such a water fund might also be funded by another, as yet unknown, revenue stream that would not be a dedicated tax.
Some in the basin have suggested that water problems with Kansas are solely a state-government problem since it was the state that entered into the compact.
"Most Nebraskans don't think the state should have to pay it," Heineman told the crowd before saying the state would help. "Many believe it's a local problem requiring a local solution."
As for state paying all the costs of compliance: "There aren't 25 votes in the Legislature to make that happen," Heineman said.
Heineman has repeatedly said water is the "issue of the decade" but recently has moved beyond generalities, staking a position that could chafe rural areas heavily dependent on irrigation agriculture. For the second time, Heineman said water consumption and the increase in irrigated acres are partly to blame for current problems.
But should the state and the NRDs not agree on new regulations to curb water use, the state would have leverage in a water board formed by the governor. It could force the regulations or others, something Bleed says she doesn't want to happen without any legislative action.
Mike Clements, manager of the Lower Republican NRD, told Heineman and others in attendance that the irrigation cuts discussed Friday were unacceptable. "I'm still in a little bit of a state of shock," over them, he said.
A popular suggestion from Clements and others to send Kansas the water it is owed is to augment the Republican River with water from other sources.
Whatever the final solution, the recent scene suggested it won't come easy.
"There's stress in this room and there's tension in this room because lives are at stake," said Tom Carlson, a newly elected state senator from Holdrege.
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