U.S. Water News Online
HOLDREGE Neb. -- The two incoming directors for Central Nebraska Public Power and Irrigation District will help decide whether the district will sue North Platte Basin groundwater users, but a decision by the board likely won't come before April.
Board directors say Central's customers are limited in surface water irrigation for the third straight year while most upstream users in the North Platte Natural Resources District have no limits.
Legal counsel Mike Klein of Holdrege said lawyers are still figuring out options, including who to name in a potential lawsuit.
"Our current focus is specifically on the North Platte NRD," Klein said. "Frankly, I think this board has been very patient in not taking action long ago."
Klein told new directors Robert Dahlgren of Bertrand and Martin Mueller of Ogallala that the case would likely end up in Nebraska Supreme Court.
Central's customers have a surface water irrigation limit of 6.7 inches per acre in 2007. The Pumpkin Creek watershed has limits of 14 inches per acre.
"I'd have sued a long time ago, if it was me," Director Doyle Lavene of Bertrand said.
The first meeting of the Platte River Recovery Implementation Program is scheduled for Feb. 7 in Denver. On the agenda for that meeting is a discussion of Lake McConaughy, which holds Central's irrigation water supply.
The governors of Nebraska, Colorado and Wyoming recently signed the Platte River Cooperative Agreement, which is designed to benefit the threatened and endangered species and provide water users in the Platte River Basin with coverage under the Endangered Species Act without giving up their access to federal water, land or funding.
To pay the $317 million cost of the plan, the federal government would pay $157 million in cash. Colorado plans to pitch in $24 million in cash, and Wyoming $6 million in cash. Nebraska doesn't have to pay any cash, but could -- because of a substantial increase in irrigated acres since July 1, 1997 -- end up having to take thousands of irrigated acres out of production. That would carry a high price tag.
The remaining $130 million for the plan is not in cash, but is being contributed through water and land credits. The three states must together contribute 80,000 acre feet of water at an agreed upon value of $120 million. Nebraska's share of that water contribution will come through releases of the water in the already existing "environmental account" in Lake McConaughy. Wyoming and Nebraska also will contribute about 3000 acres of land, a $10 million value.
If the program continues after 13 years, a total of 29,000 acres will be needed to fully accomplish the objectives of the program, but that acreage goal could change as the science is improved.
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