U.S. Water News Online
GIBBON, Neb. -- For those who have seen the Platte River lately and thought it looked a bit low, they were right.
Perhaps nothing symbolizes Nebraska's multiyear drought more than the trickle of water cutting across Nebraska at a time when the river should be at its highest.
``This is the lowest that we've experienced the Platte in the spring,'' Paul Tebbel, director of Nebraska Audubon's Rowe Sanctuary near Gibbon, told the Lincoln Journal Star. ``We're looking at incredibly low water levels right now.''
Flows at gauges between Overton and Grand Island last week ranged between 246 and 314 cubic feet per second. During an average spring, river flows peak at several thousand cubic feet per second at those locations.
Upstream from the central Platte River, conditions aren't much better.
Recently, the North Platte River at Lewellen flowed at about 700 cubic feet per second, about 45 percent of normal.
Nebraska climatologists predict the river's flow will soon drop even more.
Climatologists Al Dutcher and Mark Svoboda said at a recent meeting that depleted snow pack in the Rocky Mountains and a warmer-than-usual March point to increasingly difficult drought conditions in western and central Nebraska.
Dutcher also noted that the Platte River is likely to run dry east of Kearney this summer for third straight year.
He's not the only one making such predictions.
``I expect the river to go dry in June and stay dry until the fall,'' Tebbel said.
A third straight year of the Platte River running dry east of Kearney could mean water-quality problems for Grand Island, said Ron Bishop, manager of the Central Platte Natural Resources.
A constant flow in the Platte River helps to improve water quality, Bishop said. Over the years, his district has seen a lesser degree of nitrate contamination in groundwater next to the river, he said.
``We attribute that primarily to the recharge (of groundwater) from the Platte River,'' Bishop told the Grand Island Independent. ``Without that recharge, it ... creates some problems for communities, such as Kearney and Grand Island, who have their well fields on islands in the river. It starts moving those nitrates closer to the well fields over time.''
Bishop said the Platte River east of Kearney went dry last July and didn't start getting water until November.
``It took that long after the irrigation season for water to start showing up in enough quantity to get clear back down to Grand Island,'' he said.
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