Accurate Accounting

What makes the streams go dry?

It seems like a simple question.  What makes the streams flow or go dry?  The answer to this question has profound implications for the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and the economy of entire States.  

About 99% of the water in the Republican River Basin comes from precipitation.  The 1% comes from underground seepage from the Platte River Basin.  

The Model used by Nebraska, Colorado, and Kansas intentionally ignores the effects on conservation practices because the policy makers didn’t want to change them.  This is a quote from the May 7, 2004 High Plains Journal.   Ann Bleed is currently the director of the Nebraska DNR:

“For Nebraska's part, the state fought not to include the effects of conservation activities to the model, [Ann] Bleed said.

"From Nebraska's perspective and I think I'm speaking for both Colorado and Kansas here, our concern was if they were included in the compact, and we got a water-short year like this past year, then there would be perhaps a necessity to start regulating conservation activities to stay in compliance with the compact," she said.

"That is something none of the states wanted to do. We didn't want to get into the business of telling farmers they couldn't use minimum-till or they couldn't put in terraces. That's not part of the consumptive use calculation for the compact."

Even though conservation practices cause about 70% of the loss in the stream flow, the Modelers did not want to make any changes to the conservation practices.  So, they  chose to exclude them from the calculation.  Instead, the Modelers attributed the water consumed by conservation practices to groundwater pumping. 

This reassignment of blame reflects an openly-stated bias that the Modelers have against irrigation.  The decision to ignore 70% of the cause of the problem and to saddle the burden of the solution on just the one element the Modelers do not like creates a tremendous amount of pressure on the groundwater user. 

It is important to realize that every terrace, every tree planted, and every retention pond is designed to capture water and keep it away from the stream.  Nearly everyone likes the idea of stopping erosion and capturing precipitation so that it can benefit the person doing the capture.  But, every one of these activities reduces the amount of water that gets to the stream and each is a consumptive use.

The Compact defines consumptive use as : The term "Beneficial Consumptive Use" is herein defined to be that use by which the water supply of the Basin is consumed through the activities of man, and shall include water consumed by evaporation from any reservoir, canal, ditch, or irrigated area.

If a terrace, pond or other conservation activity slows the flow of water to the stream, then it is an activity of man and a consumptive use that should be charged against Nebraska in the year the depletion occurred.  If the terrace causes an increase in the seepage to the aquifer, then a delayed benefit should be realized.  The conservation activity caused a depletion in the current year by stopping the runoff to the stream; but because some of that water will enter the aquifer, it will cause a credit for Nebraska sometime in the future.  When that credit is received is determined by geology and the distance of the seepage from the stream.  Windrows and grassed waterways increase consumptive use but do not result in an increase in seepage into the aquifer.

The accounting process to estimate the effect for every conservation practice is significant; but as these conservation practices are the primary cause of the decline in stream flow, any attempt to accurately model the Basin must include an immediate depletion and a future credit for each conservation program.

Ignoring the effects of conservation on the stream, as the States are intentionally doing, causes either an underestimation of the depletions to the stream or a reassignment of effects from conservation to groundwater irrigation (to the significant disadvantage of irrigation).  The Modelers chose the latter option. 

A true accounting of the causes of stream flow depletion will cause an assignment of responsibility to each piece of land with a conservation practice in place.  Then, the States will need to decide how to compensate the stream for the conservation practices that no one wants to remove.  Does the owner of the land with the conservation practice have any responsibility to compensate the stream in water for what he intercepted?  If so, where does the water come from?  Who pays for it?  Does the government agency that required the reduction in runoff have any responsibility for the depletion to the stream that it caused?  If the landowner is financially responsible for the conservation practice that is on his property, does he have the option of removing the terrace, pond, or tillage practice that places a financial burden?  Does he lose his Federal crop payments, if he does?

The only way to have no effect on the stream is to remove the humans.  As that is not an option, we have to decide which human activities are acceptable.  If we fairly account for everything that we do as humans, then even conservation practices will need to share in the responsibility of achieving whatever goal we set for ourselves.