I talked with Scott Richrath, the Republican River program manager in the Colorado Division of Water Resources, and Stan Murphy, Republican River Water Conservation District manager.
We talked about what Colorado is doing to try to stay in compliance with the three State Settlement Agreement regarding the Republican River.
Two web sites have been setup to provide information about water issues. The Colorado Division of Water Resources has a page dealing directly with the Republican river and that site is at: http://www.water.state.co.us/wateradmin/RepublicanRiver.asp
The Colorado Republican River Water Conservation District also has a site that can be found at http://www.republicanriver.com/
I encourage you to visit their sites as they have much more information there than we can summarize here.
For the last three years, Colorado has been over its allocation by about 11,000 acre feet of water each year. To respond to this problem, Colorado has implemented several programs. Colorado is using both CREP and EQIP programs to help. The Colorado CREP program differs from the Nebraska CREP program in that the Colorado program permanently retires irrigated acres.
The CO CREP program seeks to retire 30,000 acres. The rate paid to shut down irrigation depends on the distance from the river with the most being paid for surface water. Using a combination of Federal funds and Conservation District funds a surface irrigator would receive $3,445 if he agrees to a permanent forfeiture of his access to water. The money would be paid over 15 years. The amount of the payments vary from year to year. CREP requires that the land be put into grass and trees. It may not be farmed until the 15 years are over. There are a number of restrictions on which land can be enrolled. The Conservation District will post the details on their site once their board has finalized the numbers.
Combined CREP payment amounts for permanent retirement.
$3,445 Surface Water
$2,615 Wells less than 1 mile from stream
$2,295 Wells between 1 and 2 miles
$2,130 Wells between 2 and 4 miles
$1,890 Wells more than 4 miles
EQIP shuts down the irrigation but permits the land to be farmed without irrigation.
Combined EQIP payment amounts for permanent retirement
$1,367 Surface Water
$1,067 Wells less than 1 mile from stream
$ 867 Wells between 1 and 3 miles
$ 742 Wells more than 3 miles
This means Colorado is willing to pay surface irrigators $2,078 more per acre over 15 years if the land is in grass and trees than if the farmer is permitted to raise something like alfalfa or wheat. Those making the rules seem to believe that more water will get into the stream if grass is on the surface rather than any kind of productive crop.
EQIP also offers a 3 year and a 5 year irrigation shutdown package. More information can be found about these on their web sites.
The CREP program hopes to see an increase in streamflow because of the shutdown of irrigation of between 3,000 and 4,000 acre feet each year. This benefit to the stream builds over time. The following graph is from the Nebraska DNR and shows Nebraska estimates of how long it takes to benefit a stream based on the distance from the stream. Since we don’t know the number of acres associated with each category, one should not read too much into the numbers. However, one can see that shutting down a well between the stream and 1 mile from the stream doesn’t really see its full benefit until about 10 years after the well was shut off. Shutting off wells at the stream has a much faster benefit and shutting off wells between 1 and 2 miles from the stream doesn’t peak until about 30 years after the well is shut off.
Chart Showing Timing of CREP and EQIP Beneifts
Colorado is hoping that shutting off 30,000 acres will put about 3,000 to 4,000 acre feet into the stream each year when measured at year 15. In other words, the CREP program will help the problem down the road but does little to address the immediate problem. Remember, that the overage for 2003 was 12,050 AF and for 2004 was 12,130 and is expected to be about 10,000 for 2005.
It is interesting to note the cost of the water being purchased. While we do not know how many acres will be in each distance from the stream and hence do not know the total dollars that will be spent, we can make a few guesses. If (note this is a big if) all of the acres that are shut off were between 1 and 2 miles from the stream then the cost would be about $2,300 an acre. 30,000 acres times $2,300 equals $69 million. If CREP puts 100 AF in the stream in year one and this grows by 30% each year, then there would be an additional 3,900 AF in year 15 and the total added to the stream over those 15 years would be about 16,700 AF. That works out to about $4,100 an acre foot for the water. Note, the cost goes up if the wells are closer to the stream but one also gets more water in the stream faster. The cost goes down if the enrolled acres are farther from the stream but less water is in the stream in the time frame we are looking at.
That means the short term problem is still very real and all of the money being spent on CREP and EQIP now does very little to resolve the immediate needs.
Colorado sees two options for dealing with the short term needs. These are leasing surface water rights and or pumping and piping water to the Colorado/Nebraska state line on the North Fork of the Republican River. There is no financing in place today to do either of these things on the scale that needs to be done. Nebraska has the same problem and the same challenges and is also undecided on what to do short term.
That means that when the first deadline occurs at the end of 2007 that both Nebraska and Colorado are going to be over their allocations by a large amount. It will then be up to Kansas on how nasty they want to be. Kansas has the option of returning to the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) and asking the court to enforce an existing judgment. If Kansas does this, then SCOTUS could, and in my opinion, probably will, appoint a Special Master that will dictate to Colorado and Nebraska how many wells they must shut off. That will probably happen in the year 2010.
The primary defense Nebraska and Colorado have is to point to the “good faith” effort they have made to comply. Both will have spent a large amount of Federal money and a significant amount of local and State money to try to resolve the issue. However, neither have done much to address the short term requirements. The multi-million dollar question is, will Kansas accept this? If not, then a large number of irrigation wells will be shut off or the stream is artificially supplemented. Most hope and pray that Kansas will have mercy and be nice.
This is what Phill Kline, Kansas Attorney General, had to say in the January 29, 2006, Omaha World Herald: “There is a strong effort by the producers (to comply) with the agreement, and I believe Nebraska is making a good-faith effort in compliance. But Kansas won't settle for anything less than its share of the water in the Republican River. If the numbers don't add up, our position is that the agreement is still in force."
Nebraska has one option that Colorado does not in solving the problem short term. Nebraska could easily import water into the Basin. Nebraska receives a 1 for 1 credit for each acre foot imported. Imported water can be purchased and delivered to the Republican River Basin for between $300 and $400 an acre foot. This provides an immediate credit to Nebraska, unlike the CREP and EQIP programs that cost much more and have a significantly delayed benefit.
