CREP Enrollment
CREP stands for Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program. It is a tool the State of Nebraska asked the Federal Government to make available to help take land out of production. I contacted the FSA office and obtained current enrollment numbers. Only 40% of the available acres have been enrolled. Congressman Tom Osborne suggested that if people did not like the program they didn't have to sign up for it.
Continue reading for see the details.
CREP
100,000 acres available.
30,000 in the Platte River Basin
70,000 in the Republican River Basin
Acre Enrollment by Basin as of May 31, 2006
9,019 Platte
31,076 Republican
Acre Enrollment by District as of May 31, 2006
11,244 Upper Republican NRD
13,820 Middle Republican NRD
5,231 Lower Republican NRD
782 Tri-Basin NRD
Benefit towards Republican River Basin Compliance Requirements
104,089 Current Nebraska overage
6,108 Estimated increase in stream flow by end of 2007
5.9% Percentage of existing overages
$7,769,000 Approximate Cost to Federal government by end of 2007
$1,272 Approximate cost to Federal government per acre foot
$69,430,000 Approximate 10 year cost to Federal Government
55,554 Approximate increase in streamflow in acre feet
$1,250 Approximate cost to Federal government per acre foot
Conclusion
The CREP program pays about $125 an acre and varies depending on where one lives. CREP requires the landowner to stop crop production and use of all irrigation for 10 or 15 years. The land is planted to grass and trees. The land owner does not know if at the end of the contract period if they will continue to have a water allocation or maintain a crop base. The amount offered for each acre is not enough to get full enrollment. If compliance with Kansas is going to be done via shutting off irrigated acres then Nebraska must retire, as soon as possible, approximately 180,000 acres in the Republican River Basin. CREP could help pay for 70,000 of those acres but as can been seen, more than $125 an acre will need to be offered to get the necessary acres. The Federal Government has committed $158 million to CREP for Nebraska and $110.6 of that for the Republican River Basin. Based on this we can estimate the cost of retiring the number of acres needed to comply. 180,000 acres required minus the 70,000 CREP acres equals 110,000 acres to be retired with State or local dollars. Estimated cost necessary to get full voluntary enrollment is at least $150 an acre and would need to have the rate adjusted every few years for inflation. Assurances would also need to be provided that if the money did not arrive or if the rate was not enough that the landowner still has access to water and government payments. Without those assurances, the cost would be even higher. That works out to about $16.5 million per year. To get the remaining CREP eligible acres enrolled we estimate a $25 an acre bonus might need to be paid and that works out to about a million a year. Total cost to the State for retiring the acres necessary to comply is about $17.5 million a year. This method of compliance will work for about 15 years at which point in time an additional 125,000 acres will need to be shutdown. The cost and number of acres will continue to grow to the point that it becomes unsustainable. Many will argue the $17.5 million a year is unsustainable. Within 50 years, nearly half of the irrigated land in the Republican River Basin will have to be shut off to stay in compliance. In the long run it is less expensive to buy the land but the upfront costs are more than anyone will choose to pay. Instead the State will simply start forcing a reduction in the amount of water each land owner can access. While this will not yield the required results in the necessary timeframe it will lower the value of the land so that in the future it can be shut down for less cost. In fact, land values in the Republican River Basin has already gone down or stayed even while they have gone up everywhere else in the state all because of the uncertainty about water.