WaterClaim

The Cause

A combination of factors

1. Conservation; hundreds of thousands of miles of two foot high dams and hundreds of thousands of acres of minimum till farming on both dry and irrigated land.
2. Decades of uncontrolled riparian vegetation growth.
3. Groundwater pumping that has lowered the aquifer in three counties in southwest Nebraska and that has intercepted some of the alluvial water.
4. A water allowance based on a wildly fluctuating water supply and a very short averaging formula.

The Options

There are two sets of options. Option A keeps Nebraska in compliance but does not solve the underlying problem. In fact, it permits the underlying causes to continue. Option B solves the underlying problems but creates new ones.

Option A (one or some combination of the following):

1. Permanently shut off most of the alluvial wells.
2. Cut down a large percentage of the trees in the Republican River Basin. The trees must be replaced with something that uses a minimal amount of water.
3. Remove most of the conservation practices.
4. Import water into the Republican River Basin from the Platte River Basin.

Option B

1. Eliminate most irrigation, remove most trees via natural means suchs as fires and floods, remove most of the humans, and keep the conservation. Return to the way things were before most of the settlers arrived.

Comments

Those are the options. WaterClaim believes the best option is A4. We believe this costs the least, causes the fewest disruptions, and permits the communities to continue to operate as normal.

I personally believe that once we have eliminated the immediate threat, we must, as a region, sit down and decide how we are going to deal with the long term problem of a declining aquifer in three counties and how we want to deal with reduced stream flows. There are a lot of options on how to deal with these problems. There are many disagreements on which are the correct choices. The choices will have a profound effect on the communities. But, it is a decision that we need to make once we have dealt with the immediate threat.

Some want that decision made now. They want that decision to be A1 and a partial B1. Some rejoice that a judge may step in and force a shutdown or a partial shutdown of irrigation. There are some that are working hard to block A4 because they don’t believe the community will ever make the hard decisions if there is no requirement to do so. Perhaps their fears are correct. But ask them if it is worth wreaking economic havoc to make sure.