URNRD plan rejected
The Upper Republican NRD is pushing a plan that bring the Basin Republican River Basin into annual compliance by requiring surface water and alluvial wells to be turned off. The landowners would be compensated at a rate of somewhere around $120 an acre. The money would come from a change in tax laws so that irrigated land in the Republican River Basin could be taxed at $10 an acre.
According a Kearney Hub story, the Tri Basin NRD at their Feb 13th board meeting has rejected the per acre fee idea as proposed by the Upper Republican NRD.
The same evening the Middle Republican NRD voted 10 to 1 to support Senator Mark Christensen's LB 701.
Senator Christensen's bill, which can be seen on the link on the left, creates a seven member basin committee that sets the amount of water that each NRD and the DNR can use in a year. This would not set the amount the individual farmer can use - that is still controlled by the regulatory agency. It would only set the amount the entire agency could work with. The idea is to have a neutral party set the allowance so as to reduce the blame game that has paralyzed progress towards a solution.
The second thing the basin administration committee does it takes a proactive approach to do things that the agencies cannot do alone. It creates a group that looks to treat the cause rather than just the symptoms. Today the NRDs have only one option. That is to reduce pumping through regulations. And even if they reduced pumping to 0 they would fail.
LB 701 says lets look at the bigger picture. Let’s look at things that will actually work and let’s provide a mechanism that causes the DNR and the NRDs to work with each other instead of against each other.
It is obvious that the current structure has failed. The DNR has failed to provide reliable information or leadership and the NRDs have simply attempted to grab what they can so that when the end comes they die with the most.
The good news is that the Middle Republican and the Lower Republican are taking action to support LB 701 and a Basin wide approach to a solution.