Water Problem Solved?
What is likely to happen regarding water in the Republican River Basin.
The Legislature will pass a set of bills that will permit the NRDs to levy taxes/fees on the Basin. The NRDs are asking for legal authority to collect an occupation tax of up to $10 an acre and the authority to levy a new $0.10 cents per one hundred dollars in valuation and a continuation of the existing $0.085 cents per one hundred dollars currently allowed. If the total amount requested were allowed and was collected, then the NRDs would have the ability to generate about $15 million a year on top of what they collect now. The NRDs are asking for the authority to use that money as each NRD sees fit.
From what I can tell, this puts 100% of the cost on the irrigators and tax payers of the Basin. The State is likely to authorize these requests because it costs the State almost nothing and because each NRD is requesting this tax be placed entirely on them.
This authorization could come within the next couple of weeks. Because the Legislation would be passed with the emergency clause it would take effect yet this spring.
I expect the NRDs will immediately take steps to implement the per acre fee. That means there is likely to be a fee assessed per irrigated acre this year. That money is likely to go towards the lease of surface water. The NRDs have already committed to buying water from Frenchman Cambridge irrigation district for about $7.8 million for 2007 only and have begun negotiations to lease the Bostwick Irrigation water.
The Upper Republican NRD has indicated that it might be better for the Upper to use its taxing authority to buy out groundwater irrigation near the stream. So it may use the money it collects towards surface water leases and then begin to retire groundwater irrigation in the future.
The NRDs argue that the State has completely failed to do its duty and therefore for the good of the Basin, it is necessary for the residents of the Basin to pay the entire bill.
Because the deadline is for compliance with Kansas is at the end of this year there is a tremendous amount of pressure for this to be done now. The NRDs have decided that it is better to assign full responsibility on groundwater irrigators rather than assign responsibility accurately. The reasoning is, irrigators cannot win the argument in time to save themselves so it is better to just pay everything and ignore the effects of conservation and the flaws in the model.
The good news is that if this solution should happen then the water crisis for the Republican River Basin should be well on its way towards a positive resolution. This should remove uncertainty from the market, it should allow land prices to jump, it should allow people to plan.
The bad news about the plan is that it puts 100% of the cost on the Basin. It puts most of the responsibility, incorrectly, on groundwater irrigation. It ignores several major flaws in the Model. It ignores other solutions that would have been much less expensive. It will significantly raise the cost of operations for the farmer. In addition, I expect there will be a reduction in allocations for the 08-11 time period of somewhere around ½ to 1 inch.
And Jasper and Dean, while you complain about this post, remember that everything said here you have already posted on your own web sites or you have said at public meetings.