Aiken on Water
You can listen to a NET Radio interview with David Aiken on the water issue by Sarah McCammon
David Aiken, a water law expert at UNL, says the State is in a weak position.
“We have no leg to stand on. We are out of compliance. And there is no excuse for being out of compliance except that we didn’t want to do it. So, Kansas is holding all of the high cards.”
Aiken says he expects land values to take a hit and irrigated farm land to be taken out of production at least for a time. He thinks the State will be forced to clamp down on irrigation to avoid a Court battle with Kansas which would be even costlier. He says there is a silver lining, at least for some farmers.
“The bright spot is that at least corn prices are high; so even if pumping is cut back dramatically, corn farmers in the Republican River Basin will make more money for at least the next couple of years, even with dramatically less water than they have made for a long time in the past.”
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What Mr. Aiken fails to note is that along with the huge jump in commodity prices there has also been a huge jump in input costs. Ask any farm banker. He will tell you that the risk to the farmer has jumped dramatically because of the huge run up in costs that have accompanied the jump in crop prices. So his statement that farmers will make more money even with less water is not correct.