Arbitrators Preliminary Ruling
The Arbitrator on the Republican River dispute between Kansas and Nebraska and Colorado has issued a preliminary set of decisions.
Summary of the rulings
- Decision 1 permits Nebraska to challenge one of the major flaws in the Model.
- Decision 2 will increase the amount of water Nebraska will have to account for.
- Decision 3 is good for Nebraska and Colorado short term but will have a major negative effect for Nebraska and Colorado in the future and will make surface water purchases less helpful. Evaporation off of Harlan is about 40,000 acre feet a year. The arbitrator says that when Nebraska uses no surface water that Kansas is charged all evaporative losses. But the arbitrator feels that is not proper and should be changed so that Nebraska is charged some evaporation even if it doesn’t use surface water. By extension this will apply to Bonny Reservoir in Colorado as well.
- Decision 4 will in theory reduce the damages Nebraska owes to Kansas as the damages will be limited to what Kansas actually is hurt by not how much Nebraska benefited.
- Decision 5 means that the Court can consider the Kansas proposed remedy.
- Decision 6 means that damages will be decided after more information is collected but the Kansas suggested method will not be used.
View the Arbitrator's ruling