WaterClaim

For a long time WaterClaim has been advocating moving water from areas of surplus to areas of need. The idea is ridiculed by a few who wonder where those areas of surplus might be. What is ironic is some of the strongest opponents to the movement of water across basin borders live in Grand Island and yet it is Grand Island that has so much water they they are considering pumping groundwater and dumping it in the river as waste water.

The Grand Island paper has a brief story on the area of surplus that some say doesn't exist.

Posted by Steve Smith at 10:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Governor Heineman released a letter to the Water Policy Task Force on Monday, July 30.

Page 1

Page 2

Posted by Steve Smith at 02:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Rocky Mountain News has a story about how Colorado has decided to shut down about 44% of the irrigation wells on the South Platte.

By signing the Cooperative Agreement Nebraska has agreed to do the same type of thing on the Nebraska portion of the Platte. The reductions will be modest in the first 13 years but then Nebraska has committed to also shutting off wells. Nebraska says we can always opt out of the agreement in the future if it becomes too painful.

Nebraska seems to think that we can take the noose off our neck anytime we want to. We will just put it on now to make everyone happy and let the future politicians figure out how to escape from the commitments we are making now.

Oh, and those promises we made to get you to go along with putting that rope around your neck... It was someone else that made those promises.

The long term future of the Platte is even scarier than the Republican.

Posted by Steve Smith at 11:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

LB 701 creates a vegetation management task force. The task force will set policy on how vegetation is managed in the Republican and Platte river basins. They will determine which plants are removed, how they are removed, and how much is paid to remove them. If you want to be one of the decision makers, you should apply for a seat on the task force.

Continue reading "Vegetation Task Force" »

Posted by Steve Smith at 04:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Central Public Power and Irrigation District voted today to begin preparation of administrative actions against the North Platte NRD regarding groundwater irrigation effects on surface water flows. The actions will not be directed at individual groundwater irrigators yet. CNPPID will wait until its June 2 meeting to decide whether to file suit.

Posted by Steve Smith at 09:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Central Nebraska Public Power and Irrigation District threatens lawsuit to shut down groundwater irrigation. Central believes that out of the approximately one million acre feet the river is short of water that about 100,000 of that shortage is caused by groundwater irrigation. The remaining shortage is presumably caused by the drought and conservation.

Star Herald Story

Posted by Steve Smith at 06:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

WY Surface and Groundwater Users Join Forces to Fight State

Scottsbluff/Gering Star Herald story

Posted by Steve Smith at 09:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Notice what Colorado State House Representative David Balmer from Arapahoe County says about water. He is the assistant House Republican leader

Denver Post Story

Posted by Steve Smith at 12:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Central Platte NRD approves Water Bank

Grand Island Independent story

Posted by Steve Smith at 09:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Governor has said that the reason he is using twelve years as the multiplier for his water budget numbers is that is the number of budget years that cover the first phase of the Cooperative Agreement on the Platte River. The $2.7 million in State General Funds that he is proposing are for all of the State water issues but primarily for the Platte and Rebublican River Basins.

He is also counting a portion of the DNR operating budget ($3 million a year) as a contribution to solving the problem. This is his estimate of how much of the DNR's time is spent on Platte and Rebublican Basin water issues. The total DNR budget is $8.7 million a year so by his estimate about a third of the DNR's time is spent on regulating these two Basins.

Posted by Steve Smith at 02:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A collection of recent water stories

Desperate Colorado farmers propose new river basin

Colorado cities seeking to enforce shutdown

Holdrege Water Conference

AP story on NARD conference

McCook story on Christensen water bill

WaterClaim letter to editor about why water law is needed

Posted by Steve Smith at 02:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Lower Platte is the probable area to be declared fully appropriated meaning no new wells or development.

Jim Cook and Ann Bleed comments

Posted by Steve Smith at 08:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On the 13th we mentioned that we were having troubles understanding how the Governor was able to total $128 million towards the water problems. Today learned where the missing $36 is.

It is the $3 million a year for 12 years that the Governor expects it will take the DNR to manage and regulate the Republican River Basin. So part of the DNR operations budget is what the Governor is counting towards the money he is taking credit for contributing to the solution.

We still are not sure why everything was multipled by 12.

Posted by Steve Smith at 06:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Following the State of the State speach the Governor toured the State promoting his budget plan. (McCook Gazette story) In his comments he has said he is providing $128 million for water issues. We have prepared an Excel worksheet that looks at his numbers in more detail. We are having trouble making his numbers match what he is saying.

Excel worksheet comparing Governor's numbers

Posted by Steve Smith at 08:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Corn Growers Express Concern Over Governor’s Water Plan

The Nebraska Corn Growers Association (NeCGA) is expressing “grave concerns” over Governor Dave Heineman’s proposal to use corn checkoff dollars to help fund a water resources fund.

Heineman announced his plan to create the new Water Resources Cash Fund in his annual State of the State address. In addition to using state general funds and soliciting federal dollars, Heineman wants to channel a half-cent of the current corn checkoff into the fund, beginning in 2013.

Continue reading "Corn Growers Express Concern" »

Posted by Steve Smith at 08:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From Unicameral Update Online

Heineman proposed establishing a water resources cash fund with annual allocations of

$2.7 million in state funds
$300,000 potential annual contributions from the Environmental Trust Fund
$1 million from the federal government.
The funding would be used to pay for conservation programming.

"We cannot wait for a federal judge to decide our fate in the Republican River basin," he said.

In addition to the state and federal funds, the governor said he would propose using one-half cent from the current corn checkoff fee beginning in 2013 to help fund the conservation programs.

The 2006 crop is projected to be 1.23 billion bushels and a 1/2 per bushel tax would result in about $6.125 million dollars a year. The Governor is suggesting taking some of the money currently dedicated to ethanol activities and redirecting that to water issues.

Posted by Steve Smith at 06:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Governor Heineman opposes any kind of incrase in the sales tax and opposes a fee on irrigators to pay for water solutions.

How does he plan to pay the bills?

The governor says it's premature to tip his hand now but that he is looking at a variety of options.

Chad Smith, a member of the state's Water Policy Task Force, says State lawmakers “will be left to their own devices. “That’s a problem,” Smith said. “We should’ve made sure we had something in front of them.”

Posted by Steve Smith at 04:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Central Platte NRD is not happy with the State's position on complying with the Cooperative Agreement and LB962. The NRD felt that the State has promised to take responsibility for the required offsets.

However, Ron Bishop, manager of the Central Platte NRD, says, "But since Gov. Dave Heineman signed the agreement last month, We have heard a change in the way they have been talking about those depletions and who would offset them."

The "they" Bishop is referring to is the Governor's agent Ann Bleed with the DNR.

Bishop said it now appears the state is passing the buck back to the local NRDs and irrigators to let them figure out how they are going to make up any depletions over the last nine years.

And the consequence of that may force a lot of irrigators to shut off their irrigation pumps and convert to dryland farming so the endangered species will have enough water during their spring and fall annual migration.

"If the state does it, they come up with funds and acquire those water rights, but if it falls back to the NRDs and local irrigators, the retirements still take place but there is no payment for it," he said.

Bishop quotes taken from the Grand Island Independent (registration required)

Posted by Steve Smith at 07:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Denver Post reports that irrigators are blaming their local equivalent to an NRD for failing to address the problem. The Central Colorado Water Conservancy District has been pointing the figure at the cities that have forced a shut down of irrigation wells.

Posted by Steve Smith at 09:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It is interesting that a large number of those expressing support for the Cooperative Agreement use the words, "Move Forward". "Nebraska needs to move forward." "Let's move forward." "... finally to move forward."

You would think that someone had written a talking points memo on what to say. Either that or the phrase has become an overused cliché that has lost its meaning, much like "How are you doing."

Continue reading "Move Forward" »

Posted by Steve Smith at 08:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The environmentalists and the surface irrigators support the Cooperative Agreement. As a general rule, those who use groundwater irrigation oppose the Cooperative Agreement. Of the NRDs, only the North Platte NRD supports the Cooperative Agreement but that is because they represent a large number or surface irrigators.

The Cooperative Agreement permits the Panhandle surface irrigators to continue to divert water from the Platte but requires the Central Platte area to put water back into the stream to make up for some of the upstream diversions.

NET Radio report on hearing.

This is a link to the WaterClaim testimony.

Posted by Steve Smith at 04:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Rocky Mountain News reports that the Department of the Interior signs the Cooperative Agreement.

Posted by Steve Smith at 12:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In late August, another group of Colorado irrigation wells were ordered turned off. These wells were within a few miles of the Nebraska Colorado border. The crops still needed water. One of the well owners went out to turn the well on and found this notice taped to his control panel.

About 90% of the irrigation in Nebraska is done with groundwater. About half of the irrigation on the Platte is done with surface water as opposed to groundwater irrigation. Surface irrigation is represented by irrigation districts and the DNR. Groundwater has little representation. NRDs regulate groundwater but are elected by the public at large and represents everyone, not just groundwater irrigators.

The Cooperative Agreement the Governor is considering signing is supported by surface irrigators, the DNR, and environmental groups. The supporters of the Cooperative Agreement talk about the cost of implementing the Agreement but almost never talk about the pre-Agreement costs that will be at least 10 times as large. It is kind of like talking about the payments on the new house as being $50 a month but not mentioning that to get that rate we had to make a down payment of 90% of the value.

Here is a story by the Grand Island Independent about the recent hearing on the Cooperative Agreement. (Registration required) Just keep in mind that most of the groundwater irrigators in the State are not represented by anyone and as a result are not choosing to defend themselves.

Posted by Steve Smith at 05:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As you read through the list, notice who represents the Nebraska groundwater irrigators. Keep in mind the Nebraska Department of Natural Resources has the authority to regulate surface water for Nebraska. It does not have authority to regulate groundwater. In Nebraska, the NRDs regulate groundwater, and the DNR defends the State’s surface water rights.

The Cooperative Agreement is designed to protect surface water flows. Nebraska groundwater irrigation was not represented; yet the Agreement will have a major impact on groundwater irrigation, if it is implemented. The decision on whether to implement the plan is in the hands of the Governor of Nebraska. He alone decides if this proposal is good for Nebraska.

Continue reading "Who wrote the Cooperative Agreement?" »

Posted by Steve Smith at 07:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Kearney Hub story on surface water support for the Cooperative Agreement.

Remember the groups listed here as supporting the agreement helped write it.

Posted by Steve Smith at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Omaha World Herald Editorial position on water is no secret. They believe there is too much irrigaton happening.

Read their position for yourself.

Protests all wet

Remember they hide their opinion behind a registration page.

Posted by Steve Smith at 04:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Perhaps one of you knows, can the Governor commit the State to a multiyear interstate agreement that potentially costs Nebraska hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars without the consent of the Legislature? The President of the United States cannot commit the nation to multi-country treaties without the consent of Congress. Does Nebraska require more than one person to make the decision?

Posted by Steve Smith at 12:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Links to three newspaper pieces. Each site requires registration to read. (Contact me if you cannot access the items) In essense, each says the same thing. The Cooperative Agreement commits Nebraska to a very large, unknown cost that has had no discussion. That cost should be identified before Nebraska signs the blank check.

Midland Voices - Steve Smith - WaterClaim also posted here.

Midland Voices - Don Blankenau

Grand Island Independent - Central Platte NRD

Posted by Steve Smith at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

WaterClaim has prepared a Fact Sheet regarding the Cooperative Agreement. You can look at the report in MS Word by clicking on the download file. You may find reading it easier in word than here.

Download file

For those of you that don't have Word or that just want to start reading I have also posted it here for your consideration. This Fact Sheet was prepared after reading the proposed Cooperative Agreement and after talking with Jim Cook of the DNR and Chad Smith of American Rivers.

Continue reading "Cooperative Agreement Fact Sheet" »

Posted by Steve Smith at 03:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

WaterClaim is a non-profit water policy research group representing groundwater irrigation.

Is the Cooperative Agreement a good deal?

WaterClaim says the answer is ‘yes’ and ‘no.’ The answer is ‘yes’ because it creates a framework that protects surface irrigation and the environment. The answer is ‘no’ because: 1) It does not go far enough in addressing the new acres since 1997; 2) It changes when the river flows. The river never has flowed the way it is now proposed to make it flow; 3) Long term, the proposal will force the shutdown of over a third of the current groundwater irrigation wells in the Platte River Basin; and, 4) Nothing in the Agreement addresses the costs associated with the 505,000 acres added since 1997. It only addresses the pre-1997 costs.

Should the Agreement be signed? Perhaps, but not until all of the costs -- not just the pre-1997 ones -- are identified.

Continue reading "WaterClaim Open Letter Regarding the Cooperative Agreement" »

Posted by Steve Smith at 03:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Cooperative Agreement, Is it good for Nebraska? A hearing was held in Gering today to get public input on the question. Here is the Omaha World Herald story on the subject.

Keep in mind that most of the costs are not talked about in the Cooperative Agreement. The cost of taking back to 1997 are pre-Cooperative Agreement costs that Nebraska has to pay before the costs of the Cooperative Agreement kick in. These costs are usually only vaguely refered to by the supporters of the Cooperative Agreement.

Posted by Steve Smith at 07:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A story by the World Herald on the Central Nebraska Public Power and Irrigation District decision on 2007 irrigation releases.

Notice the decision by CNPPID to not yet file suit against groundwater irrigators.

Posted by Steve Smith at 06:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The State of Nebraska will soon decide on whether to sign a Cooperative Agreement that changes how much water is in the Platte and when the water is in the Platte. There is a great deal of confusion regarding some of the specifics of what is required.

There are two sets of requirements. One is what Nebraska must do to compensate for the new acres added since 1997. The other is what must be done to compensate for the acres added prior to 1997. The comments you hear and the numbers that are often used mix the two requirements together and it quickly gets confusing. In fact, even after several discussions with various water policy officials I am confused as to the requirements. Is it 500,000 acres, 450,000 acres, 72,000 acres. The answers vary depending on who is answering the question. Soon, I hope to be able to put names to answers so we can hopefully at least get the facts straight as we make policy decisions.

Also note, that the Cooperative Agreement calls for an increase in the stream flow each year by 450,000 acre feet. You should read the Platte River Study and keep that number in mind.

Posted by Steve Smith at 04:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Nebraska must reduce Platte irrigated acres by 15% to 18%.

According to the Platte River Recovery Implementation Program - Final Environmental Impact Statement, Volume 1, page 5-255 there were an average of 2.62 million irrigated acres in the Nebraska portion of the Platte River Basin during 1988 to 1997. See report. Nebraska has agreed to reduce the number of irrigated acres to the 1997. It can do this by eliminating the equivalent of all new acres or reducing the effect on the stream caused by all new acres by an equal amount.

Continue reading "Nebraska to reduce Platte River acres by 15% to 18%" »

Posted by Steve Smith at 07:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On Tuesday, August 23, The State of Nebraska announced that farmers in the Platte River Basin had added 450,000 irrigated acres since 1997. The problem is that Nebraska promised Colorado and Wyoming that it would, at Nebraska’s expense, reverse the effect of these acres on the river.

There are two ways Nebraska can accomplish this. One is to take 450,000 acres out of production. To not have any effect on the river, it needs to be wells with a similar impact on the stream as the ones that have been added.
The other way to comply is to reduce usage for everyone to accommodate the new acres. The distance from the river influences the effect any one well causes on the stream in a given time period.

Continue reading "Irrigation Equivilent to 450,000 Platte River Acres Stop" »

Posted by Steve Smith at 11:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ray Supalla and others have released a report showing the economic costs of shutting down some of the irrigation in the Platte and Republican River Basins. The document is in MS Word. I have not reviewed it yet.

Download file

Posted by Steve Smith at 09:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If a water transfer between the Platte and the Republican does not happen then Nebraska must shut off at least 180,000 irrigated acres. The reason for the "at least" part is that Ann Bleed with the DNR doesn't think we should shut down the wells that give the most bang for the buck but instead thinks that to be fair that everyone should feel the pain. That is what she said in Imperial, on July 13th. That means more acres have to be shut down to get the required results.

One of the primary objections to any transfer focuses on the consumptive use in the Holdrege area. We have completed a major new study on the subject. You can find it as a link on the left under Presentations. It is called Holdrege Consumptive Use.

Posted by Steve Smith at 10:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What is the consumptive use of corn in Nebraska? The number varies from year to year and from location to location. ET is the total amount of water that evaporates from the plant. Consumptive Use (CU) is the amount of water that is evaporated, transpired, incorporated into crops or products, and consumed by humans and livestock. Precipitation falls. Some of the precipitation stays in the root zone where a plant can get to it. However, to maximize the yield, a farmer usually needs to supplement the plant with additional water via irrigation. The plant only takes the water that it needs. If the farmer applies more water than needed, then the excess water either runs off into the stream or seeps into the aquifer. Only the portion that is used by the plant is considered consumptive use or that is evaporated off of the lakes. In dry years, CU is higher and so is ET. Dry air with high temps increases the evaporation from the plant. The higher the humidity, the lower the ET rate. High ET levels usually translate into high CU. In the following chart, CU is about the same as NIR. However, the less efficient the delivery system, the higher the irrigation requirement is. If the plant used 100% of the water supplied, NIR would equal IR.

Keep in mind that the Model does not consider water used by a dryland crop or water used by trees and grass as consumptive use.

View image

Continue reading "Water Requirements for Corn" »

Posted by Steve Smith at 06:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Crops needs water. There have been several studies that look at what happens to yields when the crop receives less water than it needs. We looked at a report done by Gary Hergert and others published in the Journal of Production Agriculture, Oct-Dec 1993, and another published by KState - Department of Economics by Dumler, and a third that was published in the American Society of Agricultural Engineers by Schneekloth, Kocke, Hergert, Martin, and Clark. If anyone wants to look at their research, just contact me and I can point you in the right direction.

Based on their data and research (and then I updated to reflect current yields), we have produced the Crop Response to Water chart. This chart is for corn. Click on the image to enlarge.

Continue reading "Crop Response to Water" »

Posted by Steve Smith at 01:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

KNOP-TV did a story on WaterClaim's concerns.

Posted by Steve Smith at 08:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hearings on the Platte River Restoration Implementation Program (PRRIP) have been set.

September 6, Scottsbluff
Septmeber 22, Grand Island
October 10, Lincoln

After the hearings the Governor will decide whether to sign the agreement. The agreement will change when and how the Platte River flows. The delayed hearings will probably push the decision on whether to sign or not past the November 7 election date.

Posted by Steve Smith at 01:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

WaterClaim has completed a detailed review of the Platte River stream gage at Grand Island. This consisted of looking at over 25,000 daily gage entries. Note, we used all publicly available data. Please see the complete report in PDF format at:

Platte River Report

Highlighted findings:

1. Total stream flow during the most recent seventeen years is nearly 50% more than the flow of the seventeen years between 1935-1952.
2. The dam has eliminated 90% of the dry stream days. Prior to the dam, the stream at Grand Island was dry 17% of the time. During the most recent seventeen years, the stream has only been dry 2% of the time.
3. There have been more floods/stream surge days in the most recent seventeen years as compared to the seventeen pre-dam years.

Posted by Steve Smith at 07:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The US Fish and Wildlife Service has given its approval of a plan to manage water on the Platte River.  The plan is called the Platte River Recovery Implementation Program (PRRIP) and is designed to put more water into the river and change when the river sees its flows.  The Environmentalists want more water in the River in late Spring and in October.   The plan can be found at http://www.platteriver.org/

The next step is for Nebraska to review the plan.  If the Governor finds it acceptable, he will sign the agreement, committing Nebraska to making the reductions. 

What happens if the PRRIP (Cooperative Agreement) is not signed?

Continue reading "Cooperative Agreement" »

Posted by Steve Smith at 01:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)