Lake McConaughy in jeopardy

 No comments  
 E-mail Story
 Print Story
  Share

 digg it!
 Facebook
 del.icio.us
Seed Newsvine
Fark It
Reddit

Text Size: 

Tools Sponsor

OGALLALA - Central Nebraska Public Power and Irrigation District officials are scheduled to meet today to make a decision that some say will decide the future of Lake McConaughy.

The Central board will decide what, if any, water will be allocated to irrigators for next year.

Central's Kingsley Dam Superintendent Jerry Steinke said a recent survey of district farmers and number of wells in the area could play into the decision.

"They interviewed 99 percent of them, and 87 percent said they would take 6.7 inches of water over eight weeks, which is half the delivery," Steinke said. "They also had the option of not taking any water."

The survey also asked if wells were available for farmers' use.

"Out of 1,275 accounts, 141 have wells they can irrigate with. Another 178 have wells to partially serve the district," he said. "Around 980 of them have no wells at all."

McConaughy is at about 20 percent of its capacity after a fifth year of drought.

The big irrigation reservoir north of Ogallala is within 6 inches of its record low level of 1952. Nebraska Game and Parks Commission lake Superintendent Mitch Gerstenkorn says the record low may be hit this week.

"The lake elevation as of Friday was 3,198.7 feet, which is five-tenths of a foot from the record low," he said. "It's not sounding good at all."

Gerstenkorn also said that as of Friday, the flow of water into the reservoir was 206 cubic feet per second from the North Platte River, but there were 1,282 cfs leaving McConaughy.

"That makes for a net loss of over 1,000 feet per second," he said. "It's making it really tough."