Bostwick optimistic about water talks with state
OMAHA — Officials with the Nebraska Bostwick Irrigation District are optimistic about progress of talks about the state buying Bostwick water to send down the Republican River to Kansas.
“I would say we’d probably know something in the next week ... and then it would be taken to the voters,” said the district board president, Walk Knehans. His voters are the 260 or so district water users who may be asked to surrender their allocations for a price being negotiated by the state and their Bostwick representatives.
“There will be probably an announcement Tuesday or Wednesday that’s gonna be drafted by our attorney,” said the district manager, Mike Delka. “That’s probably all I should say at this point.”
Neither Knehans or Delka would discuss how much water at what price was on the table.
District officials previously estimated the state would have to pay farmers about $2.5 million if farmers were given $100 an acre for their water.
Still plagued by drought and water shortages in many parts of the state, Nebraska has been using more than its share of Republic River water.
A Kansas-Nebraska compact signed in 1943 allocated the annual water supply in the Republican basin, with Nebraska getting 49 percent, Kansas 40 percent and Colorado 11 percent. The river starts in eastern Colorado, flows into Kansas and up to Nebraska and returns to Kansas in Republic County.
In 1998, Kansas went to the U.S. Supreme Court, saying Nebraska had violated the compact by allowing the unimpeded development of thousands of wells drawing from the river and its tributaries.
The problem is back: The Nebraska Natural Resources Department has estimated that Nebraska used 42,000 acre-feet more Republican River water than allowed in 2005. In 2003 and 2004 combined, Nebraska used 62,000 acre-feet over its allocation.
An acre-foot is the amount of liquid needed to cover an acre of land with one foot of liquid, or 325,851 U.S. gallons.
Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman says the state is considering several options to send more water to Kansas, including buying water rights from landowners.
The Governor’s Water Policy Task Force agreed in December that voters should be asked to give part of Nebraska’s sales tax to help with the growing list of water problems.
Sen. Ed Schrock of Elm Creek has introduced three water-related measures:
— LB1082, which would create a program within the Department of Natural Resources for grants to buy water rights from landowners.
— LB1083, which requests an appropriation of $6 million.
— LB1156, which would remove land in the state’s Educational Lands Trust from irrigation.
Steve Smith, director of the WaterClaim irrigation advocacy group in Imperial, said the Bostwick water in Harlan isn’t enough.
“It’s like trying to use a bandage to cover a huge, gaping wound,” Smith has said.
Harlan County Lake, at only 41 percent capacity, has nearly 129,000 acre-feet of water. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation says Bostwick’s share of the reservoir this summer will be only about 10,000 acre-feet.
According to Bill Peck, chief of water operations at the bureau’s Kansas-Nebraska field office in McCook, Harlan County Lake is up just 2.5 feet in two years, despite no irrigation releases in the past two years. The last time the 23,000 acres of the Bostwick district received any water from the lake was in 2003, and that was only 6.2 inches per acre.
Peck said the supply predictions for this year showed only 1.5 inches of water per acre will be available to Bostwick.
That 1.5 inches “wouldn’t have much effect,” said Knehans, the Bostwick board president.
Duane Lienemann, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln agriculture extension agent in Webster County, along the Kansas border, said the area is “limited to almost dryland farming already anyway.”
“The thing that’s really kind of exasperating is that this pact we did with Kansas back in 1943 was written before the dams were there,” he said. “And, of course, we didn’t have irrigation back then.”
“I don’t see the water running down the creeks like we used to,” he said. “Farmers have become better stewards of land.”
“I would say we’d probably know something in the next week ... and then it would be taken to the voters,” said the district board president, Walk Knehans. His voters are the 260 or so district water users who may be asked to surrender their allocations for a price being negotiated by the state and their Bostwick representatives.
“There will be probably an announcement Tuesday or Wednesday that’s gonna be drafted by our attorney,” said the district manager, Mike Delka. “That’s probably all I should say at this point.”
Neither Knehans or Delka would discuss how much water at what price was on the table.
District officials previously estimated the state would have to pay farmers about $2.5 million if farmers were given $100 an acre for their water.
Still plagued by drought and water shortages in many parts of the state, Nebraska has been using more than its share of Republic River water.
A Kansas-Nebraska compact signed in 1943 allocated the annual water supply in the Republican basin, with Nebraska getting 49 percent, Kansas 40 percent and Colorado 11 percent. The river starts in eastern Colorado, flows into Kansas and up to Nebraska and returns to Kansas in Republic County.
In 1998, Kansas went to the U.S. Supreme Court, saying Nebraska had violated the compact by allowing the unimpeded development of thousands of wells drawing from the river and its tributaries.
The problem is back: The Nebraska Natural Resources Department has estimated that Nebraska used 42,000 acre-feet more Republican River water than allowed in 2005. In 2003 and 2004 combined, Nebraska used 62,000 acre-feet over its allocation.
An acre-foot is the amount of liquid needed to cover an acre of land with one foot of liquid, or 325,851 U.S. gallons.
Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman says the state is considering several options to send more water to Kansas, including buying water rights from landowners.
The Governor’s Water Policy Task Force agreed in December that voters should be asked to give part of Nebraska’s sales tax to help with the growing list of water problems.
Sen. Ed Schrock of Elm Creek has introduced three water-related measures:
— LB1082, which would create a program within the Department of Natural Resources for grants to buy water rights from landowners.
— LB1083, which requests an appropriation of $6 million.
— LB1156, which would remove land in the state’s Educational Lands Trust from irrigation.
Steve Smith, director of the WaterClaim irrigation advocacy group in Imperial, said the Bostwick water in Harlan isn’t enough.
“It’s like trying to use a bandage to cover a huge, gaping wound,” Smith has said.
Harlan County Lake, at only 41 percent capacity, has nearly 129,000 acre-feet of water. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation says Bostwick’s share of the reservoir this summer will be only about 10,000 acre-feet.
According to Bill Peck, chief of water operations at the bureau’s Kansas-Nebraska field office in McCook, Harlan County Lake is up just 2.5 feet in two years, despite no irrigation releases in the past two years. The last time the 23,000 acres of the Bostwick district received any water from the lake was in 2003, and that was only 6.2 inches per acre.
Peck said the supply predictions for this year showed only 1.5 inches of water per acre will be available to Bostwick.
That 1.5 inches “wouldn’t have much effect,” said Knehans, the Bostwick board president.
Duane Lienemann, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln agriculture extension agent in Webster County, along the Kansas border, said the area is “limited to almost dryland farming already anyway.”
“The thing that’s really kind of exasperating is that this pact we did with Kansas back in 1943 was written before the dams were there,” he said. “And, of course, we didn’t have irrigation back then.”
“I don’t see the water running down the creeks like we used to,” he said. “Farmers have become better stewards of land.”
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