Big Mac so low, Central considers shutting off irrigators next year
Irrigators who rely Lake McConaughy may not get any water next year from the Central Nebraska Public Power and Irrigation District.
That’s one of two options considered by the Holdrege-based district, which owns and operates the state’s largest man-made reservoir.
The other option is giving irrigators only 6.7 inches of water per acre, the same amount as in 2005, Central spokesman Tim Anderson said Thursday.
Central provides water to more than 112,000 acres in Gosper, Phelps, Kearney, Dawson and Lincoln counties. But seven years of drought has shrunk Lake McConaughy to one-third of its normal size. The lake near Ogallala is 22.5 miles long at full capacity.
Anderson said the lake is expected to be at about 19 percent of capacity by the end of this year’s irrigation season, a record low. Lake McConaughy can hold nearly 2 million acre-feet of water.
Central’s board of directors met this week to discuss how much water irrigators will get in 2007 but made no decision. Anderson said the board will evaluate the situation at the end of the irrigation season and make a decision in September or October.
“The 6.7 inches is bare minimum,” Anderson said. “It’s not enough water to raise a corn or soybean crop without some help from Mother Nature.”
Typically, irrigators get 18 inches of water per acre but that hasn’t happened since 2001.
This summer irrigators received 8.4 inches of water per acre from the district.
If the Central board votes to not deliver any water next year, it would be the first time since 1941, when Kingsley Dam was closed and Lake McConaughy began to fill up.
“There’s a 30 to 40 percent chance” the board is leaning that way, Anderson said.
Central blames the prolonged drought and continued unregulated groundwater pumping along the North Platte River and its tributaries for Lake McConaughy’s troubles.
The lake relies on the North Platte River for much of its water. The river in turn gets its water from melting snows in the mountains of Wyoming and Colorado. But in recent years, mountain snowpack has not been good or has melted too fast.
State Climatologist Al Dutcher said Lake McConaughy needs a winter with exceptionally heavy snows, like the one that occurred in 1983. Snowfall that year was 150 percent of normal in the Rockies.
Prospects for that occurring this coming winter do not look good. Long-range forecasts call for a weak El Nino weather pattern, which doesn’t bode well for northern Rockies snowfall, Dutcher said.
But there may be good news for western Sandhills and Panhandle regions of the state, where drought conditions are in the extreme category. The Climate Prediction Center in Washington is forecasting above-normal precipitation for those areas in September, October and November.
Dutcher said that won’t help Lake McConaughy or increase stream flows in the Platte, but it may help the wheat crop and improve surface moisture.
Reach Algis J. Laukaitis at 473-7243 or alaukaitis@journalstar.com.
That’s one of two options considered by the Holdrege-based district, which owns and operates the state’s largest man-made reservoir.
The other option is giving irrigators only 6.7 inches of water per acre, the same amount as in 2005, Central spokesman Tim Anderson said Thursday.
Central provides water to more than 112,000 acres in Gosper, Phelps, Kearney, Dawson and Lincoln counties. But seven years of drought has shrunk Lake McConaughy to one-third of its normal size. The lake near Ogallala is 22.5 miles long at full capacity.
Anderson said the lake is expected to be at about 19 percent of capacity by the end of this year’s irrigation season, a record low. Lake McConaughy can hold nearly 2 million acre-feet of water.
Central’s board of directors met this week to discuss how much water irrigators will get in 2007 but made no decision. Anderson said the board will evaluate the situation at the end of the irrigation season and make a decision in September or October.
“The 6.7 inches is bare minimum,” Anderson said. “It’s not enough water to raise a corn or soybean crop without some help from Mother Nature.”
Typically, irrigators get 18 inches of water per acre but that hasn’t happened since 2001.
This summer irrigators received 8.4 inches of water per acre from the district.
If the Central board votes to not deliver any water next year, it would be the first time since 1941, when Kingsley Dam was closed and Lake McConaughy began to fill up.
“There’s a 30 to 40 percent chance” the board is leaning that way, Anderson said.
Central blames the prolonged drought and continued unregulated groundwater pumping along the North Platte River and its tributaries for Lake McConaughy’s troubles.
The lake relies on the North Platte River for much of its water. The river in turn gets its water from melting snows in the mountains of Wyoming and Colorado. But in recent years, mountain snowpack has not been good or has melted too fast.
State Climatologist Al Dutcher said Lake McConaughy needs a winter with exceptionally heavy snows, like the one that occurred in 1983. Snowfall that year was 150 percent of normal in the Rockies.
Prospects for that occurring this coming winter do not look good. Long-range forecasts call for a weak El Nino weather pattern, which doesn’t bode well for northern Rockies snowfall, Dutcher said.
But there may be good news for western Sandhills and Panhandle regions of the state, where drought conditions are in the extreme category. The Climate Prediction Center in Washington is forecasting above-normal precipitation for those areas in September, October and November.
Dutcher said that won’t help Lake McConaughy or increase stream flows in the Platte, but it may help the wheat crop and improve surface moisture.
Reach Algis J. Laukaitis at 473-7243 or alaukaitis@journalstar.com.
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