Drought price tag put at $342 million

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BY ART HOVEY / Lincoln Journal Star

There’s a price to be paid for another year of drought in Nebraska and an agricultural economist delivered an early estimate Tuesday: $342 million.

“The loss is about a third of a billion — the direct losses,” Brad Lubben told the state’s climate-watching panel in Lincoln.

The overall effect is “easily two times that in terms of local economic impact,” the University of Nebraska-Lincoln analyst said.

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The Climate Assessment Response Committee, made up of state, federal and university officials, as well as crop and livestock producers, asked Lubben to give some dimension to a drought that has dogged much of the state since 2000.

The answer was mostly about overheated wheat in the west, parched pastures in the Sandhills, and a marathon of irrigation pumping in the east.

Although he said it with a smile, Committee Chair Jamie Karl wasn’t kidding when he reacted to Lubben’s presentation.

“You bring all the cheer of a local mortician,” said Karl, also the state’s assistant director of agriculture.

Some rainfall relief from what many regard as Nebraska’s seventh year of weather torment has arrived at the east end of the state in August. But much of the state from Grand Island west didn’t get that rain.

Karl said it’s important to convey news about ag losses to federal lawmakers who have been pondering — but so far not acting on — a package of aid that could be worth $4 billion or more to the worst hit states.

He called Lubben’s findings “a useful tool to show the ag committees on the Hill that we’re not goofing around.”

Barb Cooksley, part of a Custer County ranching operation, and State Climatologist Al Dutcher weren’t goofing around either as they assessed 2006 damage done and the possibilities for recovery.

In taking stock of livestock impacts that extend south through Texas, Cooksley cited premium prices for alfalfa and trucks arriving from Oklahoma to haul away a portion of what is likely to be a precious supply of winter feed.

“It’s really scary for the livestock producer” in Nebraska, she said. “Where do we go?”

Dutcher and other weather experts based at UNL touched on recent good precipitation news in Southeast Nebraska, but said weather possibilities headed into the winter months were still on the sobering side.

“It appears, at least to me, that there’s not a very high probability of snowpack recovery this year,” Dutcher said.

That carries especially serious implications for Lake McConaughy, where water levels appear headed for record lows, and for the Republican River Valley, where irrigators have lost access to surface water and where Kansas wants assurances of getting its share of flows.

An especially bitter pill, said Mike Hayes of the UNL-based National Drought Mitigation Center, was the precipitous decline in early hopes for snow runoff and reservoir help from the Rocky Mountains this past spring.

Hot, dry winds turned a forecast of 130 percent of normal, offered by the federal Bureau of Reclamation in February, into less than 50 percent by June.

“That’s a very rare event where the snowpack disappears the way it did,” Hayes said.

One bit of brighter news Tuesday came from Jack Daniel, the state’s drinking water monitor. Daniel said municipalities and other providers of public drinking water “reacted in very responsive fashion” to previous drought.

Thanks largely to their efforts in drilling new wells holding demand in check, there were only 26 systems under some type of restriction as of last Friday.

In Southeast Nebraska, the list includes mandatory conservation at Seward and Western and voluntary measures in Lincoln, Ceresco, Valparaiso and York.

Back in the agricultural realm, ag economist Lubben said irrigated portions of the state’s corn and soybean crops appeared to be largely intact. But the price also could include future allocation of water supplies.

Reach Art Hovey at 523-4949 or ahovey@alltel.net.

Drought bill comes due

Brad Lubben, University of Nebraska-Lincoln ag economist, provided an early estimate Tuesday of 2006 drought damage in Nebraska and major components, including lost production:

* Total direct cost: Nearly $342 million.

* Wheat: Nearly $70 million.

* All crops: More than $98 million.

* Added irrigation costs: About $51 million.

* Diminished livestock grazing: About $193 million.