OMAHA — Officials managing Nebraska's new water law designed to integrate surface and groundwater use are getting a work out.

The State Water Policy Task Force, which created the new water management policy and backed its approval in the Legislature, now is calling for full funding of at least $4.7 million per year to pay for activities required by the law. The Legislature provided $2.5 million for the first year.

In addition, irrigators in south-central Nebraska and a local natural resources district are trying to convince state resources officials that farmers should be able to pump water onto farmland that had been served with surface water and not be considered in violation of state-protected flows in the Platte River.

The law, in part, requires the state's Department of Natural Resources to annually assess all river basins to determine if they are fully appropriated. If a basin is deemed fully appropriated, a hold is placed on new permits for surface-water use, groundwater wells and new irrigated farm acres until state and local officials implement a new plan to manage water.

Holdrege-based Tri-Basin Natural Resources District recently had to impose a moratorium on new wells in its area west of U.S. Highway 183, where surface-water supplies are designated by state officials as "over-appropriated."

That moratorium could affect irrigation customers of the Central Nebraska Public Power and Irrigation District, who face reduced surface-water deliveries next year because of the impact of drought and upstream depletions on Lake McConaughy, Central's main storage reservoir.

Central's board says irrigation customers should be allowed to supplement surface-water deliveries with water stored underground as a result of a half-century of seepage from the district's canals. This underground pool of water is believed to equal the equivalent of four or five Lake McConaughys, Central spokesman Tim Anderson said.

Tri-Basin's board has indicated a willingness to allow exceptions to the moratorium under certain conditions.

However, Roger Patterson, director of the Natural Resources Department, has said that such exceptions would constitute a "new depletion" of water resources. A new depletion would require an offset of an equal amount of water through reductions in water use in other areas of the NRD.

Central's board contends that its irrigators paid the district for decades to deliver water and that seepage is creating a mound of underground water that raised the water table in areas of Gosper, Phelps and Kearney Counties by 50 feet.

"That water is ours," Anderson said. "We put it there and continue to put it there. That's a huge benefit we're not getting credit for. That underground mound has been contributing water to the Platte between Cozad and just east of Kearney, and our irrigators should not be penalized."

Anderson said the district will work with Tri-Basin and the state to find a solution that is fair for everyone.

"It's going to continue to be an education," Anderson said. "All of us are going to have to learn how to get by with less water."

Patterson said the law changed the state's approach to managing water. It is designed to deal with water issues before they become major problems.

"We knew this would not be easy," he said.