Einstein's theory of relativity has nothing on Nebraska's water laws.

"It's complicated stuff," said Ann Bleed, deputy director of the Nebraska Department of Natural Resources.

DNR hopes to simplify some of the water scenario at a statewide public hearing Thursday morning in Kearney. At that time, DNR will unveil its plan to start solving Nebraska's growing water problems and conflicts.

The proposal could ultimately affect everyone in the state -- rural and urban, west and east.

"Nebraska is a little behind the times in having laws that connect surface water and groundwater," Bleed said. "Until now, we've had enough water that it hasn't been a big issue.

"But right now our uses are exceeding our supply of water, and this cannot be sustained into the future."

Thursday's hearing is an evolution of last year's enacting of LB962, a law that recognizes the connection between surface and groundwater and calls for a more proactive approach to managing the state's water. The law requires that DNR perform annual reviews to determine which of the state's river basins are fully or overappropriated.

Those two designations then trigger integrated management plans (IMPs), to be developed and implemented by DNR and local NRDs. According to DNR, IMPs will be designed to "sustain a balance between water uses and water supplies so that the economic viability, social and environmental health, safety and welfare of the river basin ... can be achieved and maintained for both the near term and the long term."

"The big news is now there will be management plans in areas that are fully appropriated," Bleed said. "Those that are overappropriated have to get to a point of balance."

Fully or overappropriated basins would affect all water users within a proposed "10/50" boundary.

"A 10/50 line means that if you take all the water pumped within that area in a 50-year period, the depletion of that stream would be no more than 10 percent," Bleed said.

The 10/50 boundary is much more rigorous than the current 28/40 model, which allows for a 28 percent river depletion over a 40-year period and is favored by many groundwater irrigators and NRDs.

The Central Platte NRD area has already been deemed fully appropriated, a big reason that its board OK'd a moratorium on new wells in 2003. The new regulations, however, will mean that more wells and more farmers will be affected.

"Generally, the 10/50 line will extend from the Platte about 18 to 20 miles," said Ron Bishop, CPNRD director in Grand Island. "The 28/40 line extends only about eight miles back.

"So the 10/50 would double the amount of land impacted."

The state has been forced to get more proactive in water management, primarily for three reasons -- an increasing number of conflicts between surface and groundwater users, rapidly declining water tables and stream flows in southwest and western Nebraska, and two recent court decisions ruling that DNR has no authority to directly regulate groundwater use.

There are many subplots to Nebraska's water script, including a Republican River compact with Kansas that the state is in danger of breaching. That could lead to monetary damages against Nebraska, which some observers say could be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

"We are really under the gun," said Jim Goeke, a hydrologist at UNL's Extension Center in North Platte and one of the state's foremost water experts. "You could have another nuclear waste dump settlement there.

"Groundwater and surface water are inextricably linked," Goeke added. "If you don't have water in the streams, you don't have water for surface irrigators and you don't have water for wildlife."

Goeke and others have been sounding an alarm for years on the overconsumption of Nebraska's groundwater.

"Before now, the state has not made any meaningful attempt to stop the continual depletion of streams and rivers," said Claude Cappel, a McCook area farmer and a member of the state's Water Policy Task Force. Cappel has lost his surface irrigation water because streams that once supplied his farm have dried up. Still, he's stuck with the water bill.

"10/50 is a good idea," Cappel said. "In fact, it could be a lot stronger than that.

"Once the water is gone, there's no way to get it back."

Department of Natural Resources

LB962 Public Hearing

When -- 9 a.m. Thursday

Where -- Holiday Inn Convention Center, 110 Second Ave., Kearney

For more info -- www.dnr.state.ne.us

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