Imperial Republican

    Irrigators in the Lower Republican NRD feel no different than their Upper Republican counterparts when it comes to the unknowns of compliance with the Republican River Compact Settlement.
     More than 200 farmers in the Lower Republican NRD packed the community hall in Alma Friday urging their board to delay a state-imposed moratorium on additional irrigated acres in the NRD until Dec. 31, 2004.
     The moratorium resulted from LB 962, a sweeping piece of water legislation passed earlier this year which redefines water management in Nebraska.
     The new legislation, which became law Friday, halts further development of irrigated acres in over-appropriated basins, which now includes the Republican Basin.
     As a result, the LRNRD board had to take action to override the moratorium.
     After a 90-minute public hearing on the issue, board members reconvened and voted unanimously to roll back the certification of irrigated acres to Dec. 31, 2004.
     What this does is allow irrigators to develop additional irrigated acreage until the new deadline.
     However, Roger Patterson, director of Nebraska's Department of Natural Resources, told irrigators that just because they are allowed to certify additional acres doesn't mean that will increase the amount of water to LRNRD irrigators.
     Patterson said DNR doesn't care how many acres the NRD certifies. "If you add acres, the total volume then gets spread across all of those acres," he told the group.
     Board member Nelson Trambly said the board responded to the testimony to allow the later deadline.
     "Everyone testified to override LB 962 and expand acres," he said. What that means, he warned, is that "the guys already irrigating are going to get less water."
    LB 962 slammed
     Nebraska's new water law, LB 962, became a whipping boy for a number of those testifying at the hearing.
     After the hearing, the LRNRD board even went on record, unanimously opposing LB 962.
     Don Adams, executive director of Nebraskans First, an organization that seeks to protect groundwater for irrigation, blasted LB 962 as well.
     He said LB 962 weakens local control over groundwater and restricts the rights and freedoms of groundwater irrigators.
     He said the bill gives DNR tremendous regulatory power over groundwater use.
     "Nebraska lawmakers and state bureaucrats have succeeded in creating a real mixed up mess," he said.
     Now, Nebraska is a place of nasty arguments over water pitting water users of all kinds against each other.
     Adams also criticized DNR's methodology in seeking compliance with the settlement, more especially with the groundwater model being used a basis for the plan.
     "The state's mysterious 'black-box' groundwater model must be analyzed and peer reviewed," he said. An economic impact study must also be factored into the decision, he added.
     Board member Jack Frear said he thought LB 962 was "a terrible deal, passed by our own state senator," Ed Schrock.
     "People in the state are trying to override us. People in Lincoln don't know what's going on here," Frear added.
     "Personally speaking," Trambly added, "we've been sold down the river by Lincoln and DNR."
     Carroll Sheldon of Kearney, a member of the Central Platte NRD and a director of Nebraskans First, told Schrock, who was present at the meeting, that "LB 962 is asinine."
     He said LB 962 gives the state the power to take over if it doesn't like what the NRDs are doing. "You're the people who've made this valley-not Lincoln," he told the crowd. "Lincoln's agenda is not your agenda."
     Schrock said he knows there's alot of unrest in the basin. That's why he called a Thursday meeting between him, Patterson, Senator Tom Baker of Trenton and Governor Mike Johanns.
     Schrock took responsibility for the bill, which was supported by the Water Task Force. "Yes, it was my bill," he said.
     "If we made some mistakes on the bill, we'll work with you to resolve those issues," he said.
     He added the task force will meet again in November and invited people's participation.
    Baker's comments rile some
     Following Thursday's meeting, Baker commented to the Omaha World-Herald about the unrest among irrigators in the basin.
     "I think the problem is they have not been paying attention as they should have," Baker was quoted as saying.
     That comment riled several of the LRNRD board members, of which one is a constituent of Baker's.
     Trambly took exception to Baker's comment they aren't paying attention. "I'll challenge that! Just because we don't agree doesn't mean we're not paying attention."
     Jim Huffman of Holbrook, who resides in Baker's 44th District, said he has yet to see Baker at any of the meetings. He added that board members from the Middle and Upper Republican NRDs said Baker was "MIA in their districts as well."
     Huffman said he'd challenge Baker's knowledge of the compact with anyone of the LRNRD board.
     He offered these words for Baker: "We are paying attention. Are you paying attention and who are you paying attention to?"
    State seeking 5 percent reduction
     Patterson told those present the DNR is seeking a 5 percent reduction in pumping across the basin in normal years.
     That number will increase in water-short years, based on the amount of water available in Harlan County Reservoir near Alma.
     The elevation of Harlan would have to rise nearly 14 feet in the next year to avoid triggering a water-short year.
     With the current drought conditions, that looks unlikely. That will force the three Republican NRDs to reduce consumption further to insure meeting the terms of the RRCS.
     Huffman said the LRNRD is beginning to draft an integrated plan to address the reductions. However, Patterson noted their progress is behind that of the Middle and Upper Republican NRDs.
     The MRNRD board put a compliance proposal up for consideration at its July 13 meeting but the motion to proceed with the proposal failed to gain a second.
     No proposal has yet been advanced for public hearings in the URNRD.