Prairie water wars continue for Nebraska
by
Amy West
Story Created:
Dec 16, 2010 at 7:31 PM CDT
Story Updated:
Dec 16, 2010 at 7:31 PM CDT
As Mark Twain once said, 'whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting'. For years Nebraska Kansas and Colorado have fought it out in court and it may not be long before we head back again.
News five's Amy West gives us a brief history of the Republican River Compact and why Kansas says Nebraska isn't playing ball.
Dennis Lauritzen says he loves his job — raising cattle and select crops — water is its driving force. But here on the Kansas side of the Republican River it hasn't always been easy.
"In 2005 and 2006 we received no irrigation water whatsoever and 2005 was a difficult year for everybody the rain just wasn't there," said Lauritzen.
Irrigation for Lauritzen's Farm comes from Harlan Lake in Nebraska through the Kansas Bostwick Irrigation District.
Superintendent Kenneth Nelson said during dry 2006 they ended up paying Nebraska for water.
"A deal was struck in Nebraska by the state to purchase water from the surface irrigation districts and send it on down here," Nelson said.
It's during this time Kansas says Nebraska overused its water allocation and they're prepared to go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to make sure it doesn't happen again.
"When one state overuses that means another state is getting shorted and that's Kansas," said David Barfield, Kansas Comm. Compact Admin.
But lets back up.
Flood control projects, after flooding in 1935, were a driving force behind the Republican River Compact between Colorado Nebraska and Kansas in 1943.
"In order to get those flood control projects built there needed to be a compact and irrigation was attached as an additional benefit to those projects," said Nebraska DNR Deputy Director Jim Schneider.
The compact divided the Republican River water supply 11% for Colorado, 49% to Nebraska, and 40 % to Kansas.
For decades the water flowed freely.
"Starting in the 70's there was quite an expansion of ground water use in the basin and I think about the mid to late 80's Kansas started to express concern over that," said Schneider.
Kansas' Compact Administration Commissioner said in the early 1990's Kansas asked Nebraska to act – they didn't and in 1998 Kansas took Nebraska and Colorado to the U.S. Supreme Court.
"We argued that in order to come into compliance Nebraska needed to reduce its groundwater use," said Barfield.
Special Master Vincent McKusick ruled in Kansas' favor and in 2003 the states settled.
"The settlement waived Kansas' past damages but had specific methods by which we would measure compliance in the future specific tests of compliance that were agreed to by the three states," Barfield said.
Following the settlement in 2003 there was kind of a grace period for several years that the settlement provided for the states to get things in place of course the other thing that was occurring at the time when the settlement was signed was a pretty severe drought.
Matt Harrison near Harlan Lake Nebraska said there were four years where they didn't irrigate.
"It definitely had an affect on people's incomes and also on the incomes of the small communities throughout the basin," said Harrison.
In the mid 2000's — the gross income of Courtland, Kansas dropped about half.
The two years 2005 ad 2006 Nebraska overused its allocation just short of 80,000 acre feet.
"The exact amount is not completely agreed upon because there's some disputed issues that exist right now on the accounting," said Schneider.
In May of this year Kansas filed suit asking the U.S. Supreme Court to enforce 2003's settlement.
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