Saturday, November 22, 2008

LINCOLN -- Nebraska's plan to quit using more than its share of the Republican River isn't realistic, says Kansas' water czar.

Colorado is slipping into trouble with Kansas, too.

David Barfield, chief engineer of the Kansas Division of Water Resources, said Wednesday that Nebraska and Colorado each used more than their allocations of Republican River water from 2003 through 2007.

The five-year period was the first normal test of an agreement in a U.S. Supreme Court case allocating water among the states.

"Nebraska and Colorado need to do better,'' Barfield said. "Compliance is not optional.''

Meanwhile, the three states are closer to trying to resolve the conflict through nonbinding arbitration. They expect to agree on an arbiter within a month. If arbitration fails, Kansas has pledged to take its neighbors back to the high court.

Kansas sued Nebraska and Colorado in 1998, claiming that the two upstream states used more than their share of water in the Republican River, as established in a 1943 agreement. The case was settled in 2002.

The three states are in a new round of conflict over what's happened since 2002.

Barfield said Nebraska overused its allocation by nearly 118,000 acre-feet during the five-year period. He said Colorado exceeded its share by 52,600 acre-feet. An acre-foot of water covers one acre of land and goes 12 inches deep.


Nebraska doesn't agree with Barfield's figures.

Brian Dunnigan, acting director of the Nebraska Department of Natural Resources, said the state has made "significant progress'' in decreasing water consumption -- particularly by irrigation farmers -- in the basin across much of southern Nebraska.

He cited programs that pay for water -- held in reservoirs by irrigation districts -- and release it to Kansas, clear river channels of invasive vegetation and pay farmers not to irrigate.

In an interview, Dunnigan said the state is talking with NRDs in the Republican watershed to craft a new way to raise local funds if the Nebraska Supreme Court upholds a judge's ruling that they can't levy a special property tax to pay for water to be sent to Kansas.

Dick Wolfe, Colorado state engineer, said that state has programs in place, including one to pump water into the riverbed, to meet its obligations.

Jim Williams, Nebraska Natural Resources' Republican River coordinator, presented an analysis indicating that the procedure used to determine how the river gains and loses water is flawed. The report says the errors are substantial.

For the period 2001 through 2006 , according to the report, Nebraska used 43 percent less water than current computations say. Still, the state was in arrears to Kansas by more than 66,000 acre-feet during the period.

Barfield said he recognized that Colorado and Nebraska are trying to comply with a threestate agreement allocating the river's water, but the actions are insufficient and, in Nebraska's case, unrealistic.

Barfield said underground water pumped by farmers to irrigate corn and other crops is the primary cause of Nebraska overusing its share of the river.

The impact of past pumping continues to grow, he said, because current and future river flows are lower than they would be naturally.

"Any plan to come into compliance must contain significant restrictions on groundwater pumping,'' Barfield said.

He repeated criticism of the amount of water that Nebraska natural resources districts in the Republican basin allow farmers to pump. He said the allocations do nothing to stop the growing impact of past pumping.

Kansas farmers suffered significant shortages of water because of overuse by Nebraska and Colorado, Barfield said. Kansas will list its grievances and propose penalties and remedies soon, he said.

The last time Barfield assessed Nebraska's alleged violation, his proposed remedy included $72.3 million in penalties and shutting down thousands of Nebraska irrigation wells in the basin.

Barfield and his Nebraska and Colorado counterparts were in Lincoln for the annual meeting of the Republican River Compact
Administration.