By Russ Pankonin
    The Imperial Republican
     Nine members of the Upper Republican Natural Resource District board voted at a special meeting Monday to endorse a proposed basin-wide effort to seek funding for compliance efforts.
     The joint plan came on the heels of two meetings last week.
     The first meeting occurred in Lincoln last Wednesday between basin NRD officials, Senator Mark Christensen and Governor Dave Heineman.
     The second came Thursday in Cambridge when basin NRD officials met with Ann Bleed, director of the Department of Natural Resources, and representatives from the Attorney General's office.
     URNRD Chair Greg Pelster of Elsie and Vice-Chair Tom Terryberry of Imperial represented the district at both meetings.
     Both Pelster and Terryberry said the governor made it quite clear that the basin NRDs must come together and offer some type of unified plan to address compliance issues in the basin.
     On Thursday, Bleed and NRD officials looked at a variety of allocation reduction scenarios to get Nebraska into compliance with a 2002 settlement with Kansas over water use in the Republican River Basin.
     That session, coupled with the governor's message, prompted basin officials to continue their meeting into the afternoon and work on proposals that all of the basin NRDs could support and promote.
     Members of the Lower Republican NRD met Tuesday, as well, and voted 10-1 to support the proposal. Members of the Middle Republican NRD were meeting Tuesday night and were scheduled to address the issue.
     The URNRD had made an earlier proposal but it didn't find the full support of the basin members.
    The proposal goals
     In the proposal that was polished by managers of each of the districts, the goal is for the state and the basin NRDs to "work together to reach a sustainable balance between water use in Nebraska's portion of the Republican River Basin and the amount of water allocated to Nebraska by the Republican River Compact by the year 2012."
     Pelster said the state has discovered accounting differences in how consumptive use is figured on a mound of water built up in the Tri-Basin NRD.
     According to Bleed, the credit will amount to about 8,600 acre-feet, which will reduce the amount of overuse that has occurred in the basin.
     She noted that Kansas must still agree to this. She doubted the state would receive credit for any prior years since those figures have already been approved by compact members.
     The 2006 consumptive use figures will not be completed until August, she said.
     She estimated Nebraska will be over its allocation similar to last year, which would put it in a range for 30-40,000 acre feet.
     Surface irrigators in the Frenchman-Cambridge Irrigation District indicated they may be interested in selling their surface water this year.
     Pelster told the URNRD board the irrigation district has about 26,000 AF stored in Harry Strunk Reservoir.
     If that amount of water could be purchased and transferred to Harlan County Reservoir, the basin could receive credit for as much as 17,000 AF.
     By storing the water in Harlan, the compact would require Kansas to absorb some of the evaporation loss, which could be as signficant as 20,000 AF, Pelster said Monday.
    Funding a key to the plan
     But coming up with money to buy that much surface water becomes the issue, Pelster said.
     Estimates bounced around ranged from $8-11 million.
     The plan seeks to ask the Legislature to extend the 3-cent levy the NRDs can now assess for a period of five years.
     They are also asking the Legislature for authority to assess additional levies or fees. A per-acre fee on irrigated ground in the basin is one consideration.
     In addition, they are asking the state to match any money raised locally in the basin for compliance efforts on a $4-to-$1 basis.
     With approximately 1 million irrigated acres in the basin, a $10 per acre fee would raise $10 million and continue to allow basin farmers to irrigate at present levels.
     The NRDs acknowledge they must still continue to manage groundwater in their districts and work to reduce consumption.
     Other compliance projects proposed include augmentation and vegetation control.
     Christensen has reworked his water bill, LB 701, putting the responsibility for vegetation control and offsetting conservation depletions on the state.
     With the support of the board on the proposal, URNRD Manager Jasper Fanning plans on addressing it during testimony on LB 701 Wednesday.
    Disbanding NRDs in the state
     During the Cambridge meeting, there was some insinuation that the Legislature could disband NRDs and turn all water control over to DNR.
     Pelster said Monday his response, published in the Omaha World-Herald was taken out of context.
     When he said that could never happen, Pelster told the board that he didn't feel that other NRDs in the state would allow that to occur and would rally to the cause.
     When asked Tuesday about disbanding NRDs, Bleed said such an act would have the same effect as putting a dictator into power.
     She said she much prefers local control rather than one central agency in control.
     If such a move would happen, she said democracy would suffer from the loss of local control.
     Dissolution of the NRDs would only be a last resort, she noted.