By Russ Pankonin
    The Imperial Republican
    ■ Lawsuit on LB 701 could affect integrated management plan. PAGE 1.
     One plan to help Nebraska achieve compliance with Kansas as part of the Republican River Compact Settlement could be stream augmentation.
     Jasper Fanning, manager of the Upper Republican Natural Resource District, said the concept got a boost from data resulting from a recent run of the water model used to measure compliance.
     The idea of the augmentation project is to pump groundwater back into the Republican River, preferably near a stream gauge, with this increase in water being counted toward compliance.
     The big question would be how much this pumping would affect depletions, which are counter-productive to compact compliance.
     Fanning said they have identified nine potential sites in the basin and modeled each of those sites to determine overall depletion.
     The model run was based on pumping each well at 2,000 gallons per minute for one year, which would yield 3,226 acre-feet of water.
     Fanning said the run showed depletions running from zero to 1,400 acre-feet with a large cluster of the wells showing only 100-200 acre feet of depletion. None of the low depletion wells were in the URNRD, he added.
     With the positive results, Fanning said the augmentation shows promise. However, he urged people not to believe that it is the "silver bullet" to compliance issues.
     After seeing the results, modelers began to question if something was wrong, since little depletion was seen. However, when they previously modeled the effect of shutting down quick response wells near rivers and streams, it didn't put a lot of water into the rivers, he said.
     In that case, they believed the excess water created was sucked up by vegetation and evaporation.
     "My comment was simply 'what are you worried about?' You weren't concerned when shutting off wells does every little. Why should you be concerned when pumping wells does very little," Fanning said he told the modelers.
     If the modeling and water use by trees, vegetation and evaporation all proves true, then it could be viable to pursue augmentation, Fanning told his board.
     Efforts are already underway to control vegetation and trees in the streams and river beds in the basin.
     Fanning said Ann Bleed, director of the Department of Natural Resources, indicated she would be willing to put some money into the project if it proves out.
     "I don't want to get people's hopes too high," Fanning said.
     He noted there may still need to be some type of paid offset not to water from wells near the augmentation wells.
     WaterClaim, a water advocacy organization based in Imperial, has long contended that augmentation could help Nebraska meet compact compliance.
     One of their proposals called for purchasing water in the Holdrege area and using an existing stream bed to carry the water into Harlan County Reservoir.