By Russ Pankonin
    The Imperial Republican
     Natural resource district officials in the Republican River Basin and irrigators alike all had their eyes on a meeting of state compact officials in Kansas City, Mo., this week.
     Representatives from Nebraska, Colorado and Kansas on the Republican River Compact Administration met Tuesday and Wednesday to address compliance issues in the basin.
     Kansas is threatening to pursue litigation against Nebraska for failing to comply with terms of the compact settlement in 2005 and 2006.
     Nebraska went into the meeting armed with integrated management plans (IMP) they say will help keep the state in compliance going forward.
     Colorado came to the meeting seeking approval for a plan to pump groundwater into a pipeline and dump the water at the Kansas/Nebraska state line in order to stay in compliance.
     Jasper Fanning, manager of the Upper Republican NRD in Imperial, traveled to Kansas City to stay abreast of the developments.
     Much of the discussion at last week's regular URNRD meeting March 4 centered around compliance issues.
     Fanning said a coalition of surface water users expressed concern that the IMPs adopted don't give them any defined role in decision making in basin planning.
     However, he said there's not a real understanding of how the efforts included in the IMPs were developed and how they affect water available for surface water irrigators.
     State Senator Mark Christensen has sought to protect any additional water put in the streams for compliance purposes from surface water use.
     However, Fanning said it appears that bill will die.
     Board members asked whether augmentation could be viable in the Upper and Middle Republican NRDs.
     Fanning said it's possible and that Nebraska may be able to get more credit for augmentation in the URNRD than in the Lower Republican NRD.
     He said an engineering study on possible augmentation is underway. He expected to get a draft of the study late this week or early next week.
     He said they have been waiting for some data from the state's Department of Natural Resources. However, he said DNR's emphasis the last 30 days has been on preparing for this week's compact meeting.
     He noted this week the study would not be introduced by Nebraska as part of the compact meeting discussions. However, the state was definitely interested in seeing Kansas' reaction to Colorado's augmentation plan.
    State looking to augmentation
     Fanning said the state has done a 180 on augmentation after initially feeling it had little merit.
     By being able to time when water is put into the streams, DNR now sees potential for using augmentation for compliance purposes.
     Fanning remains hopeful that the IMPs and the augmentation can keep Nebraska in compliance moving forward. However, he warned that overuse in 2005 and 2006 can only be made up for in the form of money.
     That, too, will be among topics discussed at this week's compact meeting.