From left, Dr. Bruce Curtis, Sheryl Curtis, Jan Bostelman and State Sen. Bruce Bostelman of Brainard visit the Sydney Opera House Australia in December. (Courtesy photo)
Sheryl Curtis holds a baby red kangaroo, also called a joey, at Kyabram Fauna Park, Victoria, Australia in December. (Courtesy photo)
Local couple visits Australia for irrigation education
Locals Dr. Bruce and Cheryl Curtis traveled to Australia this past December, but it wasn’t a typical tourist vacation.
The Curtises were part of a group of irrigation and water rights experts from Nebraska invited to tour surface water irrigation plants in Australia.
Bruce is an Assistant Manager at the Upper Republican Natural Resources District (URNRD) in Imperial. He assists in the management of the quantity and quality of the district’s groundwater resources.
The company that sponsored them, Rubicon, has modernized the use of canals and weirs (low dams) throughout the country.
Accompanying the Imperial-based pair were five other representatives from Nebraska, including some from the Middle Republican NRD, the Frenchman Cambridge Irrigation District, as well as Nebraska state water rights representatives.
Kris Polly, a Wauneta native who organized the trip, and Rubicon representative Damien Pearson also joined the group.
“We had a nice, diverse group of people there,” Bruce said.
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