Post date: Mar 04, 2014 8:18:44 PM

Questions start rolling about J-2 re-regulating reservoirs project

By LORI POTTER Hub Staff writer | Posted: Tuesday, March 4, 2014 12:00 pm

HOLDREGE — The J-2 Regulating Reservoirs project in northern Phelps and Gosper counties is progressing from a proposal to a plan.

However, the many steps still ahead before possible construction in 2017 include getting permits, conducting public information meetings and hearings, land acquisition, final designs, and a final vote by the Central Nebraska Public Power and Irrigation District board.

“We are proceeding right now on the assumption that it will be built,” CNPPID Natural Resources Manager Mike Drain said at Monday morning’s board meeting.

CNPPID will own and operate the $75 million project downstream of its J-2 hydropower plant and along the Phelps irrigation canal that would carry water to the reservoirs. Helping pay the costs and sharing the benefits are the Platte River Recovery Implementation Program, the state, and Tri-Basin, Central Platte and Twin Platte natural resources districts.

A new CNPPID brochure describing the project was distributed at Monday afternoon’s Central Water Users annual meeting, at which Platte Program Executive Director Jerry Kenny and CNPPID Civil Engineer Cory Steinke described the reservoirs’ design features and uses.

Many questions

Gary Robison of Bertrand quoted from the brochure at the board meeting while asking many questions, including where water would come from to fill the J-2 reservoirs.

CNPPID General Manager Don Kraus said it will be the same water that now flows through the hydropower plants and irrigation system. “There is no increase or decrease. ... The difference would be the timing of the release” to the river, he said.

Drain said having reservoirs to hold water and release it later would allow Central to operate the J-2 hydro more efficiently. “We will get more total electricity from the same water,” he added.

“It won’t hurt irrigation, and it won’t really help irrigation,” Kraus said.

The reservoirs could hold and later release excess water that runs off from big rains or is diverted from the river in times of high flows, as was done last fall with floodwaters from the South Platte.

Kraus said the added storage could allow CNPPID to maintain higher summer water levels in Johnson Lake.

Who benefits

Water could be held in the J-2 reservoirs when target river flows for habitat used by threatened or endangered wildlife — whooping cranes, least terns and piping plovers — are met or exceeded, and released later when more water is needed.

Kenny called the reservoirs “the bucket” needed to store the water.

He said Platte Program interests in the project include getting help to offset 130,000-150,000 a-f of new depletions in the Platte Basin since July 1, 1997, and having water available for short-duration high river flows used to test the value of habitat-related projects.

Kenny said the program’s share of an estimated 30,000 a-f annual yield to the river from the J-2 reservoirs would be a big chunk of the 50,000-70,000 a-f of offsets still needed.

River credits going to the state Department of Natural Resources and three NRDs would help meet their required offsets for past river depletions related to groundwater use.

Tri-Basin NRD General Manager John Thorburn said at the Central board meeting that alternatives to participating river augmentation projects are limiting irrigation pumping or reducing irrigated acres, which would cause more economic damage.

“We have a lot of different ways to make up depletions to streamflows,” Thorburn said. “This (J-2 reservoirs) just happens to be the most cost-effective at this time.”

Local effects

There will be effects on people living on or near the planned 1,000-acre construction site. Some roads will be closed or re-routed, and Steinke told the Hub several residences will be involved, including three within the reservoir footprint.

Robison asked CNPPID officials if land acquisition will follow the Platte Program’s willing-seller rules. Drain replied that, as a public entity, “We believe this district is not constrained by that” and has not ruled out using eminent domain.

Public Relations Coordinator Jeff Buettner later told the Hub that eminent domain would be district officials’ last choice.

Darryl Mattson of Bertrand asked Kenny who would make up the difference in real estate taxes for local subdivisions if farmland is taken out of production for the reservoirs. Kenny said that while the Platte Program pays taxes on its habitat land under a philosophy of not shifting tax burdens, CNPPID will own the J-2 reservoirs.

Buettner said the tax issue has been discussed, but not resolved.

There also were questions about potential seepage affecting area properties, including the Plum Creek Massacre historical site.

Steinke said the reservoirs would have packed clay liners, drains and soil cement protection on the berms to prevent erosion. Also part of the design are groundwater monitoring wells around the site.

“We’re not going to let these projects have impacts on other land,” Steinke said.

Larry Reynolds of Lexington asked why the river’s Jeffrey Island, for which CNPPID has a long-term lease to own, wasn’t considered as a reservoir site instead of farmland.

Kenny said the concept was examined, but it would have been tough to get the water for storage to the island. Attention turned to the current location “where gravity works to our advantage,” he said.

Central and Platte Program officials also are completing an agreement for a groundwater recharge project in the same area. During non-irrigation season, available water can be put into the Phelps Canal, seep into groundwater and enhance streamflows.

Kenny said the projects reflect the future potential for Central customers to have “a new cash crop of leasing water.”