Post date: Dec 23, 2013 9:53:29 PM

Platte flood top ag-natural resources story in 2013

Posted: Monday, December 23, 2013 12:00 pm

By LORI POTTER Hub Staff Writer (from the Kearney HUB on-line at http://kearneyhub.com)

KEARNEY — The ability to use the Central Nebraska Public Power and Irrigation District system to turn the potential tragedy of the South Platte River flood into an opportunity to recharge groundwater, enhance wetlands and raise water levels in reservoirs is the Hub’s top agriculture-natural resources story for 2013.

The effort also prevented any serious flooding in the Platte River’s Big Bend reach.

Rainfall of 12-18 inches along the Front Range in Colorado created what was described as a one-in-1,000-years event.

CNPPID officials and partners that included the Platte River Recovery Implementation Program, Tri-Basin Natural Resources District, state Department of Natural Resources, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shared the costs and benefits of a plan to divert some of the high flows that arrived in central Nebraska in late September into the Phelps and E-65 canals, Elwood Reservoir, and drought-depleted Rainwater Basin wetlands.

CNPPID Civil Engineer Cory Steinke of Holdrege said 24,806 acre-feet of water were diverted into Central’s Supply Canal east of North Platte from Sept. 19-Oct. 28. Models will be used to estimate groundwater recharge benefits from having more water in Elwood Reservoir and, temporarily, in the canals.

Platte Program Executive Director Paul Kenny said another benefit was the opportunity to collect data about the effects of an extended period of high flows in the river.

The flood diversions illustrated a benefit that will be provided in the future by the J-2 reservoir project approved this year by many of the same Platte Basin partners. CNPPID will oversee construction and own two shallow water re-timing reservoirs on the south side of the Platte River in northwest Phelps County that can temporarily hold up to 15,000 a-f of water.

CNPPID has hired consultants to work on project permits and designs.

Republican Basin’s Kansas v. Nebraska lawsuit

The special master appointed by the U.S. Supreme Court to act as judge in the Kansas v. Nebraska lawsuit cited, in his final report issued Nov. 15, Nebraska’s efforts and “substantial expenditures” to address its Republican River Compact compliance obligations, which weren’t met in 2005 and 2006.

His recommendations were in Nebraska’s favor on almost every issue raised by Kansas, including a damages payment of $5.5 million instead of the $80 million sought by Kansas. A final ruling by the Supreme Court is expected in 2014.

In another basin dispute, a U.S. District Court judge decided he didn’t have jurisdiction in a lawsuit filed by the Frenchman-Cambridge and Nebraska Bostwick Irrigation districts that sought to halt a Republican River augmentation project involving the Upper, Middle and Lower Republican natural resources districts.

Those NRDs and the Twin Platte purchased a 19,200-acre Lincoln County farm and are re-purposing the groundwater use from irrigation to streamflow augmentation, with 75 percent of the water going to the Republican River via Medicine Creek to help compact compliance.

Manager Brad Edgerton said Frenchman-Cambridge irrigators are considering filing a class action lawsuit to recover damages for 2013 crop losses due to very limited or no surface water deliveries.

Task force identifies water project funding options.

A 34-member Nebraska Water Funding Task Force studied water project needs from July to December and sent a report to the Legislature with ideas on how to fund them.

The “menu” of options to generate $50 million annually for water projects includes dedicating 1/8th of a cent of the current state sales tax to that purpose and taxes on ethanol, fertilizer and soft drinks.

At the final task force meeting Dec. 5 in Kearney, it was decided by consensus to ask the Appropriations Committee for the $50 million for 2014 from state cash reserves.

Proposed renewable fuels standard rollback, other uncertainties drive drop in grain prices.

Commodity markets hate uncertainty, and a bucketful of unsettled issues plunged recent record high corn and soybean prices to below-production-cost levels that ag economists predict will continue through 2014.

The Environmental Protection Agency proposes to reduce the 2014 renewable fuels standard for ethanol from 14.4 billion gallons to 13 billion gallons. Less ethanol demand means a shrinking market for corn.

Other factors behind corn prices slumping to $4 per bushel or less include a huge 14-billion-bushel 2013 U.S. corn crop and further delays in a farm bill that House and Senate ag committee leaders now say will be passed in January.

Broken Bow Wind II goes forward with a new owner.

The Broken Bow Wind II project to erect 43 more turbines in the hills north of Broken Bow got a new owner-developer in September, San Diego-based Sempra U.S. Gas & Power.

Sempra acquired the project from Chicago developer Midwest Wind Energy, which oversaw construction of Broken Bow Wind I.

Sempra spokesperson Lisa Briggs said Broken Bow Wind II construction will start right after the first of the year.

All 75-megawatts of the estimated $110 million project have been sold to Nebraska Public Power District, which will keep 30 megawatts and sell the remaining 45 to Omaha Public Power District.