Irrigators face water limits

HOLDREGE, Neb. — Jerry Kotschwar knows he lives in the crosshairs of the irrigation police.

Kotschwar's irrigation pumps would be among the first shut down if state officials pulled the trigger in dry years and sacrificed southwest Nebraska irrigators to send Kansas more water from the Republican River.

“It's tough stuff,'' said Kotschwar, a 66-year-old Culbertson, Neb., farmer. “We're living off the wells. But now we're going to lose the wells.''

Kotschwar parked himself in a metal folding chair in the front row of a standing-room crowd of about 400 farmers, agribusinessmen, bankers, educators and others Thursday to hear state and local water regulators say an irrigation shutdown is under consideration, but as a last resort.

Farmers who have a record high corn yield waiting to be harvested this fall couldn't hide their anxiety as they pondered the prospect of drastic limits on irrigation in future years. They peppered the water wranglers with about 50 questions, but most sat silently and soaked in the information.

Main Street boosters worried about the ripple effect of less agricultural production from reduced irrigation and the related impact of declining incomes on families and tax receipts for schools.

“Shutting off the wells would decimate this area,'' Rosie Stockton of Arapahoe said afterward. She is director of Furnas/Harlan Partnership, an economic development organization, and is president of the South Platte United Chambers of Commerce.

Stockton said few southwest Nebraskans would disagree that it's important for the state to comply with the agreement that allocates Republican River water among Nebraska, Kansas and Colorado.

“We have to stay in compliance, but we can't get into compliance at the cost of economically devastating such a huge section of the state,'' she said.

Brian Dunnigan, director of the Nebraska Department of Natural Resources, told the crowd that the state can no longer allow itself to fall into the red in its water ledger with Kansas. The states faced off in a Supreme Court case over the river a decade ago, and Kansas is threatening to drag Nebraska back to the court for subsequent water shortages.

Dunnigan said state and local water managers are drafting plans to ensure that Kansas gets its legal share of water but not a drop more.

Kotschwar, a director of the Frenchman Valley Irrigation District, said the Kansas-Nebraska water trouble is a state responsibility but that irrigators in the Republican basin will have to bear the burden of painful solutions.

He said local natural resources districts, which regulate underground water, may have to further reduce the amount of water they allow all basin irrigators to pump.

“If it gets us into compliance, I think we'll have to do it,'' he said, “but I think we all ought share alike.''

Kotschwar said it wouldn't be fair to put strict pumping limits on irrigators near the river while allowing other farmers to continue pumping as usual.

A federal arbitrator said this summer that Nebraska needed a specific plan to address potential shortfalls in dry years. State water officials said buying irrigation water already in the river or pumping groundwater into the river would likely be considered before irrigation would be shut down. But state senators from the area say money for the preferred solutions is limited.

State Sens. Mark Christensen of Imperial and Tom Carlson of Holdrege and other speakers encouraged the crowd to lobby their farm organizations to push for legislation allowing local solutions and money to implement them.

“The time to stand up is right now,'' Christensen said.

Stockton said the Legislature needs to provide the region with funding to develop local solutions, including self-imposed taxes.

“Our voice has to be heard throughout the state, but particularly in Lincoln, that shutting off the wells really can't be an option,'' she said.

Kotschwar said he doesn't know the answer.

“I'm glad I don't have to make the decision,'' he said. “We all agree it's a state problem but if the state takes care of it, we probably won't like the solution.''

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444-1127, david.hendee@owh.com