Declining water levels cause concern

Lyndon Vogt, general manager of the Upper Niobrara-White Natural Resources District based in Chadron, said area agricultural producers have been using more water than will be available over a prolonged period of time. Nearly all the water tables throughout western Nebraska have declined and river flows have dwindled in recent years, he noted.

While some of the declines can be blamed on the drought the past few years and has brought the issue to the forefront, Vogt said that’s not the whole problem.

Vogt said different management and cropping practices are becoming necessary in order to maintain a reasonable balance between water usage and what’s available for crop production.

Some steps already have been taken. Vogt said no new irrigation wells can be drilled and no new acres can be irrigated in parts or all of eight Natural Resources Districts in western Nebraska, including all three in the Panhandle.

In addition, planning is underway to place meters on the irrigation wells in the areas of greatest decline in the four northwest Nebraska counties that make up his district. The meters will measure the water that is pumped and help determine allocations that are anticipated by the 2007 crop year, Vogt said.

Problems exist in both of the two heaviest irrigated areas in the Upper Niobrara-White NRD, which contains 2,267 registered irrigation wells, Vogt said.

Annual measurements have determined that the water table in most of Box Butte County, where 1,400 irrigation wells are located, has fallen about a foot a year over the past 40 years, he reported. A few wells near Hemingford have been abandoned because of inadequate water, he added.

The long-term situation is also serious on the Mirage Flats south of Hay Springs. Vogt said Box Butte Reservoir now supplies only about a third as much water for irrigation on the Mirage Flats as was anticipated when the project opened in1946. The last full allotment was available in 1951.

This has made it necessary for nearly every producer in the district to drill wells to supplement the water provided by the canals. But the water table below the Flats has dropped significantly the past five years.

“They’re losing ground with both of their sources,” Vogt said of the Mirage Flats. However, he said more water is expected to be available from Box Butte Reservoir this year than last year.

The speaker noted that Wyoming cannot be blamed for less water running from the Niobrara River into Box Butte Reservoir than was projected nearly 60 years ago. Instead, he said landowners along the river west of the dam, like many others throughout Nebraska, drilled dozens of irrigation wells during the 1970s. The wells pump water from the springs that help feed the river, but he said the river has a faster recharge than most.

Other points made by Vogt included:

--It takes about 32 inches of water to grow three cuttings of alfalfa a year while sugar beets require 24 inches and corn 22.

--Box Butte Reservoir holds 33,060 acre feet of water, but had only 11,800 acre feet prior to the start of the 2004 irrigation season and had 4,432 acre feet afterwards. Some three feet of water are lost via evaporation during the summer.

--Lake McConaughy, holds 1,948,000 acre feet, but had just 683,924 acre feet entering the 2004 irrigation season and 353,831 afterwards. It had been forecast that there would be a significant fish kill if the lake ever dropped as low as it was last summer, but that has not happened.

--Nebraska has 87,826 registered irrigation wells with heavy development occurring this year in the Holdrege and Hastings areas where water from McConaughy is used for irrigation. This will be the first year that those irrigators may not get all the water they need from McConaughy.

--Municipalities only use about 2 percent of the water statewide.

--Colorado’s Front Range has a major thirst for water, and it’s possible that Nebraska water could be sold there, although LB 962 passed in 2004 by the Nebraska Legislature would make that more difficult.

--Developers of the Denver International Airport paid Colorado landowners $1 million each to plug two irrigation wells so new wells could be drilled to supply water for the airport.

--Some farmers in the Republican Valley in southwest Nebraska will be paid $150 an acre annually for 10 years not to pump their irrigation wells.

--The Ogallala Aquifer is sometimes referred to as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Nebraska being Snow White since a bulk of the aquifer lies beneath the state while seven other states have portions of it.

--Because of improved conservation practices, the Dust Bowl of the 1930s is not likely to reoccur.

--The jury is still out concerning the effects of the recent decision by the Nebraska Supreme Court on the Spear T Ranch case in Morrill County. The court said Spear T could sue its neighbors whose wells had dried up Pumpkin Creek so the ranch could no longer exercise its long-standing surface water rights. Since the brief on the ruling suggested that Spear T could solve its problem by drilling a well, Vogt said he wonders if the justices understand the connection between surface and ground water.

Loree MacNeill, director of college relations at Chadron State, said a program featuring a panel of water experts, including the attorney for the Spear T Ranch, is scheduled for April 18 on campus.