The basin-wide integrated management plan (IMP) should be a plan that manages basin-wide integrated water resources uses, that provides basin-wide direction to those particular individual NRDs whose hydrologically connected ground water uses are having significant adverse impacts beyond the boundaries of the NRD, that resolves conflicts between ground water uses and surface water appropriations located in different locations throughout the state, and that protects the rights of senior appropriators. Unfortunately, the basin-wide integrated management plan being proposed by the Nebraska Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and the Platte River natural resources districts (NRDs) fails to accomplish any of these objectives.

The Platte River is the most important river system in Nebraska. The Platte River basin in Nebraska stretches from the Nebraska Panhandle in the west to the Missouri River in the east; and encompasses more than half of the area of the state. More surface water irrigation, more groundwater irrigation, and more hydropower production takes place in the Platte River basin than in any other basin in Nebraska. The Platte River and its tributaries are the source of water for Nebraska’s largest irrigation district, The Central Nebraska Public Power and Irrigation District (Central); Nebraska’s largest power plant, Nebraska Public Power District’s Gerald Gentleman Station; Nebraska’s largest reservoir, Lake McConaughy; and municipal wellfields for four of Nebraska’s five largest cities, Omaha, Lincoln, Grand Island, and Kearney. Some of the state’s most important recreation areas rely on water from, or are otherwise associated with, the North Platte River and Platte River; including Lake McConaughy, Lake Ogallala, Sutherland Reservoir, Johnson Lake, Two Rivers State Recreation Area, Platte River State Park, and Eugene T. Mahoney State Park. The Platte River has been identified by the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and several environmental organizations as being important to certain threatened or endangered species; including the whooping crane, the interior least tern, the northern Great Plains piping plover, and the pallid sturgeon.

Platte River water users in one location often rely on a water supply that originates in another part of the basin. Frequently, the source and the use are so far removed that they may not occur within a single NRD, or even within adjacent NRDs. Similarly, new water uses in one part of the basin can impact other users far from where the new use occurs, including across NRD boundaries.

In Nebraska, integrated management plans are the statutory scheme developed for resolving conflicts between ground water users and surface water appropriators. Where a fully appropriated or overappropriated basin is contained within a single NRD, or where conflicts between groundwater users and surface water appropriators are contained within a single NRD, an individual IMP for the NRD in question may be all that is required. However, where a fully appropriated or overappropriated basin encompasses multiple NRDs, or where conflicts exist between groundwater uses in one NRD and surface water appropriators in another NRD, a basin-wide IMP is needed in addition to the individual NRD IMPs.

Unfortunately, in cases where groundwater uses within an NRD are interfering with the water supplies of surface water users outside of that NRD, it is virtually impossible for the injured surface water users to obtain proper relief by bringing their complaint to the NRD where the groundwater use is occurring. It should not be a surprise to anyone to find that the NRD in question always seems to view the local groundwater uses as more reasonable or more important as compared to the injured surface water use that takes place somewhere far removed from their local area. In these cases where water uses within an NRD are causing harm outside the NRD, integrated water management decisions are a basin-wide concern, and should be made at a basin-wide level.

Consider the case of ground water uses in the North Platte NRD depleting the water supply of the North Platte River to the detriment of The Central Nebraska Public Power and Irrigation District and related downstream uses. Central’s facilities consist of Lake McConaughy, Supply Canal, and Irrigation System, located along the North Platte River and Platte River downstream from the North Platte NRD. Central’s system and water supply provides numerous benefits, including: deliveries to over 100,000 acres of land that irrigate directly from Central’s system, located primarily in Gosper, Phelps, and Kearney Counties; irrigation storage water for an additional 100,000 acres on 11 other canal systems in Lincoln, Dawson, Keith, Garden, and Morrill Counties; hydropower generation at Central’s Kingsley, Jeffrey, Johnson No. 1 and Johnson No. 2 hydropower plants; hydropower generation or cooling water for Nebraska Public Power District’s North Platte Hydro, Gerald Gentleman Station, and Canaday Steam Plant; recreation at numerous reservoirs, including Lake McConaughy, Lake Ogallala, Jeffrey Lake, Midway Lake, Gallagher Canyon Reservoir, Plum Creek Canyon Reservoir, Johnson Lake, and Elwood Reservoir; aquifer recharge in accordance with underground storage appropriations to more than 1,000,000 acres in Gosper, Phelps, Kearney, Lincoln, Dawson, and Frontier Counties; return flows to the Platte River; an Environmental Account for use for threatened and endangered species on the Platte River; flow contributions to the Republican River that provide a credit for Nebraska under the Republican River Compact; and wintertime open water for bald eagle feeding. Central operates in accordance with appropriations granted by the State of Nebraska, contracts with customers, and a hydropower license from the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Lake McConaughy, which stores North Platte River streamflow, is critical to Central’s operations and the many benefits listed above.

Pumping from wells in the North Platte NRD is depleting the North Platte River streamflow at a current rate of over 125,000 acre-feet per year, and the amount continues to grow. As a matter of comparison, this is equal to 14 percent of the normal inflow into Lake McConaughy, 23 percent of the inflow into Lake McConaughy during the current drought, 139 percent of Central’s normal average irrigation deliveries, and 287 percent of Central’s average irrigation deliveries during the current drought. As a result of the depletions caused by pumping in the North Platte NRD, Lake McConaughy contents, irrigation deliveries, hydropower generation, cooling water availability, water levels for recreation, aquifer recharge, Platte River return flows, Environmental Account contributions, flows to the Republican River basin, and open water for eagles have all been reduced. It is addressing these streamflow depletions and the resultant adverse impacts which should be the focus of the integrated management plan for the North Platte NRD.

When Central has brought these concerns to the North Platte NRD, the results have been disappointing. Of course, this is exactly what might be expected. Ultimately, Central is asking the locally elected directors of the North Platte NRD to accept painful reductions in water use for their constituents, their communities, and in some cases themselves, for the protection of uses that take place outside of their local area, and in some cases hundreds of miles away. Instead of determining an amount of use that would be likely to protect water supplies for existing downstream users, they question the value of those downstream uses as compared to their own local uses. The many beneficial downstream uses; such as instream flows, aquifer recharge, or Republican River contributions; are looked on by them as unimportant, unnecessary, or even wasteful. Whereas proper management of limited resources dictates that water use should be reduced where the supply is least able to support the use; they instead argue that the lower rates of precipitation in their area are justification for greater amounts of use. Notwithstanding significant amounts of information given to them regarding the adverse impacts of pumping within their NRD, they claim that there is no evidence of any harm to downstream users.

One of the purposes of the basin-wide IMP, then, should be this: to identify those NRDs within the overappropriated basin in which ground water uses are significantly interfering with water uses outside of those NRDs, and to determine an amount of use or depletions that may be made within those NRDs that would reasonably be expected to significantly reduce or eliminate the adverse impacts outside those NRDs. The amount of allowed use or depletions having been determined by the basin-wide IMP, it would then be left to the individual NRD IMP, and the decisions of the local NRD, to determine by what means those use or depletion objectives might be achieved; whether it be by allocation, retirements, interference agreements, or any other means.

In the case of the Platte River, Central believes the area where ground water uses are significantly adversely impacting basin-wide surface water uses is the North Platte NRD. This is not to say that ground water uses in other parts of the designated overappropriated area do not have any adverse impacts on surface water uses, but those impacts pale in comparison to the consequences of overuse in the North Platte NRD. Indeed, the adverse impacts caused by ground water uses in the North Platte NRD alone are so great that, had they never occurred, it is conceivable that other portions of the basin could perhaps only be fully appropriated rather than overappropriated.

Central believes that the basin-wide plan should be used to set basin-wide or state-wide policy regarding the balancing of competing water uses and make an effort to resolve conflicts already known to exist, as was part of the intent of the legislature in passing the Nebraska Ground Water Management and Protection Act. Central believes that the basin-wide plan should identify an amount of allowable ground water use or an amount of allowable depletions to streamflow for the North Platte NRD, and that the allowable use or depletions should vary with variations in river flow (with greater uses or depletions allowed when river flows are at or above normal, and significantly reduced uses or depletions allowed when river flows are below normal), and that any remaining impacts to appropriators be otherwise mitigated or compensated. Central also believes that the rights of senior appropriators should be respected; ideally by preventing or reducing interference to those appropriations; or ultimately, to the extent that the State of Nebraska and the NRDs conclude that as a matter of policy it is best that water resources be reallocated from senior appropriators to junior ground water users, then those impacted appropriators should be appropriately compensated.
Unfortunately, this is not the approach that has been taken by the DNR and the NRDs. The basin-wide IMP as proposed does little more than restate existing statutes related to returning to 1997 conditions, to the point that one wonders what value the basin-wide IMP has at all. The plan does not give basin-wide or state-wide guidance on appropriate amounts of water use or depletions. There is nothing in the basin-wide IMP that attempts to resolve those conflicts between ground water users and surface water appropriators that are already known to exist. The basin-wide plan fails to respect the rights of senior appropriators.