Consensus builds on need to address water issue

LINCOLN – A statewide consensus appears to be growing on the need to address water resource sustainability in Nebraska.

During a Feb. 13 hearing of the Legislature’s Natural Resource Committee, representatives from a diverse array of interest groups testified in support of LB 517, a bill introduced by Sen. Tom Carlson of Holdrege.

The bill would create a Water Sustainability Project Task Force charged with developing a priority list of water resource programs and projects in need of funding throughout the state. The task force would submit its recommendations to the Legislature by the end of the year.

    Another bill introduced by Carlson, LB 516, would create a Nebraska Water Legacy Commission to monitor and manage water projects in the state.

“Water is a huge issue in Nebraska,” Carlson said as he presented LB 517 at the hearing. “Water is life.”

During a recent interview, Carlson said crop irrigators in northeast and southeast Nebraska pumped out more water than normal because of the 2012 drought and caused some domestic wells to go dry.

Michael Drain, representing the Central Nebraska Public Power and Irrigation District, the largest in the state, testified in favor of the bill.

Drain said Nebraska faces a permanent water issue and because of that, there is a need for permanent funding from the state. “This bill is the best way to get funding through the Legislature,” he said.

The bill would divide the state into six districts with three representatives each to ensure that all geographic areas - both rural and urban - are represented. Those 18 representatives would be joined by four at large members - totaling 22 people - who would have to come up with a plan by December 2013.

The task force would be made up of representatives from several different stakeholder groups including ground and surface water irrigators, public power, municipalities, agribusiness, livestock producers, manufacturing, conservationists and recreational water users. The committee would compile a list of programs and projects for water sustainability and prioritize which ones should receive state funding.

The bill does not address exactly how much it would cost to fund the recommended programs, or where that money ultimately would come from.

Sen. Ken Haar of Malcolm estimated that the total cost could be in the area of $50 million and asked if the Legislature should carve that money out of existing budgets or ask Nebraskans to pay more.

Jay Rempe of the Nebraska Farm Bureau said water policy needs to be funded from the local, state and federal level and that the task force would look for those sources of funding.

Sen. Lydia Brasch of Bancroft expressed concern that a newly appointed task force might diminish the decision-making power of Nebraska’s 23 Natural Resources Districts, which oversee conservation efforts in various parts of the state.

Rempe said he believed the task force would focus more on finding funding mechanisms and could therefore be a great asset to the Natural Resources Districts, rather than a hindrance.

More than a dozen people testified for the bill, including farmers, conservationists, sportsmen and water policy experts.

Kim Robak of the lower Republican River Natural Resources District said Nebraska is the state hardest hit by drought and praised the bill as an opportunity for the whole state to get together to work on a water sustainability plan.

Bruce Kennedy, speaking on behalf of the Audubon Society, said, “We see LB 517 as an honest effort to secure dedicated funding for our water resource problems.”  

No one testified against the bill but Dean Edson, executive director of the Nebraska Association of Resources Districts, expressed some criticism of the bill during a recent interview. This isn’t the first task force to evaluate water projects, he said.

In 2011, a task force of 40 to 50 people was supposed to review all the water projects in the state. Meetings were called and cancelled in 2012, so a smaller group got together.

LB517 wouldn’t involve those people, Edson said. And there are already state commissions that could be used for overseeing projects, he said, so his association has neutral position on both of Carlson’s bills.

“It’s creating more government,” he said. “I don’t know if Nebraska is a state that wants more government.”