PLATTE LINES A column of current items of interest from the South Platte NRD

The District recently hosted a series of meetings with the Ground Water Management Advisory Committees representing each county within the District. It outlined proposed changes to the Ground Water Management’s rules and regulations.

Many of these changes are housekeeping measures. But one significant change is importing the District’s Chemigation Program rules into the districtwide regulatory document.

This past session, the Nebraska Legislature adopted changes to the Nebraska Chemigation Act, which provides controls to maintain ground water quality where fertilizers or other chemicals are applied with pivot irrigation systems.

As the District adopts changes to meet the new law, we are also incorporating the Chemigation Program rules into the Ground Water Management Area Rules and Regulations. By doing this, we strive to make finding pertinent rules less burdensome by placing them into one document. This continues a process we’ve been working on over the past several years.

For chemigation users, the key provision in the proposed amendments is a new permit fee structure, which could increase to help cover costs.

Another change, applying to all irrigators, will be the way they see the allocation amounts within each subarea. Allocation information and maps currently show allocations as a “yearly average” number, for example 16 inches. New maps will show the three-year allocation figure, or 48 inches.

Irrigators proposing changes to their operations that are not within the rules have always had an option to request a variance. They may continue to do so, but another proposed change is the addition of a variance request fee to cover associated costs.

Over the next few months, we’ll continue the process of making the appropriate changes to the Ground Water Management Area Rules and Regulations, which began with draft rules, followed by review with your Ground Water Management Advisory Committees. These committees – one in Deuel, one in Kimball and three in Cheyenne County – have representation from varied groups of ground water users, from irrigators, local government officials and others to provide a representative cross section.

In January, the proposed changes will be heard by the District’s Natural Resources/Projects and Programs Committee, made up of NRD board members, who will review and discuss information received from the Ground Water Advisory Committees’ meetings.

The committee will also review the timeline necessary for modifying the Ground Water Management Area Rules and Regulation, and make a recommendation to the full board to establish a hearing date for consideration of adoption of the amended rules and regulations. If all goes as expected, the amended rules and regulations should go into effect next April.

Not all of the subjects heard by both the advisory committees and the board, have dealt only with rule changes.

Staff members presented information on the current state of our ground water level measurements, which are currently the main source of information used by the board in ground water quantity management decisions. Hydrogeologist Thad Kuntz also presented information in the Western Water Use Management Model, which is designed to predictively show the affects of ground water use and how management decisions might affect our ground water supplies.

In the coming months, the board will be looking more at those tools to prepare for the next allocation period, which begins in 2016. To provide producers a chance to plan ahead, the board works to establish allocations about a year ahead of time.

As we look down the road to protect ground water supplies for all users, we invite you to keep abreast of the information, attend meetings and ask questions. Together, we can all help assure a sustainable future for the District’s natural resources.

Rod L. Horn is the general manager of the South Platte Natural Resources District, based in Sidney.