News from neighbors
Study recommends storage combination
STERLING JOURNAL-ADVOCATE, Dec. 27 — The best way to meet Colorado’s growing water demand and still protect irrigation water rights is probably a combination of increased surface storage and underground, or aquifer storage. But even that combination won’t bridge the gap between water demand and supply.
That’s the good news and the bad news from the recently-completed South Platte Storage Study Final Report, released Dec. 15. The report was written by Stantec, a Canada-based design, engineering and construction firm, and Leonard Rice Engineering of Denver.
The study, authorized by the Colorado General Assembly in House Bill 16-1256, looked at the stretch of the South Platte River between Kersey and the Nebraska state line in an attempt to find water storage to fill a crippling water gap that is just 12 years away. According to the 2015 Colorado Water Plan, by 2030 the need for water in Colorado will exceed supplies by 560,000 acre feet, or 182 billion gallons per year, and most of that is here in the South Platte River Basin.
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Supreme Court upholds dismissal of Cappel suit against state’s DNR
IMPERIAL REPUBLICAN, Dec. 28 — For the third time this year, the Nebraska Supreme Court has upheld the district court dismissal of water suits brought by surface water users in the Republican River Basin.
On Friday, the Supreme Court upheld the dismissal of a suit brought by Rod and Steve Cappel and Cappel farms collectively over the state’s closing of surface water for compact compliance.
The original suit claimed the Cappels suffered economic damage and a violation of their constitutional rights to due process from the state’s “taking” of surface water in 2013-15.
They also claimed excessive groundwater pumping in the basin during this period was a detriment to their surface water appropriations.
That suit was dismissed by Hitchcock County, Nebraska, District Judge James E. Boyle, IV, in October 2016.
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AgriForce Seed and Redwood Group partner up
GRANT TRIBUNE-SENTINEL, Dec. 27 — Venango, Nebraksa-based AgriForce Seed, LLC and The Redwood Group, LLC have created a strategic partnership that will offer marketing options to Nebraska growers of peas and other legume crops. These crops are referred to as pulse crops.
Jeff Olsen of Imperial, Nebraska, CEO and president of AgriForce Seed, LLC, said the new relationship with Redwood will provide producers with additional pricing options during the non-peak growing season.
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