Where has all the water gone? That is the question that Kansas is demanding to be answered so they can get their "fair share." Actually "they" know what happened to the water, it is consumed by irrigation that powers the economic engine of a fertile productive Southwest Nebraska. "They" don't care that if they demand and get their "fair share" it will wreak long term disaster to their neighbor.

Nebraska has made at least two very bad mistakes concerning irrigation. The first some 60 years ago was the bad agreement signed with Kansas for "permission" to build flood control dams with their related surface water irrigation systems on the Republican River, read Trenton, Enders, Cambridge and Alma Dams. That agreement made with no provision for conservation improvements that have decreased inflows to the river has become untenable and should be repudiated. Nebraska should follow the precedent set by past Gov. Ben Nelson when he backed out of the Low Level Nuclear Waste Dump Compact and all the Nebraska taxpayers had to pay for that bad bit of judgment.

All the people of the State of Nebraska were represented by whoever signed the Republican River Compact with Kansas and therefore all the people, not just those in this corner of the state, should pay for the signers' inability to see the future.

The second bad mistake was for the Nebraska Supreme Court to declare that the State "owned" all the underground water. In the footsteps of Karl Marks, Fidel Castro, or current dictator Caesar Chavez the Court simply declared that all the underground water belongs to the State of Nebraska. You see water is a mineral, just as oil is a mineral, and every deed for land in the State of Nebraska contains provision for the attached mineral rights. By the State "nationalizing" ownership of the underground water they now have the responsibility for controlling its use including sale of the resource. Therefore if the state owns the water, they then are responsible to Kansas or anybody else if there is a demonstrated deficiency.

Prior to the Nebraska Supreme Court nationalizing the underground water there was a perfectly viable method of allocating water, a hierarchy of rights based on the concept of "First in time, first in right." If a person who owned the oldest water right was being shorted in supply he could, using the courts, demand that users with junior rights shut down their irrigation systems so that he could have his full supply of what stream flow was available. The hierarchy never applied to subsurface water however the Legislature by fiat declared that all water was connected so a case could be made to shut down upstream pumping if the surface water supply was diminished.

The Legislature then tossed the hot potato of allocating water to NRDs, which they created to do the job. Unfortunately putting the NRD in charge has proven akin to putting the fox in charge of the henhouse.

The whole mess of water problems in Nebraska, particularly Southwest Nebraska, our home, is simply an example of government attempting to run a system that they are not capable of managing. State government has put themselves in charge and they will now lurch into the future shutting down all irrigation wells close to the Republican River, no matter the economic destruction that will trail in the wake of that action. Just watch; the well my dad drilled in 1943 will be one of the first to go when by senior right it should be the last to go.

Actually, there are three reasons that the flow of the Republican has diminished to its present crisis status. First is the severe drought the past several years. Drought has been a reoccurring phenomenon in this prairie country that is Southwest Nebraska for longer than humans have been here.

One can examine any road cut and see recurring horizontal dark colored lines representing wet periods alternating with larger dun colored layers that represent huge amounts of dust blown onto the land a direct result of drought.

A second reason for rainfall not leaving the spot where it falls are the huge amounts of water holding conservation practices employed by the modern farmer.

Fly over this area after a significant rain and one sees miles of terraces all holding water to eventually soak into the soil and/or evaporate. There is very little bare ground summer fallow. A great percentage of crop producing land is operated no-till meaning great amounts of vegetative cover to hold any rain that falls.

During the 1940s, following significant rains, one would see canyons running water, which of course flowed quickly to the river. It is a rare occurrence at present, even in a wet year, to observe any local canyon run water. In the 1950s, Kelley Canyon running through northeastern McCook flooded after every good rain, something that we haven't seen for years due to a conservation dam and "better" farming practices.

The rain now stays where it falls and soaks into the soil rather than running off the land to be drained away toward Kansas.

Another reason that our Republican River stream flows are greatly diminished is due to an enormous amount of center pivot irrigation development primarily west and north of Imperial.

That whole area has been described as a huge underground bowl sitting upright and filled with water. In the past when it rained and quickly soaked into the prevalent sandy soils the bowl filled with water and overflowed into the Frenchman River. The thousands of wells and intense irrigation throughout that area at present have lowered the water table enough that the bowl no longer overflows and the Frenchman runs only from surface runoff. Experts predict that Enders Reservoir is doomed to dry up in the near future although today it looks pretty good due to recent rains.

On east of Imperial the Ogallala Aquifer only empties into the Republican in very few places, significantly the Frenchman, Blackwood Creek, Red Willow Creek and a few other locations due to a nearly impervious underground ridge of densely packed fine sand that runs parallel to and on the north side of the river.

Drought, water saving farming practices and pump irrigation all contribute to lack of flow into the Republican River. Do the government wonks in charge understand all the above? No, all they know is that a problem has developed and so they will charge forward willy nilly, swinging their sharp blade and to heck with the consequences.

To admit that they are the real root cause of the whole debacle, never happen!

That is the way that I see it.