Letter to the Editor

Hope it's a mistake

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Dear Editor,

Surface and groundwater users have had their disagreements over the years, but through it all I always felt like we could agree on a few things: We're all Nebraskans, we share more similarities than differences, and we, not someone else or some other state, are in the best position to address our issues.

I was stunned and very disappointed to learn in the Omaha World Herald that a key figure in Republican River Basin water issues has essentially decided to aid Kansas in its legal fight to shut down irrigation on 300,000 acres in the Basin and force Nebraska to pay $50 million in alleged damages. Recently, the board of the Frenchman Cambridge Irrigation District authorized its manager, Brad Edgerton, to testify as a witness at the request of Kansas. For all practical purposes, Mr. Edgerton has agreed to help Kansas shut down nearly one-third of all irrigated acres in the Basin and put all Nebraskans on the hook for a wildly overstated bill of $50 million.

This is an immense betrayal at a time when Nebraska is on track for consistent compliance with the Republican River Compact. Many of Mr. Edgerton's own irrigation customers are among those being betrayed. That's because roughly 40 percent of his water users have groundwater wells that would be shut down under Kansas' proposed "remedy" to compliance issues, something that Mr. Edgerton seemed oddly unaware of when he was deposed by Nebraska attorneys. To make matters worse, compact compliance isn't something Mr. Edgerton is really concerned about. When the Nebraska attorneys deposed him in April, he said this: "I'm just trying to make sure that I can deliver water to my customers year after year...Compliance isn't the district's responsibility."

In the same deposition, he had this to say about Kansas' "remedy" of shutting down 300,000 irrigated acres in the Basin: "It's definitely a step in the right direction." In another section of the deposition, he states that the Frenchman Cambridge Irrigation District board "feels that our interests are sort of in line with Kansas' interest..."

Huh?

I shudder to think what Mr. Edgerton would like to have happen if doing irreparable and unnecessary harm to the regional economy by shutting down 300,000 acres is just a "step in the right direction." And if a poll were to be taken of all the residents of our Basin, I guarantee that most would not feel that their interests are "in line with Kansas' interest" in this matter

While more than 40 percent of the acres served by Frenchman Cambridge Irrigation District have groundwater wells, the percentages in other surface water irrigation districts is even higher, according to the Nebraska attorneys representing the state in the lawsuit. In the Frenchman Valley Irrigation District, for example, about 78 percent of the acres have groundwater wells that would be shut down if Kansas, with help from Mr. Edgerton and his irrigation district, gets its way.

I sincerely hope this is all a case of Frenchman Cambridge Irrigation District making a mistake, forgetting to holistically assess what is best for our entire region, including both surface and groundwater users. But maybe I and others are the ones who made a mistake. We believed that as Nebraskans, despite our occasional differences, we're in this together and that there are alternatives to accepting draconian "remedies" from another state that sees the Republican River Compact as a way to pad its pockets with millions from its neighbor.