Letter to the Editor

Value of water?

Thursday, August 13, 2015

Dear Editor,

I have been wondering if there is a legal means of retrieving the value of the water being taken out of Lincoln County by N-CORP? They have taken out about 60,000 acre feet of water. About 4 times the amount used for irrigation on N-CORP land in one year. This was supposed to save 300,000 acres of irrigated crops. The state is supposed to own the water, but the people own the state. If the state owned the people, the government would be a dictatorship. This would make the people slaves of the state government! So we are all equal people that formed the state. We citizens of Lincoln County own the water of Lincoln County. So the water that N-CORP has moved down to the Republican River is our water. If someone steals a cow or a car in Lincoln County and takes it out of Lincoln County, it does not transfer the ownership of the cow or car to the thief. The same should hold true to water!

To Illustrate --

Since corn is 10 to 15 percent water, each 100 pounds of corn is 10 to 15 pounds of Lincoln County's water! WE SHOULD BE ABLE TO PUT A LIEN ON THAT CORN. Or whatever crop the water is in. This would help with Lincoln County schools, roads, law enforcement and other county's costs and Medicine Creek damage. I would like to see discussion of this in the newspapers.

THE REST OF THE STORY

If our tractor or machine needs a repair part, do we go steal it off of somebody else? Or do we have to trade money for it? If our cows run short of feed, do we turn them into our neighbor's cornfield? And expect it is our feed once it gets in the cow? If our cornfield needs more water, do we go over to the neighbors well? How far? What kind of a person would steal to get what he needs? Money, a machine or truck or you name it. This would soon turn a country into a free for all -- Try to steal more than you get stolen.

My Great Grandfather, William Powell Hughes, got all of his horses stolen during the Civil War. This happened in Dade County Missouri. My Grandfather, Archelaus "Deck" Hughes, was born the year after the Civil War and of course knew the story well from hearing about it. This happened 60 years before I was born and I am 91 years old now. What happened then, can happen again. Greed causes wars. Greed killed half of all the men in Germany in World War II. So, I would like to see some discussion of this in our newspapers too. It boils down to, we should be satisfied on our own side of the fence! THE FUTURE MIGHT NOT TURN OUT AS WE DREAMED IT WOULD!

Joe Estermann

Wellfleet, Nebraska

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  • I agree that taking water from the same aquifer, just in a different county and saying it is saving water is a faulty argument. The solution is to conserve more water by using less for ag. Some of the wells in the Upper NRD pump on sandy soil. The current water use in the basin is just like the Feds spending money we do not have....our kids and grandkids will be the losers for our greed.

    -- Posted by dennis on Thu, Aug 13, 2015, at 4:28 PM
  • Water use in the Republican basin is very much like the Federal government spending money it does not have. The losers will be our kids and grandkids. Current greed is passed on to future generations.

    -- Posted by dennis on Thu, Aug 13, 2015, at 4:30 PM
  • It was a stupid idea based on greed. What is the cost of using all this water? "If we don't irrigate we won't have these towns" is the argument. I hate to state the obvious but if we don't have water we won't have any towns either. There were towns here before irrigation I believe.

    -- Posted by plainsman on Fri, Aug 14, 2015, at 11:50 AM
  • The NRD's purchased the land in Lincoln county for 80 + million, therefore the argument that they are "stealing" isn't exactly being truthful.

    That being said, everyone who has pursued legal means of stopping them has been defeated in court, so if anyone feels they possess superior intelligence in the issue, feel free to employ such as you embark in another failed effort to reign in your runaway government and it's egotistical figure heads.

    -- Posted by shallal on Sun, Aug 16, 2015, at 11:52 AM
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