Value of water?
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