Letter to the Editor

Who took the Frenchman's water?

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Culbertson, Neb., nestles beside the graceful tree lined bank at the juncture of the Frenchman Creek and Republican River. The Republican channel passes into Nebraska from Colorado about 65 miles upstream and the Frenchman meanders from its meager beginnings in eastern Colorado about 100 miles upstream.

The Frenchman is a spring-fed creek; supplemented by natural runoff. Coupling at Culbertson, the Frenchman ends and the Republican channel continues its twisting path passing through Harlan County Reservoir on into Kansas about 160 miles downstream.

Culbertson began surface irrigation in the 1800s by diversion from the Frenchman. The Walker and Crews ditches west of Culbertson provided water to thirsty crops for many years from the 1800s forward. The Culbertson Dam, was constructed on the Frenchman, just below its mating with the Stinking Water Creek, near Palisade and a canal constructed to north of Culbertson in the later 1800s.

This Culbertson Canal was about 20 to 30 miles long and had many side laterals that irrigated more than 9,000 acres. Enders Reservoir was constructed on the Frenchman near Enders in the early 1950s to prevent floods, store irrigation water and provide recreation. W.H.Wagner current Culbertson landowner and former ditch superintendent states, "In the 1930s and '40s before Enders was built farmers irrigated from April 1 to November 1 and water cost $2.10 an acre or $336 for 160 acres with unlimited water."

Moving to my boyhood farm home two miles north of town in 1954 begins my personal experience with the Frenchman's water. Our abstract shows the canal cutting across a corner of our land in 1898 and had been irrigated by diversion from the Frenchman continually for 100 years in 1998. During my youth there was plenty of available water in all the rivers, creeks and canals. In the spring we received "free" water to pre-irrigate. This "free" water was from the natural spring flow of the river below Enders. We relied on scheduled water releases from Enders during the summer growing months with each farmer receiving a set inch allotment of water per acre per year and I recall receiving about 18" per acre in the '50s. In the '60s a new larger canal was constructed from Palisade and extended past Culbertson to east of McCook, which added an additional 11,000 acres of irrigated ground. The project was funded by a United States Government construction loan with repayment fees added to the yearly cost of water. Upon completion of the new canal the water supply from the Frenchman was ample for the entire system with Enders refilling most years.

Water was so ample that farmers had what some called "waste water" running from the ends of their fields. In reality this title was in err because this water was never wasted. It ran from the end of the fields to a road ditch many times to another farm or ended up back in the river. This "waste water" helped downstream irrigators and some probably flowed on into Kansas. Two actions stopped the flow of "waste water," supply from Enders and the other was governmental bodies requiring conservation measures that stopped runoff. It was, at the time, a benefit to each farmer to save and reuse the water but it stopped all "waste water" from flowing back to the river.

The Highway 61 ride from Enders to Ogallala in the '60s was a haven and home for many ducks and other wildlife with many ponds of water in wheat and summer fallow acres. Culbertson to McCook on Highways 6 & 34 offered year around standing water, ducks, muskrat and other wildlife beside the road for miles the '60s. The Blackwood Creek about a half mile east of our house was also spring fed and there was a 300 gallon artesian well on the creek. I did not realize then that as I walked the creek my eyes were watching Ogallala aquifer water oozing out of the ground at my feet.

The years passed and during the '70s and '80s the delivered supply of water went from 15 to 10 to 8 and then 6 inches of water per acre per year. Farming practices changed to conserve moisture. The Frenchman ran less and less water and Enders Reservoir did not refill after 1968. Sportsman using the reservoir began to blame we surface canal irrigators, below the lake, for lowering the lake level. Ground water irrigation from Enders west into Colorado and north toward Ogallala was pumping Ogallala aquifer water up faster than it could be replaced, lowering the aquifer and literally ceasing the natural springs feeding the Frenchman. It became impossible to irrigate our allotted acres with the dwindling amount of delivered surface water. State officials came from Lincoln to observe and ask if we were watering all our allotted acres with canal water.

You see, in order to protect your water allotment you had to apply surface water from the canal on every allotted acre at least once every three years. This requirement was and is impossible when you have not been delivered water to your farm via the canal. Weathered, wrinkled, suntanned faces of hard working God fearing honest farmers, most veterans serving in war, watched in stunned silence as state officials took a life time and life sustaining allotment of water from their farms, lives and livelihoods. It has always been a puzzle to me to the legality and morality of taking water allotment rights a hundred years old away from someone because they did not receive water therefore could not use the water. The local irrigation districts asked for help dealing with the dwindling water supply and the ground water development above the lake.

They asked other irrigation districts, state officials and federal officials for help with the dwindling supply of water flowing in Enders but the plea fell on deaf ears. A new canal was suggested to divert flood water and off season water from the South Platte River into the Frenchman. This trans- basin transfer idea was dead on arrival but is being considered again today.

Culbertson and McCook area farmers felt the answer to less canal water was to drill supplemental wells for themselves and the cycle continued. Within a couple of years the water along Highways 6 & 34 was dried up along with the Blackwood Creek. In 1991 we were down to a two inch per acre allotment of water per acre.

The last several years' history of that land and the area shows the complete drying up of the Republican River, Frenchman and Blackwood Creeks. It is almost impossible to view the river channel at Culbertson in the summer due grass and weeds growth in the channel. This has been stimulated by the past few years drought, however, the Frenchman creek flow and irrigation continued unhindered during the drought and dust bowl days of the 1930s. This year, like the past four, there will be no surface water delivery from the canal after 100 years of continual irrigation yet farmers still must pay the government loan every year. W.H.Wagner reports that in November 2004 his water bill for 160 acres was $2360 or $14.75 per acre and NO water.

Economic development is a key word to any area and the development of irrigated land by pumping ground water has helped make Southwest Nebraska a large player in today's agricultural production. It has created wealth, saved family farms attracted additional businesses and the entire state has benefited from its use.

We cannot rewrite history or return the area to what once was. What has happened has happened and there is no guilt due no laws broken. Farmers above Enders and below Enders were just using their best ideas, modern technology and their internal emotion to produce. We, Nebraskans, must each consider who took the Frenchman's water and assume whatever blame each of us cares to assume.

We, Nebraskans, simply did not realize the relationship between surface and ground water. We, Nebraskans, did not realize a well here might lower a pond there or that many wells could stop the flow of a creek or river. We, Nebraskans, did not respond quickly when the alarm was sounding almost 38 years ago.

Southwest Nebraska is now under different forms of water restrictions. There are rules dealing with drilling a well, how close a well can be to others and how much can be pumped from a well. Farmers have again changed farming practices to further conserve water and a new preventive planting program will idle acres by paying farmers a per acre fee not to irrigate. Yet today, even with these corrections, households south of McCook were forced to have public water lines buried to their homes because their private domestic wells have gone dry.

Along the side of the highway going through Arapahoe is a sign that reads "Water is Life." A new understanding and realization of the importance of that sign is now taking place. This eyewitness story is not written to take sides in today's water battles. It is written with the hope and prayer that the reactions of today happen fast enough before our fragile natural resource aquifer in Southwest Nebraska is further depleted and the area does become part of the reported "GREAT AMERICAN DESERT." It is further written with the hope our sad water experience is studied and recognized and protective actions taken before the aquifer is harmed in other areas of the state. It would be sad to read stories in the future asking the question, who took the water from the remaining spring fed rivers and creeks in Nebraska.

-- Sitzman is a former Culbertson farmer and Nebraska State Director of Agriculture.

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