Plan to divert 'extra' Platte River water to Republican gains steam

SMITHFIELD, Neb. — Most of the water passing through Nebraska moves slowly, taking its time meandering through the state. Water projects and regulatory policies take their time as well.

About 10 years ago, then-State Sen. Mark Christensen of Imperial proposed a pipeline or channel of some sort to transport “excess” Platte River water south to the Republican River in order to help Nebraska deliver the right amount of water to Kansas as mandated in a 1943 Republican River Compact, thus avoiding costly lawsuits and Supreme Court battles.

Now, 10 years later, that’s just the proposal presented to the state last week by two Natural Resources Districts. Their proposed “Platte Republican Diversion Project” would transfer Platte River water via Turkey Creek to the Republican River. The water transfer from one river basin to another would be the state’s first trans-basin diversion project.

The plan is to divert what is called excess Platte River water in 2-4 years out of 10 via canal, culvert or pipeline over the Platte-Republican divide near Smithfield in Gosper County and send it south to the Republican via the 25-mile-long Turkey Creek, a tributary of the Republican starting about 3 miles west of Smithfield and dumping into the Republican River between Oxford and Edison.

During three years of active planning, the Tri-Basin Natural Resources District in Holdrege and the Lower Republican NRD in Alma developed the $1.4-1.9 million project and submitted initial permit paperwork to the Nebraska Department of Natural Resources last week.

The Platte Republican Diversion Project would tap Platte water from a canal owned by the Holdrege-based Central Nebraska Public Power and Irrigation District that stores North Platte River water in Lake McConaughy at Ogallala and delivers it downstream and into canals for delivery to its irrigators.

The diversion would not happen during the June-August irrigation season.

John Thorburn, general manager of the Tri-Basin NRD, said the Platte typically carries more water than users demand about four years each decade.

Diverting Platte water two or three years a decade would likely be often enough to make the project cost effective, he said.