May 29, 2019 at 5:00 PM - Water Committee Meeting

Rationale:  Rohwer Family Limited Partnership (John Rohwer) is asking for a supplemental well to go in series with well G-051338.  This tract of land is located in Section 36-17N-9E in Dodge County.  The plan for this irrigated tract is for a sod farm.

Attached is some information related to the permit along with Supplemental Well Policy.  The well log is from G-051388, which will be located 600 feet west of the proposed site of the new well.

John Rohwer was present at the Committee if other questions were needed to be answered.  John explained the purpose of needing a supplemental well is to assure that the pivot would receive at least 500 GPMs..  

Rationale:  Budget is attached for review. 

Rationale:  Three online tests have been completed in May (see following table)

Cert #	Cert date	Name	Re-cert	Comments
7202	5/15/2019	John Rohchmuthwer	New
5369	5/28/2019	Aaron Reichmuth	Yes
6139	5/28/2019	Scott Cernin	Yes	chemigation

Rationale:  Tri-City has serviced a majority of the meters in the SQS areas. After talking with Mark last week they had approximately 10 meters left to visit in SQS areas. They were not able to finish in the SQS areas and were not able to begin on the secondary area (voluntary/required meters) due to wet conditions.  Attached is the invoice for approximately half of the meters that they were scheduled to visit this Fiscal year. 

Rationale: 

For 2019 we have 454 renewals and 19 new permit applications for a current total of 473.  Inspections for renewal permits have not begun.

Attached is a detailed report.

 

Rationale: 

The LPNNRD has received # 1 livestock permit applications from DEQ since the last Water Committee meeting.

Name	Livestock	Type of Permit	Legal Description	County
West Road Producers	Poultry	New Construction	W1/2 SW1/4 27-18N-01W	Platte

 

 

This permit is for 4 buildings housing 190,000 Broilers.

 

Rationale:  A letter was sent out to individuals that had variances not approved going back to 2012. 
Ross Nelson called on Variance 012-0219 and is not going to developed this tract..  

Gary Meister submitted a variance request in 2013 and wanted to share these comments: I have no-tilled my farm the last 7 years and never apply more than 75 hundreds of water with the pivot at a time to control erosion  My waterways are seeded to grass  Water seldom leave my farm while running the pivot   As you can see I also use a moister probe to manage my watering    I have heavy soils which require less water than sandy soils  Farmers that I have talked to say they commonly water up to 25 inches of water per year on their sandy farms  while I normally use less than 5 inches  I understand that our resources need to be used wisely.  
Also is attached some information provided by Gary on his irrigation management. 

Committee asked staff to revaluation Gary's variance and to work with Gary to see if there is a solution for land that is over the 20% Class 6-8 soils slopes. Staff will also look at all variances in similar situations. 
 

Rationale:  Reasonable rates & an update on well packet forms

Rationale: 

# new wells has been reviewed and approved for decommissioning since the last Committee meeting.

Rationale: 

2 wells have been plugged, reviewed, and ready for cost share payment approval this month.

Well Owner	Type of Well	Cost Share Estimate	County
Angela V. Bonne	Domestic	$989.55	Butler
Morbach Inc	Irrigation	$592.52	Butler

 

Rationale:  The "Aquifer Vulnerability Mapping and Analysis" grant to NET has a component for Vadose Zone Sampling for $48,770.  In the grant it shows UNL in-kind for vadose sampling as $14,496.  The question is does staff need to send RFPs for Board approval or can we just work directly with UNL? 

Attached is the complete budget for the grant. 

Committee felt that staff should send out RFPs with proposals reviewed at the June Water Committee. 

Rationale:  Attached is a map of NE Rain gauge stations throughout the district. We have some spots in the District that could benefit from having a gauge. Also we have a fair amount of stations that do not report anymore or do not report often. 

Rationale:  Staff continues to utilize the Phoenix database and finds things that will make it more efficient to enter data and create reports.  Attached is a change order from Phoenix for $6700.  
Staff reviewed the progress of the online reporting with the Phoenix Webgroup.  There will be a lot of give and take as this process moves forward.  The plan is to have staff review a beta version late summer or early fall with a group of producers testing it around the November time frame.  An invoice for a second payment of $18,275 is attached for payment in this budget year.  

Rationale:  Daryl attended a tour on Wednesday, May 15.  This tour was fairly similar as in the past with no major changes in the plume,  More monitoring wells are being installed in 2019 and Molly Boughan is the new engineer for the Corps. 

Rationale:  The week's beach Bacteria and Harmful Algal Bloom results are now posted on the NDEQ web page (http://deq.ne.gov).

For the week of May 20th, 2019 no current lakes in Nebraska were posted for Harmful Algal Bloom and no lakes in Lower Platte North showing high E. Coli bacteria. 
 

Rationale:  A.  GMDA Summer Conference next week in Salt Lake City.  Three staff attending:  Mountford, Andersen, and Brueggemann. 

B.  The summer interns were at the NARD Office in Lincoln today for the NRGWT class and test. 

C.  Benal and Oaklund will attend the Field Technician Training at Lower Loup NRD next week.