March 31, 2021 at 7:00 PM - Water Committee Meeting

Rationale:  To table flow meter discussion until February Water Committee, so Committee could know if grant funding would be available.

Update: January 22, 2021
The NET Grant submitted by LPN didn't score high enough for it to be on the recommended funding list for 2021.

After agenda item was taken from the table, staff showed the list of projects approved by Nebraska Environmental Trust and how this project scored compared to others.  

Rationale:  Staff has been working with Derek Brazada from the METOs company on setting up weather stations and water level locations for remote read.  Derek attended the Water Committee to explain the information that is shown on these sites.  Staff will be installing one site with a conversion kit from the McCrometer Company to do remote reads on a mechanical flow meter. 

Attachment shows the cost of this equipment.  

Rationale:  Staff has been in contact with producers/owners on installing a required flow meter by March 26, 2021.  All producers has told staff that they are working on installing a flow meter before irrigation.  Staff will continue to stay in contact with these individuals and will report to the Committee, if other actions will need to be taken.  
Information from 2020 meter reports.

System Type	Avg. Pumped (Acre inches)
Gravity (25)	14.12"
Pivot (877)	5.61"
SDI (4)	5.07"

Rationale:  The technical and management groups have met in the last months reviewing next year budget, yearly IMP reports and contract for analyzing the next 5-year increments   The Coalition Directors meeting will be held April 27 (virtual and in-person) at Lower Loup NRD starting at 11 am.  The directors will be voting on the items described.  Attached for review is the draft budget and contract along with the submitted LPN V-IMP report.  The cost of both of these contracts are $129,500, which will be part of the Coalition budget.  

LPN Water Committee wants to emphasis that recharge need to be accurately represented and after adding extra acres over the last 4 years, water levels have remained relatively unchanged.   

Rationale:  Updated 3/31/2021 - 8 more producers have passed the online test and 2 others have passed the take-home test.  

Class Attendance for 2021:

• Butler County Events Center (Test only)                      3
• Schuyler - Oak Ballroom (Test only)                             4
• Wanahoo Educ Bldg A.M. (Test only)                           4
• Wanahoo Educ Bldg P.M. (presentations)                 11
• Columbus - Ag Park (presentations)                           30
• Webinar 1                                                                       14
• Webinar 2                                                                         2
• Online testing                                                                115
• Take Home test                                                               19

                                                       Total                                     202
 
Of these 17 were "New" (first-timers)
 

Rationale: 

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

 

Rationale: 

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

Well Owner	Type of Well	Cost Share Estimate	County

 

Rationale:  Staff had discussion on demonstration fields for 2021 in the nitrate areas.  Some of the ideas were nitrogen modeling software comparison, inhibitors and nitrogen test strips.  UNL on-farm research is looking for fields to study these ideas with funding available for participating producers.  
Part of the NET Grant is to purchase Field Equipment to test for PH, Dissolved Oxygen, Conductivity and other parameters prior to collecting a water sample.  More information is attached, with staff looking at purchasing 3 water sampling meters. The Grant will be paying $5,500, with the other portion used as NRD match.   

Quotes:

Oakton PCD 659 - $3010.51
Xylem/YSI
     ProDSS - $5,629.00
     ProQuatro - $2,957.00
Hach
     HQ2100 - $2,606.22
     HQ4300 - $3,203.20

Staff explained the differences of each meter with the higher cost due to the dissolve oxygen probe.  Dissolve oxygen (DO) helps in determining if an aquifer is anaerobic or aerobic.  This information is valuable in determining the movement of contaminants like nitrates, iron and manganese, that will react differently when a certain level of oxygen is present.  The equipment staff uses now, does not have a DO probe and is about 10 years old.  

Attached is an updated quote for the ProQuatro equipment from YSI Inc. The cost per meter will be $2878.18 per meter for a total cost of $8,634.55, plus estimated shipping of $10. 

Rationale:  Updated information on the test holes and monitoring wells.  UNL/CSD can do the test holes as shown by the schedule below.  
 

Site	CSD Lead	Est. Timing	Est depth (ft)	Reason	Well designs
Richland N (17-2E)	Sue	Late April	180	Elevated NO3-N	~1 week after test hole
Fremont East	Katie	End April-May	320	Base Kd (AEM)	~1 week after test hole
SQS2 (19-1E)	Jesse	Mid-September	250 (+/-50)	Well Interference???	~1-2 weeks after test hole

 As a rough cost estimate UNL is figuring an average of $12/ft * 700-800 ft = $8400 to $9,600.  There is still a balance of $13,111 in the UNL/LPN Cooperative Agreement that has not been assigned. So UNL could handle funds through this agreement, if preferred. (End date on the agreement is June 2022.)  Attachment showing information on the 3 sites.  

Staff is working on obtaining permission from land owners for test holes on the first 2 sites, with the plan to send RFPs on a monitoring well in the Richland Area. 

Rationale:  This was the first year that the NRD offered online reporting for meter and nitrogen reports.  Staff was overall satisfied on how this process worked with 29% of the water use reports submitted online and 38% of the nitrogen reports.  Some of the producers recommended a few changes to make this process easier.  Changes for the online site include:

• Producer will have the ability to save a partially-completed form and then finalize it later.
• New Chemigation permit can be applied for online, which then would include some work on the private site.

Private Site changes include

• Enable for staff to assign task from Chemigation page
• Develop a Field CSV to assist in tracking non-reporting
• Chemigation CSV to assist in tracking chemical amounts
• Water Well kits would auto-complete for consistency in reporting.

The total cost of these updates would be $18,775, which 50 percent is needed as initial deposit - $9,387.50. The other 50% would be paid in next year's budget.   Also attached is a yearly support plan, which the NRD participated with the Silver Plan last year at $2,500.  Staff was anticipating that changes would be needed after the first year of doing online reporting, as $15,000 was budgeted for this year.   

Rationale:  Does the Water Committee want to consider items to encourage producers to improve their management?

Committee and staff discussed the items shown below, with Mark Walkenhorst from NRCS available for questions.  It was explained that the RCPP grant is designed for designated areas, which would emphasis certain practices to solve the identified problems.  It was pointed out that some of the most successful programs utilize staff that could work one-on-one with producers.  This individual would set up management strategies with producers and then apply for funding to implement the BMPs.  Increasing education in the nitrate management areas need to be a priority utilizing all avenues and working with UNMC on the health aspects.  Committee discussed the ranking criteria on smaller fields that sometime can't get funding but still contributes to the problem.  The grant should consider doing a few BMPs well, than trying to do many average.  Committee and staff will continue to discuss with more detailed information at the next Water Committee Meeting.      

Discussion Items:

• Designated Areas within Districts
• SDI and Pivots
• Crop Rotations
• Cover Crops
• Extra Staff to work one-on-one with producers
• Domestic Water Sampling 
• Other

Staff has been discussing the possibility of applying for a RCPP grant with some comments from NRCS shown.

SDI - $740.64/ac. for General Signup.  Nitrate Areas (not specific to high nitrate areas) but for source water areas which often include high nitrate areas it is 1058.05/ac.  The EQIP - General HU of 1269.66 would apply to Historically Underserved clients (Beginning farmers, etc.). Applications for microirrigation (SDI) must meet the irrigation history for two of five years and must not exceed the 5% threshold of newly irrigated acres on the entire system. An application for microirrigation (SDI) would be considered ineligible even if the applicant is willing to pay for those additional acres (greater than the 5% incidental acres allowed) without cost assistance.  Pivot cost-share is $18.97 per linear feet.

Can the NRD put another $5,000 - $10,000 on top of the EQIP payment? To my knowledge "yes". May be a stipulation that the cost share (incentive) cannot exceed 100% of the cost. Will need to get this checked.
 
Would a product like SoyGreen for soybeans be eligible for cost share to decrease PH to encourage a crop rotation in high nitrate areas? I do not know, it would depend if that product meets NRCS tech guide.
 
Would there be any incentive for a 3 crop rotation? Yes, we currently have an incentive to encourage a more diverse crop rotation.

With RCPP, we do have flexibilities that EQIP does not. 
For example, if a project proposes to pay a higher rate than EQIP for established conservation practices, that is OK (as long as defined in the final agreement and is equitable).  But it cannot exceed 100% of the cost rate. Please keep in mind that RCPP proposals where the partner provides more % of FA (preferably cash) typically score better than those who do not.

LPN collected this information during the process of certifying irrigated acres. 
 

System type	Total Number	Total Acres	Number <20 acres
Center Pivots	3407	243,249.8	417
Center Pivots with Gravity	901	77,265.61	76
Gravity (Flood)	654	33,465.04	125
Drip Tape (SDI)	21	951.29	6
Towline	70	5,288.353	2

Surface Irrigation - 4,269.19 acres, Commingled Acres of GW and SW - 5,117.56 acres.