October 29, 2014 at 5:00 PM - Water Committee

Rationale:  DNR letter is attached about dates for the Revised Rules for Title 457 to determine if a Basin is Fully Appropriated.

Rationale:  All letters have been sent to applicants in the Hydrologically Connected Area (HCA) and Non-Hydrologically Connected Area (NHCA).

Rationale:  One new well permit has been reviewed and approved by Schomer.

Rationale:  Staff spoke with Mr. Stork and Mr. Kremlacek on Thursday October 16th.  Both parties agreed to come in and meet with staff on Wednesday October 22nd.  However, on Monday October 20th, Mr. Kremlacek spoke with Schomer and said that he would not be coming to the meeting due to harvest.  He is willing to discuss the situation, but would prefer doing it at a later date.

Jon Tank and Jeff Stork attended the Water Committee meeting and presented their side of the well variance request.  Mr. Kremlacek was not present due to harvest, but he owns the domestic well that is 35 feet from the proposed irrigation well for Mr. Stork.  A second meeting will try to be scheduled on November 24, 2014 at 4:00 pm., which is one hour before the next Water Committee meeting.

Rationale:  No updates.

Rationale:  No updates.

Rationale:  Wells Permits Approved: #

Landowner	Number of Wells	Number of New Irrigated Acres	Type of Well	County	Subarea
Charles Emanuel	1	0	Replacement	Dodge	North Bend
Jonathan Temme	1	135	New	Boone	Upper Newman Grove
John Temme	1	135	New	Boone	Upper Newman Grove
Eugene Stock	1	0	Supplemental	Platte	Middle Shell Creek

The total number of approved permits for 2014 is 69

Location of Approved Well Permits for 2014:  Correct as of 11/24/2014

County	Irrigation - New	Irrigation - Replacement	Stock	Commercial	Municipal	Other	Total
Butler	1	5	0	0	0	0	6
Colfax	1	2	0	0	0	0	3
Dodge	5	9	0	1	0	1	16
Boone	7	1	0	0	0	0	8
Madison	1	0	0	0	0	0	1
Platte	5	5	1	0	0	1	12
Saunders	13	7	0	0	0	3	23
Total	33	29	1	1	0	5	69

Rationale:  Mr. & Mrs. Stock have applied for a new supplemental well in S12-T19N-R3W Middle Shell Creek subarea of Platte County.  This is not in the Platte - Colfax SQS area.  The ground is currently being serviced by well G-145120 which was permitted by the LPNNRD in 2006 to irrigate 260 acres.  Now they would like to irrigate 80 of those acres with a separate well.  The test hole is attached, as well as a map of the area.

Rationale:  At the invitation of Bob Hilger and Larry Angle, Paul Tipling of McCrometer and Great Plains Meter, gave a presentation on the installation, maintenance, and cost of their flow meters.  He mentioned that while Upper Big Blue NRD (UBBNRD) is not cost sharing with producers on the initial cost of the flow meter it is looking at cost sharing on its maintenance (see attached information).  He also mentioned that the UBBNRD maintenance program is looking to contract this out rather than have NRD staff perform this function.  LPNNRD staff will contact UBBNRD for more details.

We have received a letter from NET outlining the timeline for our grant request for flow meters in the SQS.  Awards will be announced on February 12, 2015 with a public hearing on April 2, 2015.  Final awards will be announced after the April 2, 2015 date.  Our application was one of 122 submitted, with nearly $60 million in funds requested.

Well owners are to have flow meters installed by May 1, 2015 in both SQS areas.  Allocation in the Butler-Saunders SQS is to start in 2015, but not until 2016 for the Platte-Colfax SQS area.  Discussion followed that producers in both SQS areas would only know if cost share funds would be available for flow meters for just one month before the May 1st installation deadline.  

Rationale:  Staff plan to meet with Extension in mid to late November to discuss these special classes.  Flow meters and their proper installation will be a major focus of these classes.  Also on the agenda is use of water mark sensors, and our rules covering this area.

Rationale:  The last meeting of the LPRBC Technical Committee was held on October 28, 2014 at the Lower Loup NRD in Ord, NE.  The main discussion focused on Action Items for the goals and objectives.  Basin wide Water Banking was briefly discussed, but will be on our agenda for the December 2, 2014 meeting in Norfolk.

Rationale: 

The last Stakeholder meeting was held on October 7, 2014 at the LPNNRD office.  We had good attendance and discussion on the Goals and Objectives.  A draft copy of the Water Balance Study was forwarded to NRD staff for review.  The Water Inventory Study will not be ready until later this fall.

The next Coordination meeting will be held on November 20, 2014 at 10:00 am at Olsson's new office near the Lincoln Arena. 

The NRD has received an Invoice for $8,751.28 from Olsson Assoc. for services rendered through October 4, 2014 (see attached invoice).

Rationale:  366 kits have been requested and sent (one of these was mailed today).  The results from 355 of these kits have been received from HHS/Lincoln with a range of 0.00 to 101.0 ppm.

Rationale: 

The remaining kit (in bold text in the table below) has been used and results sent to the landowner.  This cost-share program in available only in the Phase 2 areas.

Rationale:  All 50% cost share payments from cooperating producers have been received.

Rationale: 

2014 is the twelfth year of this Phase 2 Area.  106 producer sample results have been received (range of 0.00 to 22.3 ppm).

Year	Nitrate-nitrogen Range	Percent Nitrate-nitrogen 0 to 8.0 ppm	Percent Nitrate-nitrogen 8.01 to 10.00 ppm	Percent Nitrate-nitrogen greater than 10 ppm
2004	0 to 25 ppm	46.3% (44 of 95)	8.4% (8 of 95)	45.3% (43 of 95)
2005	0 to 25 ppm	47% (44 of 94)	15% (14 of 94)	38% (36 of 94)
2006	0 to 24 ppm	41% (29 of 71)	14% (10 of 71)	45% (32 of 71)
2007	0 to 31 ppm	48% (48 of 100)	9% (9 of 100)	43% (43 of 100)
2008	0 to 28 ppm	53.75% (43 of 80)	7.5% (6 of 80)	38.75% (31 of 80)
2009	0 to 22 ppm	45.5% (41 of 90)	15.5% (14 of 90)	39% (35 of 90)
2010	0 to 35.7 ppm	48.65% (54 of 111)	11.71% (13 of 111)	39.64% (44 of 111)
2011	0 to 26.6 ppm	51% (56 of 110)	6% (7 of 110)	43% (47 of 110)
2012	0 to 28.9 ppm	57% (61 of 107)	9% (10 of 107)	34% (36 of 107)
2013	0 to 25.8 ppm	50% (53 of 107)	9% (10 of 107)	41% (44 of 107)
2014	0 to 22.3 ppm	51% (54 of 106)	13% (14 of 106)	36% (38 of 106)

 

Rationale: 

2014 is the eleventh year of this Phase 2 Area.  249 producer sample results have been received (range of 0.00 to 101.0).

 

Year	Nitrate-nitrogen Range	Percent Nitrate-nitrogen 0 to 8.0 ppm	Percent Nitrate-nitrogen 8.01 to 10.00 ppm	Percent Nitrate-nitrogen greater than 10 ppm
2004	0 to 47 ppm	30% (42 of 139)	10% (14 of 139)	60% (83 of 139)
2005	0 to 120 ppm	31.3% (74 of 236)	10.2% (24 of 236)	58.5% (138 of 236)
2006	0 to 53 ppm	28% (50 of 181)	14% (26 of 181)	58% (105 of 181)
2007	0 to 99 ppm	32% (75 of 231)	10% (22 of 231)	58% (134 of 227)
2008	0 to 46 ppm	28% (53 of 190)	12% (23 of 190)	60% (114 of 190)
2009	0 to 57 ppm	33% (72 of 216)	6% (13 of 216)	61% (131 of 216)
2010	0 to 57.5 ppm	31% (70 of 229)	7% (15 of 229)	62% (142 of 229)
2011	0 to 65.8 ppm	28% (67 of 241)	9% (21 of 241)	63% (153 of 241)
2012	0 to 52.6 ppm	29% (70 of 241)	9% (21 of 241)	62% (150 of 241)
2013	0 to 94.0 ppm	25% (63 of 252)	9% (23 of 252)	66% (166 of 252)
2014	0 to 101.0 ppm	27.3% (68 of 249)	8.4% (21 of 249)	64.3% (160 of 249)

 

Rationale:  No on-line tests have been completed since the last committee meeting.

Rationale:  Staff plan to meet with County Extension personnel in mid to late November to discuss next year's NRD Operator Certification Classes.  Another topic will be operator certification with producers in the SQS subareas that will focus on water quantity.

Rationale: 

• Saunders County Update:  With harvest in full swing we've only had a couple turned in since the last Water Committee.  Entering these into the GIS and recording well modifications for DNR has been top priority since Dodge County creation wrapped up.
• Dodge County Update:  Dodge County is ready to send.  There are right at 680, which is less than anticipated.  They’ll be sent out in one mailing after Harvest.  Poole is anticipating that being late in the second week of November.  Because of various holidays occurring around the time of the mailing, the due date will be February 1, 2015.  This should give people plenty of time to take care of any after harvest business and family commitments.

Rationale: 

A total of 12 inspections need to be done before the end of the year or these permits will lapse.  These producers have been notified and asked to contact the NRD if they wish their wells inspected.  

Rationale:  The LPNNRD has received no new livestock permit applications from DEQ since the last Water Committee meeting.

Rationale:  One new well has been reviewed and approved by Gottschalk for decommissioning since the last Committee meeting.

 

Rationale:  No new wells have been plugged, reviewed, or ready for cost share payment approval by the Board for this month.

Rationale:  No new update.  The next training class of the MODFLOW model and GIS interface is scheduled for December 4 & 5, 2014 in Ord at the LLNRD.

Rationale: 

• NRD staff drove the proposed ENWRA flight lines in early October looking for power lines, pipe lines, cable and telephone lines or other potential electronic signals that could affect the AEM signal.
• The northern portion of the ENWRA AEM flights were completed by mid-October.  Initial data showed signal penetration to a depth of 800 ft. and more.  Data inversion and coupling this information with test hole data are the next steps, but they should have the preliminary data by the time of the NARD Conference in late January.  It is hoped that this could be one of the sessions at the Conference.
• Several of the AEM flights used the Fremont airport as a base for operations.
  
  

Rationale: 

Staff began collecting the Fall GWEL readings on October 23rd. and readings from the Uplands sites have been completed.  Dustin Divis, a senior at David City High School, accompanied Oaklund Tuesday October 28th in the afternoon to learn about our data loggers and GWEL sites near David City.  Divis did “hands on” with both monitoring wells and readings at well sites.  Staff started GWEL readings on the Todd Valley sites on October 29th. and Platte Valley and then Shell Creek sites will follow.  The Wann Basin subarea (multi-agencies) collection of readings is scheduled for Thursday, October 30th.

Rationale: 

Staff continued its water sampling of our monitoring wells in October.   Sixteen of these have now been sampled for nitrates, pesticides, and major ions.

Rationale: 
The next Public meeting will be November 12, 2014 at the Yutan VFW County Club.  The time will be 4:30 to 7:30 pm.  US Army Corps of Engineers personnel will be on hand to answer any questions.

Rationale:  The 2015 GMDA Annual Conference will be held in Scottsdale, Arizona on January 6-8, 2015.  The main focus will be on the Central Arizona Project which provides water for agriculture, industrial, and municipal use.