April 1, 2015 at 5:00 PM - Water Committee Meeting

Rationale:  The district received one new well variance application for 70 acres in the Todd Valley.

Rationale:  The district received two expanded water use variances for a total of 135 irrigated acres in the David City Subarea.

Rationale:  No new updates

Rationale:  Wells Permits Approved: 5

Landowner	Number of Wells	Number of New Irrigated Acres	Type of Well	County	Subarea
KWEA LLC	1	0	Irrigation	Dodge	North Bend
Allan Shonka	1	0	Irrigation	Colfax	Lower Shell Creek
Kenneth Ebel	1	0	Irrigation/Replacement	Butler	Bellwood
Laverna E Maguire Rev Tr	1	0	Irrigation/Replacement	Butler	Prague
White & Rupp Fam Tr	1	0	Irrigation/Replacement	Dodge	North Bend
Jerome Herink	1	0	Irrigation/Replacement	Colfax	Middle Shell Creek
Karl Grotelueschen	1	0	Irrigation/Replacement	Platte	Lower Shell Creek

 



The total number of approved permits for 2015 is 21


Location of Approved Well Permits for 2015:  Correct as of 4/1/2015

County	Irrigation - New	Irrigation - Replacement	Stock	Commercial	Municipal	Other	Total
Butler	1	2	0	0	0	0	3
Colfax	1	2	0	0	0	0	3
Dodge	3	2	0	0	0	0	5
Boone	0	2	0	0	0	0	2
Madison	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Platte	3	1	0	0	0	0	4
Saunders	3	0	0	1	0	0	4
Total	11	9	0	1	0	0	21

Rationale: 

KWEA Inc., (Justin Taylor) requests to transfer a total of 47.44 acres of gravity irrigation from two parcels, S ½, SW ¼, SW ¼, 4-17-8E and NW ¼, NW ¼, 9-17-8E to a parcel in W ½, SE ¼, 5-17-8E and operate a pivot. See attached map for explanation.

Rationale: 

Gene Kresak to transfer 35 acres from W ½, SW ¼, 26-14-9E (Wann Subarea) to NE ¼, SW ¼, 34-14-9E (Todd Valley Subarea).  The ground in 26-14-9E is in its last year of the 2 in 10 cycle, so whatever is not transferred in this transfer is lost.  The ground we’re transferring to has had a pivot on it for many years, it just wasn’t used and is outside of its 2 in 10 cycle. The Subarea boundary is basically the road so it does cross Subareas by a couple hundred feet.  Well G-009205 would be the well they’d use and G-053630 would be listed inactive.

This is within the Corps clean up operations for the Former Ordnance Plant near Mead and therefore the LPNNRD should consult them first.

Rationale:  Cottonwood Valley Farms is requesting a transfer of 17 irrigated acres from a farm in the NE 1/4 of the SW 1/4 of S23-T16N-R2E in the Octavia Subarea of Butler County to the SW 1/4 of S19-T16N-R2E in the Bellwood Subarea of Butler County.  They will submit a variance for the field in section 19 with the plan to move the transferred acres back to section 23 if the variance is approved.  Attached is the packet of information submitted by Jesse Hough, Manager of Cottonwood Valley Farms LLC.

This was initially discussed at March 9, 2015 Board meeting and sent back to the Water Committee for further review.  

Rationale:  Bill Becker would like to transfer 130 certified irrigated acres within the Upper Newman Grove Subarea.  The acres will be transferred from three separate sections to a fourth section.  

- 34 Acres will be transferred from the NW 1/4 of Section 1-20-5W

- 69 Acres will be transferred from the NW 1/4; E 1/2 SW 1/4; SE 1/4 of Section 8-22-5W

- 27 Acres will be transferred from the NE 1/4 NE 1/4 of Section 14-22-6W

- 130 Acres will be added to the NW 1/4 of Section 27-22-5W

(See attached Maps)

Rationale:  Ruzicka Brothers are requesting a transfer of 5.3 certified irrigated acres from two fields in the North Bend Subarea that are currently enrolled in the CRP program to a third field in the same subarea. 

- 2.1 Acres transferred from the N 1/2 SW 1/4; NE 1/4 NE 1/4  of Section 23-18-5E

- 3.2 Acres transferred from the N 1/2 SW 1/4; SE 1/4 SW 1/4 of Section 31-18-6E

- 5.3 Acres added to the NE 1/4 NW 1/4 of Section 6-17-6E

(See attached maps)

Rationale:  One final SQS class has been scheduled for irrigation operators in the Butler-Saunders SQS area.  It will be held at the LPNNRD office on April 15, 2015 starting at 8:30 am.  A fee of $15 is required.  A letter will be sent to area producers informing them of the class.  At least 5 producers still need to attend.  There are thirty irrigation wells in this area.  GWEL have been measured in ten of these.  Oaklund will continue to work with operators for the remaining wells. 

A letter will be sent to area well drillers, pump installers, and irrigation equipment dealers concerning the purchase and proper installation of flow meters for producers in the Butler-Saunders SQS area.  Attachments include a map of the SQS area, approved list of flow meters and their proper installation. 

 

 

Rationale: 

The next technical Committee meeting for LPRBC is scheduled for April 2, 2015 at the LENRD in Norfolk starting at 10:00 am.

The next Managers Committee meeting is scheduled for April 28, 2015 at LPNNRD in Wahoo.

Rationale:  The next meeting for the Stakeholders is scheduled for April 7, 2015 at the LPNNRD office starting at 2:00 pm.

We have received a rough draft of the Water Inventory Study, which is currently being reviewed by staff.

The LPNNRD has received an invoice from Olsson Associates for $6,755.91 for services rendered up to March 10, 2015.  Need motion to approve.

Rationale:  No new kit requests since the last Water Committee.

Rationale: 

2015 is the thirteenth year for this Phase 2 Area.  This area has been reduced from 32 sections to 21 sections, to be in compliance with Section G Ground Water Quality Management Area - Phase Two Rule 1 Phase Two Criteria.

Rationale: 

2015 is the twelfth year of this Phase 2 Area.  The 55 sections of this area will go into a Phase 3 Area September 1, 2015, to be in compliance with Section H Ground Water Quality Management Area - Phase Three Rule 1 Phase Three Criteria.  [Section H of our Rules & Regs is included below the table.] 

Also effective September 1, 2015, the ten sections immediately north of this area will become a Phase 2 Area.  These sections are:  Township 18 North, Range 2 East, sections 31 to 36; Township 18 North, Range 3 East, sections 31 to 34.

Rationale: 

There have been ten on-line test requests since the last committee meeting.  Five of these have completed the test and a certification card was mailed. 

 

Cert #	Cert date	Name	Re-cert	Comments
6435	3/18/2015	Gordon Shrader	No	first-time
6436	3/23/2015	Luke Kardell	No	first-time
6473	3/27/2015	Steve Barlean	Yes
6474	3/27/2015	Frank Vech	Yes
6475	3/30/2015	John Krueger	Yes

 

The scheduled classes have been held. 

Class	Date & time	Location	Attendance	First-time
# 1	Thursday, January 8th @ 2:45 p.m. (after Corn Expo)	Fremont - Christensen Field	75	17
# 2	Thursday, January 15th @ 1:30 p.m.	Columbus - Ag Park	56	6
# 3	Monday, January 26th @ 1:30 p.m.	ARDC - Mead	52	8
# 4	Wednesday, February 4th @ 9:30 a.m.	Schuyler - St Benedict Center	Cancelled
# 5	Wednesday, February 4th @ 1:30 p.m.	Lindsay - Village Office	24	1
# 6	Thursday, February 19th @ 1:30 p.m.	David City - Hruska Library	36	2
# 7	Tuesday, February 24th @ 9:30 a.m.	Columbus - Pinnacle Bank	28	6
# 8	Wednesday, March 4th @ 1:30 p.m.	Fremont - Extension Office	26	4
# 9	Tuesday, March 24th @ 9:30 a.m.	David City - Hruska Library	11	1
# 10	Thursday, March 26th @ 7:00 p.m.	ARDC - Mead	25	1
# 11	Tuesday, March 31st @ 7:00 p.m.	Columbus - Ag Park	41	3

The class schedule was mailed to about 500 producers.                374                 49

 

Rationale: 

Chemigation renewal letters were mailed out in mid March.  For the start of 2015 we have a total of 468 chemigation permits.  So far, we have received two new applications and 63 renewals.  We have also received 13 cancellations, probably due to the new chemigation fees now in place.  The renewal deadline is June 1st. 

The latest Chemigation Rules and Regulations were mailed to DEQ for their review and hopefully their approval. These are basically the same rules that were mailed to them in December 2014 and their had one change at that time, which was incorporated into our latest rules.

Rationale:  The LPNNRD has received one new livestock permit application from DEQ since the last Water Committee meeting.

Name	Livestock	Type of Permit	Legal Description	County
Jeremy Janssen Janssen Tarnov Nursery 31713 325 Avenue Columbus NE 68601	Swine 12,000 Head, 480 A.U.	New Construction and Operation Permit	NM1/4, Section 22, T19N, R3W	Platte

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

 

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

 

Rationale:  AEM flights over the southern half of Eastern Nebraska are scheduled for April.  Postcards will be mailed to LPNNRD residents near the flight lines (see attached).

Angle met with Katie Cameron (ENWRA and CSD) and Matt Marksen (CSD driller) to review potential locations for test holes within our District, some of which are along the flight lines.  It will likely be June before CSD can get started.  Since the AEM data can see so deep now, the major topic was a question on how deep the test holes needed to be drilled. 

Rationale: 

Staff began collecting our Spring readings on Monday, March 23^rd.  The Uplands, Todd Valley, and Wann Basin are completed.  Platte Valley should be completed this week with Shell Creek scheduled for next week.  Preliminarily, the water levels are up, which was both anticipated and hoped for with the shorter irrigation season in 2014 and the amount of precipitation in August-September.  Precipitation thus far in 2015 has been lacking.

Rationale:  The 2015 GMDA Summer Session will be held in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho June 10-12, 2015 (see website www.gmdausa.org for details).   The agenda should be finalized soon.  Angle helped on the Nebraska portion of the program.

Rationale:  Oaklund and Heimann are currently interviewing potential summer interns.  We again are looking at three individuals.

Rationale:  Melissa Konecky and Mary Wotipka attended the Water Committee, but did not address the members.