ALMA, Neb. (AP) - Two Nebraska natural resources districts have approved an operational agreement for diverting Platte River water into the Republican River, helping the state meet its obligations to Kansas and Colorado.
Last week, the boards for the Lower Republican and the Tri-Basin natural resources districts approved the agreement, which will guide what they’re calling the Platte to Republican Basin High Flow Diversion Project. That entity will be overseen by a board of directors that includes two representatives from both districts.
Lower Republican district general manager Mike Clements said he and his Tri-Basin counterpart, John Thorburn, hope to be ready for diversion by next summer. While visions of the project developed in the aftermath of flooding along the Platte over the past couple of years, Clements said, diversions could take place whenever water flowing in the channel is not appropriated for some agency or purpose downstream.
“It’s not necessarily just high floodwaters,” he said.
Thorburn said officials have been talking to landowners along the east branch of Turkey Creek south of Smithfield about the plan to take Platte River water from the Central Nebraska Public Power and Irrigation District’s E-65 Canal or from Elwood Reservoir and put it into Turkey Creek after irrigation season. The water would flow down Turkey Creek into the Republican River between Oxford and Edison.
Kansas has said Nebraska has been using too much water from the Republican River, which originates in Colorado and runs mostly through Nebraska before ending in Kansas. Nebraska is entitled to 49 percent of the water, Kansas gets 40 percent and Colorado gets 11 percent.
The disputes have landed in front of the U.S. Supreme Court several times.
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