The Middle Republican Natural Resources District is responsible
for the protection of the natural resources
and assists landowners in planning, funding,
and applying conservation practices.
MRNRD
Policy, Rules & Regulations
Ground Water Management Area Rules &
Regulations
The purposes of the management area are (1)
to protect ground water quantity; and (2) the prevention or resolution
of conflicts between users of ground water and appropriators of
surface water, which ground water and surface water are hydrologically
connected through implementation of controls to meet the goals and
objectives identified in the Integrated Management Plan for the
Middle Republican Natural Resources District and the Nebraska Department
of Natural Resources.
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On December 16, 2002 Governor Mike Johanns and Attorney
General Don Stenberg announced that Nebraska reached an out-of-court settlement
in the U.S. Supreme Court case, Kansas vs. Nebraska, over the Republican
River Basin Compact. Five months later in May 2003, the Supreme Court
approved the settlement.
The Compact, signed in 1943 by the three basin states
of Kansas, Nebraska and Colorado, allocated the average annual water supply
in the Republican River giving 49% to Nebraska, 40% to Kansas and 11%
to Colorado. The 17 months of negotiations were intense, grueling and
time consuming for the representatives of each state.
The Settlement agreement meets the key objectives
Nebraska hoped to achieve and avoided the uncertainty and expenses that
would have been involved had it gone to trial. The Settlement agreement
states that compliance will be measured in 2007 unless we have a water-short
year, in which case compliance will be measured in 2006.
Ground water pumping beginning in 2003 will be the
basis of a five-year running average that Nebraska must not exceed in
order to comply with the Compact Settlement. In water-short years this
running average becomes a two or three-year average. A water-short year
is one in which the Bureau of Reclamation projects the water supply for
the Kansas/Nebraska Bostwick Irrigation District to be less than 119,000
acre-feet.
In a water-short year Nebraska must limit its consumptive
uses above and below the Guide Rock diversion dam near Guide Rock, Nebraska.
It is expected that Nebraska should be able to maintain most, if not all,
of its existing uses in normal years. In water-short years, which occurs
25% to 33% of the time, Nebraska must reduce it’s consumptive use
in order to stay in compliance with the compact.
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