May 2, 2019 at 11:00 AM - Water Committee Meeting

Rationale:  Attached is the signed NET grant contract to do projects within the Phase Areas along with the submitted WaterSmart Grant.
The WaterSmart grant was submitted on April 23 for $105,751.42 which is a 50-50 grant. LPNNRD will have around $7,500 match with in-kind, but the remaining $44,500 will be actual cash outlay.  This grant will assist in the management of the SQS areas with real-time information.   
The NET grant goes over 2 years, with Year 1 totaling $86,770 and Year 2 totaling $53,700.  The LPNNRD's share for Year 1 is 18,675, with some in-kind included. 

If the LPNNRD moves forward on grants for meters, which probably will be a WaterSmart Grant, staff will also pursue a NET or WSF grant to help in the 50-50 match. 

Rationale:  Attached is a draft variance ranking sheet, which will be used on the 2019 variances. 
The ranking sheet shows the following: 
>Minimum Score of 300 is needed to be considered for variance approval.
>Once a variance is submitted and not approved, it will be carried over for 3 years.
>Land Classes 6-8, with slopes, greater than 20% of the parcel not eligible for a variance

The Committee discussed the changes proposed with an updated ranking sheet (attached) being proposed for 2019 variances ranking.  Committee asked staff to send out letters to producers who variances have not been approved over the last few years before the May Water Committee. The majority of the variances have been carried-over are from 2012-14.  

Rationale:  Attached is a draft Policy for Certification Acres, which a motion was passed at the April 8th Board meeting to clarify the "2 out of 10 rule". 

Rationale: 

Wells Permits Approved: #

Landowner	Number of Wells	Number of New Irrigated Acres	Type of Well	County	Subarea
James Brock	1	0	Replacement Irrigation	Platte	Middle Shell Creek
Taake Farms	1	70	New Irrigation (Variance)	Boone	Upper Newman Grove
Lynn Wondercheck	1	80	New Irrigation (Variance)	Boone	Upper Shell Creek

 

 

 

 

 

 

The total number of approved permits for 2019 is 9

Location of Approved Well Permits for 2019:  Correct as of 5/1/2019

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

 

Rationale:  Staff has been receiving calls about drainage issues and tile drains.  Drainage issues are usually handled as a civil matter.

Rationale:  Russ O. and Daryl A. met with Terry Lutjens on the flow meter that was located at the pivot point in which the pivot also pumps livestock waste.  It was explained to Terry that the Board was not going to allow an electric bill to suffice for giving credit for total water pumped through the flow meter.  Russ and Daryl talked to Terry at the well and showed him options to re-install his flow meter located before the intake of the lagoon water.  Terry will only need to install some straighting vanes to have the meter installed correctly at the well.  Terry told us that he will move the meter to the well, but still felt the meter was not reading correctly.  Tri-City will look at this meter again while they are doing maintenance on other meters.  Concern is that the meter is being compromised with lagoon water.    

Rationale:  Update on Flow Meter Maintenance Program. Tri City is working on the regular maintenance of our flow meters that have been installed in SQS #1 & #2. We are in the third year of the maintenance rotation. There are 76 meters in the SQS areas that are going to visited this year. They will visit each meter once every four years. An additional 73 meters outside of our Special Quantity areas are going to be visited this year for routine maintenance. This is the first year for this additional maintenance district wide. These additional meters are in close proximity geographically (Platte & Colfax) to the SQS meters that they are visiting this year. In total they are visiting 149 flow meters. 

149 meters x $55 per meter visit/routine maintenance= $8,195

It was suggested at the Committee Meeting to add the option of Cease and Desist in the Flow Meter Policy, should there issues for non-payment of parts billed to the landowner.

Rationale:  Six online tests have been completed since previous meeting (see following table).

Cert #	Cert date	Name	Re-cert	Comments
6409	3/29/2019	Chris Armstrong	Yes
7199	3/29/2019	Wade Phillips	No	LPSNRD producer
6174	4/3/2019	Rhet Mehaffey	Yes
6440	4/9/2019	Robert A Hedges	Yes
7200	4/11/2019	Robert Frey	No
7201	4/15/2019	Kyle Luckey	No

Twenty-one producers have passed the Online Test in 2019.

Rationale: 

For 2019 we have 297 renewals and 6 new permit applications for a current total of 303.  Inspections on new and renewal permits have not started.

Attached are a breakdown of renewals and new permits per County.

Rationale: 

The LPNNRD has received # ==== livestock permit applications from DEQ since the last Water Committee meeting.

Name	Livestock	Type of Permit	Legal Description	County
Gehring Finisher	Swine	New	NW NE Section 8-18N-01W	Platte

 

 

Finisher Unit that will hold 5000 head.

Rationale: 

# 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
Carol Zimmer	Irrigation	$804.59	Butler

 

Rationale: 

Ground Water Level Summary Comparison of Spring 2018 to Spring 2019
Aquifer	Number of Wells Measured	Median Change (Feet)	Mean Change (Feet)	Number of Wells Increased	Number of Wells Unchanged             (+ or - 0.3 Feet)	Number of Wells Decreased
Subarea
Platte Valley	57	1.05	0.83	42	7	8
Bellwood	5	1.46	1.53	5	0	0
Fremont	7	0.58	-0.14	5	1	1
Fremont East	3	-0.23	-0.07	1	1	1
Leshara Platte Valley	1	0.86	0.86	1	0	0
North Bend	9	1.06	0.96	5	2	2
Octavia	5	1.34	0.81	3	1	1
Platte River Uplands	4	0.37	0.28	3	0	1
Schuyler	6	1.83	1.76	5	1	0
Wann	17	1.15	0.92	14	1	2
Shell Creek	46	3.85	4.05	46	0	0
Lower Newman Grove	2	3.86	3.88	2	0	0
Lower Shell Creek	6	1.36	2.45	6	0	0
Middle Shell Creek	17	5.48	4.19	17	0	0
Newman Grove	3	4.78	3.63	3	0	0
Platte Center	6	3.86	3.45	6	0	0
Shell Creek Uplands	2	6.63	6.63	2	0	0
Upper Newman Grove	9	3.27	3.40	9	0	0
Upper Shell Creek	1	2.63	2.63	1	0	0
Todd Valley	22	0.72	1.37	17	2	3
Todd Valley	22	0.72	1.37	17	2	3
Uplands	56	1.15	1.10	43	5	8
David City	18	2.28	1.24	14	1	3
Leshara Uplands	4	0.47	0.58	2	2	0
Morse Bluff	3	1.27	1.89	3	0	0
Prague	6	2.33	2.30	5	0	1
Swedeburg	9	0.32	-0.09	5	2	2
Weston	7	1.04	0.74	6	0	1
Yutan	5	1.29	1.59	4	0	1
Yutan South	4	1.25	1.24	4	0	0
TOTALS	181			148	14	19
				81.77%	7.73%	10.50%

Rationale:  Staff distributed close to 200 sample kits throughout the District.  As of May 1, Midwest Labs was not offering its discount, so we have been telling homeowners that the cost-share ended May 1.  Water Sampling Kits are still available at the Extension offices and here at the NRD office.  Water samples can still be analyzed, but the cost will be responsibility of the homeowner after May 1. 

Rationale:  Staff members Tom, Daryl and Will will be attending June 5-7 in Salt Lake City.

Rationale:  Three have been hired for the summer intern positions:

• Noah Franzen, Fremont - Fisheries & Wildlife major, will be sophomore at UNL
• Alec Weisser, Lincoln - Water Science major with emphasis in Hydrology, will be junior at UNL
• Cameron Devers, Seward - Environmental Science major with emphasis in Biology, junior at Concordia University

All three interns will start at LPNNRD next Monday, May 6^th.  The NRGWT training and test will be Wednesday, May 29^th.  Location has not yet been determined as Jennifer Swanson, NARD, is awaiting information from other NRDs regarding their summer interns.