January 29, 2015 at 5:00 PM - Water Committee Meeting

Rationale: 

Election of Chairperson and Vice Chairperson for 2015

Year	Chairperson	Vice-Chairperson
2014	Jim McDermott	Frank Pollard
2013	Jim McDermott	Frank Pollard
2012	Dave Saalfeld	Jim McDermott
2011	Dave Saalfeld	Jim McDermott

Set day and time of Water Committee Meeting:
The Water Committee generally meets on the last Wednesday of the month at 5:00 p.m.

Rationale:  The Water Committee members decided to leave the monthly committee meeting day as it currently is which is the Wednesday 12 days prior to board meeting beginning at 5:00 pm.

Rationale:  A public meeting for the update of the LPNNRD GWMA Rules will be held on Friday February 6, 2015 at Ag. Park in Columbus starting at 1:30 pm.

A public hearing for an update of these same rules will be held on February 9, 2015 at the LPNNRD office starting at noon.  This will be just before the February Board meeting.

Rationale:  No Updates

Rationale: 

• One application has been received for 11 acres in the Morse Bluff Subarea.
• The district approved LPN-V-014-0387 last fall.  This application was to irrigate six additional acres (Expanded Water Use) from G-068284 and its ranking score of 462.8 put it ninth on the approved list.  Earlier this month the applicant, Dean Bell, inquired about changing this application to a New Well as the cost of burying underground pipe from G-068284 to the six acres would exceed the cost of drilling a new well.  Oaklund sent a letter to Dean Bell regarding this inquiry (see attached).  He was not present at the Water Committee meeting.

Rationale:  Staff spoke with a producer who has an application in the Fremont East subarea.  He is looking at tiling his field, and wanted to know if the NRD would consider the 4" tile as subsurface drip. 

The Committee discussed this issue but since the details were not known, no action was taken.

Rationale:  The LPNNRD Board of Directors have asked the Water Committee to review the previously approved variance application for Liberty Land and Livestock in S33-T18N-R6E in Dodge County.  They had operated the end gun on one of their pivots in violation of previous instructions from the LPNNRD.

Chris Armstrong and Terry Kucera of Liberty Livestock were present at the meeting.  They stated it was most likely a misunderstand and as soon as they were informed to turn the end gun off, they did so.  Because they had complied with our instructions they did not see the necessity to attend the August Board meeting.  

Rationale:  No new applications have been received.

Rationale:  No new updates

Rationale:  The water use report database is currently being updated by staff, and the reporting forms should be sent out by the end of January.  The deadline for returns needs to be pushed back a month to February 28th, 2015.

Rationale:  Wells Permits Approved: #

Landowner	Number of Wells	Number of New Irrigated Acres	Type of Well	County	Subarea
Kent Hall	1	115	Irrigation	Dodge	North Bend
KWEA LLC	1	0	Irrigation	Dodge	North Bend
Seier & Seier	1	0	Irrigation	Boone	Upper Newman Grove
Claire Ehernberger	1	0	Irrigation	Colfax	North Bend
Western Sand and Gravel	1	0	Commercial	Saunders	Wann

 


The total number of approved permits for 2015 is 14


Location of Approved Well Permits for 2015:  Correct as of 2/25/2015

County	Irrigation - New	Irrigation - Replacement	Stock	Commercial	Municipal	Other	Total
Butler	1	0	0	0	0	0	1
Colfax	0	1	0	0	0	0	1
Dodge	2	1	0	0	0	0	3
Boone	0	2	0	0	0	0	2
Madison	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Platte	3	0	0	0	0	0	3
Saunders	3	0	0	1	0	0	4
Total	9	4	0	1	0	0	14

Rationale:  Angle and Oaklund have talked to Great Plains Meter about proper meter installation and to UBBNRD about their flow meter maintenance program.  Several points on proper meter installation are outlined on the LPNNRD approved flow meter list (see attached document).  Also attached is information from McCrometer on proper installation.

Rationale:  The LPNNRD did not receive funding from the NET for irrigation flow meters. 
- Therefore, do we offer 50% cost-share on our own for meter purchase and/or installation or have producer pay 100% of the cost?
- Do we offer cost-share assistance on meter maintenance, such as the UBBNRD?  See attached document on their program.

Rationale: 

Both classes will be held at Hruska Library in David City.  
Attendance will be required for all irrigators in this SQS.

The Lower Platte South NRD will hold a single class in Valparaiso for producers of their adjoining Quantity management area on Wednesday, February 25th, at 6:00 p.m.  The requirements between the two District's are different enough that producers should attend the NRD class they specifically have irrigation in.  In other words, attendance at one District meeting will not certify attendance in the other District.

Rationale:  The latest LPRBC meeting was held on January 27, 2015 as part of the NARD Conference.  Election for new Chairperson and Vice-chairperson of the Directors Committee was held and Bob Hilger will be the new Chairperson and Gary Loftis will be the new Vice-chairperson.  Goals and Objectives were also discussed and this document is attached.

Rationale:  The next Stakeholders meeting is set for February 3, 2015 at 2:00 pm at the LPNNRD office.

Attached is an invoice from Olsson Associates for the NRD V-IMP program of $11,262.01.

Rationale:  No kits have been requested since the last committee meeting.

Rationale: 

In the fall of 2014 the Postal Service changed its delivery by sending all mail to a “node” office.  For those in the Phase 2 Areas these samples will go to the Norfolk facility, which causes the delivery to take longer than the 30-hour window for the Bacteria testing.  Special deliver is possible but is rather cost prohibitive. 

Question for the Committee do we still want to offer this program just for nitrates or drop the entire cost share for Domestic Well Sample kits?  Of the two parameters tested, bacteria is probably more important than the nitrate sample.

Committee members asked staff to check on return mailing of the kits to area medical centers and have them delivered to the HHS lab in Lincoln.

Rationale: 

2014 Annual Fertilizer Application Reports have not yet been received from Osantowski Brothers or Steve Semin.  189 reports have been received for this area.

Rationale: 

2014 Annual Fertilizer Application Reports have not yet been received from Chris Dvorak or Galyn Moeller.  402 reports have been received for this area.

Rationale: 

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

Rationale: 

Three of the eleven classes have been held.  

 


























The class schedule was mailed to about 500 producers.

Rationale:  Latest updates following DEQ comments and Board recommendations to the LPNNRD Chemigation rules have been made (see attached document).  Our public hearing is scheduled for noon on February 9, 2015 just before the February Board meeting.

Rationale:  No new livestock permit applications from DEQ since the last Water Committee meeting.  However, we did receive two requests for transfers of operating permits.

Name	Livestock	Type of Permit	Legal Description	County
Schwartz Wilke Farms 32296 190th Street Sleepy Eye, MN	Swine	Transfer of Construction and Operating Permit	SE1/4, SE1/4, Section 1, T19N, R1E,	Platte
Schwartz Wilke Farms 32296 190th Street Sleepy Eye, MN	Swine	Transfer of Construction and Operating Permit	NE1/4, NW1/4, Section 12, T19N, R1E,	Platte

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

 

Rationale:  Two wells have been plugged, reviewed, and ready for cost share payment approval this month.

Well Owner	Type of Well	Cost Share Estimate	County
Bernard Hain	2 Stock	$784.19	Butler

 

Rationale:  No new update.

Rationale:  The last technical committee meeting was held on January 27, 2015 during the NARD conference.  Agenda topics included:

• Preliminary results of the Fall 2014 AEM flights.  Signal penetration is down to 1,500 ft.
• Spring 2015 AEM flights likely in March to April, which will include parts of LPNNRD.
• Along with the AEM flights some more test holes maybe necessary.  Our test holes (some along these flight lines and others not) may not be drilled by CSD until June.  
• ENWRA long range plan
• COE AEM flights of the Former Ordnance Plant near Mead.
• Water sampling of monitoring wells at the pilot sites.
• Recharge sites, they need more sites in eastern Nebraska.

ENWRA did not receive funding from NET for additional test holes as part of these AEM flightlines.

The Water Sustainability Fund rules, ranking criteria, guidelines will likely not be ready until 2016.

Rationale:  We have received an invoice from USGS for the continuous water quality monitoring station on Shell Creek north of Columbus for $5,250 (invoice is attached).  Need motion to approve payment 

Rationale:  University personnel addressed the Water Committee about Project SENSE.  They are looking for five NRD's to have four sites within each district to test new technology that would use sensors to detect if the chlorophyll in the crop was deficient or not.  These sensors would be mounted on a Hi-Boy and if the crop was nitrogen deficient the Hi-Boy would automatically apply the extra nitrogen needed.  Estimate cost is $26,500 each year for three years of the project.

Committee members felt this would be one method to address the increasing nitrate-nitrogen levels in the Richland-Schuyler Phase 2 area.

Rationale: 

• The last annual conference was held in Scottsdale AZ on January 6-8, 2015.  Focus of the conference was on the Central Arizona Project which delivers Colorado River water to the central part of the State.  Water is used for agriculture, industry and municipal including the cities of Phoenix and its many suburbs, down to Tucson AZ.
• Kansas is giving serious consideration of using Missouri River water to replenish the depleted water supplies in western Kansas.
• The Summer Session will be held in Coeur d'Alene Idaho, which is near Spokane WA.  The meeting will be held in early June.
• The next annual conference will be held in Sacramento CA in early January 2016.

Rationale:  Comments were received from:
-  Terry Kucera and Steve Arneal of Liberty Livestock
-  Allan Shonka about his supplemental well
-  University personnel about the SENSE program
-  Simon Rock from HDR concerning the LPRBC