On February 20, Tri-Basin Natural Resources District (NRD) staff and directors met with landowners involved in the district's Improvement Project Areas (IPAs). These IPAs are a cooperative effort between the district and landowners to provide and maintain drainage ditches in areas of high water tables or runoff, which improves productivity of land that benefits from these projects. Landowners in the affected areas fund the improvement projects through assessments to their property taxes. At the recent meetings, landowners had the opportunity to discuss progress and possible new work on the projects, as well as 2015 assessment rates. At their March board meeting, TBNRD directors voted to accept the proposed 2015 assessments recommended from the planning meetings. Assessments are: Fort Kearny IPA: $.25 per unit of benefit; Fort Kearny West IPA: $.15 per unit of benefit; North Dry Creek IPA: $.05 per unit of benefit; South Dry Creek IPA: $.15 per unit of benefit; and Odessa IPA: $5.66 per unit of benefit. No assessment is needed on Sacramento or Whiskey Slough IPAs.

Tri-Basin NRD directors also moved forward with proposed changes to the district's rules by scheduling a public hearing in conjunction with their April board meeting on April 14 at 7:30 p.m. at the Tri-Basin NRD office, 1723 Burlington Street in Holdrege. Some of the proposed changes include allowing pooling of groundwater irrigation allocations in Phase 3 Groundwater Quantity Management Areas of the district and changing the penalty for using more groundwater irrigation than allocated in Phase 3 areas from two inches for each inch used over the allocation to 1.5 inches for each inch used over the allocation.

Tri-Basin NRD's board also:
• Approved applications for two groundwater transfers and one correction of certified irrigated acres.
• Approved applications for well decommissioning cost-share funds totaling $4,500; cost-share funds for planned grazing and irrigation water management totaling $5,902.64; Tri-Basin cost-share funds for windbreaks totaling $5,582.50; and one Nebraska Wild contract.

Tri-Basin NRD's next Board of Directors meeting will be Tuesday, April 14, 2015 at 7:30 p.m. at the Tri-Basin NRD office at 1723 Burlington Street in Holdrege, NE.
 

NEWS RELEASE

March 10, 2015

For Immediate Release

For more information, contact: Nicole Salisbury, Information & Education Coordinator
Phone 308-995-6688 or email nsalisbury [at] tribasinnrd.org