Tri-Basin NRD Board Hears Irrigation Management Update

      Curtis Scheele, Irrigation Water Management Specialist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), updated the Tri-Basin Natural Resources District’s (NRD) directors at the December Tri-Basin NRD board meeting. Scheele explained his work on the Nebraska Ag Water Management Network and the Tri-Basin Irrigator newsletter. He also explained his efforts to update the district’s pivot inventory. Scheele and the NRCS staff have been using 2014 aerial photos to update an existing center pivot inventory, identifying and marking pivots across the district. They are also overlaying data for pivots funded through NRCS’s Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and Agricultural Water Enhancement Program (AWEP), and data on sub-surface drip irrigation systems in the district. In 1993, the inventory included 992 pivots in Gosper, Phelps, and Kearney Counties. In 2014, the number of pivots in the inventory jumped to 3,745, covering 444,340 acres in the three-county district. This data will be used to evaluate the efficiency of irrigation management practices in the area.

      In other business long-time director, Ray Winz, encouraged his colleagues to attend the Groundwater Management Districts Association’s winter conference in Texas in January 2017.

      “You’ll meet with [Natural Resources Conservation Service] representatives from all over the United States, and you’ll see that our effectiveness as resources districts is way ahead of the rest of the U.S.,” said Winz. Following his comments, directors approved travel for up to three TBNRD directors to attend the conference.

      David Raffety of Kearney was selected to represent Tri-Basin NRD at the Nebraska Association of Resources District’s Legislative Conference in Lincoln in January 2017. Larry Reynolds of Lexington will serve as the district’s alternate representative.

      Tri-Basin NRD’s board also:

Approved three certified irrigated acre transfers, one certified irrigated acre correction, and one well permit variance.
Approved two well decommissioning cost-share applications and six applications for Tri-Basin NRD and NSCWP flowmeter cost-share funds.

      Tri-Basin NRD’s next Board of Directors meeting will be Tuesday, January 10, 2017 at 1:30 p.m. at Tri-Basin NRD, 1723 Burlington in Holdrege, Nebraska.

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NEWS RELEASE

December 14, 2016

For more information, contact:

Nicole Salisbury, Information & Education Coordinator

Phone 308-995-6688 or email nsalisbury [at] tribasinnrd.org.