| PERSPECTIVE |
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[Apr. 16, 2003] -
The drought is causing serious problems for Nebraska’s reservoirs. Our largest, Lake McConaughy, is less than half-full right now. Others, like Swanson Reservoir, are in worse shape. Swanson is located in the extremely dry southwestern corner of the state. The Federal Bureau of Reclamation built Swanson on the Republican River about 50 years ago. They built it for flood control and irrigation, but it’s also evolved into a popular recreation site. As that part of the state enters a fourth year of drought, water levels have never been lower at Swanson. The lake is less than 25 percent full. That’s causing serious problems and plenty of tension between farmers and others who rely on this water.
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Transcript of Water Worries
[Mike Tobias/Reporting] The squawks of gulls and other waterfowl are about the only sounds you hear this time of the year around Swanson Lake. That's normal - it's down time for the many different users of the reservoir. The silence won't be normal this summer. You won't hear as many fishing boats on the lake...water flowing down nearby irrigation canals...or tractors working acres of area farmland. You will hear growing tension between those who rely on the lake to make a living.
[Frenchman/Cambridge Irrigation Board member] We're getting railroaded here. Really railroaded.
[Tobias] The problem is simple. There's just not enough water in the state's fourth-largest reservoir. The water level should be at the top of the white rock.
[Bill Peck/U.S. Bureau of Reclamation] Swanson Lake right now is 25 percent of full, we're just a little bit less than 24 feet below full, we're 1.7 feet below last year at this time, that's 4000 acre feet, and we are at the lowest end of March ever since filling. Inflows for the first three months of this year, January through March, are record lows for every month.
[Tobias] Blame several years of low precipitation in the upper Republican River valley. And recent heavy snows in Colorado won't help - that snowmelt doesn't make it into the river. This isn't what the Bureau of Reclamation had in mind when it built hundreds of reservoirs like Swanson.
[Fred Ore/U.S. Bureau of Reclamation] You build these buckets so that they capture the water during times a plenty and then when you hit those bad years they carry you through and takes the peaks off. But whenever you have a drought of this magnitude, two or three years at a stretch, even the buckets can't pull you through then, and that's what we're seeing in some reservoirs in the southwest, and particularly Swanson.
[Tobias] The Bureau decides how much water is available for users of the lake.
[Ore] There are sacrifices by all when it gets this low. When we negotiated those contracts that's what we were looking for, is if and when we ever had a situation where the drought was this bad, that we would share that sacrifice by everybody, as opposed to putting it all on one party.
[Tobias] That contract requires that a certain amount of water is left in the reservoir. So this year only a couple inches of water per acre - not nearly enough to grow crops - would be available in the irrigation canals that flow from Swanson. The norm is 12 inches an acre. Frenchman-Cambridge Irrigation District manages the canals and distribution of the water.
[Roy Patterson/Frenchman-Cambridge Superintendent] Most of the farmers have said they'd would just soon keep it up there if they're just going to get two inches. That's the way most of them feel, but that's not 100 percent either.
[Tobias] The district will likely decide to leave the water in the reservoir. This would be the first time it's let canals stay dry. About 200 farmers won't get water.
[Dan Wallen/Red Willow County Farmer] Last year we had water for about 3 1/2 weeks. Well, it was a train wreck. You couldn't grow anything with it. So in my mind in makes more sense to leave it in the lake, and hopefully we'll get some recharge and in another year, and maybe next year we'll have some water we can use, and stretch it over enough time frame to be able to use it beneficially.
[Tobias] Four generations of the Wallen family have farmed near McCook. Most of their 15 hundred acres are irrigated with Swanson water. They won't plant anything on a lot of that land this year.
[Wallen] We're gonna have 788 acres in idle ground.
[Tobias] Wallen says they've already signed up for prevented planting - an insurance program that pays farmers who can't plant because of conditions like flooding, or drought. Even with insurance, he'll net one-half or less of what he'd usually make on these acres. Wallen will plant on a few acres irrigated by groundwater wells.
[Wallen] If we do have another train wreck, the insurance money would keep us solvent. Otherwise if we can grow a crop on that, we can stay solvent on those acres. Prevented planting, we can stay solvent on that. It's about break even. But what we run into is a lot less money to live on.
[Tobias] Wallen says some of his neighbors aren't as lucky.
[Wallen] A lot of farm sales, guys that just haven't been able to make it. Guys that can't get financing this year.
[Tobias] The lack of water is also hurting recreation at the reservoir. In 1999, nearly 50 thousand people came here to Swanson Lake. Three years later, three dry years later, that number was less than 15 thousand.
[Jeremy Dutcher/NE Game & Parks] There's still quite a few people come around. But it's nothing like it used to be. When the lake was full, this would all be campers. And the boat trailers would line clear up the road coming in. You'd have hours wait to get in.
[Tobias] Now it's hard to get a boat into the lake. Three of five docks aren't usable. If waters level drop further, the others may also be in trouble. The low lake keeps customers away from Eddie Trippett's business. A year ago he moved here from Colorado and bought the marina, which includes rental trailers, camp sites and a restaurant.
[Tobias question] How much has the water being down hurt business?
[Eddie Trippett/Owner, Good Life Marina] I'd say 50 percent. The campsites aren't used as much because there isn't any water down there. So that sort of cuts the business back. But the rental trailers, and you know we serve dinners and everything, so that sort of helps us make it.
[Tobias] Trippett's business has lost thousands of dollars. But he says fishing is still good, and expects things will turn around.
[Trippett] I've seen this lake down before, and it'll come back.
[Tobias] Even in good times the park itself doesn't make money. And it's budget is pretty small - Jeremy Dutcher is the only full-time employee. In spite of that the dramatic drought-related drop in visitors has likely gotten the attention of budget-wary state officials.
[Tobias question] Is there a point, given the state's budget issues as well, that they just close this?
[Dutcher] There's been talk. I can't foresee them actually closing it, but what we're going through right now is an extremely reduced operating. Our mowing will be cut considerably. The maintenance of the facility will be cut considerably.
[Tobias] The way people get along with each other around here is another victim of the drought. It's pouring salt on old wounds about the purpose of the reservoir. Farmer Dan Wallen is a former Game and Parks commissioner.
[Wallen] As far as recreation vs. agriculture, that's an age-old deal. I heard that over and over when I was on that board. And, you know we have to eat too. Somebody's got to grow the food.
[Dutcher] They both have to coincide. It would be nice to see them set a little better limit than this. I understand they do need to take the water out. Farming is a large part of the economy out in this part of the country. But it's getting to where recreation is coming in pretty close.
[Tobias] It's also pitting farmer against farmer, and farmers against water managers. At this meeting, the board of the Frenchman-Cambridge Irrigation District set fees for the year. All users pay, whether they get water or not - the district still has to pay the Bureau of Reclamation. They also have to maintain the canals, used or unused, and pay their employees. Some Frenchman-Cambridge District farmers will get water this year. That's because they're served by reservoirs in better shape than Swanson. The board decided to charge all farmers $10 an acre plus $2 for each inch of water delivered. So Wallen's non-water bill will be about 13 thousand dollars.
[Frenchman-Cambridge Irrigation Board meeting discussion] [Board Member] We're trying to make the same price for everybody. [Farmer] But you're not making it the same for everybody. [Board Member] Yes we are. [Farmer] You're not either. How can you say that. [Board Member] You know, this was you guy’s original proposal, a 10 dollar levy. [Farmer] It was not either. [Board Member] It was too at the first meeting. [Farmer] No way. [Board Member] You guys got better memory than that.
[Wallen] We tired to avoid having it come down to idled ditch vs. the delivered ditch. But it was just unavoidable that it would come to that. We didn't want to make it a battle between farmers, we wanted to just have the board look at it in real numbers and do the right thing. I don't feel like that actually happened.
[Patterson] It's got everybody kind of worked up. It has, it really has. Which, you know, I feel bad for, I feel bad for these farmers. That's their livelihood. But, you know, I've got employees that's got to, they don't have anything to fall back to. They don't have no prevented planting to help them through.
[Tobias] All users are looking to the skies for help in ending the tension, and other problems caused by the lack of water in Swanson Lake. Heavy rains in the next couple months could go a long way toward refilling the reservoir...and breaking the uneasy silence that surrounds it. Reporting for Statewide, I'm Mike Tobias.