Supreme Court to rule in Neb. and Kan. water dispute

Water use and water rights could become much more of an issue in coming years, and the U.S. Supreme Court could become more involved than ever. The High Court will be ruling on Kansas v. Nebraska and Colorado by the end of June after a hearing today.

This water use dispute relates to water from the Republican River and area groundwater. It isn’t a case seen as setting any precedents for other water rights disputes or state agreements, but it is a ruling that might end a water use dispute that is based around a three-state compact ratified in 1943 and revised in 2003.

Reportedly 1.8 million acres of land is irrigated using water from the Republican River, but Kansas has long claimed that Nebraska and its farmers have been using more water than the compact outlines. The river begins in Colorado and then winds its way in and out of Nebraska and Kansas.

Even with groundwater added into terms of the compact in 2003 when Kansas complained to the Supreme Court, Kansas continued to claim Nebraska didn’t do its job in limiting water use. In a Greenwire report by E&E news, Jeremey Jacobs reported, “By May 2010, Kansas claimed that Nebraska used about 79,000 acre-feet more than its allotment in 2005 and 2006. It again asked the high court to review the case, and the court, for the second time, appointed a federal judge—or ‘special master,’ in court parlance—to resolve the dispute.”

The judge was convinced that Nebraska today is following the compact but it wasn’t in 2005 and 2006; therefore, the ruling was for Nebraska to pay Kansas $5.5 million for lost water and a $1.8 million penalty. Another part of the judge’s recommendations is that the water accounting procedures be amended because Platte River water north of the Republican River can affect the more southern drainage basin of the Republican River.

The Supreme Court will have to rule on the judge’s findings, recommendations. Kansas doesn’t want the water accounting procedures amended, wants more money awarded from Nebraska and the placing of an injunction to bar Nebraska from taking too much water from the basin, according to reporter Jacobs.

Nebraska doesn’t agree with the judge’s conclusion that it knowingly broke the compact agreement in 2005 and 2006, and it is contesting the $1.8 million penalty.

Reportedly the Obama administration has weighed in on the side of the special master judge and is supportive of all the judge’s recommendations.