Platte River reservoirs years in future

By Lori Potter, Kearney Hub

 

Kearney - A feasibility study of a proposed J-2 project involving two fill-and-spill reservoirs on the south side of the Platte River in northwest Phelps and northeast Gosper counties is ready for review.

 

However, decisions, designs or work on a project could be years away.

 

"Reservoirs are expensive things, and big decisions need to be made," said Jerry Kenny of Kearney, executive director of the three-state Platte River Recovery Implementation Program.

 

If the Governance Committee of Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska and U.S. Department of Interior representatives ultimately decides to proceed, the program would pay 75 percent of the estimated $40 million to $60 million in project costs. Kenny said it also would get 75 percent of river credits from water held in the reservoirs and released to meet target river flows for Central Platte Valley wildlife habitat.

 

Nebraska interests would share 25 percent of the credits and 25 percent of the costs.

 

Kenny said the next step, which might be taken at the PRRIP Governance Committee's June 12-13 meeting in Cheyenne, Wyo., is to hire a consultant to review the feasibility study done by engineers from Olsson Associates, and Black and Veatch.
The study included a soils assessment, wetlands survey and a cultural survey of historical sites, including the Plum Creek Pioneer Cemetery and Oregon-California Trail.
Kenny said the study review will take the rest of 2012.

 

He said that if program, Central Nebraska Public Power and Irrigation District, and Nebraska Department of Natural Resources officials decide to construct a project, permits must be acquired and there could be additional environmental and cultural studies.

 

"I just want to emphasize that there is sensitivity to the fact that the Oregon Trail went right through there," Kenny said about the area studied.

 

How it would work
The proposed project would have two reservoirs on an estimated 1,000 acres on the south side of the Platte River. Kenny said they would be "ring dike structures" to impound water for later release into the river or CNPPID's Phelps Canal.
The 15-foot-deep reservoirs could store 15,000 acre-feet at one time, he said. If they are filled and emptied three times in a year, the average annual yield would be approximately 40,000 a-foot

            Water would be transferred into the reservoirs via the canal. "The cells would operate independently from each other," Kenny said, with each having inlet and outlet structures.

 

Holdrege-based CNPPID owns the water rights involved and would own and operate the project.

 

General Manager Don Kraus said CNPPID would be responsible to negotiate land purchases if the project goes forward.

 

The first landowners meeting with Platte Program and CNPPID representatives was Wednesday night in Lexington. Some of the invited landowners told the Hub it was their first contact about the proposed project; others had received some general information.

 

Kenny said an agreement between Central as owner-operator and the water lessees, the program and state of Nebraska, is being negotiated and might be ready for Governance Committee approval in June.

 

He said there are escape clauses "if anything along the way sort of pulls the plug on it."

 

Kraus said a final agreement will define the amounts project participants will pay toward total project costs, including land acquisition. He said CNPPID will make a financial contribution.

 

Although CNPPID has eminent domain authority, Kraus emphasized that the district's approach will be to negotiate with landowners.

Water credits
Of the 40,000 a-f of water expected as an annual average for the river, the Recovery Program would get 30,000 a-f and Nebraska would get 10,000 a-f. Kenny said DNR is the umbrella representative for all Nebraska entities needing to augment streamflows.
The Central Platte and Tri-Basin natural resources districts plan to help pay the state share of the construction costs in exchange for river credits.

 

John Thorburn, general manager of the Holdrege-based Tri-Basin NRD, said, "We're a partner in the project because we will be able to count some of that water as offsets for groundwater pumping" that affects river flows.  He said the goal is to get 2,000 a-f of credit while contributing $1 million in equal payments over two fiscal years.

 

Kenny said three projects - an environmental account in Lake McConaughy, Wyoming's project to increase Pathfinder Reservoir storage and detention/re-regulating cells in Colorado's Tamarack project - have provided 80,000 a-f of water toward the program's first 13-year increment goal to reduce Platte River target flow depletions by an annual average of 130,000 to 150,000 a-foot by 2019.  That leaves 50,000 to 70,000 a-foot in further reductions. Kenny said the 30,000 a-f the program would get from a possible J-2 project is a "nice chunk" of that balance.

 

"Reservoir projects are never easy, but this would go a long way toward solving a lot of problems for a lot of people," he said.

 

It also would help efforts to get enough water from Lake McConaughy downstream each spring for the high Central Platte Valley target flows identified by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

 

Kenny said a J-2 project would put the water closer to the critical habitat for threatened and endangered species - least terns, piping plovers and whooping cranes - and make it easier to create target flows of 8,000 cubic feet per second between Overton and Grand Island for three to five days.

CNPPID benefits
CNPPID doesn't need credits to the river.

 

Kraus said the main benefit for his district would be to smooth out fluctuating water flows and allow more efficient operation of the Johnson No. 2 hydropower plant. There also would be efficiency benefits for the irrigation system.

 

Kenny said the goal for hydropower production is to run at peak production for perhaps 12 hours with the reservoirs capturing excess water not needed for irrigation. "This provides a bucket to capture that water so you run both (the power plant and irrigation system) most efficiently," he said.

 

Kraus and Kenny said a key project design goal would be to limit reservoir seepage. That would keep the most water possible for river releases while also minimizing effects on area landowners.

 

Some project decisions must be made while the studies are in progress.  "There are some risks and there will be some swallow-hard moments when decisions will have to be made and you wish that you knew a little more," Kenny said. "... You make the best decision you can."

 

He said that in a best-case scenario, a reservoir project would be operational in 2016.  "I think the parties still believe the project makes sense," Kraus said.