Tuesday hearing will take testimony on next NRD 5-year water allocation

    Proposed changes to water-use regulations in the Upper Republican NRD, including the district’s next 5-year allocation, will be the subject of a public hearing next week.
    Tuesday’s hearing will be part of the NRD board’s regular meeting at 9 a.m.
    Nate Jenkins, NRD assistant manager, said the hearing will be the first item the board deals with Tuesday, and those wanting to testify should arrive by 9 a.m. Those testifying will not have a time limit, he said.
    There hasn’t been much comment that he’s had as of this week on the new proposals, Jenkins said.
    The proposals include a reduction in the 5-year allocation to 62.5” of total water use per acre during the 2023-2027 allocation period.
    That’s down from the 65” allocation, or half an inch per year, that irrigators have had since 2008.
    The proposed change is part of the effort to slow groundwater declines in the district and preserve the irrigation-based economy of the area, Jenkins said.
    Allocation amounts have dropped about 40% since the late 1970s, and groundwater declines since then have been about 60% less than what was estimated by water officials without regulations in place, Jenkins said.
    There are no proposed changes to the 7.5” limit on carryforward use during the allocation period, he noted.
    Irrigators can use a total of 7.5” of carryforward during the allocation period without incurring a “2-for-1” penalty whereby 2” of carryforward are deducted for every 1” of carryforward used above 7.5.”
    In addition to the allocation reduction, rules changes proposed by the board include:
    • Expanding the boundary in which wells can be pooled to nine miles; the current boundary is six miles.
    • Not averaging the beginning allocations and carryforward balances across all tracts within a pool when a pooling application is approved or terminated, unless requested by owners of tracts in a pool.
    • If the allocations within a pool are not requested to be averaged, a tract brought into a pool may have more than 39” of carryforward.
    • Adding a tract to a pool must be requested by July 31 of the second year of the allocation period (2024).
    • Certified-acre reductions and allocation restrictions will not apply when new irrigation uses that require offsets occur within a floating township, so long as the new use causes improvement in irrigation efficiency or the new land to be irrigated has better soil.
    • When calculating certified acre/allocation reductions of new uses due to historic use on land providing the offset, historic use from the period 2013-2022 will be used.
    • There will be a $150 fee to apply for a standard variance; the fee for a variance that includes required offset of uses outside a floating township will be $500.
    A “redlined” version of the proposed changes that shows existing rules is available at the NRD office in Imperial, the NRCS office in Grant and at: www.urnrd.org/resources.