South Platte NRD information session planned

The South Platte Natural Resources Division has a planned an “information session” prior to its public hearing on Sept. 15 on the Districtwide Ground Water Management Area Rules and Regulations.

Information that has been presented to the SPNRD board over the past few months from Thad Kuntz, principal hydrogeologist from Adaptive Resources of Scottsbluff, will be addressed.

The “information session” will presented on Sept. 15 at 5 p.m., and will be similar to the Ground Water Advisory Committee meetings. The public will have the opportunity to ask questions during the session.

The public hearing for comments – either written or oral – will follow at 6:30 p.m., or 30 minutes after the information session. They will both be held at the Cheyenne County 4-H building at the fairgrounds in Sidney.

Kuntz uses an updated version of the Western Water Use Management Modeling, or WWUMM, to help predict what the effect of using water at the current allocations will have on the Lodgepole Creek, the South Platte River, and the Ogallala Aquifer in the South Platte NRD area which includes all of the Kimball, Cheyenne and Deuel counties.

During recent Ground Water Advisory Committee Meetings in all three counties, the public got to see first-hand the same modeling that was presented to the board. Questions and comments were welcome and passed on to the board at the August board meeting.

The comments, along with the WWUMM information from Kuntz and presentations from Chris Kaiser and Travis Glanz on the Spring 2015 Ground Water Level Report and 2014 Water Usage Report respectively, are tools being used by the board to make their final decision regarding the irrigation allocations in each subarea represented in the Districtwide Ground Water Management Area Rules and Regulations.

For more information about the proposed changes to the South Platte NRD Districtwide Ground Water Management Area Rules and Regulations, call (308) 254-2377, visit its offices at 551 Parkland Drive, Sidney, or log on to its website at http://www.spnrd.org.