Allocations/Water Quantity

Wells for commercial livestock that serve more than 12,000 animal units must have an allocation granted by the URNRD and all water pumped by such wells must be metered.

How are allocations determined and granted?

Section 8.04 of the district’s rules and regulations state: “Commercial livestock wells shall be allocated an annual maximum of 22-acre feet per 1,000 animal units, based on the capacity approved by the District for the 2007 year. Additional allocation for commercial livestock use shall be granted only if a full offset is provided by the well owner, for any allocation in excess of 40-acre feet.” This applies to new feedlots and current allocations for existing feedlots.

This means that new feedlots receive an allocation of 40-acre feet annually from the URNRD that doesn’t have to be offset by retiring 40-acre feet of water use elsewhere. New feedlots that plan to use more than 40-acre feet annually shall be granted an allocation that must be offset by retiring an equal or greater amount of water use; existing feedlots that expand must offset all new water use

For instance, if the operator of a planned feedlot operator determines he will use 250 acre feet of water annually:

• He receives 40-acre feet of allocation annually that does not need to be offset by retiring an equal amount of water use. For the remaining 210 acre feet he needs for the feedlot, that amount of allocation is granted so long as he retires irrigation on cropland that in the previous five-year period averaged at least 210 acre feet of water use.
• The amount of allocation he is granted and therefore must offset by retiring other water uses can be up to, but can’t exceed, 22-acre feet per 1,000 animal units. That figure equates to an average of 19.6 gallons per animal, per day – significantly higher consumption than what occurs in modern feedlots - and simply represents the upper limit of allocation that shall be granted.

What if the feedlot uses more water than what was anticipated and that they provided offset for?

Because the groundwater use is metered, the NRD will know if the allocation is exceeded and if the feedlot has retired an insufficient amount of water use as offset. The feedlot operator in this case would have to request additional allocation and retire more water uses to offset the additional allocation.

Do the rules address how close to the feedlot water uses must be retired?

No, not directly, and in recent years offset for increased water use at feedlots has occurred beyond a 6-mile radius that applies to transfers of certified acres/allocation.

Prevention of Well Interference

The spacing requirements that apply to irrigation wells also apply to commercial livestock wells. Commercial livestock wells must be at least:

• 600’ from any domestic or range livestock well
• 2,640’ from any public water supply well
• 1,000’ from any other well that doesn’t belong to the owner or controller of the land upon which the new well exists.

Exemptions to the above-mentioned spacing requirements are granted if the owner of a new well obtains notarized waivers from owners of existing wells. However, in no event can a well be drilled within 150’ of any domestic or range livestock well owned by another person.  

Should a well need to be drilled in the future to replace the original well, the replacement well can be no more than 150’ from the well it’s replacing, when the existing well doesn’t meet the current well spacing restrictions.

Requests for Variance to Transfer Rules

Transfers of certified acres are allowed within a floating township, i.e. up to 6 miles away in all directions from the well that irrigates the certified acres being transferred. However, URNRD rules state that “transfer of acres outside of a floating township may be approved when the following conditions are met”:

• The transfer is from a higher SDF (stream flow depletion factor) to a lower SDF and;
• The transfer is to certified non-allocated acres or;
• The transfer stipulates that the number of irrigated acres shall not be increased and the resulting certified irrigated acres will not be more than 125% of the acres allowed to be irrigated.

Transfers shall be denied, or be subject to board-approved conditions, to the extent it’s necessary to ensure consistency with the reasons the groundwater management area was designated; prevent adverse effects on other groundwater users or on surface water appropriators; meet the URNRD’s proportional responsibility for compliance with the Republican River Compact, and; otherwise protect the public interest and prevent detriment to the public welfare.

For all transfers, both within and outside a floating township, the board made significant rules changes several years ago intended to prevent transfers from increasing water use and depletions to stream flow. The following calculation reduces the number of acres that can be transferred in many cases and keeps allocation that can’t physically be pumped by low-capacity wells from being used at higher-capacity wells:

• Limit allocation that can be transferred to the average use of the last five years on the tract(s) where acres are being transferred from. The percentage that the resulting 5-year usage average of is the annualized, average allocation (currently 13”) is the percentage of acres that can be transferred.
• Take as an example an applicant who wants to transfer 130 certified acres from a well with an average 5-year usage of 9.75”. Since that amount is 75% of the current average annualized allocation of 13”, 75% of the 130 acres, or 97.5 acres, could be transferred.

The transfer rules also discourage moving acres closer to streams in the district where pumping can have higher impacts on stream flow.

Board considerations of transfer requests may include groundwater level trends, other transfers into the area of the proposed transfer, total water usage near the receiving well, factors that would increase the rate of water use near the receiving well, or any other relevant information the board deems reasonable.

In December, Blackshirt Feeders, owner of the proposed feedlot, requested a variance to allow for the transfer of irrigated acres a distance of 16.8 miles from southern to northern Dundy County. Blackshirt Feeders has stated that the variance request is separate from plans to construct and operate the proposed feedlot.   

A reduction in transferrable acres due to historic water use at the original location would have been applied as described previously. The transfer was denied by the board.

URNRD board meetings are conducted according to the Nebraska Open Meetings Act and  Robert’s Rules of Order, which allows motions that have been adopted or rejected at meetings to be introduced again at a future meeting. The variance committee chair, whom is responsible for bringing variance requests before the board, requested that the variance from Blackshirt Feeders and L&J Partnership, the owner of the certified acres in southern Dundy County proposed to be transferred, be brought before the variance committee and board again, at the request of Blackshirt Feeders. At the February board meeting, the Variance Committee met and discussed the request, including possible stipulations and conditions to the request that were not discussed or included in the committee recommendation to approve at the December meeting. After discussion of additional stipulations that could be considered, the committee recommended the board postpone any action on the variance to the March board meeting. However, before the March meeting, the applicants asked that the variance not be considered by the board. At this time it is not known if, or when, the variance request will come before the board again.