April 3, 2025 at 9:30 AM - Water Committee Meeting

Rationale:  Kolb Farms Inc is wanting to transfer 30 irrigated acres from Part of the SE1/4 NW1/4 & Part of the NW1/4 SW1/4 S35-14-9E to S1/2 NE1/4 S13-14-9E, Saunders County.  He is requesting the need for additional irrigated acres due mainly to MUD lowering the water table. (NRD water level graph is attached) 
Part of the land is owned by GJC which has agreed to release 30 acres from Section 35 to Kolb Farms in Section 13.  
Attached are maps showing the acres being transfered.  

Rationale:  Well Permit discussion on a duck pond, which was carried over from March Water Committee Meeting.
Ryan Glow attended the Water Committee Meeting to assist in answering questions.  This is currently cropland and planning on covering 10 acres with water in the fall.  This could be a water quality issue from leaching with a high water table in this area. The height ot the dike could be a concern during flooding which might affect other homeowners in the area.  The Committee requested a more detailed design of the dike and having the landowner look into conservation practices. 
Attached is information from Ryan Glow on the plans for the duck pond.

Rationale:  Wode farms received a variance in 2023 for expansion of acres in the NW1/4 S14-14-8E, Saunders County.  They used an existing well during last year crop year and kept losing flow during the season.  They would like to drill a supplemental well in the NW SW S14-14N-8E.  They know they can enough water going deeper but sodium could become an issue.  
Attachments.

Rationale:  Beller Feedlot has applied for a new livetock well permit in NW SW S13-20-4W, Platte County (2 miles west of Lindsay).  The well will be pumping 150 GPM and connected to the other 3 existing wells.  He will be abandoning 1 of the older unregistered wells after the new well is drilled.  This well will be classified as a new well as the other 2 wells are not registered because they were drilled prior to 1993. 

Rationale:  Our Nitrogen Reduction Incentive Act Program contract has been updated by DNR to a total of $66,982.92. This updated amount will allow us to approve Prioirty A, B, and C producers. 

Rationale:  The Coalition Board meeting will be held on Wednesday, April 16 at 10:30 am at Clint Johannes Educational Building.  This Board will review the V-IMP reports from each district and contracts from firms for the next 5 year depletion analysis. The Board will approve the budget for the upcoming year which will include an annual payment from each District and NeDNR of $10,000. Bob Hilger and Dave Saalfeld are the LPN representatives.  

Rationale:  Staff has finished spring water level measurements with a report at next water committee meeting.  

Rationale: 

No new wells has been reviewed and approved for decommissioning since the last Committee meeting.

 

Rationale: 

No wells have been plugged, reviewed, and ready for cost share payment approval this month.

Well Owner	Type of Well	Cost Share Estimate	County

 

Rationale:  Staff has been meeting with Phase Four producers to discuss Nitrogen Recommendations. 

Tim Rickert sent in cost share information for one flow meter. This is for his 19 acre field that was discussed at the March meeting. 

We have one flow meter cost share invoice for two meters from Richard Shonka for a total of $2,000.

Rationale:  Attached is the annual dues for $30,000 per contract agreement.  

Rationale:  We have applied for the Water Sustainability Fund for the Source Water Monitoring Project. This project looks to construct dedicated monitoring wells with transducers installed with telemetry upgradient of municipal wells in Wellhead Protection Areas. The total cost of the project is estimated at $414,678. The WSF will fund 60% or $248,807 of the project and the LPNNRD will fund the remaining 40% or $165,871. They begin reviewing applications in the second quarter and make final determinations in the 3rd quarter. Attached is the WSF Application.

Rationale:  The Village of Abie is repairing one of their municipal wells. We would like to take the oppurtunity to install one of the transducers from the transducer agreement (State of Nebraska American Rescue Plan Act of 2021). We have been quoted $3,636.22 from InSitu for the transducer, cable, and VuLink connection. Dan Freese from Downey has quoted us $1,055.00 for the PVC pipe to suspend the transducer in the well. Quotes are attached.

Rationale: 

The contaminant inventory survey in Newman Grove led to the discovery of abandoned wells to potentially be decommissioned. We currently have signatures for 2 wells and 1 cistern. The district is not paying for the decommissioning of the cisterns, that cost will come out of the grant. We are in talks and following up with 3 other landowners for signatures. Estimates to come at a later date. There is an open house for the Wellhead Protection Area project in Newman Grove at the Community Center on April 8th at 7:00 PM.

Rationale:  The Phoenix Webgroup database has closed its doors and are no longer in business.  The database is currently working but could be a concern if the database starts developing programing errors without dependable support.  A majority of the NRDs in the past 2 year have went to a company called Longitude 103. (18 of 23)  Thad Kuntz from Longtitude 103 will being giving a presentation at the upcoming Board meeting.  The cost for Longitude 103 is $16,000 annually and the cost of data migration will be $17,500.  Once the data migration is completed, $10,000 will be invoiced directly to NeDNR and the remaining $7,500 will be invoiced to the District.  So the total first year costs will be $23,500 with annual fees each year after.      
This cost includes an optional Dam feature service which allows staff to house inpections and utlize a dam inspection data collection feature.  

Rationale:  A policy is attached for information on how texting and emailing will be conducted within the LPN departments.    

Rationale:  At the last Board meeting it was approved to allow Bob Hilger to research this topic further.  Bob would like further discussion from the Committee.  
The Committee discussed how the permit would be approved with more discussion at futrue meetings.  

Rationale:  The plan is to hold the GMDA Summer Conference in Idaho Falls, Idaho on July 21 - 23.