DNR: Colorado meets compact obligations for Republican River
DENVER, January 7, 2025 – The Colorado Department of Natural Resources announced Monday that the state has met its obligation to take out of irrigation some 10,000 acres of farmland on the south fork of the Republican River.
The compact with Nebraska and Kansas requires Colorado to retire 25,000 acres on the river by 2029. Both states agreed Colorado had met its first milestone of retiring 10,000 acres by the end of 2024, according to a statement from the Department of Natural Resources.
Colorado is also making progress on the last 15,000 acres, with almost 7,000 acres already retired.
The headwaters for the river’s south fork start near Burlington, Colorado; the north fork headwaters are just south of Holyoke, Colorado. The obligation announced today deals only with the south fork.
The compact dates back to 1943. It gives Nebraska 49% of the river's water; Kansas gets 40% and Colorado gets 11%. But a lawsuit filed by Kansas and Nebraska claimed Colorado had exceeded its allocations.
A 1999 lawsuit between Kansas and Nebraska started the fights on overconsumption of Republican River water. That's when when Kansas sued Nebraska, accusing the latter of taking more water than it was entitled to. Colorado sided with Nebraska, which had been accused of using wells to drain the river, an action Kansas claimed should be counted against Nebraska’s allocation. Nebraska sought a modification of the compact to change how the allocation was determined. It wanted to exclude groundwater from the allocation since it was not originally designated in the compact.
In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with Kansas. In order to partially satisfy a settlement from that judgment, in 2011, Colorado drained Bonny Reservoir near Burlington, which was on the south fork of the Republican, and sent that water to Nebraska and Kansas.
The 2002 settlement to retire irrigated agriculture in Colorado was amended in 2016 to give Colorado two extra years — to 2024 — to take its first 10,000 acres out of irrigation, and to extend the final deadline from 2027 to 2029.
The overconsumption has been costly for Colorado. In 2018, the attorneys general of the two states announced that Colorado would pay Kansas $2 million to resolve a dispute over Colorado’s overconsumption of water from the Republican River. The settlement comes on top of another with Nebraska, in which Colorado agreed to pay Nebraska $4 million for overuse of Republican River water. Those were both paid in 2018.
Failure to retire those acres and Colorado farmers could face mandated shutdown of wells, potentially affecting several hundred thousand acres of irrigated ag land and the surrounding communities, according to Colorado State University.
There are about 3,000 groundwater wells on the Republican River in Colorado. Almost all crop production in northeastern Colorado comes from groundwater.
In 2022, in order to help cover the costs of taking those acres out of production, the Colorado General Assembly, with $60 million from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, set up a groundwater compliance fund. Half of that $60 million would go to retiring acres in the San Luis Valley and on the Upper Rio Grande; the other half to retiring acres in northeastern Colorado on the Republican River.
The Colorado Water Conservation Board's annual projects list for 2025 will include another $6 million to help keep the project moving.
In a statement Monday, State Engineer Jason Ullmann noted that agriculture is the "economic driver for the northeastern counties of Colorado."
"This is a difficult situation for the producers. I know this work hasn’t been easy, and more must be done. I applaud the Republican River Water Conservation District for their major efforts to reach this deadline," Ullmann said.
Deb Daniel, general manager of the Republican River Water Conservation District, said the district "continues to make great strides in complying with the ongoing requirements imposed by the 2016 Republican River Compact Administration Resolution."
The district, with financial support from Colorado, is continuing "to provide funding to compensate well owners who are willing to voluntarily retire a portion of their irrigated acres to ensure that Colorado and the Republican Basin achieve and maintain compliance with the compact," she added.
Source: Marianne Goodland, Colorado Politics
