The New Jersey Drone Mystery May Not Actually Be That Mysterious
Chicago Blackhawks recall top prospect Frank Nazar from the minorsNebraska should be ready in early 2025 to apply for federal permission to revive and complete the 1894 Perkins County Canal from Colorado, the state’s acting top natural resources official said. The canal’s inclusion in the two states’ 1923 South Platte River Compact should help the state navigate the federal bureaucracy more quickly, said Jesse Bradley, interim director of the Nebraska Department of Natural Resources. A one-time wall of the partly dug but abandoned 1894 Perkins County Canal runs right in this January 2022 photo to just under the bare tree. The photo was taken in Sedgwick County, Colorado, between the South Platte River and Interstate 76 between the the latter’s Ovid and Julesburg exits. But Bradley and DNR Perkins canal project engineer Matt Manning acknowledged that Nebraska remains in something of a race to complete the long-abandoned canal before Colorado can siphon off South Platte water its neighbor long has counted on. “They appear to be moving forward with their stated intention to capture as much water as they can before it enters Nebraska,” Manning said. The two Nebraska officials spoke with The Telegraph a month after the end of the annual April 1-Oct. 15 “irrigation season” under the 1923 compact. Statistics from the compact’s official South Platte gage at Julesburg, Colorado, show river flows were lower than the 2023 season but still would have put water into a completed Perkins canal 51% of the time. That’s considerably less often than the previous spring and summer, when flows were high enough to supply a projected canal 86.4% of the time. But that 2023 performance ranked No. 11 for the irrigation season since Congress ratified the two-state compact in 1926. The South Platte since then has exceeded the compact’s stated minimum flows just over 40% of each year, based on Julesburg gage flow records The Telegraph first analyzed in 2023 and continues to update. Since ratification, the South Platte Compact has required Colorado to deliver at least 120 cubic feet per second to Nebraska during the irrigation season. Nebraska also has the right to any “excess flows” that reach Julesburg. During the “nonirrigation season” of Oct. 16 to March 31, the compact requires Colorado to supply Nebraska at least 500 cfs when possible — but only if the Perkins canal is built. Nebraska also would be entitled to any “excess flows” at Julesburg during that period. The Legislature set aside $629 million in 2022 and 2023 to revive the canal. As now conceived, it would cross southern Keith County after following the 1894 canal’s original route from near Ovid, Colorado, across Sedgwick County. But Colorado held December 2022 that Nebraska’s plans by themselves don’t trigger its compact rights to South Platte water, Bradley noted. “Because Nebraska has not constructed the Perkins County Canal, there is no basis for Colorado to administer” Nebraska’s 1921 water right before that point, then-Colorado Division of Water Resources State Engineer Kevin Rein wrote then-Nebraska DNR Director Tom Riley. Evidence that Colorado was mulling multiple projects to use every drop of South Platte water within its borders prompted then-Gov. Pete Ricketts to advocate the Perkins canal’s revival in early 2022. Its first 16 miles from Ovid were dug in 1894 before early Perkins County settlers ran out of funds. After initially downplaying its state’s proposed projects, Bradley said, Colorado’s “message has changed to ‘We are going to do all these things, and we’re going to accelerate them.’” Possible Colorado projects differ in scope, he said. But the largest one remains the Platte Valley Water Partnership’s proposal to tap the South Platte in northeast Colorado and pipe water back west to Parker and other fast-growing suburbs south of Denver. That system’s closest storage reservoir to Nebraska would be built near Iliff, Colorado, less than 40 miles southwest of the Perkins canal’s starting point. It’s also about 25 miles northeast from the South Platte’s “Lower Division” compact boundary at the Logan-Washington county line. Much of the river’s water past there first was used upriver, seeped below the surface and re-entered the South Platte downstream as “return flows.” Even if Colorado disrupts the return flows with more water projects, Bradley said, Nebraska has to secure as much of its historic South Platte supply as it can. “It’s difficult to say what will happen two years from now with a Parker-type project, but we’ll keep an eye on what’s going on up there,” he said. “The whole compact is premised that water will be used and returned for Nebraska’s use.” Bradley estimated it’ll take about two years to win federal officials’ blessing to build the Perkins canal. He said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been designated the lead agency for Nebraska’s permit request. The Corps will consult with other interested agencies, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Two 1980s explorations of reviving the canal — one by the North Platte-based Twin Platte Natural Resources District, the other by Imperial’s Upper Republican NRD — were choked after several years by state or federal red tape. This time, “we’re obviously talking about a state-run process,” Bradley said. “We want to protect (South Platte) flow and not use it.” Meanwhile, Perkins canal design work by Nebraska DNR engineers is nearing 30% completion. “Elements of the design are coming into pretty good view now,” Bradley said. DNR leaders held an open house in Ogallala last Dec. 17 so Keith County residents could ask questions about the canal. They’re likely to return next month for another update, Bradley said. It’s too early to pinpoint the canal’s precise Keith County route, he said, except that it’ll run south of Interstate 80 and link up with the South Platte before the river enters Lincoln County. The 1923 compact requires Nebraska to build on or close to the canal’s 1894 survey route west of the Colorado line. Nebraska closed as 2023 ended on the first piece of Sedgwick County land it needs. The 1894 route essentially crossed the Interstate 76-U.S. Highway 385 interchange south of Julesburg, then skirted the Julesburg Cemetery south of the interchange before turning north. The two states have “agreed in principle to try to work around today’s infrastructure,” Bradley said. “We’re looking at a local alternative (to) the route where we’d go under the interstate.” Stay up-to-date on the latest in local and national government and political topics with our newsletter.