March 2025 NEBRASKA CATTLEMAN 23 This Generation’s Legacy to Nebraska’s Water Future JESSE BRADLEY | INTERIM DIRECTOR, NEBRASKA DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES Front Range every year. Billions of dollars have been assigned to several large water projects currently under construction in Colorado’s Front Range with more pursued every day. As Colorado River supplies continue to dwindle, Colorado now has only the South Platte River to look toward to satisfy the thirst of ever-expanding communities along the Front Range. In addition to its population pressures, Colorado also has changed how it manages groundwater pumping in the South Platte Basin. Those management changes have created an environment whereby Colorado groundwater pumpers divert approximately 100,000 acre-feet (approximately 25 percent of the annual flow) in an attempt to replace their resulting depletion to river flows during the irrigation season. This has had significant impacts on downstream Nebraska water users who rely on South Platte flows for irrigation, cooling water for the Gerald Gentleman Station – Nebraska’s largest electric generating plant – municipal supplies for communities including Omaha and Lincoln, hydropower generation, environmental flows and other purposes. These actions by Colorado and the effects they were having on South Platte flows alarmed Nebraska water users and state officials, leading to studies and investigations of the potential threats these actions were having on Nebraska’s future water supplies. This culminated with the Legislature passing the Perkins County Canal Project Act in 2022, finding that it is essential to the economic prosperity, health and welfare of Nebraskans and to the environmental health of the entire Platte River Basin to protect Nebraska’s full entitlement to the South Platte River flows. The legislature also provided the Department of Natural Resources with $628 million in funding to develop, construct, manage and operate the Perkins County Canal and its associated water storage facilities. CONTINUED ON PAGE 24
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