Irrigation Leader January 2015

Volume 6 Issue 1

January 2015

A Water Supply Project for Kansas’s Future: A Discussion About the Kansas Aqueduct With GMD3’s Mark Rude

Problem Solvers

By Kris Polly

P

roblem solvers are special people. Anyone can be a critic, but solving a problem takes time, patience, great effort, and innovative ideas. This issue of Irrigation Leader magazine discusses some very innovative solutions to difficult problems. As always, the best solutions come from individuals with an unbending drive to solve a particular problem. Mark Rude, executive director of the Southwest Kansas Groundwater Management District, is such a person.

In speaking with Mark about the proposed Kansas aqueduct, you quickly decide he must be exactly like the individuals who first discussed and promoted the Central Arizona Project, the Columbia Basin Project in Washington State, the Central Valley Project in California, and every other major water supply project ever built. Dean Pennington is a particularly thoughtful and innovative individual. Much can be learned from his work to bring different government agencies and groups together to solve water supply problems.

However, anyone familiar with the Pennington family expects such things, as they are blessed with special cognitive abilities. Terry Fulp, director of Reclamation’s Lower Colorado Region, is considered the expert on Colorado River issues. Though he would be the first to give credit to the lower basin state partners, few could have shepherded such an agreement. Jim Broderick, general manager of the Southeastern Colorado Water

Conservancy District, is considered a character in the western water community and also a respected strategic thinker. Much can be learned from Jim and the positive way he interacts with people. Kenny Nelson is one of those wonderfully seasoned irrigation district managers who has seen just about everything. His final answer in his interview should be taught in every classroom.

Monty Teeter’s Dragon-Line™ is a tremendous idea that combines the best features of a pivot with drip line technology. The orange color will help keep the tractor drivers and whatever machinery they are pulling away. Anyone who has driven over a deep pivot track or used a pull-type track closer will love Dan Gillespie’s TracPacker®. This is one of those farmer-created, genius ideas. I can think of one Nebraska family with pivots who will be phoning Mr. Gillespie, and I am sure many other readers will, too.

We hope you enjoy this issue of Irrigation Leader and reading about the featured individuals. Truly, problem solvers are special people.

Kris Polly is editor-in-chief of Irrigation Leader magazine and president of Water Strategies LLC, a government relations firm he began in February 2009 for the purpose of representing and guiding water, power, and agricultural entities in their dealings with Congress, the Bureau of Reclamation, and other federal government agencies. He may be contacted at Kris.Polly@waterstrategies.com.

The Water and Power Report www.WaterAndPowerReport.com The Water and Power Report is the one-stop aggregate news site for water and power issues in the 17 western states. Sign up for the free “Daily” service to receive e-mail notice of the top headlines and press releases each business day.

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Irrigation Leader

C O N T E N T S

JANUARY 2015

2 Problem Solvers Volume 6

Issue 1

Irrigation Leader is published 10 times a year with combined issues for July/August and November/December by: Water Strategies LLC P.O. Box 100576 Arlington, VA 22210 Staff: Kris Polly, Editor-in-Chief John Crotty, Senior Writer Robin Pursley, Graphic Designer Capital Copyediting LLC, Copyeditor SUBMISSIONS: Irrigation Leader welcomes manuscript, photography, and art submissions. However, the right to edit or deny publishing submissions is reserved. Submissions are returned only upon request.

ADVERTISING: Irrigation Leader accepts one-quarter, half-page, and full-page ads. For more information on rates and placement, please contact Kris Polly at (703) 517-3962 or Irrigation.Leader@waterstrategies.com.

CIRCULATION: Irrigation Leader is distributed to irrigation district managers and boards of directors in the 17 western states, Bureau of Reclamation officials, members of Congress and committee staff, and advertising sponsors. For address corrections or additions, please contact our office at Irrigation.Leader@waterstrategies.com.

Copyright © 2015 Water Strategies LLC. Irrigation Leader relies on the excellent contributions of a variety of natural resources professionals who provide content for the magazine. However, the views and opinions expressed by these contributors are solely those of the original contributor and do not necessarily represent or reflect the policies or positions of Irrigation Leader magazine, its editors, or Water Strategies LLC. The acceptance and use of advertisements in Irrigation Leader do not constitute a representation or warranty by Water Strategies LLC or Irrigation Leader magazine regarding the products, services, claims, or companies advertised.

COVER PHOTO: Mark Rude, executive director of Southwest Kansas Groundwater Management District, standing next to Valley pivot with Dragon-LineTM drip system.

By Kris Polly

4 A Water Supply Project for Kansas's

Future: A Discussion About the Kansas Aqueduct With GMD3's Mark Rude

10 A Primer on the GMDA and the

Yazoo Mississippi Delta Joint Water Management District

By Dean Pennington

14 Lake Mead Agreement: Reclamation

and Basin States Sign Memorandum of Understanding to Sustain Reservoir Levels

MANAGER'S PROFILE 22 Ken Nelson 28 Southeastern Colorado Moving Ahead

on Arkansas Valley Conduit

THE INNOVATORS 32 Maximizing Pivot Irrigation with

Drip Technology: Dragon-LineTM

THE INNOVATORS 36 Field Ingenuity: the TracPacker ® 38 Classifieds

Photo credit: Elma Guaderrama.

Irrigation Leader

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A Water Supply Project for Kansas's Future: A Discussion About the Kansas Aqueduct With GMD3’s Mark Rude

Mark Rude tending to a Dragon-LineTM on a farm located in GMD3. Photo credit: Elma Guaderrama.

T

he Southwest Kansas Groundwater Management District (GMD3) is located in the heart of the irrigation/agribusiness, industrial complex overlying the Ogallala aquifer. GMD3 includes part or all of 12 counties in southwestern Kansas, covering roughly 8,500 square miles and 1.5 million irrigated acres. Growers in the district rely almost exclusively on the waters of a rapidly declining Ogallala to grow corn, milo, alfalfa, and wheat. The district was organized to conserve groundwater resources, prevent economic deterioration, and provide for the stabilization of agriculture by establishing the right of local users to determine their own destiny with respect to the use of groundwater.

Mark Rude has been GMD3’s executive director for nine years. He grew up in Wichita, holds a bachelor of science in geology from Wichita State University, and is a licensed geologist in the state of Kansas. Mark served as water commissioner for southwestern Kansas from 1992 through 2005. During that time of water right supervision, he served for nine years as assistant operations secretary for the KansasColorado Arkansas River Compact Administration. Irrigation Leader’s editor-in-chief, Kris Polly, spoke with Mark about his

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district and his vision for bringing lasting water supplies to the arid but productive lands of western Kansas.

Kris Polly: What is the purpose of your groundwater management district?

Mark Rude: Prior to the formation of the groundwater management districts, Kansas had passed the Water Appropriations Act, which reflected a prior appropriation doctrine. But groundwater areas have special considerations. Water rights were being issued far in excess of sustainable supplies. There was a reluctance to adopt formal rules and regulations without formal local representation advising on what those rules should be. So, the groundwater districts provide collaborative work with the state agencies on how to manage the water supply.

GMD3 was really formed to organize the local water users and landowners to develop policies on groundwater use, to request that the state adopt local rules for wells and groundwater management, and to extend the life of declining groundwater supplies in a fair and equitable

Irrigation Leader

The proposed aqueduct would pump water approximately 360 miles from the Missouri River to the plains of southwestern Kansas. Map credit: GMD3.

manner. It’s been somewhat of a tug of war between the two doctrines of prior appropriation officially and correlative rights in everyday practice. Nearly 100 percent of our supply comes from the Ogallala aquifer. The Southwest Kansas Irrigation Association, which preceded GMD3 by some 20 years, worked to form GMD3 and was successful in 1976.

The optional water rights were then mandated in 1978 and are supervised by the state department of agriculture.

The groundwater district is a local board of water users and landowners that provides recommendations to the state on issues such as available water supply, waiver of rules, and the development of management plans unique to a particular groundwater area in order to further implement the purposes of the Water Appropriations Act and the Groundwater Management Act. Kris Polly: How much water can your farmers use?

Mark Rude: All beneficial uses are limited by rate, quantity, point of diversion, place of use, use made of

Irrigation Leader

water, and priority. In Kansas, historically, there have been standards for maximum reasonable need. Generally, in the western third of Kansas, 2 acre-feet per acre irrigated was the maximum that could be developed under a water right. Once the water right was developed, the water user can use that water however he or she wants to as long as it is without waste and within the confines of the water right terms itself. Based on that, for example, it is possible for an alfalfa grower to use 30 inches of water and not be in violation of his water right as long as there was no waste and the total quantity was within point of diversion restrictions. Similarly, there can be a time of no water use and the water right is not harmed or diminished. That was finally added to Kansas law several years ago in areas closed to new water rights, recognizing the necessity to conserve water. All of the Ogallala aquifer in our district is now closed to new water rights at the request of our board and members.

Kris Polly: What is the rate of decline in the Ogallala aquifer?

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Graphic credit: Kansas Geological Survey.

Mark Rude: In GMD3, we use about half of the groundwater pumped in the state. We are blessed with a large portion of the Ogallala aquifer, but we have also done an excellent job of fully developing that resource.

Recently completed regional modeling on the aquifer shows that we are about 9 percent sustainable. In other words, for the 2 million acre-feet that we use annually from the aquifer, natural recharge on average restores a little less than 200,000 acre-feet. We are doing everything to support efficiency of use and water conservation, but we are also squarely facing the question of mandatory reductions to conserve and extend the life of the aquifer.

Depth to water averages about 300 feet, with total well depths from 350 to 600 feet and well yields averaging about 550 gallons per minute, with big differences from place to place and water quality becoming a factor as well.

Kris Polly: Please tell our readers about your plans to help increase existing water supplies in western Kansas.

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Mark Rude: Because of the large disparity between renewable water supplies and use—like in so many areas of the United States and worldwide—we found the need to look around for other options for additional water supplies. The concept of the Ogallala aquifer being mined and depleted has been squarely in the public eye since the late 1970s. A public law was passed in 1976 empowering the U.S. Department of Commerce to take a look at the Ogallala states, primarily the six main states. Part of that High Plains study authorized by Congress was to charge the Army Corps to look at water transfer projects from east to west across the plains. One of the four projects scoped by the Corps originated out of the Missouri River in northeastern Kansas to move water across the state to western Kansas.

We took that 1982 study water transfer element and started another look at it with the state partners and other interested stakeholders, to update cost numbers and compare it to other similar projects nationwide, like the Irrigation Leader

Central Arizona Project. In taking the lead on this, our district has really promoted a value of water that exists out there and that, in recent events, such as the flooding event of 2011 along the Missouri River, there was an excess of unused water that could be a source solution to our need for sustainable water use in southwestern Kansas. That was the spark.

Kris Polly: Did the initial studies estimate potential quantities of water or size of the canal?

Mark Rude: It did. It looked at three sizes— 2,000 cubic feet per second (cfs), 6,000 cfs, and 10,000 cfs—and evaluated, in a cursory manner, an open-channel, concrete-lined conduit with about 16 lift stations; an origination reservoir at White Cloud, Kansas, next to the Missouri River; and a terminal reservoir near Utica, Kansas. At the terminus, the water would be further distributed with various canals and pipelines to farms and fields to augment irrigation as the Ogallala diminished. The study, with assumptions made to respect the 1944 Pick-Sloan Act provisions for the Missouri River basin, estimated an average high-flow firm yield of about 1.6 million acre-feet per year, with as much as 4 million acre-feet available in certain years.

As part of our work here in Kansas, with help from the planning assistance to the state program with Army Corps of Engineers, we realized that the kind of irrigation development envisioned in 1982 for the Upper Missouri has not really occurred. High flows—those above target navigation flows at Kansas City—are more abundant than the 1982 study projected. This is partly because we have several additional decades of data to look at. So the good news that we are learning in our investigations is that there are more high flows available than once thought.

Costs are always a factor, and they are much higher than were projected in the 1982 study.

Kris Polly: How many miles would the canal be?

Mark Rude: As envisioned in 1982, roughly 360 miles to the terminal reservoir.

Kris Polly: And what would the storage capacity of the reservoirs be?

Mark Rude: Both reservoirs were considered to hold 700,000 acre-feet each but varied even larger depending on the three open-channel conduit sizes considered. So they are quite large. The concept is to have a system that would grab the high flows available, store them, and continually feed that water west to the fields, but also to Irrigation Leader

have enough storage in the terminal reservoir so water can be made available during the growing season to meet irrigation demands.

The real story, however, is what else can be a key component today, especially for a Kansas-specific project.

Do we have to have an origination reservoir? Can we utilize distributed storage? To what extent can aquifer storage and recovery be a part of the project? There are many questions to work through. There are so many benefits to think about along the way. The 1982 study did not even consider municipal and industrial supply.

The very route of the aqueduct, as it was conceived following a topographic ridgeline, facilitates the concept of downloading water into each watercourse headwater that it may pass to provide statewide water assurance.

Kris Polly: What should everyone know about the Kansas aqueduct?

Mark Rude: We have very few options in western Kansas. At this point, big water costs are inevitable for Kansas and others in the western United States no matter what strategy we take, including doing nothing. The Kansas Aqueduct Project will require a compact with sister states to find the win-win options for each state, and that takes leadership from many folks in key positions. A water transportation system concept from the Missouri River can provide a sustainable supply to meet the present and future water needs of families, farms, and communities across the state and possibly beyond.

One thing that the excessive development of the Ogallala has demonstrated is that semiarid areas can efficiently and safely provide food for the world in an environment removed from the movement of excessive nutrients in the hydrologic cycle. The world our kindergarten-age school kids will face when they graduate from high school, as I understand it, will have another 2 billion people to feed. Everything is in place in western Kansas to be successful in playing a key role in that intensified agricultural stewardship challenge except sustainable irrigation water.

The construction of the aqueduct would provide a list of benefits, including reduced flood threats and utilizing those flows, especially when combined with a vast aquifer reservoir. We can’t afford not to try for it. The Kansas Aqueduct Project necessarily must be part of our thinking as we move forward to meet the irrigation water management demands of a climate-shifting future.

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A Primer on the GMDA and the Yazoo Mississippi Delta Joint Water Management District

By Dean Pennington

T

he Groundwater Management Districts Association (GMDA) brings together local groundwater management districts in order to share information to help respective districts carry out their assigned missions to improve groundwater supply and quality management. Member districts are located in Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Mexico, and Texas.

GMDA member staff and board members meet each January and June to discuss a variety of issues impacting groundwater: modeling, well construction, metering programs, conservation education, project construction, regulations, and new technologies. The meetings also provide district staff members with the opportunity to share stories about project successes and failures.

Summer rainfall in the state of Mississippi is only a little bit more than summer rainfall in Kansas and Nebraska along the 100th meridian. What happens in Kansas and Nebraska and what happens in Mississippi are more in common than you might think. Twenty-five years ago, my district, the Yazoo Mississippi Delta (YMD) Joint Water Management District looked across the country for other groundwater districts addressing similar water supply and quality issues and joined the GMDA. We saw that there was a tremendous opportunity to learn from districts that had been working on groundwater management for many years.

each year and, as such, was a traditional dryland farming area. Starting back in the 1970s, delta farmers increased irrigation use to endure periods of drought. Crucial to the development of irrigation in the region was the productivity of the Mississippi River Valley Alluvial aquifer, which underlies northwestern Mississippi and southeastern Arkansas.

The aquifer is prolific. There are very few places within the bounds of the aquifer that you cannot house a productive well. Static water levels range from 20 to 50 feet below land surface. Well depths run from 120- to 180-feet deep. For most of our wells, a 40- to 60-horsepower pump will produce anywhere from 1,200 to 2,500 gallons per minute of high-quality water.

Delta agriculture employs 18,000 wells with typical flow rates of 1,500 to 2,500 gallons per minute to put more than 2 million acre-feet of groundwater to use each year. Currently, water use exceeds natural recharge, and as a result, groundwater levels are declining. And like so many areas with shallow groundwater, stream base flows are maintained by flows from the aquifer back into the stream. Declining groundwater levels have precipitated a loss of 90 percent of stream base flows in YMD. Our major challenge is developing a method to balance available groundwater supplies with agricultural demands while maintaining stream base flows. Two main solutions

Yazoo Mississippi Delta Joint Water Management District

Located in northwestern Mississippi, YMD is home to about half the agriculture and almost all the irrigation in the state. Our district covers 7,000 square miles, parts of 17 counties, and 3 million acres of farmland. Almost 2 million acres of farmland are irrigated. Our farmers cultivate cotton, soybeans, corn, and rice.

The Mississippi Delta gets approximately 50 inches of rain

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Mississippi Delta farming is facilitated by flexible pipe furrow irrigation and flood irrigation.

Irrigation Leader

A riser watering a furrow in a field of Delta soybeans.

to that challenge are water conservation practices and the development of new surface water supplies.

Conservation

The best way to extend water supply is to not waste it.

Mississippi has fairly progressive water laws. State statutes call for the conjunctive use of surface and groundwater.

As a regulated riparian state, water is put to use through a water use permit issued by the state permit board.

Surface water use for activities beyond watering a lawn, and groundwater use for wells 6 inches in diameter or larger, require a permit that describes the condition and benefit of the use. More than 99 percent of agricultural use permits and 80 percent of all water use permits issued in the state of Mississippi are located within YMD boundaries.

Mississippi law enables the state permit board and the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ)

Irrigation Leader

to delegate the authority to receive, review, and make recommendations on the permits to local joint water management districts. YMD reviews all the agricultural water permits in the delta—that amounts to 20,000 groundwater and surface water permits. About 20 percent of those permits must be renewed and reviewed each year. Back in 2011, YMD worked with the DEQ and the permit board to successfully change permitting to require a minimum level of conservation practices.

For those growers who do not undertake conservation practices, water use must be metered and reported annually to the DEQ.

Surface Water Development

There are tremendous amounts of underdeveloped surface water within the district that YMD is working to develop. For example, there are four large Army Corps of Engineers flood control reservoirs whose outflow goes 11

Bayous throughout YMD provide drainage and are easily enhanced to hold surface water for irrigation.

through our district. These reservoirs collectively hold a few million acre-feet a year, which is more than YMD’s annual water use. Very little of that outflow is currently used for irrigation.

YMD is looking at ways to use the water from those Corps reservoirs to meet our increasing demands.

Irrigation use would not require changes to release rule curves or the way the reservoirs are operated. Capturing 10 or 15 percent of that water for irrigation would help us tremendously in meeting our water budget.

YMD and the Corps are in the last year of a three-year, $2 million feasibility study investigating the transfer of water from the rivers that receive the outflow from the flood control reservoirs to naturally existing channels that traverse areas with our greatest groundwater declines.

Specifically, we are looking at transferring approximately 300 cubic feet per second from the Tallahatchie River into the Quiver River watershed.

The Quiver River has a problem with low base flows. We are looking at transferring water not just for agriculture, but also for aquatic restoration, which is the Corps’ primary interest. Only 50 to 100 cubic feet per second is required to address the low base flows in the river. YMD will also provide additional water for irrigation.

Irrigation in YMD is 80 percent precision land forming 12

(laser-leveled flood irrigation) because the delta is flat.

Around here, a 10-foot elevation change is a big deal.

Our district runs roughly 200 miles from Memphis to Vicksburg, with only a 100-foot drop in elevation over that distance. This low slope landscape and a dense network of natural streams make the development of tail water recovery systems to capture and reuse water that runs off the land very practical. So not only are we developing new surface water supplies, we are implementing projects to increase in-stream storage and promoting conservation.

The goal is to enable irrigators to pump directly out of the Quiver River or have YMD manage larger pump stations that put water into smaller channels that transfer water to the farmers. With an extensive flood control and drainage system already in place, YMD is looking to improve those channels in conjunction with the development of new water supplies.

Dean Pennington is the executive director of the Yazoo Mississippi Delta Joint Water Management District. You can reach Dean at dean@ymd.org or (662) 686‑7712.

Irrigation Leader

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Lake Mead Agreement: Reclamation and Basin States Sign Memorandum of Understanding to Sustain Reservoir Levels

O

n December 10, 2014, the three lower division states of Arizona, California, and Nevada and the major municipal water users within each state came together with the Bureau of Reclamation at the Colorado River Water Users Association to sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the “desire to take initial steps between 2014 and 2017 towards generating additional water in Lake Mead to reduce the risk of reaching critical reservoir elevations in a manner consistent with the Law of the River.”

Irrigation Leader’s editor-in-chief, Kris Polly, spoke with Reclamation Lower Colorado Regional Director Terry Fulp and National Water Resources Association Executive Vice President (and former Reclamation Commissioner) Robert Johnson about the MOU and what it means for sustaining water levels in Lake Mead.

Kris Polly: Please describe the contingency plans that frame the MOU. Terry Fulp: About a year and half ago, having seen more than a decade of sustained drought on the Colorado River Basin, the secretary of the interior sat down with the [Colorado River Compact] basin states to talk about what continued drought means for the Colorado River system in general and Lake Powell and Lake Mead in particular. Out of these discussions, the basin states and Interior agreed to a focused effort on developing basin-wide contingency Hoover Dam and a depleted Lake Mead from above. plans to mitigate ongoing and future impacts of Photo credit: Bureau of Reclamation. continued drought.

As a first step in this planning process, we primary goal to gain operational experience in low reservoir implemented what is called the System Conservation Pilot conditions.

Program. More recently, the lower division states [Arizona, California, and Nevada] and Reclamation signed an Kris Polly: What are some of the key takeaways from MOU focused on sustaining levels in Lake Mead through the agreement? voluntary conservation and other measures. We are all working to ensure the viability of the interim operational Terry Fulp: We are trying to be proactive in addressing guidelines for Lakes Powell and Mead, which were the risks brought about by drought to meeting obligations implemented in 2008 under Bob [former Commissioner to deliver water and provide hydropower. In the lower Robert Johnson] through 2026. Although covering a full basin, we are trying to generate water, which really means range of reservoir operations, those guidelines were in leaving water in Lake Mead and helping to bolster the response to the first five years or so of this drought with a

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Irrigation Leader

amount of water in storage. The goal is to leave up to 3 million acre-feet of water in Lake Mead over the next five years. All actions toward that end will be voluntary; we are not mandating a particular set of projects.

Parties to the MOU are the Lower Colorado Region of Reclamation, the three junior priority contractors in each of the three lower division states—the Southern Nevada Water Authority, the Central Arizona Project, and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California—as well as the three state water resources agencies—the Colorado River Board of California, the Colorado River Commission of Nevada, and the Arizona Department of Water Resources. The parties agreed to make a best effort to store approximately a quarter of that 3 million acrefeet (740,000 acre-feet) of water over a three-year period. Each of the three water districts and my region agree to generate a portion of the 740,000 acre-feet.

Again, these are voluntary, proactive actions.

The whole process was evolutionary. I give a lot of credit to the lower basin contractors. They came together to come up with a set of proactive, collaborative actions and invited Reclamation into those discussions.

Robert Johnson: What kinds of water-generating activities are you envisioning?

Terry Fulp: We envision that the parties will undertake some of four or five types of measures to

Lake Mead is critical to sustaining the water supplies of southern Nevada, southern California, and south-central Arizona. Map credit: Bureau of Reclamation.

Mineral deposits around the depleted Lake Mead create a "bathtub ring" effect. Photo credit: Bureau of Reclamation.

Irrigation Leader

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generate somewhere between 1.5 to 3 million acre-feet over five years. One is the further use of the Intentionally Created Surplus (ICS) mechanism. ICS partnerships are innovative, enabling willing payers to help entities undertake conservation measures to generate water. We also envision the generation of system water, without attaching a party’s name to that water, by such measures as simply leaving water in the river system when possible. We also see the parties potentially developing local water resources to take the place of the Colorado River water.

As for Reclamation’s part in the generation of system water, we will be tightening up the operation of the system—increasing operational efficiency—particularly at the lower end. Reclamation will continue to try to reduce excess flows to Mexico as well as develop a mix of replacement, reuse, and recovery of bypass flows. We are going to start a working group to get ideas on the table and see what makes sense regarding bypass flows.

Robert Johnson: So, some of the water you create is going to be ICS, held in Lake Mead, designated to meet an entity’s future use. It will help the elevation during drought and help to reduce the risk of falling to critical elevations.

Some of it is going to be system water, without designation.

Will water users pay to develop water to stay in the system?

Terry Fulp: We don’t know precisely what people will do. We are calling the water left in Mead protection water—the name reflects that some of the water will be attached to an entity and some will not. Given ongoing drought and the potential need for water on an emergency basis, we might look at an ICS project between urban and agricultural interests whereby an entity would have limited ability to take water out of Mead for a period of time with

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some agreement to put it back. We also anticipate there will be some unused apportionment left in Mead.

Partnerships between the higher-priority agricultural users and lower-priority municipal water users will be a part of the mix. We already have some good examples of these types of partnerships in the lower basin, including the program that Met [Metropolitan Water District of Southern California] is currently undertaking with Palo Verde Irrigation District and Southern Nevada Water Authority’s efforts on the Virgin and Muddy Rivers.

Robert Johnson: Will credit be given for any unused apportionment?

Terry Fulp: We are not doing any formal accounting for this kind of water for the purposes of our accounting framework under the Supreme Court decree. But, as protection water, if an entity were to leave water on the table and not bank it in its own state, the water would be counted as part of a protection volume action. For example, under current projections for this year, it is likely there will be unused apportionment and we anticipate some of it being left in Lake Mead.

Kris Polly: To give you the final word . . . How would you characterize the current conditions for lower basin state water managers?

Terry Fulp: Lake Mead is a 25‑million acre-foot reservoir with just over 4 million acre-feet of water in storage at 1,000 feet of elevation [Lake Mead is currently around 1,089 feet]. You don’t have a lot of time to make decisions when levels are down that low, and we’re all trying to reduce the risk of being in that situation.

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XRI CASE STUDIES: INDUSTRY SOLUTIONS XRI INDUSTRY SOLUTIONS ARE APPLIED ACROSS A VARIETY OF DISCIPLINES AND INDUSTRIES. BELOW ARE A SAMPLE OF XRI’S RECENT SOLUTIONS FOR MULTIPLE INDUSTRIES AND PROBLEM SETS: GROUNDWATER EXPLORATION FOR PETROLEUM SUPPLY Situation: Client requested determination of water supply well targets for petroleum production.

Solution: Use of multiple geophysical techniques, including: • Extensive background hydrogeological assessment • Airborne electromagnetics • Ground-based geophysics • Near-surface seismic data acquisition • Joint interpretation of hydrogeological, airborne, ground-based and seismic data with existing boreholes and test holes

Groundwater Model for Water Supply Determination

Sample 3-D voxel model of airborne electromagnetic data

Products: • Three-dimensional hydrogeologic model of upper and lower boundaries of aquifers • Identification of an unknown deeper aquifer with potential for additional water supply GROUNDWATER AVAILABILITY DETERMINATION Situation: Declining groundwater levels due to drought caused concerns over water availability for farmers and municipalities in Clarkson, Nebraska.

3-D Model of Quaternary Aquifer

Solution: • Extensive background hydrogeological assessment, which included assessment of physical settings, surface hydrology, geologic setting and hydrogeologic setting • Airborne electromagnetics • Ground-based geophysics in the area • Joint interpretation of hydrogeological and airborne data with existing boreholes and test holes Product: • Three-dimensional maps of sub-surface water distribution • Identification of an unknown deeper aquifer with potential for provision of additional water supply XRI identified approximately 106,608 acre feet of available water for municipality and agriculture supply.

Problem. Science. Solution.

Exploration Resources International

Manager’s Profile

Ken Nelson

Kenneth “Kenny" Nelson, standing at the overlook of Lovewell Dam, KBID’s holding reservoir.

T

he Kansas-Bostwick Irrigation District No. 2 (KBID) delivers water to soybean and corn growers over 43,000 acres in north-central Kansas. Ken Nelson leads a crew of 14 to oversee operations and maintenance on the district and has been working continuously to conserve its precious water resources. Irrigation Leader’s editor-in-chief, Kris Polly, spoke with Ken about his district, water conservation, and the pivot revolution.

Kris Polly: What are some of the conservation efforts that KBID is currently undertaking?

Ken Nelson: Our biggest effort is burying laterals.

We have 100 miles of main canal and 150 miles of laterals in the district. Over the past 20 years, we have converted 90 miles of laterals into pipe. We’ve buried pipe ranging from 27-inch diameter down to 8-inch.

We have done that with our own talented crew.

Back in the 1990s, we developed what we call the 70/30 plan. The irrigators pay 70 percent of the cost of the materials, and the district pays the remaining 30 percent and provides all of the equipment and

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labor to bury the pipe. The program is very popular and works well for laterals 15 inches or smaller.

The U.S. Department of the Interior’s 20/25 plan, which facilitated cost sharing to bury laterals, helped us to address burying larger laterals. We have been successful with 20/25 funding and WaterSMART funding. We do the design work ourselves.

At this point, much of our system is buried, but we do have some large laterals that we would like to bury.

We hope to be able continue our conservation efforts.

We have about 60 total miles left to bury. These are the difficult and expensive ones.

The system is up on a plateau. We do not drop off the river bluff as other similar systems do. Our head is not high. It gets more difficult when you have to use pipe sizes larger than 27 inches. You don’t have the gravity to push it through.

There was a marvelous system built here for open canal delivery; when you change that to pipe delivery, you need to have pressure to make it work. We utilize four electric pump systems designed to lift water from one canal system to another. We have converted three of those to pump into pipe.

Irrigation Leader

Kenny Nelson at the measuring flume above Lovewell Dam. KBID is currently bringing Republican River water into Lovewell to replace the supply used in 2014.

Kris Polly: Do you allot a specific amount of pipe to bury each year?

Ken Nelson: There is no set amount of distance we will cover in a year; it will depend on the difficulty of the lateral that we are burying.

Kris Polly: Are a majority of your farmers putting in pivots?

Ken Nelson: We’ve come a long way with that.

Back in the mid-1990s, we saw a need for pivot irrigation in our area. People were coming to us and expressing interest in converting to pivot irrigation.

Our fields—and our assessments—weren’t set up in circles. We had to make some policy changes to account for that. [Those changes] helped a great deal to bring pivot irrigation to our area.

Going back to 1990, KBID ran a survey every year to measure irrigation methods and improvements. In 1990, open ditch irrigation was about 46 percent of our district, gated pipe irrigation was about 54 percent, and pivot was less than 1 percent. By the year Irrigation Leader

Change in Irrigation Methods in KBID Over the Last 35 Years 1990

2002

2014

■ Open ditch ■ Gated pipe ■ Pivot

2002—12 years later—we had moved to 17 percent open ditch irrigation, 56 percent gated pipe, and 27 percent pivot. Now in 2014, open ditch represents only 1 percent of irrigation type in KBID, gated pipe 34 percent, and pivot 65 percent. Today we have a total of 265 pivots in operation.

Kris Polly: Once you push the button on the pivot, it is hard to pick up a pipe again.

Ken Nelson: It is. And [the move to pivot] has made a tremendous difference for our water savings. Back in the 23

1990s, we started comparing pivot versus nonpivot water use. The difference was significant for a full supply year: Pivot irrigators used 9 inches per acre on average, while nonpivot irrigators used 15 inches per acre. The pivots really shined in short supply years.

Kris Polly: Do your pivot irrigators have to filter KBID water for their systems?

Ken Nelson: Many years ago, Roy Patterson from Frenchman-Cambridge was using aeration screens out of grain bins in his pumps from the canal. I used that idea by putting 24-inch diameter aeration screens inside our canals. All our buried laterals have those aeration screens on the head end. They are the most popular screening devices in our district. We get them from Ace Irrigation in Kearney.

Kris Polly: What is the most important thing you have learned as a manager of an irrigation district?

Ken Nelson: See the merit in the opinions of those who disagree with you. You can’t resolve those issues unless you can see their point of view. That is true if you are talking about crew members, irrigators or working with the Bureau of Reclamation and the states. Collaboration leads to success.

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KBID work crew installing 21” Diamond Plastic pipe in a lateral. KBID purchased the trencher with help from a Bureau of Reclamation Field Service Grant.

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Southeastern Colorado Moving Ahead on Arkansas Valley Conduit

L

ast year, 2014, was a critical year in the development of the Arkansas Valley Conduit (AVC). The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation completed a record of decision and Long Term Excess Capacity Master Contract Final Environmental Impact Statement for the AVC. Reclamation selected the Comanche North Alternative in the record of decision. Reclamation also redirected $2 million to fund continued planning work on the AVC, which means that the AVC’s sponsor, the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District (SECWCD), can fund the project’s next stage—the feasibility study.

As a key component of the Fryingpan-Arkansas (Fry-Ark) Project, the AVC will provide treated water to 50,000 people in 40 communities in southeastern Colorado. The pipeline will run 130 miles from Pueblo Dam to the town of Lamar. First envisioned in the original 1962 Fry-Ark Project legislation, AVC construction has been held up by repayment concerns and capabilities.

Jim Broderick, general manager of the SECWCD, emphasized the importance of these milestones for upcoming work on the AVC. “The record of decision

flies at 500 feet, and our ongoing feasibility study looks at the AVC from 100 feet. The funding we are getting now really helps [the SECWCD] to look at how to continue to fund the project and move things forward.”

Background The Fry-Ark is a transbasin water diversion and delivery Reclamation project that supplies southeastern Colorado with supplemental water for irrigation, municipal, and industrial uses. The Fry-Ark imports water from the Fryingpan River and other tributaries of the Roaring Fork River on the west slope of the Rocky Mountains to the Arkansas River Basin on the east slope.

The SECWCD serves as the sponsor and facilitator of the AVC. The water conservancy district provides supplemental water to 265,000 acres of irrigated land and serves more than 720,000 people. The SECWCD includes nine Colorado counties from the upper reaches of the Arkansas River in the Rocky Mountains to the wide-open agricultural expanses of the Great Plains near the Kansas border.

Graphic credit: Bureau of Reclamation.

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Irrigation Leader

A Dire Need for Clean Drinking Water Bill Long, SECWCD board president, highlighted how the AVC will be an essential clean water supply for southeastern Colorado. “Since the late 1990s, as water quality and wastewater standards have become stricter, quality itself has deteriorated.”

“Even if the standards had not changed, people expect high-quality water. Our water is very hard and hard on pipes. Two of our member entities utilize reverse osmosis plants to address the quality issue. It is a terribly expensive process. We have 16 or 17 entities under compliance order to make changes to their system to provide a water quality.”

Poor-quality drinking water plagues the lower Arkansas River valley, one of the most saline rivers segments in the United States. Treatment costs have skyrocketed as drinking water and wastewater regulations have tightened. In fact, new wastewater regulations will require SECWCD entities to have a discharge with a selenium level lower than what occurs naturally. The AVC, utilizing water from Pueblo Reservoir, will enable municipalities

and water providers to more easily comply with wastewater and drinking water quality standards.

2015 and Beyond There are three ongoing federal actions on the Fry-Ark: AVC planning and construction, the Excess Capacity Master Contract, and the development of an interconnect between the project’s north and south outlets.

Mr. Broderick stated that the SECWCD, with its partners in southeastern Colorado, would complete its feasibility study of the AVC by the end of 2015.

In addition, the SECWCD will begin negotiating with the Public Board of Water Works and Reclamation for long-term storage in the Pueblo Reservoir. The goal is to acquire capacity on the existing pipeline exiting Pueblo Dam to use for the AVC. With the extra capacity, the SECWCD would be able to forgo putting AVC pipe in the ground from the dam to the Board of Water Works treatment facility. Then, by using part of the existing treatment facility, the SECWCD could treat much of the water to almost drinking water standards.

The Bureau of Reclamation selected the Comanche North Alternative for the route of the AVC in its 2014 record of decision. Graphic credit: Bureau of Reclamation.

Irrigation Leader

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Aerial photo of Pueblo Dam and Reservoir.

Running the Numbers The feasibility process will help reduce project repayment costs by determining the most workable routes and plans. The design process is slated for 2017. And, if the timeline holds and funds fall into place as planned, construction will be completed in 2023.

The SECWCD has looked beyond federal coffers for funding. While the district has the ability to issue bonds, member entities have to pick up some of the project costs.

The issue, cites Mr. Broderick, is that “[the SECWCD and its partners] are attempting to deliver water to one of the poorest areas of Colorado.”

That challenge has prompted the SECWCD to get creative. The district is taking steps to develop two internal turbines totaling 7 megawatts of power on the north outlet of Pueblo Dam. Revenues generated from the hydro project will help to cover AVC construction costs. The turbines are projected to come online with the completion of the project design work.

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The Big Picture The Fry-Ark Project was built to benefit both municipal and agricultural interests. But, according to Mr. Long, because of surface water and groundwater quality issues, “the project has not provided a clean source of water we have desperately needed. For southeastern Colorado to survive and have any opportunity to grow, we have to have a better source of water. If we do not get the AVC built, in many ways the project will have been a detriment to the lower valley residents.”

With the ongoing support of the Colorado congressional delegation—project champions include retired Senator Wayne Allard, newly minted Senator Cory Gardner, Senator Michael Bennett, and Congressman Scott Tipton—and an educated and vocal constituency, the SECWCD and its local and federal partners are moving ahead in realizing a 50-year-old vision for the region.

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The Innovators Maximizing Pivot Irrigation With Drip Technology: Dragon-LineTM

W

hen Monty Teeter started work in the irrigation business 40 years ago, pivot irrigation was the future in arid southwestern Kansas. The agriculture industry grew up around it. But the region’s harsh conditions, the wind and cold, challenged pivot efficiencies so much that Mr. Teeter sought out ways to improve those systems. In addition, local growers needed to conserve water in the face of an ever-depleting Ogallala aquifer.

He looked to drip systems, which enable irrigators to precisely place exact amounts of water, for answers.

His solution, the Dragon-Line™, combines drip efficiencies with the scope of pivot delivery systems.

Finding a Niche Mr. Teeter was born and raised in the Ulysses, Kansas, area. He started working for the Ulysses Pipe Company in 1972, distributing PVC and aluminum pipe for flood irrigation. After supervising one of the company’s parts depots, he realized that sales were far more lucrative than parts. He started Teeter Irrigation in 1977.

With five other irrigation dealers in a town of 1,000 people, Mr. Teeter had to distinguish himself from the other irrigation businesses. “I thought I could provide better service than the other guys.

It is the creed I live by, and what my employees

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understand. We are a customer-driven organization committed to providing superior irrigation products and services, generating more profit for our boss—the customer.”

Testing an Idea About seven years ago, Mr. Teeter came upon a new tubing technology from Netafim that employed a pressure-compensating emitter well suited for drip.

It utilized a 1 gallon-per-hour emitter to compensate pressure at 6 pounds per square inch—meaning once that pressure was realized, only a specific amount of water would be released. Mr. Teeter thought it would be a good marriage for the pivot.

In spring 2013, Mr. Teeter bought a small farm as a test plot for the technology. The 320-acre plot housed a single 200-gallon-per-minute well and two quarter-mile center pivots. The land had not been watered in two years, and the region was in the midst of a prolonged drought. Mr. Teeter recalled, “I set off to water corn with no access to surface water and a lot of high winds. Using the conventional sprinkler heads, very little water was reaching the soil.”

So Mr. Teeter worked on attaching the pressurecompensating tubing to the pivots’ structure and began testing his systems. He tested three stands that first year. According to Mr. Teeter, the land that was Irrigation Leader

irrigated with what was to become the Dragon-Line™ produced 20 percent more corn silage than the lands that were traditionally irrigated. Similar returns were realized in 2014, as well as well as significant savings in water use.

PMDI™—Precision Mobile Drip Technology. T-L’s original concept did not involve pressure compensation.

Netafim does pay a licensing fee to market the product to the U.S. market under T-L’s patent.

The Specs The distinct, bright-orange Dragon-Line™ tubing is .660 millimeters (mm) in diameter and 50 mm thick with 1-gallon-per-hour pressure-compensating emitters placed every 6 inches. The flexible hose runs about 10-feet long and, according to Mr. Teeter, can be dragged in any direction without kinking or coiling.

The Dragon-Line™ deploys its dripper lines in “low” and “high” systems. The low-line system employs a suspended cable 4 feet above the ground with row spacing of 20 to 80 inches to efficiently water short-growing crops, such as potatoes, cotton, and peanuts. The high-line system consists of a suspended cable at truss rod height on the pivot to anchor rigid drops to enable taller crops to be irrigated in precise row spacing.

Mr. Teeter anticipates a 12- to 15-year life on the Dragon-Line™, with prices ranging from $100 to $150 per acre.

Taking Water to the Bank Mr. Teeter sees many benefits of the Dragon-Line™, from water conservation to higher-quality crops and improved operational efficiencies. “Use of the DragonLine™ will help to eliminate wheel track problems—one of the reasons people have wheel track problems is because they are overwatering. And the low-impact DragonLine™ application means little or no soil compaction that often develops to a hard pan during watering season.”

Mr. Teeter also noted that the Dragon-Line™ would reduce ice accumulation on pivot systems. Growers in southwestern Kansas water in the winter to ensure that the soil moisture profile is sufficient to support healthy crops in the spring and summer. “The Dragon-Line™ keeps water off of the [pivot] structure, so one can water in the cold weather.”

The Dragon-Line™ gets water to a crop’s root system without a buried line. For Monty Teeter, that is water in the bank.

Origins The Dragon-Line™ was not the first attempt at joining pivot and drip technologies. The T-L Company introduced the concept about 12 years ago, patented as

Irrigation Leader

For more information on the Dragon-LineTM, visit www.dragonline.net.

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The Innovators

Field Ingenuity: The TracPacker ® Ingenuity is part and parcel of farming. Dan Gillespie has been farming in northeastern Nebraska since 1974. He started experimenting with no-till farming in 1986, and by 1991, his operation was 100 percent continuous no-till. His fields required little or no disturbance, so the change to no-till highlighted the need fill pivot tracks.

At the time, Mr. Gillespie was not satisfied with existing pullbehind track fillers. He had no desire to use machines that made driving guesswork, which resulted in a lack of control over the amount of soil moved back into a track and a failure to pack the soil into the track.

“I dreamed about [the prototype of the TracPacker®] from 1991 to 1994 as I drove along in my old [ John

Deere] 6600 combine bouncing over pivot tracks that I hadn’t addressed for years. I was just waiting for the back of the 6600 to snap off.”

So, in the fall of 1994, Mr. Gillespie, with the help of his father Leo, dropped all the nuts and bolts out of an old International 37 Disk and started putting together the TracPacker® prototype from the Disk’s steel components. Dan put the first unit together out in the shop with an old Lincoln welder that his mom gave his dad back in the 1940s.

The result was the TracPacker®—a two-stage system machine designed to fill and pack irrigation pivot tracks in a single pass. “We put it out in the field in the spring of 1995, and it did everything I had hoped it would.”

Two views of the side disk gang.

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Irrigation Leader

How It Works

The TracPacker® utilizes the weight of the tractor for compaction. The machine’s two sets of disk gangs move displaced soil back to the track where it is packed twice into the bottom of the track. Both systems run in float, adjusting to the topography of the field or the depth of the track, and delivering the right amount of soil. The front system moves the displaced soil on the left side first, packing with the front tire, and the side system moves the displaced soil on the right-hand side, packing it again with the rear tire. With the exception of a modification of the gauge wheel out in front, the current TracPacker® model is the original design.

At an operating speed of 4 to 5 miles per hour, depending on the depth of the track and the width of the tire of the system, it is possible to fill and pack the tracks on a pivot system in 1.5 to 2 hours. The right-hand side of the tractor is always riding in the pivot track. According to Mr. Gillespie, “it takes a lot of the roughness out of your ride.”

The Success of Smart Design

Mr. Gillespie worked to accomplish a lot with the design: portability, ergonomics, ease of operation, and precise compaction. “I wanted to look at what it was doing

in front of me, instead of having to turn around and center myself on the track. With the design, you sit back, lower the disk into the track, and drive [with the ability to] look at what you are doing.” The TracPacker® is portable—by lowering the jacks on the frame and cranking the front gauge wheel down, the blades of the TracPacker® lift off the ground. “You can roll it around and put it in a corner of a shop.”

The machine frameworks are manufactured locally in Nebraska by Northeast Machine in Battle Creek.

The company has sold over 350 units across the United States—from North Dakota to Texas, from Washington to Kentucky—and internationally.

For Mr. Gillespie, the TracPacker® has been a blessing.

“It is always satisfying to show off the product, explain the concept, and see the heads of farmers nod approvingly.”

And now that his five daughters are older, Dan is looking to expand the TracPacker® business through licensing or partnership agreements.

Dan Gillespie is the chief executive officer, lead engineer, and garage sweeper of TracPacker®. For more information on the TracPacker®, contact Dan at (402­) 750‑2199 or gillespiedaniel1@gmail.com, or visit http://www.tracpacker.com.

Front and side views of the front gauge wheel and disk gang.

Irrigation Leader

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CLASSIFIED LISTINGS

SITES PROJECT JOINT POWERS AUTHORITY Sites JPA General Manager

The Sites Project Joint Powers Authority (Sites JPA) is seeking proposals for a General Manager on a time and materials basis, for a one-year probationary period with the option to renew.

Sites JPA is located in the Sacramento Valley, primarily in Glenn and Colusa Counties. Sites JPA consists of seven member agencies, which include Reclamation District 108, Tehama Colusa Canal Authority, Yolo County Flood Control and Water Conservation District, Maxwell Irrigation District, Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District, County of Colusa and County of Glenn.

With the passage of the California Water Bond, $2.7 billion will be available for new storage and the Sites Reservoir Project is configured so as to be competitive for public benefits funding of the project. The bond also requires that private funds be secured in order to obtain funding from the Water Bond.

The General Manager should be self-motivated and is responsible for the successful leadership

and management of the Sites JPA according to the plans and directions set by the Board of Directors. The General Manager is expected to work and travel within the Sacramento Valley; however, travel in other parts of the state and to Washington DC may be required in order for the General Manager to serve as an advocate for the Sites Reservoir Project.

Primary roles and responsibilities of the General Manager are leadership, operational planning and management, human resources planning and management, financial planning and management, and community relations/advocacy.

A detailed Request for Qualifications and Proposal (RFP) is available at www.sitesjpa.net. Sites JPA is an equal opportunity employer. Questions regarding this RFP should be directed to Thaddeus Bettner at (530) 934-8881.

Proposals must be postmarked by April 3, 2015, and sent to the attention of Kim Vann, Secretary/ Treasurer at Post Office Box 1266, Willows, California 95988.

For information on posting to the Classified Listings, please e-mail Irrigation.Leader@waterstrategies.com

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2015 CALENDAR January 6–8 January 14–16 January 13–14 January 20–22 January 27–29 January 28–30 February 3–5 February 4–5 February 19–20 February 19–20 February 25–26 March 4–6 March 16–18 March 21–25 April 13–15

Groundwater Management District Assn., Annual Meeting, Scottsdale, AZ Four States Irrigation Council, Annual Meeting, Fort Collins, CO National Water Resources Assn., Leadership Forum, Las Vegas, NV Idaho Water Users Assn., Annual Convention, Boise, ID Nevada Water Resources Assn., Annual Conference, Reno, NV Colorado Water Congress, Annual Convention, Denver, CO Texas Water Conservation Assn., Texas Water Day, Washington, DC Irrigation Leader, Annual Operations Management Workshop, Phoenix, AZ Multi-State Salinity Coalition, Annual Salinity Summit, Las Vegas, NV Family Farm Alliance, Annual Meeting & Conference, Las Vegas, NV Assn. of California Water Agencies, Washington Conference, Washington, DC Texas Water Conservation Assn., Annual Convention, Austin, TX Utah Water Users Assn., Water Users Workshop, St. George, UT Nebraska Natural Resources Districts, DC Conference, Washington, DC National Water Resources Assn., Federal Water Issues Conference, Washington, DC

For more information on advertising in Irrigation Leader magazine, or if you would like a water event listed here, please phone (703) 517-3962 or e-mail Irrigation.Leader@waterstrategies.com.

Submissions are due the first of each month preceding the next issue.

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