It’s not that there’s too much water…
No, there’s just freaking too much water in Nebraska.
And look at the Nebraska State Fair last Monday:
It looked like a Nebraska water park!
Despite flooding in the area, the Nebraska State Fair is pushing on. And that’s pretty symbolic after the terrifying and devastating floods the state experienced this spring.
In 1947 The Nebraska Mid-State Reclamation and Irrigation District, which consisted of approximately 550,000 acres of farm land found in the counties of Buffalo, Hall, and Merrick, was organized. These counties are lying within the Platte River watershed which is prone to flooding. However, by the mid-1970s, local support for the district began to wane. When the district compact/contract agreement came up for re-approval in the November 1975 election to retain the district, voters in these counties disapproved by a substantial margin. The downfall of this proposal was the it would have taken most of the water out of the Platte most of the time and in drought cycles, the river would be completely dry the year around. It might be time to re-think this but only taking water during wet cycles, such as this year, to minimize flooding and help replenish the Ogallala Aquifer. Releasing the water during drought cycles would help support the ~200,000 sandhill cranes that gather on the Big Bend of the Platte, arriving from wintering areas in the Southwest and Mexico. The Big Bend of the Platte is also the great spring staging ground of the sandhill cranes.