Drought costing state billions

It's not easy to measure the impact of five years of drought on Nebraska, but Collette Van Borkum doesn't have to look far to see some of the fallout.

Drought conditions have lowered the water level at Lake McConaughy. A glance out the window of the marina and concession business she and her husband, Al, own on the south side of Lake McConaughy tells her the once-close shoreline is now about a mile away.

Lake McConaughy could be the poster child for the drought, now in its fifth year. At full storage, the lake stretches for about 19 miles. This summer, it shrank to about half its normal size. Some fear it could go dry next summer.

Recreation has been hurt at Lake McConaughy and Johnson Lake, both owned by Holdrege-based Central Nebraska Public Power and Irrigation District.

Central spokesman Tim Anderson said McConaughy is slowly filling, but only because no water is being released for irrigation. He said McConaughy will need above-average snowpack in the mountains of Colorado and Wyoming over the winter to bring it back up to normal levels.

But while the weather could signal the beginning of the end of the drought for much of western Nebraska, it also could mean a sixth year of nearly empty reservoirs, dry rivers and streams and burned-up pastures and crops.

"It's just a big guessing game," Collette Van Borkum said. "Worst- case scenario we will be hauling boats in from 2 1/2 miles away."

Central has put the price tag from the lack of water between $8 million and $10 million in hydroelectric revenues over the past five years, Anderson said. He said the district began cutting back on hydroelectric generation - which represents about 80 percent of its income - in 2002.

"We didn't know if we were in the middle of a two-year drought or a seven-year drought, so we thought it was prudent to do that," he said.

The Nebraska Public Power District, which also stores water in Lake McConaughy, estimates it will lose about $3 million in hydroelectric revenues between 2004 and 2006.

It could lose another $3 million at its Gerald Gentleman Station near Sutherland over the same time period if extreme heat forces it to cut back power generation at the coal-fired plant.

NPPD also has spent $12 million to install 40 wells at Gerald Gentleman Station to ensure it has enough water to cool its turbines if Lake McConaughy goes dry. The 1,300-megawatt plant supplies power to many Nebraska utilities, including Lincoln Electric System. NPPD officials say the drought has forced them to spend $2 million to buy electricity from the Loup Public Power District and pay 16 percent more this year for electricity from federal hydroelectric dams.

Lincoln Electric System officials also have been forced to take action because of the threat of water shortages. Drought could dry up the Grayrocks Reservoir, which supplies cooling water to Laramie River Station, a coal-fired power plant near Wheatland,Wyo. LES received 42 percent of its power from Laramie River Station last year. As a precaution, LES and its partners are negotiating for water rights in the area.

The continuing drought has had its biggest impact on agriculture. In 2000, the Nebraska Department of Agriculture said it caused about $1 billion in crop production losses. Livestock production losses were not included in the figure. Neither were losses to water supplies, cities and towns, recreation and tourism.

"Livestock losses during this drought have been major," said Mike Hayes, a climate impacts specialist for the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

No crop loss estimates were available for 2001 because the losses were more localized and were not as dramatic statewide. Nebraska Department of Agriculture officials consider 2000 and 2002 the worst years of the five-year drought. Crop production losses for 2002 were estimated at $1.2 billion. No estimates were available for 2003 and 2004.

Hayes said it is difficult to determine financial losses because of drought in any given year. It's not like assessing the damage caused by a hurricane because there is very little structural damage. He said the nation needs a better system of quantifying drought losses.

"After five years of drought in the western United States, we almost have no knowledge of what that impact is," Hayes said. "It's hard because of the nature of drought. The losses are spread out over so many different months and different sectors."

Dennis Strauch, general manager of the Pathfinder Irrigation District in Mitchell, has a good idea of the damage the drought has caused in his area. For the past three years, his district has delivered only 55 percent of the water its customers usually get in an irrigation season. Water was available for 60 to 65 days this summer, compared with the normal 110 days in a nondrought year.

Pathfinder, which serves irrigators in Scotts Bluff, Sioux and Morrill counties in the Panhandle, gets most of its water from snowmelt in the spring. The water is stored behind two dams on the North Platte River in Wyoming. Strauch said heavy winter snows are needed desperately.

"We're looking at virtually little or no carry-over in our storage."

State Climatologist Al Dutcher is optimistic about the snowpack in the mountains of Colorado and Wyoming.

And, he said, a weak El Nino pattern developing in the Pacific Ocean could bring much-needed moisture, but "it's just a matter of where the jet stream sets up."

Dutcher said this drought is comparable to that of the 1950s but not even close to the period from 1934-36.

The drought is over for the eastern part of Nebraska, which experienced one of the coolest summers on record. Dutcher said it continues to linger in central and Western Nebraska, but conditions are improving.

"Most of the western part of the state received very good rains in the last 30-day period," he said, adding that some areas got between 150 percent and 300 percent of their normal precipitation.

Timely rains have helped the winter wheat crop and put moisture in the ground for the spring planting season, but Dutcher said reservoirs and groundwater tables will continue to remain low until weather patterns change.