Laserfiche WebLink
8.0 INSTITUTIONAL CONSIDERATIONS <br />Commissioners for the States of Colorado, Kansas, and Nebraska signed the <br />Republican River Compact on December 31, 1942. The Compact became effective <br />when it was approved by the legislature of each state and consented to by the <br />Congress of the United States in 1943, thereby becoming a law of the United States. <br />The Compact apportioned beneficial consumptive use in each state derived from the <br />computed average annual virgin water supply originating in designed drainage <br />subbasins, subject to increase or decrease if the computed virgin water supply of any <br />source varied more than ten percent from the virgin water supply. <br />In the late 1990s, the State of Kansas filed a motion for leave to file a complaint against <br />the State of Nebraska with the United States Supreme Court, alleging that Nebraska <br />had violated the Compact by exceeding the beneficial consumptive use allocated to <br />Nebraska under the Compact, primarily by ground water pumping and consumptive use. <br />The U.S. Supreme Court granted the motion. Nebraska filed an answer and across- <br />claim against Colorado, alleging that Colorado had also violated the Compact by <br />exceeding its consumptive use. <br />Colorado and Nebraska argued that ground water was not apportioned by the Compact <br />or, if it was considered, only ground water in the alluvium of stream channels was <br />subject to the compact apportionment. The Special Master in Kansas v. Nebraska and <br />Colorado ruled that depletions to surface streams due to ground water pumping in the <br />basin, including ground water pumping from the Ogallala Aquifer, was part of the <br />consumptive use allocated by the Compact. <br />On December 15, 2002, the States of Kansas, Nebraska, and Colorado entered into a <br />Final Settlement Stipulation that provided for dismissal of the lawsuit and waived all <br />claims for damages through December 15, 2002. In the Final Settlement Stipulation, <br />Colorado and Kansas agreed to no new relaxation of their existing laws and regulations <br />on well construction and agreed that in compact accounting, sub-basin allocations may <br />be added together, to a certain extent, and that accounting will be done on a five-year <br />running average. Other aspects of the Final Settlement Stipulation are discussed in the <br />Introduction and Section 3.1. <br />Approvals by the RRCA or the Colorado Water Court are not required to implement the <br />North Fork Lease. <br />9.0 SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF THE PROJECT <br />The North Fork Lease will supplement the Compact Compliance Pipeline and will assist <br />the State of Colorado to comply with the Republican River Compact. The North Fork <br />Lease will also help remove the threat that water rights in the basin will be curtailed <br />under proposed Compact Rules or an action to enforce the Compact by Kansas or <br />Nebraska. According to Colorado Agricultural Statistics (2007), the four county region <br />(Yuma, Phillips, Kit Carson, and Logan counties) produced 82,815,000 bushels of corn <br />for grain in 2006, which was 65% of the statewide corn for grain production. Yuma <br />9 <br />