NORTH PLATTE NATURAL RESOURCES DISTRICT BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING February 9, 2017 The regular meeting of the North Platte Natural Resources District (NRD) Board of Directors was called to order at 3:03 p.m. MDT, February 9, 2017 by Kent Andreas at the North Platte NRD conference room, 100547 Airport Road, Scottsbluff, Nebraska. Notice of the meeting was given to the public by publishing a legal notice in the February 2, 2017, Scottsbluff Star-Herald. Andreas informed meeting attendees that this meeting would be conducted in accordance with the Open Meetings Act, a copy of which is posted in the meeting room for public inspection. Board members present: Kent Andreas, Gary Darnall, Gerald Dillman, Roger Eirich, Chuck Henkel, Pete Lapaseotes, Dave Ostdiek, and Dan Weinreis. Absent: Dave Deines. Others present: John Berge, Barb Cross, Tracy Zayac, Dave Wolf, Lydia Hanson, Elizabeth Miller, Kyle Ann Hopkins, and Scott Schaneman, NPNRD staff; Thad Kuntz, Adaptive Resources, Inc. The following items of informational material were made available to the Directors electronically prior to the Board Meeting: 1. Meeting Notice 2. Agenda 3. Minutes, North Platte Natural Resources District, Board of Directors Meeting, January 12, 2017. 1
4. Treasurer s Report (Preliminary) 5. Director s Vouchers The following items were provided to the Directors at the Board Meeting: 1. Agenda 2. Minutes, North Platte Natural Resources District, Board of Directors Meeting, January 12, 2017. 3. Treasurer s Report 4. Manager s Report 5. Letter to Honorable Senator Stinner, dated January 13, 2017, regarding North Platte Natural Resources District Testimony regarding Legislative Bill 22. 6. Letter to Honorable Jim Smith, dated January 30, 2017, regarding comments into the record in favor of Legislative Bill 98. 7. Legislator s Packet, along with a letter to The Honorable Pete Ricketts, Governor, regarding the Legislative Bill 22, project descriptions, producer information, project future, mapping application, and other news. 8. Budget Timeline for Proposed FY 2018 Budget Schedule. 9. PowerPoint on Community-Based Drought Planning. 10. North Platte Natural Resources District, Drought Planning Timeline. 11. Elite Ag Partners handout regarding Variable Rate Irrigation. 12. Nebraska Soil & Water Conservation Program, Practice NC-17 Ranking Procedure Questionnaire. 2
13. Tier Ranking NC-17 Cost-share Program Document. 14. Email from John Berge, regarding the EPIC Program. 3. Approval of Minutes of Previous Meetings The Board reviewed the minutes of the January 12, 2017, regular Board meeting. Moved by Henkel, seconded by Ostdiek, to approve the minutes of the January 12, 2017, regular Board meeting. Motion passed. Ayes: Andreas, Darnall, Eirich, Henkel, Lapaseotes, Ostdiek, Weinreis Nay: None Abstain: Dillman Absent: Deines 4. Treasurer s Report and Accounts Payable Dave Ostdiek reviewed the Treasurer s report. Moved by Darnall, seconded by Dillman, to accept the Treasurer s report and pay the bills as listed. Motion passed. Ayes: Andreas, Darnall, Dillman, Eirich, Henkel, Lapaseotes, Ostdiek, Weinreis Nay: None Abstain: None Absent: Deines 5. Comments from the Public No comments from the public. Chuck Henkel thanked the staff for the employee appreciation dinner. 3
6. Manager s Report Administrative: Cell Phone Policy Management had been considering changing the cell phone policy to provide a stipend to employees for their personal cell phone and to end the practice of providing District owned cell phones. After much internal discussion and legal opinions from our counsel, we have decided to desert this idea and continue to provide District owned phones for employees. Soil Conservation Technician Todd Filipi and Berge interviewed seven potential Soil Conservation Technicians out of nearly thirty applications to replace Steve Smith who recently left us to move back to Lincoln and work at USDA. Employee Appreciation Dinner The employee appreciation dinner was a rousing success, and this is a thank you to all that participated. We were able to raise enough donations to cover the costs of the awards and door prizes so as to not have to tax the benefit to the employee. Budget Timeline In the coming weeks we will be meeting with Department Heads to discuss requests for the upcoming fiscal year. These will be very broad-based discussions, not dealing in any specific requests from Departments yet. We will also be developing a budget timeline for Department heads to consider as we work to get some of that preliminary information in front of the Budget and Personnel Committee. 4
Projects and Programs: WNCC Ag Program Western Nebraska Community College is in the process of developing an Associates of Applied Science in Agriculture. This would be the first program, specific to agriculture in about a 100-mile radius. Berge has held discussions with Lex Larsen who is heading up curriculum development to discuss the possibilities of having a water policy component of that curriculum. PRRIP Extension Discussions are ongoing with the Nebraska Department of Natural Resources and the Governance Committee of the Platte River Recovery Implementation Program to extend the first increment of the Program. Berge continues to press the GC and the Department on the wisdom of this move, given the uncertainty related to federal funding. McVicker Retirement and Conservation Easement Though we signed the retirement agreement with the McVicker s several months ago, we went before the Zoning and Planning Commission of Morrill County twice to ensure that the conservation easement, which is required by our grant agreement with the Water Sustainability Fund, was accepted by Planning and Zoning and ultimately the County Commission. As of this writing, we are on the agenda for the February 14 County Commission agenda for that purpose. Once approved, 60% of the payments to McVicker will be reimbursed. WSF Projects We have nearly 600 additional acres of groundwater to retire under the WSF grant, and will be working toward getting those agreements 5
finalized in the coming months, and working with the Department of Natural Resources to standardize the process for reimbursement requests. SW Projects We have seen an increase of potential surface water projects over the past several weeks, and may be coming to the Water Resources Committee with some suggestions on how we might be able to accommodate those requests in upcoming budgets. Drought Planning Staff will be starting a process for drought planning that you will be briefed on later in this meeting. Legislative Conference the legislative conference was a resounding success, and you will receive an update on those activities later in this meeting as well. PAWS Update NPNRD and Steve Smith as our counsel recently met with Director Fassett in follow up to a recent presentation to the board by representatives from the City of Scottsbluff and MC Schaaf. Our goal was to ensure that there was more direct and meaningful participation by the NRD to the PAWS group. Mr. Fassett has assured us that he will advocate for that and will keep us up to date on activities by the group until then. WWUMM ILCA We are tentatively scheduled to meet on February 23, one day before the Internal Model Review process opening meeting with CNPPID, NPPD and PRRIP as participants. 6
Outreach: Scottsbluff/Gering United Chamber of Commerce Agribusiness Committee Berge presented to the Scottsbluff/Gering United Chamber of Commerce Agribusiness Committee on February 3 to provide updates to on our programs and projects at the District. KNEB Farm and Ranch Expo Representatives from the staff participated in the KNEB Farm and Ranch Show on February 2 and 3, providing information about the District s services and taking tree orders. Oshkosh Farm and Ranch Show Representatives from the staff participated in the Oshkosh Farm and Ranch show, providing information about the District s services and taking tree orders. Bean Day Dave Wolf participated in the Annual Bean Day Meeting on February 7, and was joined intermittently throughout the day by other staff providing information about the District s activities. Conservation Partnership of the Panhandle The annual conference of the newly revamped Conservation Partnership of the Panhandle will be held in Bridgeport on February 22 and admission will be free. NRCS Local Working Group Meeting the Local Working Group Meeting is to be held on March 7. All District Operations Committee Members are encouraged to attend. NOTE: Berge will be out of the office and unreachable 2/15-2/19 7
7. Legislative Update- Berge reported the District has provided testimony on LB 22 (neutral) and LB 98 (in favor). LB 22 is one of the budget related bills that will be discussed this year, and the District wanted thank the Legislative and Executive Branches for the moderate cuts to the Water Sustainability Fund and Nebraska Soil and Water Conservation Fund. Both programs are integral to the District s water management efforts. LB 98 extends the threecent levy option to help offset the costs of water management activities by providing an additional $244,000. This additional revenue option allows the District to provide a wide range of consumptive use reduction, incentive programs instead of applying more Draconian measure such as cutting allocations. Berge mentioned that there are not many natural resources related bills, but they will be providing testimony to another bill very soon. 8. Report from NARD Legislative Conference Berge reported Board member s Gerald Dillman, Dave Deines, Dave Ostdiek and a number of staff attend the 2017 Nebraska Association of Resources District s Legislative Conference. Staff meet with over 30 State Senator s and dropped off information to the rest. This outreach is extremely important with two-thirds of the Legislature having less than three years of experience. Staff was also able to meet with the Department of Natural Resources, the UNL Water Center, and other partners. 8
9. Budget Timeline Like last year, staff have developed a budget timeline to help both staff and the board with this year s budget process. The timeline starts April 30 th with the Department heads submitting their budget proposals and concludes with the budget hearing and approval at the September Board meeting. The full timeline was provided in the Board packet. 10. Report from Water Resources Committee Meeting a. Presentation on Drought Planning Tracy Zayac and Elizabeth Miller presented on the progress of the drought planning process. The process will be a community based drought plan, which will involve stakeholders through the District and in many different disciplines. Zayac and Miller provided a timeline for the process, and they would like to have the process approved by the Board at the end of the year. Zayac stressed that the plan needs to be approved before the start the of renewal of the Integrated Management Plan in 2018. b. Elite Ag Partners Berge reported that last year, the committee requested a presentation about Variable Rate Irrigation (VRI). Staff contacted Scott Speck and Tommy Wiles from Crop Metrics, and they presented information on their VRI programs to the committee. Speck presented the different aspects of their VRI program including: website interface, soil maps, moisture probes, and how VRI can help 9
producers use water more efficiently. c. Cost Share Rankings Berge reported the committee s discussion on the District s cost share rankings. Over the past couple of years, the District has been ranking applications for the Nebraska Soil and Water Conservation Program (NSWCP). Staff has recommended certain changes to the point values for new and existing practices. All the practices affected are under the NC-17 list. The changes, if approved, would be effective in next year s application ranking. The new point values reflect the water management priorities set previously by the board. No action was taken by the committee. d. EPIC Berge reported the committee s discussion on the EPIC program allows landowners to sell the District portions or all of their allocation and the NRD would use the credit towards its obligation under the Integrated Management Plan. Only one landowner was awarded last year, and there was not a lot of interest in the program. The District has seen an increase in interest in the program, but the staff have some recommended changes. The recommendation would base the payment on the year a landowner is in their allocation period. The payment rate for the first year would be changed to $25.00 per acre inch, and then would be reduced $5.00 an inch each 10
consecutive year their program is offered. The District would then pay $25.00 an acre inch to purchase carry forward allotments before the next allocation period begins. The reason behind the change is to reward those landowners that took more of a risk by signing up earlier in the allocation period. No action was taken. e. Public Hearings for Applications for Variances The application for variances public hearings for David and Mary Forester and HR2 Farms were tabled to a later date due to error in the notice. 11. Adjourn Moved by Eirich, seconded by Darnall, to adjourn at 4:13 p.m., MDT. Motion passed. Ayes: Andreas, Darnall, Dillman, Eirich, Henkel, Lapaseotes, Ostdiek, Weinreis Nay: None Abstain: None Absent: Deines 11