Nebraska Legislature examines rising price of Colorado canal project as budget debate continues

LINCOLN, Neb. (WOWT) - Two huge ticket items — representing nearly a billion dollars in new spending — dominated debate among state senators at the Legislature on Thursday.

Both of those big-ticket items aren’t new, but we’re talking about them more now because Nebraska lawmakers are finally talking about the budget:

• The first: $350 million to build a new prison — one critics say won’t solve the overcrowding problem.
• The other item: $575 million to build the Perkins County Canal on the Nebraska-Colorado border.

Gov. Jim Pillen recently took a trip with a handful of senators for a first-hand look at the area not far from the near border community of Julesburg, Colo.

The move is all about water and Nebraska securing water rights to what’s flowing from the Rocky Mountains and into the South Platte River.

A hundred years ago, Nebraska and Colorado came to an agreement in what’s known as the 1923 South Platte River Compact. During irrigation season, Colorado agrees to allow a certain amount of water to flow into Nebraska.

That’s been working well, we’ve been told.

But the rest of the time — from October to April — Nebraska leaders say we haven’t received what we are supposed to. Nebraska’s previous governor, Gov. Pete Ricketts, worried new industry in Colorado would lay claim to all the water before it ever had the chance to reach Nebraska.

Nebraska never built a canal or reservoir like it was supposed to in the 100-year-old deal That’s why the big ask is happening now: $575 million to build and then enforce the century-old compact

The canal project has actually gone up another $125 million from last year.

The threat of litigation is real.

Remember: Nebraska intends to go into Colorado and use its land for the canal. Last year, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis called the plan “a canal to nowhere” — a political stunt and waste of taxpayer dollars.

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