Governor calls for unified leadership for Nebraska's water, nitrate issues
NEBRASKA CITY – Gov. Jim Pillen told a group of Natural Resource District managers Wednesday that Nebraska needs unified leadership to reduce agricultural and industrial water usage and properly deal with nitrate leaching.
The governor offered support for the structure of the state’s 23 Natural Resource Districts, but said he sees leadership advantages to combining the state’s Department of Natural Resources and the Department of Environment and Energy.
Pillen: “I’m hoping we can have conversations about vision that we are all together on.”
He said a harmonized message to farmers and industry can highlight the benefits of using less water and dealing with nitrates that leach below the useful root zones of plants.
Pillen: “I believe that if we combine departments, it would be a very beneficial thing. I believe combing the DNR and the DEE into one will lead to efficiency and will lead to far superior education to make sure we’re all on the same team.”
NRD managers told Pillen they preach water conservation and reduced nitrates every day, but they sometimes feel alone in that message.
Pillen: “I don’t think, unless we have the NRDs on the team with water quality, that we’re ever going to put a dent in it.”
Gov. Pillen said the technology is to a point where less water and less fertilizer may increase profitability on some soils in certain climates even if yields are decreased. He said farmers could make better decisions about water use if usage meters reported in real time rather than at year's end.
He suggests an incentive that expands the number of irrigated acres if water use on the existing acres goes down.
Pillen: "It's an incentive to do more, not less.”
He said while using less water deals with the quantity issues, the issue of quality remains.
Pillen: “Are we at a point where we have enough courage to talk about water quality? Are we at a point to say let’s get it to a level where we really actually can do something about nitrates.”
Pillen: “I do believe that we have some really good practices going on to decrease making it worse. Right? The question is, are we going to do something to get it clean?”
He said the idea of combining departments is conceptual.
Pillen: “Hopefully I won’t read about it on the front page of the paper tomorrow. It’s something I think is an important consideration.”
He said reducing overlap of administrative tasks is likely with a merger of the departments, but the bigger advantage is making sure the state is on the same page and state leaders are working together.
The governor said he is interested in creating a task force regarding nitrates.
https://flatwaterfreepress.org/pillens-water-high-nitrate-detected-on-hog-farms-owned-by-nebraskas-governor/