Water that should have gone straight to crops instead went down the Republican River. Last Saturday around 10:30 p.m., someone was at the diversion dam and opened two gates at the Cambridge Canal allowing for thousands of dollars of irrigation water to go down that river, half the water at the dam was spilled that night.
The Frenchman Cambridge Irrigation District is a federal project and they serve around 45,600 acres with surface, or ditch water. They have four canal systems and three reservoirs where they draw the water from.
"We are in a pretty serious drought right now, there's not a lot of water in the river, so all the water we are delivering is coming from the reservoirs," said Manager at Frenchman Cambridge Irrigation District Brad Edgerton.
He added that to eliminate water spill, the irrigation district makes changes at the reservoirs to perfectly match the demand on the demand systems.
Edgerton said the action of the individual or individuals was a big disappointment for farmers around the area and the local irrigation district.
“This year we haven’t had hardly any rain, and we are trying to stretch our water supply as long as we can, it was just unfortunate that something like this happened," Edgerton added.
“It’s a really tough situation here in Furnas County especially the western part of Furnas County," said Farmer and NRD Board Member Clark Andrews.
The irrigation district serves between 350 and 375 farmers, and they pay $52.20 per acre foot of water. Edgerton said, that Saturday night around $2,500 to $3,000 worth of water was lost.
“NRD, irrigation districts, and the farmers, we spend millions of dollars to conserve all the water we can, and then some knothead comes along and just pulls the plug and sends it all down the river and puts everyone behind, and costs everyone a lot of money, it’s a bad deal," Andrews said.
On Sunday morning, the irrigation district had to make calls to those farmers with center pivots on the canal, so their pivots didn't run without water. The river gates were closed and then the irrigation district contacted the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.
"We ordered more water for the reservoir so we could put it in the canal and get the canal full again," Edgerton said.
By Sunday night, things went back to normal. The one or the ones who committed the action manually had to turn a big, heavy wheel to open the gates. Edgerton said the wheel is now missing, and that the irrigation district will find out if that wheel is at the bottom of the dam once they shut down the water for this season.
Anyone can have access to the diversion dam, as it even has spaces for picnics. After the incident happened, the canal gates now have better locks.
“Locks keep the honest people out," Edgerton said.
He added that the board of directors will talk about installing cameras around the diversion dam. Edgerton added that things could had been worse.
“If, for whatever reason, the float switch wouldn’t have worked and the pumps would have worked without water, they could have ruined all three pumps and we would have been done for the season without irrigation," Edgerton said.
Now the Furnas County Sherriff's Office is asking for help to identify the subject(s) responsible. This situation has been taken to the federal level, with up to $25,000 in reward.
“The Bureau of Reclamation was notified, so there is reward money available under their ‘See and Say' program," Edgerton said.
If anyone knows who committed the act, they can contact the Furnas County Sheriff’s Office (308-268-2245) or the Bureau of Reclamation (888-748-7220).
“I wouldn’t want to be the people who did this at this point in time," Andrews said.