March 12, 2008--Lawmakers back water money, but dispute with Kansas not resolved (Denver Post)
About 300 farmers in the Republican River basin could get checks totaling $9 million from the state, but Nebraskans are still staring down the possibility of paying millions in damages to Kansas. The Legislature gave first-round approval on Wednesday to borrowing $9 million from the state's cash reserve fund to pay farmers who, because of a pending lawsuit, haven't been paid for sending water to Kansas last year instead of irrigating their crops. On the same day, water officials from Kansas and Nebraska meeting in Kansas City, Mo., failed to resolve their dispute over water use in the Republican River. Kansas water officials have said they would seek tens of millions of dollars for Nebraska's overuse of water from the river, in addition to a shutdown of wells that irrigate nearly half the 1.2 million acres in the basin. Following Wednesday's meeting, Nebraska's top water official sounded optimistic that the dispute could be resolved so that legal proceedings would be avoided.
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