As an elementary-school-age Nebraskan, Michelle Kwan’s 2002 Olympic run remained my exclusive exposure to ice skating. Hearing of a small pond close to my grandparents’ Colorado home induced wonder beyond previous possibilities in my young life. I waited impatiently for our Christmas trip to their home on Wisp Creek Drive. My dad, as tall as […]

The Platte Basin is located in the heart of the United States of America, encompassing a broad diversity of landscapes and habitats. From the mountains of Wyoming and Colorado to the Great Plains of Nebraska, this watershed, waters cities, small farming communities, and provides habitat for wildlife. The Platte Basin is made up of five […]

Nebraska irrigates more farmland than any state in the nation, and a lot of that water is pumped from underground. A new program for sharing Nebraska’s groundwater may help both farmers and endangered species.

Climate scientists in Nebraska and Colorado are training Native American water managers how to collect and understand local climate data and make better predictions about their water supply.

Nebraska irrigates more farmland than any state in the nation, and a lot of that water is pumped from underground. A new program for sharing Nebraska’s groundwater may help both farmers and endangered species.

____________________________________ Cheesman Dam At the end of the 19th century Denver was reaching the half-century mark. By 1900, the former mining camp founded in 1858 at the confluence of Cherry Creek and the South Platte River had grown to 130,000. Denver’s early efforts at providing safe and reliable water first depended on water taken directly […]

While staring at the Platte River this past week, I grappled with the severity of the drought in California and the mandatory restrictions of water use there. It was intangible, a concept I just couldn’t grasp while watching the girth of surface water flooding Nebraska this year. California farmers are losing crops because there isn’t […]

Lake McConaughy is nearly full. The giant reservoir on the North Platte River has been receiving lots of inflows from heavy snows and continued rainfall in the headwaters in Colorado and Wyoming. Formed by the Kingsley Dam, Lake McConaughy is one of the largest reservoirs on the North Platte River. Built as a hydro-irrigation project […]

While surface water development led the early history of irrigation in Nebraska, it became common for farmers to tap the wealth of water below ground beginning in the 1930s.

From the time of the first agricultural societies, farmers have experimented with various ways to get enough water to their crops.