Authorities in Nebraska are trying to determine who released 16 million gallons of water by opening a dam on an irrigation channel one night this month - and why.
The puzzling water release from the Cambridge Canal reduced the flow to some 18,000 acres of crops and jeopardized expensive irrigation equipment, according to Brad Edgerton, the general manager of the Frenchman Cambridge Irrigation District that runs the nearly 48-mile-long waterway.
Edgerton drove there and discovered that someone had wrenched open the dam's two 10-foot sluice gates, sending the precious water down the Republican River. He estimates that about 50-acre-feet of water was lost during the roughly eight hours that the gates were open, and that the water was worth around $2,600 based on the $52-per-acre-foot price that farmers pay.
Edgerton scrambled to notify farmers downstream about the problem, called the sheriff and contacted the Bureau of Reclamation to get more water released from the Harry Strunk Reservoir to replenish the canal. "There are a lot of different scenarios and theories," he said. "But there is no evidence to lean one way or another, so all theories are still viable.""I don't believe they're any closer to solving it," he said Thursday.
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