Natural prairie will be left alone

Thursday night the board members of the North Platte Natural Resource District (NRD) decided to back down from destroying the native prairie near Dome Rock.

The NRD had been pressuring landowners Nina and Lisa Betz to allow them on their property to construct the Yensen Drain Project.

The Betz family asked the NRD board to leave their family’s land alone as it is pristine prairie in October but the board chose to reaffirm their support of the project in October, voting 5-1 to go ahead with their Yensen Drain Project.

The decision left the Betz family fighting against the proposed project, a $2.2 million water diversion project planned locally by the NRD and nationally by the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS).

The project is to be paid for by federal stimulus funds and is touted as the final chapter in the Gering Valley Flood Project that began in the 1960s.
Many, including the Betz family, appear baffled by the project as it tears up rare natural grassland adjacent to the Scotts Bluff National Monument property to build a large water diversion ditch.

Sopporters of the Betz family formed a group called Don’t Ditch the Prairie and found a lot of community support.

Betz also distributed 4,600 handouts questioning the Yensen project. She inserted her handouts in several weekly newspapers in the North Platte Valley and found an audience.

She asked those receiving the handout to call NRD General Manager Ron Cacek and ask him to stop the project.

Thursday the NRD board and the Betz family announced an agreement to allow the NRD to construct their planned berm on the west end of their property, on property that is not native prairie.

The NRD had planned to fill in a natural canyon and dig through the native prairie bordering the Scotts Bluff National Monument lands but scrapped these plans apparently due to pressure from Betz, the media, the public, the leadership of the national monument and a very tight timeline.

“They clearly had a presentation that they spent a lot of time and money on and it clearly excluded the canyon and our lands to the east,” Lisa Betz said. “They did announce that they were excluding the natural prairie.”

Nina Betz, Lisa’s mother, said she would prefer that the NRD would not use any of their land for the project but “it is a fair compromise.”

Oddly, last month NRD Board Member Gerald Dillman told the other commissioners that 46 percent of the effectiveness of the entire Gering Valley Drain project would be lost if Betz’s land was not included in the project.

This month NRCS representative Dallas Johannsen told the board that the Yensen project is still viable even if it does not include much of the Betz’s land.

“(Last month) Mr. Dillman touted that it would be a complete waste of all the work that had been done on Dam H and it would be not worth doing without our land. It was interesting to see the change of perspective that was presented,” Lisa Betz said.

After seeing what the NRD plan contained, Lisa Betz added, “it very well could be just about money. The structure itself didn’t appear to have that much of an impact but then again it was an artist’s rendering of it.”

The Betz family has clearly learned a lot through this experience.

“I think anytime there is a cause that a person believes in – it is justifiable to stand up for your rights. While I do really appreciate the NRD’s consideration not to include all our land in this project, I’m not impressed with the way that they do business and the way that they treat landowners. Their modus operandi is disrespectful to the rights of landowners. It shouldn’t have to be a situation where we have to refuse to cooperate with their process and we feel threatened. It should not be a situation where it is us against them. They tried to make us feel that we were powerless. It is our land, not theirs,” Lisa Betz said adding she was amazed by the support she received from local citizens and many media members including KDUH-TV and the Gering Citizen.