Irrigation deliveries are set up on a rotation schedule designed to encourage conservation by irrigators. Irrigation service specialists patrol canals, laterals and pipelines and work closely with irrigation customers to coordinate water deliveries. Central measures all deliveries and a computerized water delivery balance is maintained for each account so each customer knows down to a tenth of an inch how much water he has used.

Conditions along the canals are monitored and controlled by computers in the Gothenburg Control Center. The automation enables Central to rapidly adjust to changing conditions and efficiently move water through the system.

Central implemented an incentive policy in 2001 that encouraged conversions to center pivot irrigation. As of 2005, irrigation customers have installed more than 250 center pivots on Central’s system serving more than 32,000 acres. Pivots on Central’s system take water from canals rather than groundwater, which eliminates the need for and expense of drilling a well. Pivots are one of the most efficient delivery systems available to farmers today and they typically require less water than irrigation with gated pipe or siphon tubes.

The combination of irrigation service specialists and a computerized supervisory control system increases the efficiency of the project’s delivery system. Source — Central Nebraska Public Power and Irrigation District.

Central has also worked with customers to install other water-saving devices and has improved its canal system to reduce water losses as it travels from the diversion dam at North Platte to the farmers’ fields, all with the intent of ensuring a reliable source of water for everyone who relies on Lake McConaughy

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