Ricketts Discusses Strengthening Nebraska’s Water Infrastructure at Environment and Public Works Committee
WASHINGTON, D.C. – This week, U.S. Senator Pete Ricketts (R-NE), a member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, discussed improvements to Nebraska’s water infrastructure, including irrigation, during a committee hearing. Witnesses included Tom Goulette, City Administrator and Utility Superintendent for the City of West Point, NE. Ricketts said the following to Goulette:
“[Nebraska is one of] the largest irrigation states in the country. I was just in Scottsbluff last week, where the Gering-Fort Laramie Canal collapsed while I was Governor. We worked to get some temporary repairs in place there. It’s owned by the Bureau of Reclamation, but through a program, they built the canal there 100 years ago, and when it collapsed, it cut off about 55,000 acres of Nebraska farmland from getting irrigation water.
“That obviously, is just huge for a state like Nebraska, where agriculture is our biggest industry in the state,” Ricketts continued. “We’re going to be looking for opportunities to have the federal government partner with us to get the permanent repairs on that done, because right now it’s operating at about 80% capacity.”
Click here to watch the hearing.
TRANSCRIPT:
Senator Ricketts: “Great. Thank you very much, appreciate it.
“Well, welcome to all of our witnesses today.
“I appreciate taking the time and Tom, great to have you here to be able to represent Nebraska.
“Tom brings just a wealth of information to this committee.
“If there is a job involving water in the state of Nebraska, over the last 40 years, Tom has done that job.
“He has been, obviously, currently in West Point and great community there in Cuming County.
“But just your depth of expertise is amazing.
“I’m actually going to read all some of the stuff because it’s pretty impressive.
“Served as Chairman of the Governor’s Advisory Council for Drinking Water, Chairman of the Municipal Energy Agency of Nebraska, Chairman of the League of Nebraska Utilities of Nebraska Utility Section, and President of Nebraska Rural Water.
“Just to name a few.
“You’re currently the Chairman of the Nebraska League of Municipalities, Small Cities Legislative Committee say hi to Lynn for me.”
Tom Goulette: “I will do that.”
Senator Ricketts: “And if you’re not busy enough, you’re very you’re engaged very civic engagements, where you’ve served as a Utility Superintendent for the City West Point since 1993 and added City Administrator to your business card in 2001 and you still got both those titles today, right?”
Tom Goulette: “Yes, yeah.”
Senator Ricketts: “So it just shows again, small towns people wear a lot of hats.
“And before the committee today, your post is the Nebraska Rural Water Association.
“You’ve been on the board there since 2005 and currently serving on the executive committee.
“So, thank you again, Tom for being here.
“Really, really appreciate your experience that you bring to this committee.”
Tom Goulette: “Thank you, sir.”
Senator Ricketts: “So, welcome.
“And what I’d like to talk a little bit about is many small and rural communities face significant challenges in accessing and managing the federal infrastructure dollars due to limited staffing and technical expertise.
“We saw this in other areas as well, like the Department of Transportation, and so forth.
“When we met in February, the Nebraska Rural Water Association Chair shared some of these barriers, what type of resources or policy changes could Congress consider making to federal programs to make them more efficient for small and rural communities?”
Tom Goulette: “You know, a lot of it comes down to the simplifying the application requirements for those small communities.
“Typically, they know best of what their needs are going to be when it comes to upgrading your systems or changing the equipment and that type of thing, along with the assistance from, you know, the Nebraska Rural Water Association or Circuit Riders are there lending assistance in quantifying that.
“And then once they get to that point, once they can get to some type of formulation of what that community needs, that’s when an application needs to go in, and then that should allow for some additional engineering.
“Then at that stage, once that project is identified, and the community can have some buy in, for lack of a better term.
“The other thing is that reducing those match requirements, a lot of small rural communities, they stretch every dollar they have.
“So, when, when they’re looking at this, and they’re looking at the match requirements to comply with that, it becomes difficult.
“Then they’ve got to balance out where the priorities lie within the financial capabilities of that community. So consequently, some of those projects get on, put on the shelf, then at that point.”
Senator Ricketts: “Yeah, and it’s not so true for West Point, because West Point is really doing well.
“But what we see is it fair to say, in a lot of our rural communities, we see that as the younger people move away and you’re left with declining population of older folks at bases, that just adds to the complication of being able to get these water projects done?”
Tom Goulette: “It does.
“And along with that, is our aging workforce.
“You know, we see a lot of operators aging out those, those are one and two main operations.
“So, you know, once that that legacy leaves that community that they’re difficult to replace.
“So that makes the challenge even more difficult to make to help sustain that community.”
Senator Ricketts: “Is there, again, is there something we could do in Congress to be able to help with some of those workforce challenges?”
Tom Goulette: “One of the things is the apprenticeship program that Senator Capito put in place a few years ago, and we need to get that moving in Nebraska.
“We need to get that funding moving in Nebraska.
“We need to get an apprenticeship program and start that process to engage those communities and show them options and bring trained operators to the facilities.
Senator Ricketts: “Can you just give us a briefly, just how some of these federal funding programs have made otherwise cost prohibitive projects in small towns and rural communities possible?”
Tom Goulette: “Yeah, I mean, basically, when you’re looking at the projects themselves, and you’re looking at the market based on interest rates and that type of thing, and the longevity, it makes it more economically feasible for those small communities, there’s the grant basis that they also can qualify for, which also helps them.”
Senator Ricketts: “Can you give me an example of specific project off the top of your head?”
Tom Goulette: “You know that the easiest example right now is the city of West Point.
“You know, we did the water project here a few years ago where we had a $2.7 million water treatment plant.
“Of that $2.7 million, 553,000 of that was loan forgiveness, and then in addition to that, was the one and a half percent interest rate, plus the administrative fee for the state.”
“So it makes it very economically feasible to get those programs in place rather than going out to the open market.”
Senator Ricketts: “All right, great.
“Well, oh, we lost our chair, so I guess I’m in charge of the Republican side now.
“I’m going to take a moment just to talk a little bit as well about an important project not specifically related to the drinking water, but access to water in general, in our state is obviously important.
“We’re the largest irrigation state in the country, and I was just in Scottsbluff last week, and theGering-Fort Laramie Canalcollapsed while I was Governor, and we worked to get some temporary repairs in place there.
“It’s owned by the Bureau of Reclamation, but through a program, they built the canal there 100 years ago, and when it collapsed, it cut off about 55,000 acres of Nebraska farmland from getting irrigation water.
“And that obviously, is just huge for a state like Nebraska, where irrigation, or irrigation is big, but also agriculture is our biggest industry in the state.
“And so, we’re going to be looking for opportunities to be able to have the federal government partner, to be able to get the permanent repairs on that done, because right now it’s operating, like, about 80% capacity.
“And I was just talking to folks about, again, just getting to this idea of, like, how expensive it is for these projects, and how with the drinking water and making it possible in West Point, but the cost that would be for those farmers to be able to pay the extra fees to be able to get those total repairs done would be really, really challenging.
“So that’s another project in our example how the federal government can help partner with states and local communities to be able to get these water projects done.”