(Above) Reclamation Commissioner Robert W. Johnson and Nebraska-Kansas Area Manager Aaron Thompson participate in activities with local students at the Nebraska Children's Groundwater Festival held this spring at Grand Island.

Nebraska-Kansas
Area Office

P.O. Box 1607
Grand Island, NE 68802
Phone(308) 389-4622
Fax (308) 389-4780

Area Manager:
Aaron Thompson

The Nebraska-Kansas Area Office (NKAO) is located in Grand Island, Nebraska. The office manages Reclamation projects in Nebraska and Kansas with the exception of the North Platte Project, which extends from Wyoming into Nebraska, and the Wichita Project in Kansas.

See below for link to current information, or scroll down to see more information on the areas we manage.

• Contact NKAO's Public Involvement Specialist
• North Loup Final Irrigable Area Determination, July 2008 (59 mb)
• Municipal, Rural, and Industrial Water Supply System Feasibility Study Status Report -- Santee Sioux Nation and the Village of Niobrara, Nebraska
• Needs Assessment, MR&I Water System, Santee Indian Reservation, Nebraska
• Lower Republican River Basin, Appraisal Report
• Lower Republican River Basin, Plan of Study for Feasibility Study
• Framework for Reclamation Title Transfers
• MORE PUBLIC INVOLVEMENT LINKS...

• Boat Launching Facilities
• Concessions Management Information
• Hunting & Fishing Regulations by State
• Kansas Department of Wildlife & Parks
• Nebraska Game & Parks Commission
• Recreation Sites in Nebraska
• Recreation Sites in Kansas
• Resource Management Plans

Reclamation's work in Nebraska began soon after the agency was created in 1902. Studies were started in 1903 and construction began in 1905 on the North Platte Project which includes facilities in both Nebraska and Wyoming. The North Platte Project is managed by the Wyoming Area Office in Mills, Wyoming, with 75 percent of irrigation water supply delivered to the panhandle of Nebraska per Supreme Court Decree.

Following construction of the North Platte Project, the Mirage Flats Project in the northwest corner of the state was built in the 1940's. Work followed on five divisions of the Pick-Sloan Missouri Basin Program authorized by the Flood Control Act of 1944. These facilities were built over a 40-year period. The first was the Frenchman-Cambridge Division P-SMBP in the southwestern part of the state which includes four storage dams along Frenchman Creek and the Republican River. Next came the Bostwick Division P-SMBP just downstream.

Work on the Middle Loup Division P-SMBP in the north central part of the state commenced in 1955 and continued into the 1960's. Title to facilities of the Middle Loup Division was transferred to the Middle Loup Reclamation District November 22, 2002 by the Bureau of Reclamation. The transfer was authorized by Public Law 106-366, enacted on October 27, 2000.

The Sandhills Division P-SMBP is near the confluence of the Snake and Niobrara rivers. The last Reclamation project built in Nebraska was the North Loup Division along the Loup and North Loup rivers.

With the exception of the North Platte Project, the Reclamation projects in Nebraska are managed by the Nebraska-Kansas Area Office.

Most of the development in Kansas has been done under the authority of the Pick-Sloan Missouri Basin Program (P-SMBP) created by the Flood Control Act of 1944 (P.L. 534). -see insert in Who We Are- The projects in Kansas are in the Republican, Solomon and Smoky Hill River basins. All of these rivers drain into the Kansas River, a tributary of the Missouri. All but one of the Reclamation projects in Kansas are managed by Nebraska-Kansas Area Office in Grand Island, Nebraska.

The Cedar Bluff Unit P-SMBP south and west of Hays was the first project built in the state. It was followed by the Kirwin Unit P-SMBP on the North Fork of the Solomon River, the Webster Unit on the South Fork, the Kansas Bostwick Unit P-SMBP in the north central part of the state, the Almena Unit P-SMBP near the town of Norton and the Glen Elder Unit on the Solomon River at the point where the north and south forks join. All of these projects were built for irrigation and flood control with all providing recreation and fish and wildlife benefits as well.

A seventh project in Kansas was not developed under Pick-Sloan. The Wichita Project (P.L. 86-787) is a multiple-purpose water project operated and maintained by the city of Wichita and the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks. Oversight for the project, which provides water for 350,000 people, is provided by Reclamation's Oklahoma-Texas Area Office.