1-111.

NEBRASKA-KANSAS WATER COMPACT COMMISSION

A BILL FOR AN ACT relating to water compacts; to provide for the appointment of a commissioner or commissioners to act on behalf of the State of Nebraska to negotiate a compact between the States of Kansas and Nebraska; to provide for an equitable division and apportionment between the states of the water of the Big Blue River and Little Blue River and their tributaries; to provide certain powers for such commissioner or commissioners; and to provide when such compact shall become binding upon the states involved or the citizens thereof.

Be it enacted by the people of the State of Nebraska,

Section 1. The Governor of Nebraska may appoint a commissioner or commissioners who shall represent the State of Nebraska upon a joint commission to be composed of commissioners representing the States of Kansas and Nebraska, to be constituted by the states for the purpose of negotiating and entering into a compact or compacts for the equitable division and apportionment between the states of the waters of the Big Blue River and its tributaries and the Little Blue River and its tributaries. Any compact made on behalf of the states herein referred to shall not be binding or obligatory upon either state, or the citizens thereof, unless and until the same shall have been ratified by the Legislatures of the compacting states and approved by the Congress of the United States. The commissioner or commissioners shall have complete authority to consider and include in any compact provisions for the conservation of the waters of the aforesaid streams and may provide for the construction of works in one of the states to control water for use in the other state.

Sec. 2. Upon appointment the commissioner or commissioners shall proceed immediately to meet with the commissioners for the State of Kansas for the purpose of negotiating the compact or compacts referred to in section 1 of this act.