 Alright, I am going to do my best job to tie a lot of what has already been said and then piggyback it on some of the things I would like to say. And I'd like to start with the underlying principle that makes things like what Annie and Mike did or what I have done or what you have done or what you're going to do. The underlying principle is in all of this you don't have to ask anybody and that's huge. That's the difference in why societies get ahead and why societies sit there and look the same as they look for 2,000 years is do you have the right to take an idea and go do it. Now what I'm talking about is your right to the water that you're using or going to use. And let's take how we're sitting, I love how things happen randomly and how you sat. This is the state of Alabama and each person is sitting on their farm, which is an irrigated farm. And then you've got this wall over there is Georgia, that wall is Mississippi. There's a main river that runs down this walkway that never runs dry. And there's one over there like that, it all pools up down here. And where you're located are meandering streams that may run all summer, may not. You can see over here there was two things over here. There was easy water to access and you started first because the next guy saw his neighbor doing something so he said, hey, that looks pretty good. I think I'll do the same thing. So that's why there's more people sitting right here irrigating because the water was easier to get down here. You've got municipalities, wildlife, refuges, you know, make up something. But we're not farming right here. But right here sits by the most water in the whole state because all the water in the state's coming downhill. So it all works right here. And then you've got these farmers right here got what I call the low hanging fruit. You located your farm right beside that main channel of water that never runs dry. No one came in here. See the too far to pump it or there's no way to get it there. Everybody in this room is sitting upstream or downstream from somebody. This gentleman here is going to have a greater effect on his stream based on what everybody behind him does. Counter that with he's got more accumulation of water when it goes by him or through him than the person on the back row. All right, let's start with Joe over there on Joe's farm. There's enough water in this river here that Joe could buy all the surrounding. See there's nobody irrigating or farming that right around him but Joe can buy all that. But the stream's not big enough to support that. But this stream is. Then you've got Andy sitting there owning the land which owns the water. So you've got that dynamic. Then you've got Larkin sitting in the back upstream, not the back. You're sitting at the top of the watershed. Now she could double the pivots, well one, two, three, four, five. She could times it by five what she's watering right now. What effect is she going to have on the gentleman beside her and the four down below her? So there's a dynamic. Every drought then spurs the, spurs not the right word, wakes the sleeping politician. And then he wakes up and says, oh we're out of water, let's come up with a management plan. Now this state right here is at a intersection. It has no water management plan. So let's create one because 50 years ago or 20 years ago then there was only 10 of you here in the room. Now as you increase then you issues come up. That's a nice way of putting it. When you were just there there was no issue. When everybody around you has a need then that becomes an issue. Let's say Keith's been pumping there for 20 years and the municipality's well is right there and Keith buys that farm and wants to put a well right there. Well that's going to have an effect. Both the water belongs to that spot and who owns that spot. Now so you're sitting at the, Alabama's sitting at this intersection and the intersection you got one road to the right which is restriction which is the easy way out versus build infrastructure. That road is built on the principle that when we get all the rain that we want in the winter time but we don't need it and in the summer time you need it but it's sitting in the Gulf of Mexico. So that's, that then is where the D River Farm is or Brack Farms is where we've built reservoirs to store that water when it's running down this stream over here and it's too much or nobody complains about anything missing. They don't even notice it because it's yesterday it was crossing the paved road. So that's when these reservoirs get reloaded. Now as a state and a water management plan if you recognize that, now here's where you turn the whole system up on top of its head. The state and that's a very generic term, can they, can a drought trigger them to trigger to regulate your use or monitor this stream flow? Let's start with stream flow. Let's say we take all the technology in the world and right here we know what the stream flow on average should be. So anything up here is going to affect this flow meter whether it's a drought or whether it's your use. So here's where you turn it on its head. It's natural to say let's restrict all you so the stream flow is here the same versus when there's a drought it triggers government, state, whatever you want to call it to then build infrastructure to keep the stream flow the same. So the gentleman prior to Annie had a page that had storing water and putting it in that stream so it will have a certain flow at a certain time that someone deems to be the flow. But that's the intersection that Alabama sits at is does an event trigger someone to tell you what to do versus an event trigger government to help you do what you do. And it's two different philosophies on how you manage water. Alabama's blessed in the sense of if I ask you to figure out how to manage Bill Gates his annual take on, well how hard would it be? I mean we could all be financial geniuses at that point. Well Alabama sits on that amount of water as much as we talk about droughts in the summer in the winter time we talk about wow that four inch rain sure did get the soil wet. I can't work till spring. I mean it's the same conversation. It's as extreme as the Weather Channel and I guess it was 2012 when we all got roasted. You know Weather Channel was out there doing drought reports. Well you know they send the same crew the next year to do the flood report. And I was during that period I was on a farm that was not irrigated it was the cotton was wilted but the Mississippi River water was fixing to top the levy and you know you had sand blowouts in different places so you had a wilted acre of cotton with a water bubbling out of the ground wondering if the levy is going to break. So if when we sit at this intersection we can see that and view a day as long as 365 days or view a farm as big as the whole state then the management of it you come out with a different equation management wise if you look at it that way. If California as a state stretched to the Mississippi River then their management water plan would look a little different than it looks today. The first speaker I caught what he said and he said I forget if it was negative or positive but he used the reference we need to build channels between us and he was speaking figuratively in the sense of either sharing information or sharing technology and that sort of thing. Well again turn that on its head. We literally need to build channels between us literally so there's again Alabama sits at a crossroads that affects each and every one of us because you're as we sit here now you're either a consumer when you take a shower you're a consumer of water whether you're a farmer you're a consumer of water whether you're sitting here on the state line and you've been consuming that water but that's that state that has a city that has millions is not going to lose. So your water will become more valuable per se and a city of millions can pay more. So at that crossroads then you get to decide do you restrict or do you build infrastructure? I've made the argument that water and designing a management plan is no different than where we were when we had dirt roads that we walked on or jumped on our horse and rode. At some point someone said the use or traffic here is enough let's get some stones and put down our main street let's gravel this dirt road let's make it wider so things can pass each other. Now the the great idea of building the gristmill here or building pizza hut there that's left up to us we don't we don't yes we get a business license but but we don't ask permission to build a pizza hut that requires a license. So if you look at it in a highway sense the better we are at what we do and let's let's say we're all irrigating farmers the better we are at what we do then the state should recognize that and applaud that and help us do that. It's no different than the state when let's any industry pick one. We want to locate in South Carolina Alabama Mississippi somewhere in the south please well I promise you we're going to say well look at our highway system look at our interstates look how you can commerce you can get around well that's something that attracts businesses one day the guy growing tomatoes in California may wake up one day and say well where in the United States can I grow tomatoes where I have water and have a state that'll help get me some and that's something that the state would be able to say well here's our management plan it's also hard to sit if we're going to go to the Supreme Court I promise you if the any one of the justices no matter how they slant when they say okay well Alabama what's your management water plan what's your water management plan oh we don't have one well that Atlanta will get the water so again when you sit at the intersection one road to just say oh no what we've got here is just right it's it's it's the it's the philosophy of when we die the world ends we and if we all just lived and retired and you know rode off into the sunset and picked one last round on the cotton picker well then what we've got works but I promise you 500 years from now you know this will have all happened and every seat in here will be full with someone using water of some sort now you can get there by restricting all of that use out here so these new people can have it or we can all have it and at that fundamental principle of getting to that spot if you base it on protecting your right to come up with a good idea and do it and help you do it then that's a good thing all right I'll end there any questions well thank you for having me I guess we have obviously a few minutes here I sure there's no questions for these two growers because this is a time to interact with two very progressive growers here in the state about irrigation or their operations in general related to grain production and use you know some of the partners that were speaking about irrigation and where's experience visiting with farmers around the state of Alabama and around the state of Georgia and the question that I have for the farmers and for the consultants is if you learn irrigator or if you are considering irrigating adopting irrigation or advising partners towards irrigation management what is limiting you what are the main limitations that you have what are the constraints I really would like to hear who wants to stop thing over a six inch hour let me let me ask you a question and in the people around you that's the situation that's a real situation all right who would be opposed or support then the state of Alabama building enough reservoir on that basin right there to during the wintertime hold all the water that everybody there needs and then maintain the stream flow all the system to where it comes out that's the case that will be more than norm than not the answer comes in finding those places they're purchased and built on is that they're not again the you're sitting where you are because it was either good farmland or you had access to water likewise the perfect spot so that was random likewise the place to build that reservoir or upper basin storage is going to be random because nature put it there there's there's cheaper spots to do what you need done for everybody up there well there is and I don't know the one the piping of the water of the channels you saw about from from plain rivers it looks to me like that would be possible and I know we have a period you mentioned riparian and and that that's the good in the system that's what allows you and I to do what we do but everybody in here is drinking a glass of water that came from somewhere else I promise you that and if you're an industrial user the water didn't come from underneath the concrete and the toriota plant it came from somewhere else so again at that crossroads you have to then one of those blinking lights or cautions is the riparian rights from here if that's the perfect spot to build the reservoir and the water's right there but riparian right is between it then that's one of the decisions or one of not one of it's in the top two so you know some of the channelized reservoirs and everything else putting them in where they become more of a community reservoir you know like in your case on your particular farm your particular area there's not um you can't build one there maybe there's some spot somewhere in between that you can get water rights from a large source I don't know your particular area but maybe a large river large reservoir and you channelize some water down to that region and then there's multiple producers in that region they're drawing off of that channel off of that reservoir this build or something else you know that's worked in something other series then and that's talk that I've heard you know from a couple of different sources here I don't I don't know if that'll happen if that won't happen that might be one of the best options here because I think one of the obvious problems is and you hit on it is you don't you know you don't have access potentially to any surface water close to you obviously your groundwater is pretty costly to get and not you know not ideal as it could be in some others you know some other places so it's things that we have to look at I think Dennis's whole talks we got to look at the crossroads that we're coming into the future how we're going to manage it how we're going to set it up you start looking at the infrastructure for stuff like this you want to do a good job with it like I mentioned up front to make sure that you kind of build that bulletproof plan so that when stuff comes up you've already got that background you got the plan there everything else so I want I want to add something to what he said and what I said and I don't want to leave the impression that would be wrong what I don't want you to walk out of here and think is oh the state's going to come build something for me to irrigate with absolutely not you're going to you're going to be who you already are which is David with a pivot and there's a minimum stream flow right there that's being jeopardized so do we restrict David or do we help David do what he's already been doing so the minimum flow still flows now if someone moves in right there and reduces that minimum flow more and he has a perfect spot for a reservoir and he has an effect well to fit to fix that effect still the reservoir may need to be built way up there and it come by you to get to here but it's but it's not to um Governor Bentley I want to irrigate this farm come do it for me absolutely not it's when government puts a restriction um we as citizens say no you're going to take the tax paid money that I just paid you and help the problem that you just told me we have that's what that's that's what I want to leave with you Dennis I think it's important that we all stay at the table and we all have a say because Dick Mcniter said to me like we're working on some water policies and will you abide by those and I said wait a minute I said if you want me to go along with it I need to be at the table to help make those policies and I need to be included and don't y'all say well Dennis and Annie can do it and we'll come up with whatever they you know they say we'll do because we're going to look after ourselves and you know you need to be looked after too we all need to be capable of going to the meetings and going and having a say and really speaking up and letting them hear what our opinions are you heard what I've done what Dennis has done but everybody in here has a stake in this so don't hesitate to say well they won't listen to me because everybody has a say so please you know don't let me piggyback on that if I was to leave you with an impression I want this to be it along with maybe some others but you sitting there right now on your farm have rights don't give them up you again in in 500 years you can fill every seat in here and everybody have rights and have water I'm saying you don't have to give yours up so that seat can be filled one day with someone else so rest assured Annie and I will look after our rights because they're very personal to us and if you have the same philosophy as we do you'll benefit from it it makes a better statement as Annie would say if we're all at the table and there's more voices saying no this is we like our constitution as it is we want to build on it not carve a weight from it I think it's about 15 years ago I was involved in a study and I don't remember the funding source it may have been TVA but it may not have been it may have been another grant but I live in northern Alabama particularly in Lawrence County it's on the south side of the Tennessee River and the northern third of Lawrence County is undeveloped for the most part there there are very few municipalities of any of these crossroads kind of towns but it's pretty agricultural or or woods so if there's ever a spot and the river is two miles across on our northern boundary lots of water and so there was a study done taking water in a big enough pipe down in a couple of different physical configurations through that chunk of the county to not no treatment just water and then fish boning off of it and serving all the acres couple of things came up that I think is just interesting to know about irrigation in wide areas one in an agricultural part of this state intensely farmed at that point and still is with with not a lot of interference from from towns only a small fraction of the acres are actually in cultivation so the efficiencies of the service are way down under any system we could come up with in a physical location of piping so it became very expensive on a per acre basis correct no matter how we design the system theoretically with the best possible huge water source across the whole northern boundary of the county second politically it's much it's it became very important to further the conversations at that point this is where it died no individual farmer or group of farmers could do it as individuals so but the creation of a water district would have been required correct so as you talk it is the room becomes aware of this political issue drainage basins and water districts that make sense from geography topography and other things we're going to become probably the vehicles that need to be formed should be formed could be formed to enter into the conversation effectively individual farms have very little chance collections of people who have a common interest in a common watershed and are willing to govern themselves on an issue are much more effective at the table so those are my comments to what larkin said she's correct if you came forward as a water district we as a group of 10 farmers that represent 90% of the acreage we want to form a water district we'll put up all the money for the pivots we'll manage it we need state and federal monies to then develop the rest which is the movement of water that's the if there's a spectrum that's the big end of the spectrum and then you have the the lower end being just me Dennis and this lady have a water issue and a reservoir right there fixes it you know if you want to go as small as you can get to as large as you can get when you get where larkin is then you start getting into things like when when atlanta wanted to wanted the tennessee river well they still want it no different than la wants the mississippi river if then our legislators hustle and pass a no inner basin transfer law to prevent jumping you know if this is the tennessee river and we want to pump it up there to Lawrence County well there's there's two basins we've got across so we're going to pass that law in to buffer atlanta but in our in the meantime we stifled water development in that area that she's describing yeah the question he was asking about are there dollars still out there to help build reservoirs and i don't know the answer for this fiscal year um the last i know the last farm bill had it in it now we've got a new farm bill whether it's in it or not i don't know someone in here may know but but there were cost share and i almost i want to hedge and say yes because there were discussions on well what what was good and bad with the first one how do we make corrections because there was not money there or for another reason we did not have the program this past year okay they're making an announcement probably in january that we will have some cost share it's a new program that replaced the agwent program okay so um i believe that sponsors are out there and um university development do you know how many dollars done out there do you know if it was more than the last program yeah steve will know more about this than i do so last but it was applied for under the under the regional conservation partnership program which happens the state solar conservation can be applied so there will be some funding available in the years but the amount will change all right that brings up again a a fundamental platform to build off of which ties in with what larkin was asking it's one thing to allocate money to future reservoirs that we don't know exist it's another thing to bring a 30 million dollar plan to the table that says let's build this infrastructure and this is what we're going to do with it and this is the economic benefit that's going to go along with it here it is that that's two different worlds um i've argued it it's easier to live in the world of reality than than hypotheticals it we could talk all day about inter basin transfers all day but you could have a real good conversation in about 10 minutes if we said i want to send water across this hill to you because that all the variables are not so that again that's a blinking light at that intersection do you build a here it is do you build a water management plan around reality or do you build it around hypotheticals the reason we don't have one now is you can't build it around hypotheticals there's there's too many you can't say alabama come up with a water plan okay well you know where do you start okay happen you're on a well situation you mean the first day we're talking about the reservoir now you can only get money to do a reservoir you couldn't get money to do well because at that intersection prior to it existing you had to start somewhere it was based on water conservation and we're competing for dollars out west where they're paying folks money to not irrigate and so this program is based on efficiency and this was trapping runoff and reservoirs and so there again uh the subsurface aquifers had less pressure on them it was very sellable as in the sense of let's let's capture runoff in the winter and store it on upland basins where there's less studies that have to go on if you're in lower basins and and so it would it was a great starting point which then leads to well the next one let's include wells and build on that all right is that it did you know okay are you playing with the past year the federal EPA wanted to garner control of all surface water to the United States and that's been a battle going on yeah and it's not happened yet but if you develop a state water management doesn't it get usurped by the federal then if they decide that they want to do it yeah I think in a general sense I think yes the federal government can trump anything so with that that being said now does that stop us as a state or stop us as an individual from doing what we do I'd say no I would also say if it's whether it's the EPA or anybody else that's concerned about the water all the way up the the ditch on the side of the road to your downspout to your gutter they're not trying to help you and they don't have your interest in mind I think as the unofficial timekeeper I'll kind of end it right there for us um uh I certainly appreciate the discussion that uh everybody provided and we're going to be on break and we'll start back here at 335 but let's let's thank our speakers there for their valuable input