North Platte students debut documentary on Perkins County Canal Project

NORTH PLATTE, Neb. (KNOP) - For several months North Platte High School Students under the direction of Mr. Philep Wiley spent hours working on a documentary entitled; Water War: The Perkins County Canal Project. The documentary which spans a half-hour of footage features interviews with individuals on both sides of the issue including former Nebraska Governor and current US Senator Pete Ricketts.

“So, the Perkins County Canal Project is a project that relates back to a compact we signed with Colorado and was approved by Congress back in 1923. And the gist of the compact is how we’re going to share water between Nebraska and Colorado on the South Platte River. It calls for 120 cubic feet a second of water flow to Nebraska from April 1 to October 15. Then from October 16 through March 500 cubic feet a second of water if and only if we build a canal and reservoir system,” Ricketts said during an interview featured in the project.

Jonathan Dekleva had a variety of jobs for the project including lead interviewer and said he was surprised at the amount of homework required to properly conduct an interview. “There are some questions that we need to ask which are very simple so then the common person kind of understands what we’re talking about because I can almost guarantee you, most Nebraskans are not well read on treaties that are 100 years old,” Dekleva said.

Grady Sexson served as an assistant producer on the project alongside Video Production Teacher Philep Willey. Sexson said his role had its challenges, however, he is very proud of the final product he and his classmates put out. “I’m proud of our group, I’m proud of the thing that we created. Usually, you don’t see a group of high school students creating a documentary showing to the Governor and showing it to these important people. I’m just proud of what we were able to accomplish and the impact we are hopefully making on the future of our advanced video production class,” Sexson said.

Ryan Ablard was able to bring his passion for nature photography to the project as a cinematographer. “I took some of the background shots and got a bunch of nature and wildlife shots. I also took some shots of the river and some shots of the river is all dried up to set the scene for the news articles and all the interviews,” Ablard said.

The documentary can be viewed in its entirety on the Bulldogs Productions YouTube page.