More changes coming in plan to boost water for Quivira

ST. JOHN — The second draft of a plan designed to make Quivira National Wildlife Refuge’s senior water right whole again remains subject to revision, including actually reducing the size of the LEMA being proposed.
That revision should be forthcoming soon, Groundwater Management District No. 5 executive Director Orrin Feril told a standing room only crowd in St. John on Monday.
Reducing the size of the area included in the management area, part of a plan to fill the shortfall in a water impairment case involving the nearby wildlife refuge, would quell some complaints about areas in the GMD with little to no effect on water flow in the Rattlesnake Creek basin and consequently Quivira. But it’s sure to raise other concerns depending on how much proposed “voluntary” cuts will be needed on the area remaining to reduce what are essentially mandatory reductions in the amount of water being used.

A dry creekbed greeted visitors in this photo from Quivira National Wildlife Refuge.

Also Monday, the Division of Water Resources again dismissed an attempt by Audubon of Kansas to get the state and GMD to move more quickly on taking actions that would mean more water for Quivira, a popular stopping off point for many endangered species, including the iconic whooping crane.
Randy Rathbun, the attorney for AOK, 10 days ago sent a letter to DWR Chief Engineer David Barfield detailing the need to make sure Quivira can fulfil its water right. He also said failure to take action could result in the filing of a lawsuit seeking to force the state and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which owns the refuge, to take action.
Rathbun said the Kansas Water Appropriation Act requires the chief engineer to protect senior water rights, such as Quivira’s. Barfield’s two-year-old impairment report found that water rights junior to Quivira were preventing the refuge from obtaining its full water appropriation by as much as 3,000 to 5,000 acre feet each year.
In DWR’s response, agency attorney Kenneth B. Titus said the state had failed to post on its website a copy of the request to secure water filed by the federal wildlife agency. That document was filed along with the response.
But Titus noted the request was filed according state regulation that states: “If the area of complaint is located within the boundaries of a GMD and if the final report determines that the impairment is substantially due to direct interference, the chief engineer shall allow the GMD board to recommend how to regulate the impairing water rights to satisfy the impaired right.”
The GMD 5 board agreed to move forward with a LEMA, “and they are working diligently towards the formation of such a district.”
However, one lawsuit is already in the works, filed by several irrigators who object to the LEMA proposal. An attempt by the state to scuttle the lawsuit failed when a judge allowed it to move ahead.
Work on the LEMA has been underway since the impairment report, and has now been revised twice.
In the meantime, junior water rights have not been restricted, and likely won’t be until the plan takes effect, tentatively set for 2020.
So far, the only concrete reductions that have been discussed is a requirement for end guns — the large overhead water sprinklers at the end of a center pivot — must be removed by Jan. 1. There are approximately 1,300 end guns that will need to be removed.
In the latest draft of the LEMA, Feril said Monday, the board has sought to implement “voluntary” reductions that are based on water right priorities. Vested water rights, those in place when the state’s water appropriation laws were passed in 1945, won’t have any restrictions because they are senior to all other rights.
Another change in the latest revision is that reductions will be based on amounts allowed in water rights, rather than based on historic water use.
All told, there are water rights in the LEMA area amounting to 303,598 acre feet — or about 99 billion gallons annually.
Computer models suggest actual future water use without restrictions would be closer to 233,000 acre feet, about 76 billion gallons.
The state’s water agency, however, is saying the LEMA’s water use would need to be 210,000 acre feet — 68.5 billion gallons — five years after the LEMA is in place.
With the 19,000 acre feet expected to be saved with the removal of the end guns, that means another 4,000 acre feet of water use will have to be cut.
That’s where the so-called voluntary reductions will need to be made, and the savings will come from less than half of the GMD, depending on the revisions Feril said were possible.
At Monday’s meeting, Feril frequently talked about a schedule of cuts based on priority of water rights.
He also said that if cuts don’t reach the 210,000 acre-feet threshold required by DWR, those irrigators who met the required reductions would continue on as they have.
Irrigators who do not reduce water use by the amount needed would see the reductions become mandatory rather than voluntary.
The GMD’s accounting scenario envisions reductions of 25 percent to 45 percent, with the greatest cuts coming from the most junior water right holders.
In addition to the cuts, the plan to restore Quivira’s water right involves augmentation, the pumping of water from an area south of the refuge and the pipeline delivery when and where refuge staff wants it.
The water would come from a battery of wells that have not been drilled, and a specific location hasn’t been selected.
Feril said the GMD is working on getting an agreement with the state that will set out how much water can be used and where it will be delivered. That agreement has not been reached.
He’s uncertain when the agreement will be reached.

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Any publications wanting to use this story should contact me directly.
As a full disclosure, I served on the board of Audubon of Kansas but have since stepped down from that position.

Snail season ending

Foolishly I suppose, but I've been fascinated of late with the presence of yet another critter I've encountered on my morning walks.
I've got photographs aplenty, shell alone and even some with snails plodding along, their antennae probing the air and their beady eyes looking about. I've even captured a couple videos, which as you might guess, are somewhat akin to watching paint dry.
A 30-second video doesn't even allow time for a snail to move from one side of the camera to the other.
But strangely enough, these snails were found on a sidewalk, most active, not unsurprisingly, when temperatures were cool and conditions damp. However, even on some warmer mornings, the snails were moving about, or at least had exposed their softer side, reaching out from the protection of their shells and moving about.
What they're looking for is entirely uncertain. I have no clue if its for food, reproduction or simply migration.
Perhaps snails head north for the winter. You know, like a few inches.
Or perhaps, its an even curiouser case of an old dilemma: Why did the snail cross the sidewalk? A road, of course, would be much too wide, and their losses staggering as they certainly can't run from oncoming tires, even if those tires are small wheels attached to walkers used by senior citizens.
I did show my wife one of the videos, and I could barely hold her attention for half of the half-minute video, as she rightly noted that it was much less than riveting. She declined to watch my second video, or browse through my catalog of snail photos.
I'm at a loss to explain her reluctance, of course.
Despite all uncertainty and the lukewarm interest I've gotten, I continue to paus during my timed morning walks, to kneel down to photograph these snails.
Then I've dutifully returned home, with photos in hand (so to speak), and looked up details about snails in Kansas.
I've read an Emporia State University publication, and perused a booklet available online from the Great Plains Nature Center in Wichita.
I still have no clue what I've found, other than it's a snail. A small one.

Instead, I should have carried more equipment, per the ESU guide.
"This system of identification of identifying Kansas land snails and slugs uses the major features of the shell to get you down to a smaller group of likely species. Then by using the individual species descriptions, it should be possible to get to a single species or a group of snails. In some cases, a good magnifier will be needed."
But then I learned: "The major features to be used are: (1) the shape of the shell, (2) the type of umbilicus, (3) the edge of the outer lip of the aperture, (4) the presence/absence of various teeth in the aperture, and (5) the presence of shell surface features like ridges."
I confess, I didn't even know snails had teeth. Or a lip for that matter.
I get the idea of ridges. I mean, even Ruffles have ridges, but who knew about snails?
Suffice it to say, it's unlikely I'm going to determine just what kind of snail has attracted my attention, and I suppose in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter.
Instead, what matters is being outdoors, watching the grandeur of nature, even down the smallest of snails, if that's even a correct statement.
I walk outdoors for a single reason. It's outdoors and I can watch one of my favorite things: nature, be it trees, green june bugs, a lone Canada good or frolicking white-tailed deer. I'll likely even walk outdoors during the winter months, but I'm sure a lot of wildlife will be tucked safely away, either at distant locations or, as in the case of my snails, somewhere nice and deep and relatively warm.
Of course, I'll dress warmer as well.

The Emporia State University guide can be found at: https://kansasmollusks.wordpress.com/3-identifying-kansas-land-snails/

The Great Plains Nature Center pocket guide for snails, along wth a broad cross-section of Kansas wildlife can be found and downloaded at no charge at: http://gpnc.org/gift-shop/publications/

A total cluster....

OK, I promised my faithful readers (who seem to be absent after my long absence) that I'd be back in short order, so here I am.

There's almost too much to talk about.

But let me start with the proposed water transfer from the Platte River into a a power company ditch, into a creek and through a lake, all before the water robbed from the Platte is dumped unceremoniously into the Republican River.

The whole idea behind this, in a nutshell, is there's so much water use along the Republican River in Nebraska that there's not enough left over to deliver what is due and owing to Kansas under an interstate river compact.

So, Nebraska's natural resource districts, or at least two of them, came up with the harebrained idea of siphoning off water from the Platte — during periods of high flow — and diverting it into the Republican River. (This might sound familiar right here in Kansas, as irrigators in southwest Kansas have suggested tapping the Missouri River in far northeast Kansas during high flow, pumping it into a lake before dumping it into a concrete aqueduct to pump the precious liquid southwest to a waiting reservoir.)

Except, in Nebraska, water will be rerouted at a rate of 275 cubic feet — when there's high flow — in the hope of delivering 100 cfs to the Republican River.

That's 7.4 million gallons of water every hour from the Platte in the hope of delivering 2.7 million gallons to the Republican.

All that so state officials don't have to shut down Nebraska irrigators to meet the law laid out in the river compact with Kansas. Nebraska already has paid a hefty fine to Kansas for failing to deliver what the Sunflower state is due, and the U.S. Supreme Court said any additional shortages likely will bring heftier fines.

That's why Nebraska irrigators are saying this is a state problem, because if water isn't delivered as required, the state — the entity signing the compact — will pay a big fine. Never mind its the irrigators who are draining the water.

While I submitted my objection, if it does any good as the timing means I had to email it, even though it looks as if Nebraska only accepts comments by snail mail. Talk about old school.

But I place a huge amount of blame on Kansas for a lack of notice.

The illustrious Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism (or as I like to call them, the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks for Tourism), shortly after midnight Aug. 10, a week ago, sent out an item mentioning the transfer, suggesting Kansas folks might want to comment as well.

In the notice, KDWP&T said it had worked with Gov. Jeff Colyer to write a letter objecting to the transfer because of the threat of asian carp being introduced into the Republican River basin, eventually into the Kansas side.

I messaged the good folks at KDWP&T and asked what other comments they were filing. Three days later, because of the weekend, I learned that was it, the state's wildlife agency is going to do nothing else. Zero.

But they hope we do.

Sure, Colyer's comment might help, but it's weak. Terribly.

Nevermind the environmental side of things, the Asian Carp thing is huge. You see, the Republican flows into Milford, which flows into the Kansas River, so anything downstream is invaded. Also, Asian carp can back track,  gaining a foothold in the Smoky Hill, Saline and Solomon rivers.

Sure dams will stop them, but an errant catch downstream of Cedar Bluff, for example, could quickly be carried upstream and the cycle starts again.

As the guardian of all things Kansas wildlife, KDWP&T should have filed a full-fledged objection.

I did. If it does any good.

I'll try to keep track of this thing, but the web link I was visiting in Nebraska went dead, and the search function doesn't work. Makes it harder, but not impossible.

For those who know me, they know i'm a pain and will continue to dig away. That hasn't change.

See ya next time.

Lost in space?

Well no, but it sure seems to me, and likely to anyone reading this that I've been "lost," aka, missing in action.

No, I'm still around, still contrary and still just as cantankerous as my father said I was. Make no mistake, he could see right through me, but I'm also something of an open book.

Be that as it may, I just happened to be sitting around, finally back on the computer after a lengthy hiatus, and stumbled across this Blogger thing. And then it all came back to me: I used to write some meaningless thoughts here, for anybody (or for that matter nobody) to read.

I guess I became somewhat frustrated, concerned that no one was reading my missives, or if you prefer, my rants. Time and again, I've meant to step back up to the keyboard and enter the fray once again. To tell a family secret, I've been involved in numerous frays, and I don't plan on stopping now.

Many of my tirades have been quasi private, and honestly have focused on the Trump and Co. shenanigans. It's a constant battle to remain in the loop when it comes to Trump's attacks on the environment, a topic I'm notably concerned about.

There have been so many that I hardly bat an eye when something comes out in the five-day-a-week Federal Register, which I continue to peruse on a daily basis. Old habits die hard, or they don't die at all.

There are so many affronts to decency right here in Kansas, I could go full time here. So something had to give, and this is something that gave.

I'll try to do better. I have some ideas of topics to broach. I'll rant and I'll rave.

It's Wednesday, and I need to send off an objection to a water transfer in Nebraska. I only dabble in that controversy becuase the water transfer is a result of legal obligations that state has with Kansas.

But there's a catch. And I'll try to bring everyone up to speed on what that catch is in the next 24 hours or so.

It'll do me good to get the fingers all limbered up and moving on this keyboard.

See you then, hopefully.

Feel free to say hello, or tell me to go to hell if that's your inclination.