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.
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| 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.
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