If you've been watching the news, you know that the western United States has been experiencing a prolonged drought.

Rivers and streams are running low, and reservoirs designed to store water are disappearing.

On today's show, we'll talk to the experts about water issues here in Kansas, and what challenges we face now and in the future.

Coming up next on IGI.

(bright music) - [Announcer] This program is brought to you with support from the Lewis H. Humphrey's Charitable Trust and from the friends of KTWU.

(vibrant music) - Water is essential to all life on earth.

It's also needed for agriculture, power generation, manufacturing and transportation.

Welcome to IGI.

I'm your host, Bob Beatty.

On today's program, we're going to discuss the state of our water resources here in Kansas.

Joining us today are, Connie Owen, Director of the Kansas Water Office and Representative Lindsay Vaughn of Overland Park, who served on the 2022 Kansas House Special Committee on Water.

And thank you both for joining me.

And I'd like to start by just having a general overview, how important is water in Kansas?

We know it's important, but some people may not realize how important and what are the major issues that we're facing.

We'll start with Connie.

- Well, that's a rather broad question, Bob, - It is.

- but obviously water is essential to absolutely anything that takes place, whether it's public water supplies for municipalities, or for agriculture, for livestock, for industries.

Nothing can happen without an adequate water supply and an adequate clean water supply for the state.

So literally when you get down to the bottom must have essential ingredient to any activity that takes place from waking up and living your life to running an industry or running a cattle operation, you have to have water.

- And one of the reasons I ask is because it's so important that I think people take it for granted, a little bit like air, and then sometimes make assumptions like, we'll always have it, it'll always be fine.

We wake up every day and there it is.

- [Connie] Right.

- And in some ways I don't wanna be alarmist, that's not necessarily true, but Lindsay.

- Yeah, I mean, I completely agree.

I think prior to my time on the House Water Committee, it's something I also took for granted.

And you realize how complicated it is to get access to clean drinking water and just across the state to make sure that we have enough of it, especially in the Western half where they heavily rely on groundwater, which is quickly becoming a non-renewable resource.

- And let's get into that.

What are the issues that we're facing?

And as we're discussing them, I think we'll start with Western Kansas we will get to Eastern Kansas, but, we'll start with Connie, what are the major issues we're facing?

And we have to be frank with viewers to wake 'em up a little bit, that these are some serious issues, right.

- Yeah, it is absolutely existential question right now.

Fundamentally Kansas is sort of divided up from the Eastern third is more like the Eastern United States where most of the water is precipitation and in streams and rivers.

Central and Western Kansas relies almost exclusively on groundwater.

They don't have the rivers and streams and the precipitation that Eastern Kansas does.

And that groundwater comes from what a lot of people have heard about before is this big aquifer, the High Plains aquifer.

Extends from basically Canada to almost Mexico.

- I'm gonna interrupt 'cause there's gonna be people watching this, not all from Eastern Kansas, but maybe who might say, what is an aquifer?

- What is an aquifer?

That's a good question.

It is not an underground bathtub.

A lot of people picture it as an underground lake or an underground reservoir and that's not what it is at all.

There is water under the ground, but it's in pockets and different geologic formations at different levels and depths.

And so that is the nature of an aquifer.

It's not simply a... - [Bob] Sorry to interrupt... - Large underground pool.

No, that's important to know, because it affects management because it's different in different areas.

So the High Plains Aquifer from Canada to Mexico, the part that we have in Kansas is divided into three sections, or we refer to it in three sections, it's connected.

Far Western Kansas relies on the Ogallala Aquifer, which is the farthest Western portion of the High Plains Aquifer.

Then you have the Great Bend Prairie aquifer, and then the Equus Beds aquifer, which is the farthest east, which is in the Wichita area.

When we talk about aquifer depletion in Kansas, most of what we talk about is the Ogallala Aquifer, which is the farthest west.

So we do have very severe groundwater depletion that's going on with the Ogallala Aquifer.

It is in a state that we call over appropriated, meaning the system in Kansas of permitting to use water and developing water rights over time, more permits and water rights have been granted than the system can sustain.

So it was inevitable that it would get to the point that it has now, where more is coming out than is going back in.

So we are effectively mining our Western Kansas aquifer.

So the challenge is how to go forward with agriculture and municipalities and economies out there when this water supply that they've come to rely on is shrinking.

- And so Lindsay, you were on this committee and did a lot of research and the committee did site visits, right.

And it's not just agriculture, it's not just farmers, I also read that some communities are struggling with how to pay for making sure they can get their water and how to make sure that communities have water as well.

Can you talk about that?

- Yeah.

I mean, it's all connected.

The aquifer is used for industry, but it's also used for municipal and domestic use.

So it's really all interconnected.

And especially with domestic wells, those are also depleting.

And so people who's exclusively rely on well water are quickly finding out that they don't have any more drinking water or the quality of it is really decreasing or it's getting to the point where it's really hard to access.

So you have communities who are trying to figure out how to even just get water in the tap at this point in Western Kansas.

And so it's impacting their lives in addition to industry and agriculture and in all of these things in Western Kansas, it's very connected.

- And Connie, can we dive in a little bit to the problem?

And I know you have some graphs that we can show and tell us a bit about where we are now and where we might be in the future.

- Okay, sure.

The Kansas Geological Survey has done a number of studies on this very topic about the water levels, that to the extent that they have dropped over time and forecast for into the future.

And so there are some graphs that we have, and I think that you'll probably be showing them.

One represents the percent of aquifer that has been lost.

It shows water tables, what is the current level, the current depth to water as compared to pre-development times.

And we consider pre-development before the large scale irrigation operations.

So what can be seen on that particular graph is there areas of light blue, where there has been a little bit of improvement over time, and there are some mechanisms that we can discuss that might have helped with that.

As you'll see on the far Eastern side where it's basically yellow and blue, that's where I was discussing is the Equus Beds and the Great Bend Prairie.

That farthest to the left, the Ogallala Aquifer, you can see from there, the darker colors is where there has been more depth to water loss.

In other words, the water levels have dropped the most.

The Kansas Geological Survey has also developed another graph that I find to be particularly powerful and persuasive that depicts the remaining estimated usable lifetime of the aquifer.

In other words, how long is it gonna last?

And so when you look at that, the color coding, the darker the color, the shorter period of time is remaining.

And in fact, there are browns that you see in that particular map.

The browns are where it's already too late.

The browns are where it's already depleted beyond economic feasibility, meaning maybe there's still some water way down there, but it's just not economically feasible to get it.

So, as you can tell, the oranges, the yellows that is severe depletion, and this again is compared to what we can expect going forward.

So the browns is, like I said, is where it's basically too far gone.

The other dark colors range anywhere from 25 years up till maybe around 150 or so, the graph depicts on into the brighter colors where there's maybe a couple hundred years left.

But for the most part we're looking in the worst areas, 25 to a 100 years of remaining usable aquifer.

And that's really scary when you consider that the economy of Western Kansas relies on that aquifer.

- Yeah.

- And if I can interject and the people too.

And I think that's why this is so important because those are really tangible timelines.

These are people who are having to decide in their communities, we have 25 years of water left, are we gonna do what we can to extend that usable life?

Or what does that mean for us personally?

And I think as I've gotten involved and as we've started to have these conversations, it's so important to elevate the issue because it's concrete.

These are timelines that people can think about in their lifetimes.

- Now, sometimes in American politics, there's a tendency to wait until there's a crisis.

And not always, but often it's just that voters and people maybe don't wanna deal with an issue and have to pay money or whatever it takes to deal with it, if it's not maybe for 10 or 15 years.

But I think a number of viewers are watching this right now and saying, wait a second, we literally could run out of water.

And so what did you in the legislature?

And what's being discussed now rather than waiting 10 or 15 years before it's a big emergency-- - [Lindsay] Yeah.

- to address this rather than waiting until it's almost too late?

- Yeah, I think...

I've been really fortunate to be on the House Water Committee and was part of the interim committee and then became the ranking member.

So I've been really fortunate to kinda have a front row seat to a lot of the legislative conversations that have been happening and talking about what policies could really make a short term and long term difference in our aquifer and groundwater and going into the future.

And some of the things we've been talking about is how can we better manage our groundwater from a governmental perspective.

And something we see is that all of our agencies that deal with water are spread across the government, which in my mind makes it really hard for those agencies to have a unified voice and to advocate for water issues in Kansas, and to come up with a really comprehensive solution.

And so part of what this bill that we proposed did was establish a Kansas Department of Water and Natural Resources because right now we don't have that.

And I think the fact that we don't have a secretary at the table advocating for water and the future of water in Kansas has a ripple effect in all of these areas that are important for addressing water, so that's part of it.

Also fully funding water in Kansas.

This is the first year that we have fully funded our state water plan, thanks to Governor Kelly, since 2008.

So significant chronic underfunding has contributed to our current situation and it's also not adequate funding.

We're looking at 50, $60 million needed a year in order to really address the problem at hand.

And then also looking at building a bridge between local government and state government.

Because local solutions are gonna be really important for finding a way forward, but also creating accountability measures and making sure that those things are working together symbiotically and not against one another.

- One thing that I found interesting is this not matching federal funds that...

Excuse me, but that seems like a no brainer because then the state can get money from the federal government.

Why doesn't that happen?

It's just the state did not want to allocate the money?

- Yeah, I think it's related to all of those issues in terms of what we were talking about, where, because we don't have a consolidated agency to really advocate for those matching funds and to raise awareness about the need for them.

And yeah, I think that's a big part of it.

Like we have left a lot of federal dollars on the table because we're not putting in enough money to match those funds and we don't have a secretary who's pushing and advocating for that.

- Okay, lemme quickly get to the question is, what were the roadblocks?

Why didn't this get passed, this session?

And we can talk about it more later, but is there some hope that some of these things might get passed next year?

- Yeah, certainly.

I think overall the biggest roadblock is that we need to have a really expanded conversation about what this means and who's involved in those conversations.

So we really looked at this from a governmental perspective, talked to experts and looked at what can we do better as a state government to solve this issue.

But to solve it, we're going to need all the industries at the table, we're gonna need agriculture at the table, we're gonna need Kansans at the table.

And I think it's important for all those voices to come together and agree on a solution and a way forward, or at least something that everyone can get behind.

So I think the roadblock was specific and largely agricultural interest who maybe are opposed to these immediate suggestions that we're recommending, or that are feeling cautious.

And in my mind, this is a really immediate and important thing that needs to be addressed now and I think some of those timelines are in friction.

And so it's getting on the same page about what needs to be done and when it needs to be done.

- Connie, I read a couple articles and there was some quotes from farmers and some other people and they said...

I mean, really it was striking.

The quotes were, "Well, we'll figure this out."

And one quote was, "This may take a little time, "but eventually we'll get to it."

But what you were indicating earlier is that may not work of just saying, well, eventually we'll kinda see.

But when that happens, it may be, wait, now we're at 50%, nothing there.

- Well, when I started my career with water a few years ago, those same things were being said, and the problem has not improved, it's only worsened.

I think change is hard for people and change is scary.

And that's true of all of us in any aspect of our lives.

What's happening with water and it's important to remember that we can talk about, say agricultural uses and they're taking up most of the groundwater.

Well, that is a fact, but we need agriculture and we need the economy in Western Kansas to remain viable and prosperous.

So the trick we have, the challenge we have before us is what adjustments can we make soon enough to help preserve those agricultural activities and the future of Western Kansas?

Because we talk about agriculture, but it is the foundation for the Western Kansas economy, even if you're not a farmer or a rancher, right?

So there are mechanisms in place and options and strategies that are being piloted right now that are proving to be very, very promising.

There is a groundwater management district, it's called Northwest Kansas Groundwater management District Number four out of Colby, Kansas.

And they've initiated, they've stepped into a program that's available from the state called a Local Enhanced Management Area they now have two of them and it's in connection with the state.

It's where the local folks come together and present their own plan for how they're gonna reduce their own use and that way they have skin in the game, they've crafted the plan.

They say, we're willing to try this on a, say, five year basis, temporary basis.

And so what they have found out and what they're demonstrating is, they're saving more water than they expected and they're more profitable in the process.

Which is not what most people expected, even them.

And so when you think about it, when you use the proper strategies and new technologies that are available now to use only the water you absolutely have to use, well, what that results in is lower input costs, lower seed costs, lower fertilizer costs.

And so you're more profitable in the end.

And so that is expanding.

That idea is expanding more in Western Kansas.

It needs to expand more quickly because those kind of changes need to take place so that this resource we can extend the life of it enough for future generations to come.

- If I may kinda make a connection there too.

I think that's something that we've also seen in Western Kansas, where in Topeka, there may be interest groups who lobby against this, but there are also a lot of local people who realize what's at stake and who realize the significance of the problem.

And there are a lot of local farmers and local community members who are trying to make a difference and who are part of these local enhanced management areas, or who wanna ensure that we have groundwater for generations to come.

And so I just wanna be really clear that there are great people in Kansas doing good work, and it's important to elevate their voices and to make sure our government is working with them and not against them.

- And you're from Overland Park.

So let's talk a bit about Eastern Kansas and you can join of course, as well, are the problems the same, or do we have a different set of issues?

- Yeah, water issues are statewide, but they are a little bit different.

In Western Kansas, like Connie was saying, largely rely on groundwater.

In Eastern Kansas, we largely rely on surface water.

And that means that we have reservoirs.

And right now, in terms of quantity, one of the biggest issues we're seeing is sedimentation in our reservoirs.

And that is decreasing the amount of available storage for water for all types of use, including drinking water use.

And it also puts us at risk for risk management in terms of flooding and things like that.

So it does pose a significant issue to Eastern Kansans as well in terms of water quantity.

- Connie, can you tell us about this graph or this... - Yeah, sure.

That's a depiction of the amount of capacity in our reservoirs that has been filled up with sediment.

So when you look at the lines, the full length of the blue line is the storage capacity that we have contracted for in our reservoirs within the state.

The brown is where the sediment has filled in.

So it's important to realize the sedimentation of reservoirs is a perfectly natural process.

When you stop a river and you dam it up, the water comes in, sits still the sediment drops.

Over time, it fills up with sediment.

It's a natural process, it's expected to happen, it's not like something went wrong.

But over time you reduce your capacity.

And as that graph showed the for example, Tuttle Creek Lake, which is the workhorse reservoir for all of Northeastern Kansas, including Topeka, Kansas city, Tuttle Creek lake is already almost half full of sediment.

So we need that capacity restored for flood control, for assisting with droughts and for public water supplies.

We have growing populations.

So there is a new technology that the water office with the US Army Corps of engineers is planning and will initiate.

Hopefully the first on the water activity will happen with the new kind of dredging called water injection dredging, which helps resuspend the sediment and help it flow naturally out of the reservoir to mimic what the river would've done if it wasn't damed.

So it's not intended to send a lot of sediment down that would cause problems downstream.

That will be part of the study, part of the pilot project to make sure they find that balance and how that works.

But that's a promising technology for helping to restore the capacity that we have in our reservoirs.

- Is the obstacle to that possibility money?

I mean-- - [Connie] Yes.

- everything involves money of course.

So if there's new technologies, we need 'em, but Lindsay might, we hit up against what's happened in the past with water.

Oh, by the way, we need some money for this.

Oh, well, next year we'll do.

- Now I might jump in, save you from that.

But money's a problem and the actual lack of technology.

This is a problem that exists nationwide and we don't have surefire technology out there that even if we had the money, we could go buy it.

So part of our pilot project, that is so exciting is to try and explore one mechanism but I don't wanna put that all on the lack of funding because we have a lack of technology as well.

- And I was gonna say, actually, think this is one thing that was a success story that came out of this past legislative session, which was that we finally fully funded the state cost share of this program.

And we're waiting on these federal funds as is being advocated by the Army Corps to come in.

But I think that's been an excellent partnership.

and a great example of how federal state, local agency, all those folks can work together to come up with a really innovative solution to solve some of these water quantity problems that we have in Kansas.

And I think that was a major victory in terms of funding this year, but also all the advocacy that has happened in terms of the local water districts and agencies and the folks who care about this issue in Kansas.

- So one thing I'll jump in and mention there, partnership.

Partnership is the key to everything when it comes to water management and addressing water issues.

And I think that was a perfect example, that you had the legislature and you had the state and you had the FEDs and many, many, many stakeholders over the years, providing input.

Partnerships are how we're gonna get through some of these things.

- And I'll be optimistic, I'll be Mr. Optimistic.

In the articles I was reading, there were a number of comments from those who might have held things up who said, oh, it was too quick and we needed more time.

If we take them at their word, then is there some hope for next year that these partnerships, these discussions involving all the stakeholders can occur.

And to be honest, they won't have that excuse next year, and there might be some progress on some of the ideas you put forward.

- Yes, we're making progress.

We're gonna have an interim.

We're gonna talk more about these issues.

And then going into next session, I'm looking forward to continuing to build our coalition and to put forward real solutions for Kansan to solve the water quantity crisis in our state.

- Okay.

Connie.

- The more that people are aware and know the more we have public support for the kinda programs that we're all trying to move forward.

So thank you for that.

- Yeah and I think it's obviously an important issue and people should recognize it's probably some action, I'm not advocating, and for anything specific at this point, but needs to be done.

So Connie Owen and Representative Vaughn, thank you again for discussing Kansas water issues with us.

And that's all the time we have for this episode of IGI.

If you have any comments or suggestions for future topics, send us an email at issuesatktwu.org.

If you would like to view this program again, or any previous episodes of IGI, visit us online at watch.ktwu.org.

And for IGI I'm Bob Beatty, thanks for watching.

(vibrant music) - [Announcer] This program is brought to you with support from the Lewis H. Humphreys Charitable Trust and from the friends of KTWU.