Water Conservation Efforts Refresh Northwest Kansas
In partnership with:
Water is one of the most important ingredients of a successful harvest. Everyone in Northwest Kansas who irrigates land taps into a single aquifer, the Ogallala, creating a strong dependence on the precious source of water.
“We don’t have rivers that run through the area, so we’re solely reliant on the Ogallala,” says Shannon Kenyon, district manager of Groundwater Management District 4. “Water is declining in the aquifer faster than it can be replenished, so the board of directors has been directed to manage those resources.”
The response to the concerns about the aquifer led to the creation of the Sheridan 6 Local Enhanced Management Area (LEMA) effort. This group focused on strategic, limited access to irrigation water, and it ran from 2013 to 2017.
See more: Michigan Partnerships Encourage Coordinated Efforts to Improve Water Quality
While creating these water conservation measures may have brought initial worry to locals, the district made major strides. With public input and adjustment to the needs of the community, the impact of the LEMA was a move to greater profitability at the same time as an impressive 39% water savings.
Life With LEMA
Under the restrictions of the SD-6 LEMA, farmers retained their base water rights and then were limited to 55 acre-inches, or 11 acre-inches per year, of irrigation on their acreage.
The goal had been to see 20% water use reduction, a sizable benefit to the Ogallala. When the aquifer is depleted that much less, it has more time to recharge, making use of the aquifer more sustainable for the long run.
Making the Sheridan 6 community aware of the water conservation need prompted nearly double the water conservation that was expected, as the efforts to use less water helped farmers to choose new watering strategies.
“One practice that promoted profitability was to reduce the seed population, since pumping can be very expensive,” Kenyon says. “A lot have installed soil moisture probes, which go down 4 feet into the ground with sensors that show where the water is compared to the roots. Another input cost that went down was chemicals because they were able to more precisely get nutrients to the root zone instead of washing them past the root zone with irrigation.”
See more: How Virginia Farmers Conserve Water and Land
In reduced costs for pumping and irrigation, improvements like the soil probes pay for themselves in one or two years, making them an excellent investment even independent of the LEMA. Many farms also chose to incorporate much more crop diversity, choosing to plant corn and wheat and swap fields each year, irrigating far less than before.
When the Sheridan 6 LEMA was up for renewal, small caveats were added, like an ability to carry over 6 acre-inches from the first LEMA to the new one if they hadn’t used them, but the popularity of the measures has grown.
“Everyone is now really in support of it,” Kenyon says. “It’s not a ‘should we or shouldn’t we’ anymore – it’s a ‘how?’”
Renewal for the Future
The Sheridan 6 LEMA was renewed for 2018-2022, and a broader, less water restrictive Groundwater Management District 4 LEMA is also running for that timeframe. The GMD 4 board recently voted to request an extension of the Sheridan 6 LEMA for 2023-2027, and discussions are in process. Discussions are in process to renew that GMD 4 LEMA for another five years. T
he presence of annual decline in the aquifer, however, impacts everyone, not just those inside the LEMA spaces. It’s worth remembering that much of the current agriculture in Northwest Kansas simply cannot take place if the aquifer dries up.
See more: Farmers Protect Watersheds Through H2Ohio
“The economy of the region depends on it – agriculture is our main industry,” Kenyon says. “It’s not just irrigators who depend on that source, but it’s people in our towns and cities. And everything depends on it since we don’t have anything coming in from a river.”