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Kansas water policy must transition from development to managementBy Doug Rich
The 27th Water and the Future of Kansas Conference was held Oct. 26 in Topeka, Kan. The topic was sustaining our water resources for the future. "We are entering a new realm of water policy in the state of Kansas, and it is important we recognize that as we move forward," said Josh Svaty, secretary of the Kansas Department of Agriculture. Water resource management in Kansas began with passage of the Water Appropriation Act in 1945. Since that time water development and water resource management have changed significantly. Consequently, the Water Appropriation Act has not been a static document but has changed along with the demands on Kansas' water resources. Svaty noted that in the 1950s the document was changed to allow changes in the use of water rights. In the late 1970s groundwater management districts were formed and in the 1980s minimum desirable stream flows were incorporated into the Water Appropriation Act. Svaty said now it is time to transition from a document that encourages development to a document that encourages management or structured sustainability. "We must sustain our water levels to the best of our abilities," Svaty said, "so that we can sustain the productive agriculture we have in this state, specifically in those highly productive areas such as southwest Kansas." The Environmental Protection Agency has and will in the future play a role in meeting the water needs in this state. Karl Brooks, regional administrator of EPA Region 7, said EPA couldn't do this without partners like state agencies and state governments. Non-point source pollution continues to be the greatest challenge for the entire region, but Brooks said Kansas has made tremendous progress with non-point source pollution. "Kansas has one of the finest water quality monitoring networks in the country," Brooks said. "We have data on over 95 percent of the surface waters in the state. No other state in the region can really make that claim." In 2008 there were 1,300 waters in Kansas listed as impaired and by this year this that list had grown to 1,400 impaired waters. Brooks said Kansas has taken the hard step of finding out the condition of its waters, publicizing that list and encouraging people to do something about those waters. When waters go on the impaired list then total maximum daily loads have to be developed. Kansas has made tremendous success in developing TMDLs for these impaired waters. "Since 2000 Kansas has developed and EPA has approved over 2,000 TMDLs," Brooks said. Sedimentation is a problem for Kansas' reservoirs and rivers. Brooks said the best management practices have kept 2,000 tons of nitrogen and 1,000 tons of phosphorus out of Kansas waters. However, the National Academy of Sciences has determined that sediment matters to the health of the Missouri River. "Sediment both keeps the river healthy but also can take with it the kinds of things we want out of the water," Brooks said. "This will challenge all of us." Mike Hayden, secretary of the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks, said sedimentation is a problem in many of the state's reservoirs. A restoration project at Mission Lake was recently completed. Hayden said the project was 85 to 90 percent successful. Two solutions to the sedimentation problem are dredging the reservoirs or building new reservoirs. Hayden said dredging is expensive, as they found with the Mission Lake project, and most of the good reservoir sites have already been used. Tracy Streeter, director of the Kansas Water Office, said they are taking a three-pronged approach to sustaining the quality and quantity of water in the state. The Kansas Water Office wants to secure, protect, and restore Kansas' water resources. Streeter said they want to secure or capture all of the available storage and look for opportunities to create more storage. "If climate change is happening, we could see more extremes, extreme floods, extreme droughts, and early snow melt in the upper basin states," Streeter said. "Overall precipitation may not change, but we will have changes in the timing of that precipitation." There will be bigger gaps between glass half full and glass half empty. For that reason we need more storage, Street said. Streeter said Kansas has been protecting its water resources for decades. Soil conservation projects began after the Dust Bowl days, and Kansas has spent million of dollars treating cropland. "Now we have moved into riparian areas with stream bank stabilization," Streeter said. Restoration is not just dredging. Streeter said we have an infrastructure out there in the dams themselves. The state has integrity issues with the dams and spillways themselves that need to be addressed. As with most issues, it eventually comes down to funding and water resource management is no exception. "We have not as a state continued to invest at a level that is necessary to have a sustainable water supply for future generations," Hayden said. "The first Water Plan funding was authorized 20 years ago, but the truth is we are probably not any better off today than we were then and in fact we might be worse off." Doug Rich can be reached by phone at 785-749-5304 or by email at richhpj@aol.com.
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