Click the link to read the article on the High Plains Public Radio website (David Condos), Here’s an excerpt:
For the first time, the state board voted Wednesday to say that Kansas shouldn’t pump the Ogallala aquifer dry to support crop irrigation. The underground water source has seen dramatic declines in recent decades.
The board that advises the Kansas governor and Legislature on water policy now says the state needs to dramatically cut farming irrigation to stop draining the Ogallala aquifer. The vote by the Kansas Water Authority on Wednesday signals a call for a major shift in state policy. For the first time, a state entity has stated that Kansas should move away from gradually depleting the aquifer and act to halt the decline of the vital underground reservoir. Kansas Water Office director Connie Owen called the vote a historic step in changing how the state manages the aquifer, which has lost more than one-third of its water in recent decades.
“It is enormous,” Owen said, “because there has yet to be any state entity that has publicly acknowledged the problem … and made a statement that we can no longer behave as we have been.”
The water authority will now send this official recommendation to the governor and Legislature in its annual report.
