The Republican River Compact
In the Republican River Basin, small groups have united for the common goal of saving water and exercising long groundwater stewardship—including the redefining of water efficiency.
In areas with frequent droughts and little rain, a well is the lifeblood of a farm. But if the well is taking too much water from a nearby river, the results can be costly for people and aquatic life downstream.
In the Republican River Basin, comprising counties in Colorado, Nebraska, and Kansas, small groups of individuals have united for the common goal of saving water and exercising some form of long-term proper stewardship of their groundwater resources, including a look at the definition of water efficiency. At the same time, they are working to preserve the region’s social structure and individual livelihoods.
Tackling Water Depletion Matters at Local, County, and State Levels
Colorado, Nebraska, and Kansas have formed a three-state compact called the Republican River Compact. Colorado’s Republican River Basin is working to satisfy the obligations of the agreement, not only for the preservation of the groundwater levels, but also for larger social and economic reasons, according to Ken Knox, chief deputy state engineer with the state of Colorado. “This is very much an agrarian community. Our effort to try to reduce water use keeps in place the entire social-economic fabric of the very groundwater-dominated community,”says Knox. “Therefore, our goals are both physical and socioeconomic.”
In 2004, to assist with these aims, the area created the Republican River Water Conservation District (RRWCD). This comprises 15 local water users sitting as a board of directors to help the state with compact compliance by conserving and protecting water supplies in the basin. The Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP), under the US Department of Agriculture, retires wells—many of them permanently—to get the water back into a hydrologic balance. The district is hoping to enroll approximately 200 wells on 30,000 acres and is also in the process of working to find another 30,000 acres to retire.
Under this voluntary 15-year program, producers who retire their wells permanently get compensation from both the federal government and the district at a ratio of 80% federal and 20% local. The program has been so successful that Knox and others are working on using it in Colorado’s Rio Grande Basin for counties in the southern part of the state. “There are now more people wanting to sign up for the program than they had lands available the first time,” adds Knox. “It’s working. We have more water in the area’s streams now. This helps wildlife in addition to fighting erosion. This is a case where things work very effectively with nature to accomplish the goal.”
Knox likes to use the analogy of a checkbook: Precipitation is your monthly paycheck. If spending exceeds “earnings” per month, that can go on for awhile. But a day will come when things won’t be very pleasant. “What we’re trying to do is put off that day with our program.
“I see no reason why this same kind of program could not be used in other, more urban areas,” says Knox. “It’s not limited to farms. It just happens to be that out here in this particular area, action is being taken.”
The RRWCD was primarily given the responsibility of coming up with measures which will either increase stream flow at the gauging stations as the river enters into Nebraska and Kansas, or decrease the amount of consumptive use, both of which positively affect the compact.
In the past, Colorado has been out of compliance with the compact from 10,000 acre-feet to 12,000 acre-feet (between 2003 and 2005) and it was estimated that the state would again be out of compliance by approximately 10,000 acre feet (in 2006). What the RRWCD is doing to fix that negative figure is to use federally cost-shared retirement programs to bring about both temporary and permanent retirement of water sources such as wells and the associated land.
According to Dennis Coryell, president of the RRWCD, and an area farmer who also serves on the Colorado Groundwater Commission, the 20% local funding comes from a use-fee of $5.50 per acre.
Farmers in the eastern Colorado region, including Coryell, have seen a substantial decline over the past 10 to 15 years of the amount of water they are able to pump, as well as a steady decline in the water table. “When we address compact compliance we also get a gain in the overall life of the aquifer, and what we would really like to do would be to have a sustainable agricultural economy, one that we can idle back a ways and be able to have that resource available up to 15, 20, or 25 years down the road,” says Coryell.
“We are also conducting some water efficiency research through a Conservation and Innovations Grant, through the federal government and Colorado State University,” adds Coryell. “With that grant we are doing crop rotation and timing of when water is used as well as how much. Therefore, we are looking at water efficiency issues, such as low-water-use crops and the timing of those crops.”
 |
Photo: High Plains Aquifer Unit–Kansas
State Water Office |
| The Arkansas River near Dodge City, KS, is generally dry because of reduced stream flow from Colorado. |
The real centerpiece is the RRWCD’s attempt to permanently retire the wells and the irrigated acres associated with them and at the same time to get a balance between that and the local economy. “We don’t want to retire so much that we injure the local economy, but we’ve got to do that and concentrate those retirements closest to the river so that we have a real good opportunity to increase stream flow at the same time we reduce the consumptive use [CU].”
Coryell and other farmers are looking at growing more water-saving crops, those using moisture in a better way, drought-resistant corn, and different varieties of crops that get the most efficiency from the amount of water being pumped. Though there are places in the region with an ample supply of water, there remain places with a limited supply.
“In those areas, crop selection, the particular variety or number of corn grown, and drought resistance are critical, while in the other areas with ample water we just need to combine the two, efficiency of the water and total retirement of the water,” he says.
Good Fit with Goals of Conservation Groups
The issue has brought in support from a number of different conservation groups as well, including Trout Unlimited and The Nature Conservancy (TNC). But the main group spearheading the whole issue is the community in conjunction with the state, creating the Republican River Conservation District, according to William Burnidge, northeast Colorado program director for TNC.
“We were concerned about declining water levels in the river,” says Burnidge. “We own a piece of property with a reach of the Arikaree River running through it, the middle fork of the Republican River. But in addition to being concerned about the flows of the river, we were also concerned about protecting and enhancing the flows in the area’s other rivers. This is really a watershed-wide interest.
“I guess when I came on with TNC in 2005, the talk going on about creating the CREP caught my attention. This seemed like a great place where we at TNC could add some value. It was our initiative to be reacting to an opportunity growing out of a crisis.”
TNC’s role has been one of support as well as trying to find additional resources and focus them where they’ll do the most good. TNC has offered additional payment incentives on top of what the CREP offers, to a select set of landowners who had what TNC identified as high priority wells. Our incentive program is minor compared to that of the USDA,” says Burnidge.
In this case TNC found itself on the same side as that of the farmers, despite some initial wariness. But in the end there was an intersection of interests that worked out well, according to Burnidge.
“The Ogallala Aquifer’s steady decline directly affects the water in the Republican River, and if we can do anything to offset that change we’ve all accomplished something. These farmers are helping the rivers while at the same time trying their level best to keep their livelihoods in place. The details of how this will work are still being developed, but it is a good case of people coming together to both protect their interests and do what’s best for the land.”
Water Efficiency versus Water Conservation
When the move is made to higher-efficiency water systems, it is generally true that water use tends to increase. This is driven by the fact that better crop yields simply mean more water use occurs, according to Joel Schneekloth, regional water resource specialist with the Colorado State University Extension Service (CSUES).
“With the higher-efficiency systems, farmers now see that they can meet the crop water needs during the middle of the summertime, therefore they plant the higher-water-use crops, which also happen to be the higher-return crops economically,” says Schneekloth. “But even in some of the river systems themselves, conservation does not equal water savings. As people go to more and more efficient systems, they’re not putting that return flow back into the groundwater that will make it back to the river.”
Schneekloth feels it’s going to take a change. Corn is the predominant crop of the High Plains, but with aquifer declines it will either take well retirements and retirements of irrigated acres, compliance with the compact, or simply looking at lower-water-use crops, which is a lot of the work the CSUES is doing. But there are ways of cutting water use down by water management.
“We’re doing a great deal of research on deficit and limited irrigations. The times when crops don’t respond so well to irrigation are those when you need to cut irrigation short. It will take a complete change in philosophy. The idea that a crop cannot ever be stressed costs us a huge amount of water; we have the data showing that you can stress a crop, save some water, and not significantly affect yield.”
The CSUES is looking hard at tillage management as well. “Leaving the crop residue on the ground and not clean-tilling the field holds the water in better and reduces evaporation; the residue acts as a blanket.
“If you leave it alone and plant right over the top of it, the majority of the crops grown around here grow very well leaving the residue in place. With energy prices of diesel fuel for a tractor going in the direction they are, this strategy looks even better to the farmer.”
Other studies of regional irrigation have indicated little difference between center-pivot and drip irrigation systems. Energy is not going to be much improved either way, according to Schneekloth—not enough, at least, to justify the cost of drip or subsurface drip irrigation.
“One study at Kansas State in Colby concluded from seven years of studies with a drip system—versus a simulated pivot demonstrated over that same time period—that the water use from each of the two systems was equal,” says Schneekloth. “You look at that type of research and ask, ‘Why are we doing this if we’re not saving any water with it?’
“It all comes back to management in the long run. Nothing is simple. Retirement of irrigated acres is the fast, easy way. But we also have a project near Burlington looking at alternative crops and water management as another way to really save water. Every time you take that acreage out, it’s not efficient for the community economically. But if you can figure out some point of constant pullout that will maintain the aquifer and still keep you in compliance, that’s much better for the community, much better than fully irrigating fewer acres and having the rest as dry-land farming.
“The big question is how much water can we cut out of the system and still make it work reasonably well. If irrigated agriculture is taken out of the picture, a lot of these communities will dry up and blow away.”
The Kansas Side of the Picture
Kansas is attempting to put through its own CREP along the Arkansas River, all the way from the Colorado state line to just past Great Bend, KS, as a method to place irrigated land in a conservation-reserve program. The decline of the Ogallala Aquifer is the chief driver in this efforts to be proactive.
“We’re trying to reduce the total demand on the aquifer to extend its usable life,” adds Susan Stover, manager with the High Plains Aquifer Unit of the Kansas State Water Office. “Like Colorado, we’re also trying to encourage the farmers to join together in an effort to prolong the life of the aquifer.”
The state had initially obtained a conceptual approval from the USDA for 100,000 acres—the maximum size a CREP can be. But the state legislature was concerned about the economic impact and capped the amount at 40,000 acres. “It all comes down to the fact that people are nervous about changing the status quo,” says Stover. “Even though we can see the aquifers declining, there is concern by certain groups, such as the co-ops, about what this will do to them. It was a real political discussion we had here.”
Over the last decade. The region has seen a shift away from the idea that water efficiency always equals effective water conservation, according to Stover. “We have since come to a mindset recognizing that water efficiency improvements do not necessarily equal water conservation,” he says.
“By definition you could say a more efficient system will irrigate the same crop with less water. That’s true. But what we’re finding in practice is that producers will take a more efficient system, but use the same amount of water, either for a higher-water-use crop or to put more acres into production.”
Studies conducted by Kansas State University and US Geological Survey have really not found any significant conservation from any of the water efficiency improvements, according to Stover. In fact a lot of the state cost-share for upgrading irrigation systems has now been reduced or eliminated.
“From a production standpoint it’s not a bad thing,” adds Stover. “The saved water is still part of that producer’s resources to use. But from a state water management perspective, if our effort is to conserve the water and not have it pumped, that’s not the way to do it. Water efficiency efforts are simply a different animal than those of conservation.
“With the fairly inefficient method of irrigation known as ‘flood or gravity’ irrigation, this lends itself to water seeping past the root zone of the crops to return to the aquifer,” says Stover. “If you move to a more efficient method, such as center-pivot irrigation with drop nozzles, more of that water will get consumed by the plant. But at the same time, this may actually end up consuming more water as less of the water pumped is returned to the groundwater.
“It’s important to realize that in this particular case water efficiency and water conservation are not synonymous. In our five-year water plan, which includes a look at the high plains aquifer of western Kansas, we have a goal to preserve and extend the Ogallala Aquifer. Once we get into some of the younger aquifers outside of that, we feel we should be able to achieve sustainable yield management by 2015.”
Those aquifers are shallower and have recharge, according to Stover. The challenge with the Ogallala is that the recharge is so low—half an inch to an inch—compared with the other groundwater sources.
In Thomas County, KS, a number of irrigators formed a group on their own and under the leadership of Jon and SteveFriesen proposed mandatory cutbacks with compensation to try to reach something close to sustainable use. “We were impressed that these 40 irrigators came together and proposed this without being forced to by the state or any lawsuits,” adds Stover.
“What we are currently doing in that area as well as two other areas in northwest Kansas that are highly dependent on the aquifer, is modeling various cutbacks on wells in an effort to determine what’s being gained by these producers,” he says. They’re cutting back 30%, but what does that gain them as far as extending the usable life of the aquifer? Thirty years? Fifty years? Just how much time do you get?
“We’re also looking at the economic impact at the same time. How will such a cutback affect the economy? The problem with economic models is that they can only show what you’re taking away—not what you’re bringing in.”
By conserving the aquifer and extending the life for irrigation, there will also be opportunities for the future, such as dairies or ethanol plants coming into the area. Both the farmers and the groundwater management district in that region are able to take the models and try to make the best decisions for what will help them avoid a so-called economic train wreck by inaction in addressing water issues.
Ken Knox has proved helpful to Stover as Kansas works out its CREP. “I, too, would like to work more with my sister states on the whole issue of water conservation and water efficiency. The Ogallala underlies eight different states and has serious depletion problems in nearly all of them, mostly in the southern portion of the aquifer,” says Stover.
With Sustainability as a Goal in Western Kansas
Wayne Bossert, manager of the Northwest Kansas Groundwater Management District, has been working on the USDA Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) to focus the money on reducing consumptive use in the 10-county region of the high plains of Kansas. In Kansas the state’s water plan had of goal of reducing the water table decline rate by the year 2010. Since the consumptive portion of the water use is what’s driving the change in aquifer storage, that goal basically states that reducing consumptive use (CU) is the only way to achieve it.
“Reducing CU is the only way to reach the Kansas state water plan goal—short of importing water—which is so unlikely we have chosen to ignore it,” says Bossert. “Heretofore, everything which had been done was focused on improving water application efficiency. But while looking at the water budget I realized that no matter how much water was wasted, the increase in water efficiency simply eliminated some of the non-consumptive issues.
“The consumptive issue was not an answer to slowing the water table decline. It’s a good thing, but it isn’t a solution [regarding slowing the water table declines]. More often than not, you actually increase water consumption. In fact our data shows that all the other ways in which consumptive use is increased as a result of water efficiency upgrade cancel out and go beyond the savings. You actually increase water consumption use in the end as improvements to water efficiency are introduced.”
Other factors may come into play. As more water becomes available, for example, then more acres may be irrigated, longer season crops may be planted or a change may be made to higher for higher-consumptive crop. “Conservation has two different definitions,” says Bossert. “From a resource management standpoint, as you increase efficiency we need to grow the same production with less water. From a production standpoint, you need to grow more production with the same amount of water. They’re both good in their own right, but they are two different goals.”
Ironically, Bossert found that as the pressure increased to find better water efficiencies with production and water use, the outcome was a very subtle increase in overall water consumption. The state of Kansas did a study in 2005, according to Bossert, in which this observation was verified.
“The mind-bender in all this is that the producer can actually reduce pumpage from the aquifer yet still increase consumptive use—and never see it,” says Bossert. “It’s that part of the water budget which is below ground and out of sight, and it doesn’t make sense.
“Those other uses found for this extra water often happen quite inadvertently. For example, our irrigators and those in Colorado, too, would stretch their water and actually, if you apply the science, be deficit-irrigating during many years. With the increase in efficiency now they can apply 100% of the evapotranspiration [ET] to the same crop—the same acres—so it appears they’re not adding new acres or not changing cropping, but because of that efficiency they’re deficit-irrigating, so consumption goes up. Nothing else has been changed aside from an increase in water efficiency.”
The bottom line is that it’s the ET or CU that must be focused on, according to Bossert. “That’s the understanding part of what we’re doing, and if your goal is to reduce the decline rate, the consumptive use or evaportranspiration is the only thing you need to focus on. The rest is all smoke and mirrors, so to speak.
“Colorado is very aware of all this with consumptive use, but it is often hard to keep your social and economic structure in place when you have to restrict consumptive use. In the past the push has been simply to restrict water use without addressing the social concerns much, if at all or it’s simply looked at value-added benefits and boosting the economy without paying attention to what it’s doing to consumptive water use.
“But as long as one program’s doing one thing and the other is doing the other, they’re canceling each other out and we’re spinning our wheels. What we need to do is [make sure] everything we do from now on [solves] both of those things simultaneously, reducing consumptive use and getting more economic return from that lower use of water to stay even economically. If we don’t, we’re falling into a half-answer; we’re simply changing wealth and doing nothing else—water use stays the same.”
Author's Bio: Peter Hildebrandt specializes in science and engineering topics.
January-February 2008
The Republican River Compact
In the Republican River Basin, small groups have united for the common goal of saving water and exercising long groundwater stewardship—including the redefining of water efficiency.
In areas with frequent droughts and little rain, a well is the lifeblood of a farm. But if the well is taking too much water from a nearby river, the results can be costly for people and aquatic life downstream.
In the Republican River Basin, comprising counties in Colorado, Nebraska, and Kansas, small groups of individuals have united for the common goal of saving water and exercising some form of long-term proper stewardship of their groundwater resources, including a look at the definition of water efficiency. At the same time, they are working to preserve the region’s social structure and individual livelihoods.
Tackling Water Depletion Matters at Local, County, and State Levels
Colorado, Nebraska, and Kansas have formed a three-state compact called the Republican River Compact. Colorado’s Republican River Basin is working to satisfy the obligations of the agreement, not only for the preservation of the groundwater levels, but also for larger social and economic reasons, according to Ken Knox, chief deputy state engineer with the state of Colorado. “This is very much an agrarian community. Our effort to try to reduce water use keeps in place the entire social-economic fabric of the very groundwater-dominated community,”says Knox. “Therefore, our goals are both physical and socioeconomic.”
In 2004, to assist with these aims, the area created the Republican River Water Conservation District (RRWCD). This comprises 15 local water users sitting as a board of directors to help the state with compact compliance by conserving and protecting water supplies in the basin. The Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP), under the US Department of Agriculture, retires wells—many of them permanently—to get the water back into a hydrologic balance. The district is hoping to enroll approximately 200 wells on 30,000 acres and is also in the process of working to find another 30,000 acres to retire.
Under this voluntary 15-year program, producers who retire their wells permanently get compensation from both the federal government and the district at a ratio of 80% federal and 20% local. The program has been so successful that Knox and others are working on using it in Colorado’s Rio Grande Basin for counties in the southern part of the state. “There are now more people wanting to sign up for the program than they had lands available the first time,” adds Knox. “It’s working. We have more water in the area’s streams now. This helps wildlife in addition to fighting erosion. This is a case where things work very effectively with nature to accomplish the goal.”
Knox likes to use the analogy of a checkbook: Precipitation is your monthly paycheck. If spending exceeds “earnings” per month, that can go on for awhile. But a day will come when things won’t be very pleasant. “What we’re trying to do is put off that day with our program.
“I see no reason why this same kind of program could not be used in other, more urban areas,” says Knox. “It’s not limited to farms. It just happens to be that out here in this particular area, action is being taken.”
The RRWCD was primarily given the responsibility of coming up with measures which will either increase stream flow at the gauging stations as the river enters into Nebraska and Kansas, or decrease the amount of consumptive use, both of which positively affect the compact.
In the past, Colorado has been out of compliance with the compact from 10,000 acre-feet to 12,000 acre-feet (between 2003 and 2005) and it was estimated that the state would again be out of compliance by approximately 10,000 acre feet (in 2006). What the RRWCD is doing to fix that negative figure is to use federally cost-shared retirement programs to bring about both temporary and permanent retirement of water sources such as wells and the associated land.
According to Dennis Coryell, president of the RRWCD, and an area farmer who also serves on the Colorado Groundwater Commission, the 20% local funding comes from a use-fee of $5.50 per acre.
Farmers in the eastern Colorado region, including Coryell, have seen a substantial decline over the past 10 to 15 years of the amount of water they are able to pump, as well as a steady decline in the water table. “When we address compact compliance we also get a gain in the overall life of the aquifer, and what we would really like to do would be to have a sustainable agricultural economy, one that we can idle back a ways and be able to have that resource available up to 15, 20, or 25 years down the road,” says Coryell.
“We are also conducting some water efficiency research through a Conservation and Innovations Grant, through the federal government and Colorado State University,” adds Coryell. “With that grant we are doing crop rotation and timing of when water is used as well as how much. Therefore, we are looking at water efficiency issues, such as low-water-use crops and the timing of those crops.”
|
Photo: High Plains Aquifer Unit–Kansas
State Water Office |
| The Arkansas River near Dodge City, KS, is generally dry because of reduced stream flow from Colorado. |
The real centerpiece is the RRWCD’s attempt to permanently retire the wells and the irrigated acres associated with them and at the same time to get a balance between that and the local economy. “We don’t want to retire so much that we injure the local economy, but we’ve got to do that and concentrate those retirements closest to the river so that we have a real good opportunity to increase stream flow at the same time we reduce the consumptive use [CU].”
Coryell and other farmers are looking at growing more water-saving crops, those using moisture in a better way, drought-resistant corn, and different varieties of crops that get the most efficiency from the amount of water being pumped. Though there are places in the region with an ample supply of water, there remain places with a limited supply.
“In those areas, crop selection, the particular variety or number of corn grown, and drought resistance are critical, while in the other areas with ample water we just need to combine the two, efficiency of the water and total retirement of the water,” he says.
Good Fit with Goals of Conservation Groups
The issue has brought in support from a number of different conservation groups as well, including Trout Unlimited and The Nature Conservancy (TNC). But the main group spearheading the whole issue is the community in conjunction with the state, creating the Republican River Conservation District, according to William Burnidge, northeast Colorado program director for TNC.
“We were concerned about declining water levels in the river,” says Burnidge. “We own a piece of property with a reach of the Arikaree River running through it, the middle fork of the Republican River. But in addition to being concerned about the flows of the river, we were also concerned about protecting and enhancing the flows in the area’s other rivers. This is really a watershed-wide interest.
“I guess when I came on with TNC in 2005, the talk going on about creating the CREP caught my attention. This seemed like a great place where we at TNC could add some value. It was our initiative to be reacting to an opportunity growing out of a crisis.”
TNC’s role has been one of support as well as trying to find additional resources and focus them where they’ll do the most good. TNC has offered additional payment incentives on top of what the CREP offers, to a select set of landowners who had what TNC identified as high priority wells. Our incentive program is minor compared to that of the USDA,” says Burnidge.
In this case TNC found itself on the same side as that of the farmers, despite some initial wariness. But in the end there was an intersection of interests that worked out well, according to Burnidge.
“The Ogallala Aquifer’s steady decline directly affects the water in the Republican River, and if we can do anything to offset that change we’ve all accomplished something. These farmers are helping the rivers while at the same time trying their level best to keep their livelihoods in place. The details of how this will work are still being developed, but it is a good case of people coming together to both protect their interests and do what’s best for the land.”
Water Efficiency versus Water Conservation
When the move is made to higher-efficiency water systems, it is generally true that water use tends to increase. This is driven by the fact that better crop yields simply mean more water use occurs, according to Joel Schneekloth, regional water resource specialist with the Colorado State University Extension Service (CSUES).
“With the higher-efficiency systems, farmers now see that they can meet the crop water needs during the middle of the summertime, therefore they plant the higher-water-use crops, which also happen to be the higher-return crops economically,” says Schneekloth. “But even in some of the river systems themselves, conservation does not equal water savings. As people go to more and more efficient systems, they’re not putting that return flow back into the groundwater that will make it back to the river.”
Schneekloth feels it’s going to take a change. Corn is the predominant crop of the High Plains, but with aquifer declines it will either take well retirements and retirements of irrigated acres, compliance with the compact, or simply looking at lower-water-use crops, which is a lot of the work the CSUES is doing. But there are ways of cutting water use down by water management.
“We’re doing a great deal of research on deficit and limited irrigations. The times when crops don’t respond so well to irrigation are those when you need to cut irrigation short. It will take a complete change in philosophy. The idea that a crop cannot ever be stressed costs us a huge amount of water; we have the data showing that you can stress a crop, save some water, and not significantly affect yield.”
The CSUES is looking hard at tillage management as well. “Leaving the crop residue on the ground and not clean-tilling the field holds the water in better and reduces evaporation; the residue acts as a blanket.
“If you leave it alone and plant right over the top of it, the majority of the crops grown around here grow very well leaving the residue in place. With energy prices of diesel fuel for a tractor going in the direction they are, this strategy looks even better to the farmer.”
Other studies of regional irrigation have indicated little difference between center-pivot and drip irrigation systems. Energy is not going to be much improved either way, according to Schneekloth—not enough, at least, to justify the cost of drip or subsurface drip irrigation.
“One study at Kansas State in Colby concluded from seven years of studies with a drip system—versus a simulated pivot demonstrated over that same time period—that the water use from each of the two systems was equal,” says Schneekloth. “You look at that type of research and ask, ‘Why are we doing this if we’re not saving any water with it?’
“It all comes back to management in the long run. Nothing is simple. Retirement of irrigated acres is the fast, easy way. But we also have a project near Burlington looking at alternative crops and water management as another way to really save water. Every time you take that acreage out, it’s not efficient for the community economically. But if you can figure out some point of constant pullout that will maintain the aquifer and still keep you in compliance, that’s much better for the community, much better than fully irrigating fewer acres and having the rest as dry-land farming.
“The big question is how much water can we cut out of the system and still make it work reasonably well. If irrigated agriculture is taken out of the picture, a lot of these communities will dry up and blow away.”
The Kansas Side of the Picture
Kansas is attempting to put through its own CREP along the Arkansas River, all the way from the Colorado state line to just past Great Bend, KS, as a method to place irrigated land in a conservation-reserve program. The decline of the Ogallala Aquifer is the chief driver in this efforts to be proactive.
“We’re trying to reduce the total demand on the aquifer to extend its usable life,” adds Susan Stover, manager with the High Plains Aquifer Unit of the Kansas State Water Office. “Like Colorado, we’re also trying to encourage the farmers to join together in an effort to prolong the life of the aquifer.”
The state had initially obtained a conceptual approval from the USDA for 100,000 acres—the maximum size a CREP can be. But the state legislature was concerned about the economic impact and capped the amount at 40,000 acres. “It all comes down to the fact that people are nervous about changing the status quo,” says Stover. “Even though we can see the aquifers declining, there is concern by certain groups, such as the co-ops, about what this will do to them. It was a real political discussion we had here.”
Over the last decade. The region has seen a shift away from the idea that water efficiency always equals effective water conservation, according to Stover. “We have since come to a mindset recognizing that water efficiency improvements do not necessarily equal water conservation,” he says.
“By definition you could say a more efficient system will irrigate the same crop with less water. That’s true. But what we’re finding in practice is that producers will take a more efficient system, but use the same amount of water, either for a higher-water-use crop or to put more acres into production.”
Studies conducted by Kansas State University and US Geological Survey have really not found any significant conservation from any of the water efficiency improvements, according to Stover. In fact a lot of the state cost-share for upgrading irrigation systems has now been reduced or eliminated.
“From a production standpoint it’s not a bad thing,” adds Stover. “The saved water is still part of that producer’s resources to use. But from a state water management perspective, if our effort is to conserve the water and not have it pumped, that’s not the way to do it. Water efficiency efforts are simply a different animal than those of conservation.
“With the fairly inefficient method of irrigation known as ‘flood or gravity’ irrigation, this lends itself to water seeping past the root zone of the crops to return to the aquifer,” says Stover. “If you move to a more efficient method, such as center-pivot irrigation with drop nozzles, more of that water will get consumed by the plant. But at the same time, this may actually end up consuming more water as less of the water pumped is returned to the groundwater.
“It’s important to realize that in this particular case water efficiency and water conservation are not synonymous. In our five-year water plan, which includes a look at the high plains aquifer of western Kansas, we have a goal to preserve and extend the Ogallala Aquifer. Once we get into some of the younger aquifers outside of that, we feel we should be able to achieve sustainable yield management by 2015.”
Those aquifers are shallower and have recharge, according to Stover. The challenge with the Ogallala is that the recharge is so low—half an inch to an inch—compared with the other groundwater sources.
In Thomas County, KS, a number of irrigators formed a group on their own and under the leadership of Jon and SteveFriesen proposed mandatory cutbacks with compensation to try to reach something close to sustainable use. “We were impressed that these 40 irrigators came together and proposed this without being forced to by the state or any lawsuits,” adds Stover.
“What we are currently doing in that area as well as two other areas in northwest Kansas that are highly dependent on the aquifer, is modeling various cutbacks on wells in an effort to determine what’s being gained by these producers,” he says. They’re cutting back 30%, but what does that gain them as far as extending the usable life of the aquifer? Thirty years? Fifty years? Just how much time do you get?
“We’re also looking at the economic impact at the same time. How will such a cutback affect the economy? The problem with economic models is that they can only show what you’re taking away—not what you’re bringing in.”
By conserving the aquifer and extending the life for irrigation, there will also be opportunities for the future, such as dairies or ethanol plants coming into the area. Both the farmers and the groundwater management district in that region are able to take the models and try to make the best decisions for what will help them avoid a so-called economic train wreck by inaction in addressing water issues.
Ken Knox has proved helpful to Stover as Kansas works out its CREP. “I, too, would like to work more with my sister states on the whole issue of water conservation and water efficiency. The Ogallala underlies eight different states and has serious depletion problems in nearly all of them, mostly in the southern portion of the aquifer,” says Stover.
With Sustainability as a Goal in Western Kansas
Wayne Bossert, manager of the Northwest Kansas Groundwater Management District, has been working on the USDA Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) to focus the money on reducing consumptive use in the 10-county region of the high plains of Kansas. In Kansas the state’s water plan had of goal of reducing the water table decline rate by the year 2010. Since the consumptive portion of the water use is what’s driving the change in aquifer storage, that goal basically states that reducing consumptive use (CU) is the only way to achieve it.
“Reducing CU is the only way to reach the Kansas state water plan goal—short of importing water—which is so unlikely we have chosen to ignore it,” says Bossert. “Heretofore, everything which had been done was focused on improving water application efficiency. But while looking at the water budget I realized that no matter how much water was wasted, the increase in water efficiency simply eliminated some of the non-consumptive issues.
“The consumptive issue was not an answer to slowing the water table decline. It’s a good thing, but it isn’t a solution [regarding slowing the water table declines]. More often than not, you actually increase water consumption. In fact our data shows that all the other ways in which consumptive use is increased as a result of water efficiency upgrade cancel out and go beyond the savings. You actually increase water consumption use in the end as improvements to water efficiency are introduced.”
Other factors may come into play. As more water becomes available, for example, then more acres may be irrigated, longer season crops may be planted or a change may be made to higher for higher-consumptive crop. “Conservation has two different definitions,” says Bossert. “From a resource management standpoint, as you increase efficiency we need to grow the same production with less water. From a production standpoint, you need to grow more production with the same amount of water. They’re both good in their own right, but they are two different goals.”
Ironically, Bossert found that as the pressure increased to find better water efficiencies with production and water use, the outcome was a very subtle increase in overall water consumption. The state of Kansas did a study in 2005, according to Bossert, in which this observation was verified.
“The mind-bender in all this is that the producer can actually reduce pumpage from the aquifer yet still increase consumptive use—and never see it,” says Bossert. “It’s that part of the water budget which is below ground and out of sight, and it doesn’t make sense.
“Those other uses found for this extra water often happen quite inadvertently. For example, our irrigators and those in Colorado, too, would stretch their water and actually, if you apply the science, be deficit-irrigating during many years. With the increase in efficiency now they can apply 100% of the evapotranspiration [ET] to the same crop—the same acres—so it appears they’re not adding new acres or not changing cropping, but because of that efficiency they’re deficit-irrigating, so consumption goes up. Nothing else has been changed aside from an increase in water efficiency.”
The bottom line is that it’s the ET or CU that must be focused on, according to Bossert. “That’s the understanding part of what we’re doing, and if your goal is to reduce the decline rate, the consumptive use or evaportranspiration is the only thing you need to focus on. The rest is all smoke and mirrors, so to speak.
“Colorado is very aware of all this with consumptive use, but it is often hard to keep your social and economic structure in place when you have to restrict consumptive use. In the past the push has been simply to restrict water use without addressing the social concerns much, if at all or it’s simply looked at value-added benefits and boosting the economy without paying attention to what it’s doing to consumptive water use.
“But as long as one program’s doing one thing and the other is doing the other, they’re canceling each other out and we’re spinning our wheels. What we need to do is [make sure] everything we do from now on [solves] both of those things simultaneously, reducing consumptive use and getting more economic return from that lower use of water to stay even economically. If we don’t, we’re falling into a half-answer; we’re simply changing wealth and doing nothing else—water use stays the same.”