WATER POLITICS

To save a dying aquifer – or at least their piece of it – a group of roughly 60 farmers in northwest Kansas decided on a self-imposed diet.

The move a dozen years ago to voluntarily restrict the water they pumped from the Ogallala Aquifer, the lifeblood of the High Plains, was seen by some as a risky proposition. In the semi-arid region, farmers might have gone bankrupt without water drawn from deep underground. But they were skilled and savvy land managers, and thought they could survive a 20 percent water cut.

Years of scholarship and economic analysis have proved them correct – in more ways than one.

The farmers in northwest Kansas not only remain profitable. They are practicing irrigated agriculture with a significantly lighter environmental footprint. Fewer carbon emissions, less fossil energy use. Annual groundwater declines of 1.5 to 2 feet before the restrictions are now a half foot or less. In some years, the groundwater level has inched up. Their part of the Ogallala is not quite stable, but a balance between recharge and extraction is closer than it has been in generations.

In light of these successes, the experiment in little Sheridan County is instructive, illustrating a plan of attack for other areas of the planet where agriculture – the biggest consumer of water – is exceeding the limits of a finite resource. Northern India, California’s Central Valley, Iran, and the North China Plain – all are arid and semi-arid farming hot spots and epicenters of groundwater depletion that could learn from Kansas, where four additional groundwater management areas with varying conservation targets have been established following the Sheridan model. For an ag industry that can be leery of untested practices and new methods, the undisputed achievement on the High Plains is a compelling proof of concept.

“I think it’s been pretty transformational, particularly in the area of Kansas water policy and management, but certainly in adjacent states as well, because I think it helped to allay fears of the producers of trying to tackle change,” said Jean Steiner, an adjunct professor of agronomy at Kansas State University.

The importance of the Ogallala Aquifer to the economy of the High Plains is difficult to understate. Spanning eight states from South Dakota in the north to Texas in the south, the Ogallala is North America’s largest source of underground fresh water. In a region with few flowing rivers and sporadic rain, its groundwater nurtures vast harvests of cotton, corn, soybeans, and wheat, in addition to some of the nation’s biggest cattle feedlots. All told, the Ogallala supports an agriculture industry worth $35 billion.

Because of limited precipitation, the Ogallala as it has been managed is essentially a finite resource, a bank account slowly being drawn down to produce immense quantities of grain. Some areas on the aquifer’s fringe are already too depleted for irrigation.

Seeing the trend lines and wanting to delay or avoid that fate, farmers in Sheridan County said enough. In 2013, they became the first group in the state to adopt a new conservation tool, called a Local Enhanced Management Area.

The LEMA was locally designed but came with the force of law. It bound farmers in the 99-square-mile management area to a 20 percent cut in groundwater pumping. To help farmers cope, the volume restrictions were paired with more flexible rules for water use. If they did not need a portion of their water allocation one year – because of sufficient rain or a different crop mix – farmers could carry it over to the next. The change allowed them to take advantage of a wet year by saving their pumping for a drier period in the future.

What benefits did this bring? Previous studies found that pumping restrictions did not hurt farm profitability. Farmers cut their operational costs – less money spent on seeds, fertilizer, energy –  or shifted from corn to less water-intensive crops, and were less wasteful with the water they had, producing yields that were a bit smaller than before but not drastically so. The dollars and cents penciled out.

“We can safely say it’s not economically detrimental to reduce water use,” said Bill Golden, a Kansas State University agricultural economics professor who conducted the research.

To the economic gains, now add ecological benefits.

Steiner is a co-author on a new study that is the first to assess the LEMA’s effect on the environment. The study, using computer models that simulated resource inputs and crop outputs, found a host of co-benefits to reducing water use.

Compared to nearby farmland that had no water limits, the Sheridan LEMA came out ahead. Fossil energy use – natural gas is the most common fuel source for the groundwater pumps – was 22 percent lower. Greenhouse gas emissions were 20 percent lower. Losses of reactive nitrogen, linked to fertilizer use, were down 1.4 percent.

Because yields were smaller in the LEMA, the numbers were slightly less impressive when measured per unit of grain produced. Reactive nitrogen losses were even a touch higher than the control group without water limits. Still, the benefits were impressive overall, Steiner said.

“Replicating LEMA-type policies more widely across the region can be a viable solution (environmental and economic) to stabilize the Ogallala Aquifer water levels for the next few decades, as demonstrated by this and previous research,” the study concluded.

Stabilizing the aquifer is a main reason the Sheridan farmers went on their water diet. They wanted to preserve the aquifer for their children and grandchildren. That outcome appears to be happening.

Before the LEMA went into effect in 2013, annual water level declines in the area averaged 1.5 feet, sometimes as much as 3 feet, said Brownie Wilson of the Kansas Geological Survey, which conducts annual groundwater monitoring. Now the declines are roughly a half foot, and some years the water level has increased.

“You can definitely see a shift in water use and a shift in water level,” Wilson said.

Shifting behaviors are another measurement of the LEMA’s success. The concept is spreading through the state. Sheridan County farmers have twice extended their LEMA agreement, which now runs through 2027. Four other LEMAs have been established, including all of Groundwater Management District 4, which is the district that contains Sheridan County.

Golden is working on an economic analysis for Wichita County, which established a LEMA in 2021. He is finding similar results as in Sheridan County: no decrease in net revenue.

State officials are also looking for ways to reward this locally driven conservation. Last year representatives from the office of Gov. Laura Kelly and the Kansas Water Authority held public meetings to gather suggestions for a state water infrastructure funding program. The blueprint, published in December, recommends that farmers participating in a LEMA should have top priority for irrigation funding.