By ANDY MARSO
Gov. Sam Brownback’s office announced Tuesday he has signed into law a bill allowing the executive branch to suspend indefinitely the water rights of Kansans who fail to file annual water use reports.
The legislation, House Substitute for Senate Bill 337, passed the House 95-21 and the Senate 39-1. It’s an amended version of a measure that Brownback administration officials sought to crack down on a small number of groundwater users who routinely flout the reporting requirement.
Tracy Streeter, director of the Kansas Water Office, supported the change.
“It’s a fairness issue in my book,” Streeter said. Streeter called knowingly failing to file a water report “an injustice to everybody else that’s abiding within the law.”
Tracking water use helps determine whether Kansans have pumped more than their appropriated amount. It also provides data useful to determining the sustainability of the underground Ogallala Aquifer that supplies irrigation water for much of the western Kansas farm economy.
The Ogallala has been in decline for decades. Slowing the decline is a main goal of a 50-year water vision Brownback has promoted since his first few years in office. The new reporting law enhances the powers of the chief engineer within the Kansas Department of Agriculture’s Division of Water Resources.
It raises the maximum fine the chief engineer can levy on those who fail to file their annual report from $250 to $1,000.
But during committee hearings on the bill, state officials said the more powerful deterrent would be the ability to suspend water rights.
Legislators amended the original proposal to also allow the chief engineer to require a telemetry unit — which would report water use automatically — be installed on the wells of those who fail to report.
Administration officials told legislators considering the bill in January that about 60 Kansans fail to file their water use report in any given year, and about 10 of those 60 are serial offenders. “This bill will make it a little more of a difficult decision for them to do that,” Streeter said. Zack Pistora, a lobbyist for the Kansas Sierra Club, said the Legislature’s vote to hold people more accountable for reporting their water use was a good step.
But with approximately 32,000 water rights holders in the state, he questioned how much water the bill actually would preserve.
“We’ve got to come up with a serious answer for this water crisis,” Pistora said. “There’s a lot more to be done that we’re not seeing from our leadership in government.”
Pistora said wells already are running dry in some parts of the state, and some Kansas communities may have no groundwater available in 20 years.
Earlier this year Brownback also approved Senate Bill 330, authorizing a conservation reserve enhancement program that provides incentives for stabilization projects that prevent sediment from running off and filling the reservoirs that are eastern Kansas’ main water source.
A more controversial piece of legislation, Senate Substitute for House Bill 2059, did not pass this session. That bill would have created a regulatory mechanism to grant Kansans the right to use water that otherwise leaves the state.
It was brought by groundwater management district officials in southwest Kansas interested in exploring an aqueduct to transport Missouri River waters to their part of the state.
The administration, which is seeking a conference of governors to discuss appropriation of multi-state waters, opposed it.
Andy Marso is a reporter for KHI News Service in Topeka, a partner in the Heartland Health Monitor team. You can reach him on Twitter @andymarso
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ELLIS–Several Fort Hays State University Leadership students spent their spring semester working on various projects for the city of Ellis. Mayor David McDaniel recognized their efforts and thanked the students during the May 2 Ellis city council meeting.