KDA

MANHATTAN — The Kansas Department of Agriculture Division of Water Resources (KDA-DWR) will host two public meetings on Monday, October 21, 2019, to share information related to upcoming action responding to the impairment complaint by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on behalf of Quivira National Wildlife Refuge.

Water rights owners in the area were sent notice this week of the KDA-DWR plan to regulate water rights. The meetings will review the anticipated regulation and the ongoing work with local stakeholders to develop a Water Conservation Area (WCA) that will provide flexibility in use for those regulated water rights.

Groundwater Management District 5 and the R9 Ranch in Edwards County (owned by the cities of Hays and Russell as a long-term water supply) are included in Zone A.

According to Toby Dougherty, Hays city manager, “only a small portion (few acres) of the R9 is in the Rattlesnake basin. Whatever the result of the Quivira impairment claim, it should have little, if any, effect on the R9.”

All area residents are welcome to attend one of the two meetings. KDA also plans to livestream the presentations and archive them on their website.

The public meetings will take place at 3:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. at the Stafford County Courthouse Annex, 210 E. 3rd Ave. in St. John. Both meetings will include the same information.

More information related to the impairment complaint and investigation findings, the planned water administration, and plans to develop a WCA to provide flexibility can be found at agriculture.ks.gov/Quivira. Questions can also be addressed by calling KDA–DWR’s Stafford Field Office at 620-234-5311.