KDA

MANHATTAN — A public hearing will be conducted at 10:00 a.m. on Thursday, October 10, 2019, to consider the adoption of proposed regulations regarding water use. The hearing will be held in room 124 on the first floor of the Kansas Department of Agriculture, 1320 Research Park Dr. in Manhattan.

The hearing will consider a proposal to repeal K.A.R. 5-21-7, which adopted change in use rules applicable only in Western Kansas Groundwater Management District No. 1; repeal of this rule would result in the statewide rule (K.A.R. 5-5-9) being applied within GMD 1.

The other proposed regulations — K.A.R. 5-25-2, 5-25-4, and 5-25-22 — will assist water users in Big Bend Groundwater Management District No. 5 in developing an augmentation project.

The R9 Ranch in Edwards County, owned jointly by the cities of Hays and Russell as a long-term water supply, is located in Groundwater Management District No. 5.

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The proposed regulations can be found on the KDA website: agriculture.ks.gov/PublicComment. Written comments can be submitted online at this site as well.

All interested persons may attend the hearing and may present comments either orally or in writing, or both. In order to give all parties an opportunity to present their views, it may be necessary to request that each participant limit oral presentations to five minutes. Individuals wishing to participate by teleconference may go to either the KDA Garden City Field Office or the KDA Stafford Field Office on the date and time of the public hearing.

Any individual with a disability may request accommodation to participate in the public hearing and may request a copy of the quarantine in an accessible format. Persons who require special accommodations must make their needs known at least five days prior to the hearing. For more information, including special accommodations or a copy of the regulations or their economic impact statement, please contact Ronda Hutton at [email protected] or 785-564-6715.