“The demands for that water are significant, and there’s always more demand than there is water. It’s been a circumstance on and off throughout Kansas’ history,” Moran said.

“We’ve had conversations within the last week with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife leadership. We have gotten an agreement from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. They will make no demands for water for Quivira for the next year. And in the meantime they will work with irrigators — farmers and ranchers in central Kansas — to come up with a solution to the needs for water in the future,” he said.

The wetter than normal weather in the area over the past year played a favorable role in getting the agreement in place, Moran said.

While the agreement is a direct benefit to the irrigators, it also benefits the area economy, he added.

“In the absence of this agreement, in the absence of the pause for a year, the junior rights water holders would have generally had their allocation reduced dramatically, so that would mean a lot less farming, a lot less economic activity, and certainly damage to the economy of the communities Great Bend, Pratt, St. John, Stafford, Kinsley, that part of Kansas,” Moran explained.

The one-year pause gives irrigators time to negotiate an agreement for future water use, he said.

“From my perspective, this really is a state issue. It is the Division of Water Resources within the Kansas Department of Agriculture that manages those water rights, but they have said that as long as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service doesn’t make the demand for water, they will not then force those farmers to reduce their use of water and give those farmers a time to negotiate a deal,” he said.

According to Moran, central Kansas irrigators will need to work hard to develop a plan for the future, as there is more demand for water than there is water.

“And so this doesn’t mean that the problems are solved, it means that there is an opportunity to try to solve them,” Moran said.