Water use in Butler County

472 points of diversion — 0.8% of the Kansas file — reporting 13,450 acre-feet in 2023.

472Points

13,4502023, acre-feet

2,024Acres irrigated

63Reporting use

What the series actually shows — Butler County

Reported use here peaked in 1998 at 14,618 acre-feet and bottomed in 1993 at 3,377. That swing is rainfall, not policy: a wet year needs less pumping than a dry one, and any two years picked from this table can be made to say almost anything.

Comparing decades instead: the last ten years average 13,153 acre-feet a year against 11,649 in the first ten — higher. And the number of points reporting any use moved from 83 to 63: the count of straws in the ground barely changes, whatever the year does to the volume.

Reported use in Butler County, year by year. « Points reporting » counts those returning more than nought — a 0 is not a finding, see below.
Year	Acre-feet	Acres irrigated	Points reporting
1990	11,455	1,280	83
1991	11,585	1,204	78
1992	11,540	1,138	88
1993	3,377	1,072	83
1994	12,576	1,404	98
1995	11,422	1,085	97
1996	13,146	1,304	104
1997	13,310	1,460	48
1998	14,618	1,666	55
1999	13,463	1,414	52
2000	13,863	1,675	55
2001	14,057	1,611	51
2002	13,904	1,706	54
2003	13,309	1,601	57
2004	12,646	1,079	42
2005	13,160	1,740	54
2006	14,292	1,792	62
2007	12,675	1,716	62
2008	12,473	1,541	57
2009	13,329	1,857	64
2010	14,096	1,922	72
2011	14,135	1,705	64
2012	14,549	1,916	66
2013	13,217	1,808	64
2014	13,431	2,009	66
2015	12,899	1,674	63
2016	13,336	1,723	68
2017	12,655	1,896	67
2018	12,439	2,007	66
2019	12,032	1,786	61
2020	13,062	2,198	64
2021	13,879	2,113	62
2022	14,350	2,180	64
2023	13,450	2,024	63

Where the water comes from

Source	Points	Share
surface water — a river, stream or reservoir	242	51.3%
groundwater — a well	230	48.7%

Which management district

District	Points	Share
Outside any district	472	100.0%

⚠️ What a zero here does not mean

409 of the 472 points in Butler County report 0 acre-feet for 2023, and 448 show five or more successive years at 0 in this file.

A 0 in this file is not a finding. There are no blanks in the usage columns — every point carries a number for every year — so a nil return, a point that did not yet exist, and a report never filed all read the same. Kansas fines non-filing (USD 250 per file, USD 1,000 and suspension after 1 June), which is exactly why a missing report looks like a quiet year.

Kansas does terminate a water right after five successive years without beneficial use — K.S.A. 82a-718 — but only without due and sufficient cause, and only after a hearing before the chief engineer with 30 days’ notice. Four causes are recognised in K.A.R. 5-7-1, including adequate rainfall and water being unavailable at the source, and enrolment in the water rights conservation programme counts as one. A run of zeros here is a reason to check, never a conclusion.

Buying or defending irrigated ground in Butler County?

472 points of diversion sit in Butler County, reporting 13,450 acre-feet in 2023. What a right is actually worth turns on how much it has been used and on whether it can be defended — questions this site cannot answer for a particular file. Tell us where and we pass the request to Kansas water lawyers and consultants.

We recommend nobody and we are nobody's agent. We have no arrangement with any firm today — we are collecting these requests in order to go and find them. What we do with this.

The points, largest first

Butler County, ordered by reported use in 2023. The last column counts the longest run of years at 0 in this file — a fact about the file, not a finding about the right.
Point	County	Source	2023 (AF)	10-yr avg	Acres 2023	Longest run of 0
32746	Butler	surface	10,604	10,599	0	0
5151	Butler	surface	1,225	292	0	0
10308	Butler	surface	281	391	0	0
4222	Butler	surface	279	237	225	8
25458	Butler	surface	150	146	289	2
42325	Butler	ground	93	98	0	17
75029	Butler	surface	90	54	133	19
43580	Butler	ground	87	35	0	17
60979	Butler	ground	58	91	0	7
9175	Butler	surface	54	118	190	1
81418	Butler	ground	41	30	0	26
77937	Butler	ground	35	52	0	21
10244	Butler	ground	32	13	83	1
71462	Butler	surface	31	34	0	16
27799	Butler	surface	28	146	367	1
22847	Butler	ground	27	11	0	7
85622	Butler	ground	22	11	0	29
80123	Butler	ground	19	6	6	24
73928	Butler	ground	17	2	0	33
20530	Butler	ground	16	12	42	4
14172	Butler	ground	15	8	0	1
5077	Butler	surface	15	67	180	4
2721	Butler	ground	14	45	0	4
67916	Butler	surface	13	5	12	16
1041	Butler	ground	13	11	0	2
73927	Butler	ground	12	4	0	17
12616	Butler	ground	11	14	28	1
47152	Butler	ground	11	15	0	0
43035	Butler	ground	11	10	0	2
71307	Butler	ground	10	11	0	15
42997	Butler	ground	8	13	22	2
85645	Butler	ground	8	4	0	29
68121	Butler	ground	7	7	0	17
75058	Butler	ground	7	13	0	23
51869	Butler	ground	7	10	0	0
53296	Butler	ground	6	7	0	3
71306	Butler	ground	6	16	64	16
24939	Butler	ground	6	6	0	6
9293	Butler	ground	6	1	0	2
33747	Butler	ground	6	7	0	0
7171	Butler	surface	6	26	133	6
25950	Butler	surface	6	33	161	5
89759	Butler	ground	5	0	0	33
75940	Butler	ground	4	5	6	19
76334	Butler	ground	4	4	0	19
53796	Butler	ground	4	9	0	3
81054	Butler	ground	4	2	5	24
18663	Butler	ground	3	4	0	17
86271	Butler	ground	3	1	0	30
88766	Butler	ground	3	1	10	31
30146	Butler	ground	3	5	0	3
382	Butler	ground	3	4	52	12
75943	Butler	ground	2	3	3	21
75944	Butler	ground	2	5	3	19
81417	Butler	ground	2	1	0	26
75941	Butler	ground	2	4	6	19
60523	Butler	ground	2	2	0	7
76370	Butler	ground	2	1	3	19
71596	Butler	ground	2	11	0	18
42075	Butler	ground	2	6	0	2
47956	Butler	ground	1	1	0	6
11172	Butler	ground	1	1	0	7
81055	Butler	ground	0	1	1	24
4	Butler	ground	0	0	0	34
717	Butler	surface	0	0	0	34
760	Butler	ground	0	2	0	6
790	Butler	ground	0	0	0	16
894	Butler	ground	0	0	0	27
895	Butler	ground	0	0	0	34
1001	Butler	surface	0	0	0	34
1442	Butler	surface	0	0	0	34
1567	Butler	ground	0	0	0	34
1907	Butler	ground	0	0	0	27
2159	Butler	ground	0	0	0	27
2201	Butler	surface	0	0	0	34
2875	Butler	ground	0	0	0	24
2980	Butler	ground	0	0	0	27
3245	Butler	ground	0	0	0	34
3247	Butler	ground	0	0	0	28
3784	Butler	ground	0	0	0	27
4693	Butler	surface	0	0	0	7
4888	Butler	ground	0	0	0	34
5963	Butler	surface	0	0	0	34
6026	Butler	ground	0	4	0	9
6080	Butler	ground	0	1	0	5
6226	Butler	surface	0	0	0	33
6341	Butler	ground	0	0	0	34
6366	Butler	ground	0	0	0	27
6555	Butler	ground	0	0	0	27
6931	Butler	ground	0	0	0	34
6946	Butler	ground	0	0	0	27
7510	Butler	ground	0	0	0	27
7553	Butler	surface	0	0	0	34
7604	Butler	ground	0	0	0	27
7925	Butler	ground	0	0	0	27
8015	Butler	surface	0	0	0	34
8817	Butler	ground	0	0	0	31
9048	Butler	surface	0	0	0	34
9092	Butler	surface	0	0	0	30
9166	Butler	ground	0	0	0	34
9636	Butler	ground	0	0	0	27
9666	Butler	ground	0	0	0	34
10021	Butler	ground	0	1	0	14
10324	Butler	surface	0	0	0	34
10396	Butler	surface	0	0	0	34
10397	Butler	surface	0	0	0	34
10426	Butler	ground	0	0	0	27
10434	Butler	ground	0	0	0	18
10704	Butler	surface	0	0	0	34
10918	Butler	surface	0	0	0	27
10974	Butler	ground	0	0	0	27
11005	Butler	ground	0	0	0	27
11023	Butler	surface	0	0	0	32
11541	Butler	ground	0	0	0	27
11601	Butler	surface	0	0	0	34
11672	Butler	ground	0	0	0	27
11794	Butler	surface	0	0	0	34
12133	Butler	ground	0	0	0	27
12247	Butler	ground	0	0	0	27
12560	Butler	surface	0	0	0	34

By source in Butler County

Counties with a comparable file

Kingman 599
Rush 558
Gove 554
Kiowa 554
Saline 543
Hamilton 525
Ellis 500
Dickinson 468
Ottawa 467
Decatur 418
Brown 404
Rawlins 400
Cowley 394

Neighbours by the size of their file, not a ranking: the list slides with the county, so each of the 73 county pages is reachable from the others. All of them.