Water use in Cowley County

394 points of diversion — 0.7% of the Kansas file — reporting 11,505 acre-feet in 2023.

394Points

11,5052023, acre-feet

3,308Acres irrigated

66Reporting use

What the series actually shows — Cowley County

Reported use here peaked in 1990 at 13,608 acre-feet and bottomed in 2004 at 7,232. 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 10,909 acre-feet a year against 9,683 in the first ten — higher. And the number of points reporting any use moved from 74 to 66: the count of straws in the ground barely changes, whatever the year does to the volume.

Reported use in Cowley 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	13,608	1,877	74
1991	12,108	1,775	66
1992	9,668	1,285	59
1993	9,737	1,387	58
1994	10,651	2,056	55
1995	8,921	1,814	58
1996	9,281	1,910	65
1997	7,407	2,013	53
1998	8,016	2,126	60
1999	7,430	2,129	56
2000	7,583	2,007	54
2001	8,142	1,850	50
2002	7,574	2,119	57
2003	7,952	2,489	53
2004	7,232	2,990	52
2005	7,767	2,787	50
2006	8,558	2,894	55
2007	7,347	2,458	50
2008	7,347	2,517	50
2009	11,828	2,762	50
2010	11,442	2,870	54
2011	11,972	2,949	56
2012	12,055	3,161	58
2013	9,283	3,314	59
2014	9,510	3,353	62
2015	10,066	2,974	62
2016	10,026	2,990	63
2017	11,418	3,645	69
2018	10,725	3,590	67
2019	9,997	2,887	59
2020	11,141	3,635	67
2021	11,781	3,688	68
2022	12,922	3,687	69
2023	11,505	3,308	66

Where the water comes from

Source	Points	Share
groundwater — a well	242	61.4%
surface water — a river, stream or reservoir	152	38.6%

Which management district

District	Points	Share
Outside any district	394	100.0%

⚠️ What a zero here does not mean

328 of the 394 points in Cowley County report 0 acre-feet for 2023, and 364 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 Cowley County?

394 points of diversion sit in Cowley County, reporting 11,505 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

Cowley 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
15569	Cowley	surface	2,789	2,492	0	0
65015	Cowley	ground	1,559	1,857	0	10
14882	Cowley	ground	434	359	0	1
52711	Cowley	ground	433	355	0	1
25341	Cowley	ground	427	392	0	0
45285	Cowley	ground	377	348	0	1
6608	Cowley	ground	376	360	0	1
32522	Cowley	ground	366	279	0	4
85047	Cowley	ground	340	256	0	27
45011	Cowley	ground	337	359	0	1
86637	Cowley	ground	333	111	0	31
1098	Cowley	ground	328	295	0	1
74902	Cowley	ground	292	314	0	18
28695	Cowley	ground	160	99	0	16
75505	Cowley	ground	158	114	130	21
72618	Cowley	ground	141	120	135	16
80234	Cowley	ground	140	88	126	22
20724	Cowley	ground	136	98	0	16
35514	Cowley	ground	131	131	0	1
28679	Cowley	ground	130	63	0	3
82624	Cowley	ground	107	70	135	27
68696	Cowley	ground	105	79	126	14
37143	Cowley	surface	99	60	75	0
72391	Cowley	ground	87	77	251	21
22100	Cowley	surface	87	41	140	2
30245	Cowley	ground	86	53	0	0
68707	Cowley	ground	85	76	69	14
3761	Cowley	surface	81	36	135	3
80125	Cowley	ground	80	66	67	24
78302	Cowley	ground	76	87	61	21
9347	Cowley	ground	61	25	100	16
30744	Cowley	ground	61	51	66	4
73906	Cowley	surface	58	45	105	19
29230	Cowley	surface	55	49	132	1
61350	Cowley	surface	54	85	170	9
67357	Cowley	ground	53	40	80	14
18496	Cowley	ground	52	18	0	30
89278	Cowley	ground	49	13	94	32
22878	Cowley	ground	48	59	74	3
40048	Cowley	surface	47	30	82	28
61781	Cowley	surface	46	85	208	8
75492	Cowley	ground	45	48	130	19
50093	Cowley	ground	42	35	67	13
4657	Cowley	ground	41	38	0	0
48662	Cowley	ground	39	15	0	30
11178	Cowley	ground	38	14	0	30
45565	Cowley	ground	37	33	0	1
61426	Cowley	surface	36	38	63	8
4737	Cowley	ground	35	26	0	0
15655	Cowley	ground	34	27	0	1
66148	Cowley	ground	33	3	0	33
41301	Cowley	ground	30	17	125	23
43019	Cowley	ground	27	21	44	5
26778	Cowley	ground	25	16	36	19
9102	Cowley	ground	24	18	66	4
33672	Cowley	ground	24	30	36	21
74000	Cowley	ground	21	13	30	18
27726	Cowley	ground	18	23	0	29
52895	Cowley	ground	17	40	0	3
28988	Cowley	ground	16	78	0	1
19729	Cowley	surface	15	28	97	1
13485	Cowley	ground	13	20	26	4
39885	Cowley	ground	12	15	0	26
50618	Cowley	ground	9	20	14	14
54041	Cowley	ground	6	6	0	6
81806	Cowley	ground	5	5	13	26
28	Cowley	ground	0	0	0	34
41	Cowley	ground	0	0	0	34
298	Cowley	surface	0	0	0	34
639	Cowley	surface	0	0	0	27
650	Cowley	ground	0	0	0	30
1061	Cowley	ground	0	0	0	31
1071	Cowley	surface	0	0	0	34
1257	Cowley	ground	0	0	0	34
1310	Cowley	ground	0	0	0	33
1683	Cowley	ground	0	0	0	34
1709	Cowley	ground	0	0	0	33
1714	Cowley	ground	0	0	0	34
1736	Cowley	ground	0	0	0	34
1945	Cowley	surface	0	0	0	29
2118	Cowley	surface	0	0	0	34
2570	Cowley	surface	0	0	0	34
3451	Cowley	ground	0	0	0	23
3637	Cowley	ground	0	0	0	25
3924	Cowley	surface	0	0	0	34
3974	Cowley	ground	0	0	0	33
4175	Cowley	ground	0	0	0	34
4186	Cowley	ground	0	0	0	27
4557	Cowley	surface	0	30	0	2
5914	Cowley	surface	0	15	0	13
5959	Cowley	ground	0	0	0	33
6234	Cowley	ground	0	0	0	19
6331	Cowley	surface	0	0	0	34
6880	Cowley	ground	0	0	0	34
7121	Cowley	surface	0	0	0	34
7607	Cowley	ground	0	0	0	33
7610	Cowley	ground	0	0	0	16
8891	Cowley	ground	0	0	0	27
8962	Cowley	surface	0	0	0	21
9098	Cowley	ground	0	1	0	9
9500	Cowley	ground	0	0	0	12
9650	Cowley	ground	0	0	0	30
9857	Cowley	ground	0	0	0	21
10029	Cowley	surface	0	0	0	34
10268	Cowley	surface	0	0	0	34
10365	Cowley	ground	0	0	0	32
10388	Cowley	ground	0	0	0	34
10858	Cowley	ground	0	0	0	34
10909	Cowley	ground	0	0	0	19
11039	Cowley	surface	0	0	0	33
12081	Cowley	ground	0	0	0	34
12534	Cowley	ground	0	15	0	18
12543	Cowley	surface	0	0	0	34
13604	Cowley	ground	0	15	0	26
13688	Cowley	ground	0	0	0	16
14102	Cowley	ground	0	0	0	31
14199	Cowley	surface	0	0	0	34
14636	Cowley	surface	0	0	0	34
16019	Cowley	surface	0	0	0	34
16047	Cowley	surface	0	0	0	34

By source in Cowley County

Counties with a comparable file

Ellis 500
Butler 472
Dickinson 468
Ottawa 467
Decatur 418
Brown 404
Rawlins 400
Graham 379
Greeley 367
Marshall 359
Trego 352
Riley 347
Lane 334

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.