Water use in Dickinson County

468 points of diversion — 0.8% of the Kansas file — reporting 6,196 acre-feet in 2023.

468Points

6,1962023, acre-feet

6,230Acres irrigated

102Reporting use

What the series actually shows — Dickinson County

Reported use here peaked in 2002 at 7,821 acre-feet and bottomed in 1993 at 2,339. 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 5,307 acre-feet a year against 4,580 in the first ten — higher. And the number of points reporting any use moved from 101 to 102: the count of straws in the ground barely changes, whatever the year does to the volume.

Reported use in Dickinson 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	4,724	3,675	101
1991	5,205	3,068	92
1992	3,033	2,053	72
1993	2,339	616	51
1994	4,745	3,058	79
1995	4,658	3,036	89
1996	5,292	3,851	91
1997	5,228	3,696	87
1998	5,562	3,769	90
1999	5,016	3,465	86
2000	6,997	4,105	89
2001	6,913	4,601	88
2002	7,821	4,174	94
2003	6,556	4,196	97
2004	5,836	4,521	97
2005	7,555	4,832	105
2006	7,638	4,733	100
2007	6,160	4,407	103
2008	5,415	4,610	102
2009	5,076	4,704	100
2010	5,145	4,657	98
2011	6,429	4,991	102
2012	7,819	4,741	102
2013	5,011	4,908	100
2014	6,131	5,099	105
2015	5,170	4,824	95
2016	4,096	5,101	96
2017	5,828	5,231	99
2018	5,173	5,359	103
2019	3,518	4,317	87
2020	4,787	5,366	95
2021	5,934	6,106	105
2022	6,242	6,272	106
2023	6,196	6,230	102

Where the water comes from

Source	Points	Share
groundwater — a well	278	59.4%
surface water — a river, stream or reservoir	190	40.6%

Which management district

District	Points	Share
Outside any district	468	100.0%

⚠️ What a zero here does not mean

366 of the 468 points in Dickinson County report 0 acre-feet for 2023, and 428 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 Dickinson County?

468 points of diversion sit in Dickinson County, reporting 6,196 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

Dickinson 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
34927	Dickinson	ground	523	151	0	5
41693	Dickinson	surface	330	328	0	0
87201	Dickinson	ground	222	80	260	28
9017	Dickinson	ground	214	181	0	0
87918	Dickinson	ground	206	55	107	30
8177	Dickinson	ground	203	151	0	2
17865	Dickinson	ground	181	124	0	0
60769	Dickinson	ground	161	184	0	8
68392	Dickinson	ground	141	136	221	13
82864	Dickinson	ground	132	47	110	29
36962	Dickinson	ground	127	191	0	18
80939	Dickinson	ground	125	103	130	22
13101	Dickinson	ground	115	87	155	10
88775	Dickinson	surface	114	40	0	31
68083	Dickinson	ground	107	66	118	13
22084	Dickinson	ground	105	80	135	5
61229	Dickinson	ground	103	79	98	8
61051	Dickinson	ground	101	79	130	7
86676	Dickinson	ground	96	48	139	28
81849	Dickinson	ground	96	48	82	24
12919	Dickinson	ground	91	62	136	1
83334	Dickinson	ground	90	81	195	25
45090	Dickinson	surface	87	24	156	4
39632	Dickinson	ground	84	82	120	0
25325	Dickinson	ground	81	71	120	4
87882	Dickinson	ground	80	20	115	30
74458	Dickinson	ground	79	122	0	19
86820	Dickinson	ground	79	10	0	32
87658	Dickinson	ground	78	28	184	30
86438	Dickinson	ground	74	48	100	27
83135	Dickinson	ground	73	48	86	27
88788	Dickinson	ground	72	23	181	31
71458	Dickinson	ground	71	60	98	15
18743	Dickinson	ground	71	25	136	1
71968	Dickinson	ground	69	94	220	16
22274	Dickinson	ground	69	86	135	1
70827	Dickinson	ground	65	51	0	16
65940	Dickinson	ground	63	51	120	11
4578	Dickinson	ground	60	66	140	10
87590	Dickinson	ground	57	11	29	30
64916	Dickinson	ground	55	54	130	11
68393	Dickinson	ground	55	33	130	13
52994	Dickinson	ground	55	57	104	2
21643	Dickinson	ground	53	50	75	1
14557	Dickinson	ground	51	28	0	16
44118	Dickinson	ground	49	44	0	5
86627	Dickinson	ground	49	25	26	28
86673	Dickinson	ground	49	10	65	32
39499	Dickinson	ground	47	39	100	7
27616	Dickinson	ground	47	30	0	0
14763	Dickinson	ground	43	27	0	4
53811	Dickinson	ground	43	41	87	1
67750	Dickinson	ground	43	15	120	12
47402	Dickinson	ground	43	58	0	0
53782	Dickinson	ground	41	48	110	2
15475	Dickinson	ground	40	84	206	1
2498	Dickinson	surface	39	14	85	9
52922	Dickinson	ground	35	40	121	2
45735	Dickinson	surface	34	3	119	33
79955	Dickinson	surface	32	39	85	22
27167	Dickinson	surface	29	22	50	2
4873	Dickinson	ground	26	28	60	1
79571	Dickinson	ground	26	25	30	22
88692	Dickinson	surface	25	3	0	33
74722	Dickinson	ground	25	16	220	18
60770	Dickinson	ground	23	37	0	8
66747	Dickinson	ground	20	39	92	12
71277	Dickinson	ground	19	5	0	17
1498	Dickinson	ground	17	24	75	5
48743	Dickinson	ground	17	9	0	4
61152	Dickinson	ground	15	25	0	7
5429	Dickinson	ground	14	49	0	3
35481	Dickinson	ground	12	16	0	19
52859	Dickinson	ground	12	11	0	25
68617	Dickinson	ground	12	10	20	14
87372	Dickinson	ground	11	3	0	31
73285	Dickinson	ground	11	12	9	17
79980	Dickinson	ground	10	25	92	26
19782	Dickinson	ground	7	4	0	5
5604	Dickinson	ground	7	8	0	2
25989	Dickinson	ground	7	5	0	1
8632	Dickinson	ground	7	12	0	10
32693	Dickinson	ground	6	11	0	19
62147	Dickinson	ground	6	8	0	8
65556	Dickinson	ground	6	6	0	11
27390	Dickinson	surface	5	3	0	14
15826	Dickinson	ground	4	27	0	0
5809	Dickinson	ground	3	2	0	3
71461	Dickinson	ground	3	2	0	16
29106	Dickinson	ground	2	8	41	2
72242	Dickinson	ground	2	5	0	17
75971	Dickinson	ground	2	18	0	19
42405	Dickinson	surface	2	18	0	0
70452	Dickinson	ground	1	3	0	14
27846	Dickinson	ground	1	31	18	1
67194	Dickinson	ground	1	3	0	12
14972	Dickinson	ground	0	0	0	3
24107	Dickinson	ground	0	0	0	0
12499	Dickinson	ground	0	2	0	13
75861	Dickinson	ground	0	0	2	21
746	Dickinson	ground	0	1	0	4
41846	Dickinson	ground	0	29	0	2
353	Dickinson	surface	0	0	0	32
529	Dickinson	ground	0	11	0	2
656	Dickinson	surface	0	0	0	27
925	Dickinson	ground	0	0	0	31
930	Dickinson	surface	0	0	0	28
1130	Dickinson	surface	0	0	0	33
1487	Dickinson	surface	0	0	0	34
1573	Dickinson	surface	0	0	0	34
1759	Dickinson	surface	0	0	0	33
1973	Dickinson	surface	0	0	0	27
2016	Dickinson	ground	0	0	0	19
2400	Dickinson	surface	0	0	0	34
3086	Dickinson	surface	0	35	0	3
3183	Dickinson	surface	0	0	0	34
3344	Dickinson	surface	0	0	0	34
3540	Dickinson	surface	0	0	0	12
3585	Dickinson	ground	0	0	0	34
3726	Dickinson	ground	0	0	0	34

By source in Dickinson County

Counties with a comparable file

Rush 558
Gove 554
Kiowa 554
Saline 543
Hamilton 525
Ellis 500
Butler 472
Ottawa 467
Decatur 418
Brown 404
Rawlins 400
Cowley 394
Graham 379

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.