Water use in Geary County

261 points of diversion — 0.4% of the Kansas file — reporting 10,908 acre-feet in 2023.

261Points

10,9082023, acre-feet

5,285Acres irrigated

76Reporting use

What the series actually shows — Geary County

Reported use here peaked in 2012 at 16,557 acre-feet and bottomed in 2005 at 6,812. 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 11,220 acre-feet a year against 10,319 in the first ten — higher. And the number of points reporting any use moved from 53 to 76: the count of straws in the ground barely changes, whatever the year does to the volume.

Reported use in Geary 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	10,462	1,894	53
1991	13,661	2,045	53
1992	10,692	1,429	39
1993	9,357	609	29
1994	11,490	2,472	63
1995	10,076	3,315	67
1996	9,525	3,152	63
1997	8,189	3,729	64
1998	11,187	3,644	68
1999	8,551	3,792	67
2000	14,263	3,794	65
2001	11,145	3,843	66
2002	10,900	3,509	63
2003	10,944	3,667	68
2004	8,314	3,849	70
2005	6,812	4,040	63
2006	10,800	4,311	79
2007	8,694	4,284	76
2008	11,520	4,174	77
2009	12,944	4,431	75
2010	14,706	4,522	78
2011	15,957	4,891	81
2012	16,557	4,402	80
2013	12,442	5,089	76
2014	14,097	5,785	74
2015	12,010	5,603	76
2016	10,869	4,385	72
2017	12,061	4,982	74
2018	11,554	4,750	79
2019	10,213	4,987	77
2020	10,079	4,611	78
2021	10,337	5,075	79
2022	10,073	4,763	74
2023	10,908	5,285	76

Where the water comes from

Source	Points	Share
groundwater — a well	171	65.5%
surface water — a river, stream or reservoir	90	34.5%

Which management district

District	Points	Share
Outside any district	261	100.0%

⚠️ What a zero here does not mean

185 of the 261 points in Geary County report 0 acre-feet for 2023, and 235 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 Geary County?

261 points of diversion sit in Geary County, reporting 10,908 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

Geary 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
16340	Geary	surface	1,476	1,976	0	1
54285	Geary	ground	1,027	698	0	0
51726	Geary	ground	735	701	0	0
68264	Geary	ground	567	369	0	16
2908	Geary	ground	555	469	0	0
74345	Geary	ground	519	391	0	21
85712	Geary	ground	436	201	0	26
40212	Geary	ground	379	382	0	0
62499	Geary	ground	316	588	0	8
4574	Geary	ground	294	330	0	8
35628	Geary	ground	293	361	0	8
85314	Geary	ground	237	122	0	28
89026	Geary	surface	172	17	152	33
68436	Geary	ground	169	139	226	14
74346	Geary	ground	157	280	0	17
13686	Geary	ground	153	127	0	3
53288	Geary	ground	151	130	270	1
76611	Geary	ground	147	141	0	21
73496	Geary	ground	147	87	146	17
64974	Geary	ground	137	99	186	10
82773	Geary	ground	130	80	135	25
5086	Geary	ground	119	777	0	0
81237	Geary	ground	114	66	117	23
50659	Geary	ground	112	55	93	4
44864	Geary	ground	109	62	400	5
69639	Geary	ground	104	79	142	14
83683	Geary	ground	102	124	0	25
24290	Geary	ground	97	78	0	0
46420	Geary	ground	96	56	120	4
34449	Geary	ground	95	66	0	7
42131	Geary	ground	89	119	0	3
15970	Geary	surface	87	47	98	4
69748	Geary	ground	84	65	120	15
71272	Geary	ground	80	62	142	15
87202	Geary	ground	76	13	121	29
35040	Geary	ground	75	66	400	5
5660	Geary	ground	73	60	40	22
76181	Geary	surface	72	51	98	19
2848	Geary	ground	68	69	40	2
53748	Geary	ground	65	68	169	7
21179	Geary	ground	63	28	70	5
33816	Geary	surface	59	37	95	2
19025	Geary	ground	55	55	80	2
2751	Geary	ground	54	106	0	1
20650	Geary	ground	51	41	247	2
75030	Geary	surface	49	51	106	18
74008	Geary	ground	48	24	120	17
24772	Geary	surface	48	40	95	5
88004	Geary	ground	46	16	90	31
82699	Geary	ground	46	25	65	25
49844	Geary	ground	45	32	85	1
72653	Geary	ground	42	29	60	16
39520	Geary	ground	42	29	83	5
32445	Geary	ground	37	48	135	5
80829	Geary	ground	36	28	56	24
72654	Geary	ground	32	34	88	16
79055	Geary	ground	31	33	82	21
83336	Geary	ground	30	66	13	25
32040	Geary	ground	27	12	0	4
85346	Geary	surface	26	16	75	26
51205	Geary	ground	23	58	118	1
81692	Geary	ground	22	38	85	23
82031	Geary	surface	20	16	53	23
80831	Geary	ground	14	9	22	26
47262	Geary	surface	12	38	28	1
78319	Geary	ground	10	8	0	24
81124	Geary	ground	7	6	0	23
48504	Geary	surface	5	4	92	27
75910	Geary	ground	5	6	19	20
86432	Geary	ground	3	2	0	27
72861	Geary	ground	3	2	0	16
76910	Geary	ground	2	2	0	21
29698	Geary	ground	2	1	0	26
6839	Geary	ground	1	3	0	4
72866	Geary	ground	1	0	0	28
37821	Geary	surface	0	0	8	9
109	Geary	surface	0	0	0	34
443	Geary	ground	0	0	0	27
1285	Geary	ground	0	0	0	34
1350	Geary	ground	0	0	0	13
1889	Geary	surface	0	0	0	19
1996	Geary	ground	0	0	0	25
2104	Geary	ground	0	10	0	9
2527	Geary	surface	0	0	0	29
4284	Geary	surface	0	0	0	15
4598	Geary	surface	0	0	0	34
4824	Geary	ground	0	0	0	34
5076	Geary	surface	0	0	0	34
5130	Geary	surface	0	0	0	34
5520	Geary	surface	0	0	0	34
6274	Geary	surface	0	0	0	24
6753	Geary	ground	0	0	0	34
6808	Geary	surface	0	0	0	18
7100	Geary	surface	0	0	0	34
7989	Geary	ground	0	0	0	12
8209	Geary	surface	0	0	0	34
8227	Geary	surface	0	0	0	32
9020	Geary	ground	0	0	0	31
9035	Geary	surface	0	0	0	34
9060	Geary	ground	0	0	0	24
9359	Geary	ground	0	0	0	11
9433	Geary	surface	0	0	0	34
9665	Geary	surface	0	0	0	34
9914	Geary	surface	0	0	0	34
11493	Geary	ground	0	0	0	34
12052	Geary	surface	0	11	0	13
12777	Geary	ground	0	0	0	25
13196	Geary	surface	0	0	0	23
13228	Geary	ground	0	0	0	34
13552	Geary	ground	0	0	0	34
13588	Geary	ground	0	0	0	18
14902	Geary	surface	0	8	0	5
15099	Geary	ground	0	0	0	25
15572	Geary	surface	0	23	0	6
16410	Geary	ground	0	0	0	32
16669	Geary	ground	0	0	0	27
16850	Geary	ground	0	0	0	26
16864	Geary	surface	0	0	0	34
17828	Geary	surface	0	0	0	34
17910	Geary	surface	0	0	0	27

By source in Geary County

groundwater — a well — Geary County 171

Counties with a comparable file

Osborne 311
Douglas 310
Marion 298
Johnson 297
Smith 293
Jefferson 290
Barber 289
Rooks 284
Mitchell 274
Ness 274
Nemaha 247
Jewell 222
Wyandotte 212

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.