Water use in Nemaha County

247 points of diversion — 0.4% of the Kansas file — reporting 3,432 acre-feet in 2023.

247Points

3,4322023, acre-feet

3,967Acres irrigated

67Reporting use

What the series actually shows — Nemaha County

Reported use here peaked in 2022 at 3,732 acre-feet and bottomed in 1996 at 1,393. 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 2,884 acre-feet a year against 1,621 in the first ten — higher. And the number of points reporting any use moved from 26 to 67: the count of straws in the ground barely changes, whatever the year does to the volume.

Reported use in Nemaha 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	1,795	26	26
1991	1,990	105	30
1992	1,694	65	26
1993	1,704	65	26
1994	1,900	65	26
1995	1,509	80	27
1996	1,393	80	27
1997	1,419	145	24
1998	1,403	130	24
1999	1,401	70	23
2000	1,605	70	23
2001	1,460	150	25
2002	1,572	95	26
2003	1,608	5	24
2004	1,562	20	24
2005	1,761	302	27
2006	1,767	242	28
2007	1,706	237	28
2008	1,499	28	28
2009	1,543	96	32
2010	1,706	228	30
2011	1,713	360	34
2012	2,095	757	36
2013	2,191	1,193	44
2014	2,212	1,385	51
2015	2,052	1,532	49
2016	2,689	2,104	54
2017	2,990	2,315	55
2018	2,991	2,562	60
2019	2,437	2,803	60
2020	3,042	3,369	62
2021	3,264	3,889	63
2022	3,732	4,112	64
2023	3,432	3,967	67

Where the water comes from

Source	Points	Share
surface water — a river, stream or reservoir	137	55.5%
groundwater — a well	110	44.5%

Which management district

District	Points	Share
Outside any district	247	100.0%

⚠️ What a zero here does not mean

180 of the 247 points in Nemaha County report 0 acre-feet for 2023, and 231 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 Nemaha County?

247 points of diversion sit in Nemaha County, reporting 3,432 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

Nemaha 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
80674	Nemaha	surface	248	75	262	23
34279	Nemaha	ground	208	203	0	0
5654	Nemaha	ground	203	229	0	0
79388	Nemaha	surface	150	75	158	22
76080	Nemaha	ground	134	148	0	21
74862	Nemaha	ground	120	71	0	21
80675	Nemaha	surface	116	91	304	23
1848	Nemaha	ground	113	111	0	2
86416	Nemaha	ground	107	11	253	33
74143	Nemaha	ground	105	85	0	21
83467	Nemaha	surface	103	60	65	26
72819	Nemaha	ground	83	87	0	19
87647	Nemaha	surface	77	52	194	29
69524	Nemaha	surface	74	44	78	15
84494	Nemaha	surface	73	66	289	26
7150	Nemaha	ground	66	78	0	0
42293	Nemaha	ground	65	33	0	1
72818	Nemaha	ground	61	42	0	19
88566	Nemaha	surface	60	18	216	32
74551	Nemaha	ground	60	51	0	23
41503	Nemaha	ground	51	28	0	0
83466	Nemaha	surface	50	42	31	26
82583	Nemaha	surface	47	47	115	24
80971	Nemaha	ground	46	37	114	23
53823	Nemaha	ground	45	48	0	1
69525	Nemaha	surface	45	48	54	15
84028	Nemaha	surface	41	44	110	25
82663	Nemaha	surface	40	37	140	27
78910	Nemaha	ground	40	40	0	24
79313	Nemaha	ground	39	20	96	23
78888	Nemaha	ground	37	33	0	24
7350	Nemaha	ground	34	49	0	5
25940	Nemaha	ground	33	40	0	1
50123	Nemaha	ground	32	29	0	0
78105	Nemaha	surface	31	28	130	21
64476	Nemaha	surface	30	25	22	11
28539	Nemaha	surface	30	22	80	22
87340	Nemaha	surface	30	30	286	30
71969	Nemaha	ground	30	30	0	16
13658	Nemaha	ground	28	34	0	6
81956	Nemaha	surface	28	18	207	28
28806	Nemaha	ground	27	14	0	1
81957	Nemaha	surface	27	30	73	26
81499	Nemaha	ground	27	14	0	29
87023	Nemaha	ground	27	4	0	28
36393	Nemaha	ground	26	45	0	0
86100	Nemaha	ground	23	7	95	31
75293	Nemaha	surface	22	23	49	24
82585	Nemaha	ground	21	12	115	24
71753	Nemaha	ground	21	16	0	15
85804	Nemaha	ground	20	12	0	28
34559	Nemaha	ground	20	20	0	0
89151	Nemaha	surface	19	2	20	33
82725	Nemaha	surface	18	66	46	24
85805	Nemaha	ground	17	13	0	28
10456	Nemaha	ground	16	17	0	8
86522	Nemaha	surface	13	10	40	28
65097	Nemaha	surface	12	9	60	11
83391	Nemaha	ground	11	42	134	25
89529	Nemaha	surface	11	1	125	33
5426	Nemaha	ground	11	16	0	7
87876	Nemaha	ground	7	2	0	32
9352	Nemaha	ground	5	6	0	0
74057	Nemaha	ground	5	6	6	18
24189	Nemaha	ground	5	7	0	1
28553	Nemaha	ground	5	5	0	1
82757	Nemaha	ground	4	6	0	24
240	Nemaha	ground	0	0	0	19
2822	Nemaha	surface	0	0	0	26
3501	Nemaha	ground	0	0	0	33
3809	Nemaha	surface	0	0	0	34
4945	Nemaha	surface	0	0	0	34
5907	Nemaha	ground	0	0	0	33
6919	Nemaha	surface	0	0	0	23
7790	Nemaha	surface	0	0	0	34
7986	Nemaha	ground	0	0	0	34
8716	Nemaha	ground	0	0	0	33
9192	Nemaha	ground	0	0	0	34
9874	Nemaha	ground	0	17	0	2
10945	Nemaha	ground	0	0	0	34
11557	Nemaha	surface	0	0	0	34
12269	Nemaha	ground	0	0	0	34
12646	Nemaha	surface	0	0	0	34
13099	Nemaha	surface	0	0	0	34
13925	Nemaha	ground	0	0	0	12
16154	Nemaha	surface	0	0	0	34
16321	Nemaha	ground	0	0	0	32
17684	Nemaha	surface	0	0	0	34
19962	Nemaha	surface	0	0	0	34
20082	Nemaha	ground	0	11	0	23
30228	Nemaha	ground	0	0	0	34
30327	Nemaha	ground	0	0	0	26
31267	Nemaha	surface	0	0	0	34
32329	Nemaha	ground	0	0	0	29
33114	Nemaha	surface	0	0	0	34
34444	Nemaha	ground	0	0	0	33
34866	Nemaha	ground	0	0	0	34
35816	Nemaha	surface	0	0	0	34
35820	Nemaha	surface	0	0	0	33
39707	Nemaha	surface	0	0	0	28
40986	Nemaha	ground	0	0	0	13
41109	Nemaha	surface	0	0	0	34
42400	Nemaha	surface	0	0	0	20
45292	Nemaha	surface	0	0	0	28
46302	Nemaha	ground	0	0	0	16
46795	Nemaha	ground	0	0	0	34
49770	Nemaha	ground	0	0	0	12
53302	Nemaha	ground	0	0	0	27
54260	Nemaha	ground	0	0	0	14
64394	Nemaha	surface	0	0	0	34
64721	Nemaha	surface	0	0	0	34
64722	Nemaha	surface	0	0	0	34
64764	Nemaha	surface	0	0	0	34
65098	Nemaha	surface	0	2	0	32
65196	Nemaha	surface	0	0	0	34
65531	Nemaha	surface	0	0	0	34
65964	Nemaha	surface	0	0	0	34
66090	Nemaha	surface	0	0	0	34
66221	Nemaha	surface	0	0	0	34
66627	Nemaha	surface	0	0	0	34

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
Geary 261
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.