Water use in Saline County

543 points of diversion — 0.9% of the Kansas file — reporting 12,209 acre-feet in 2023.

543Points

12,2092023, acre-feet

6,751Acres irrigated

153Reporting use

What the series actually shows — Saline County

Reported use here peaked in 2002 at 15,378 acre-feet and bottomed in 1993 at 8,368. 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 11,337 acre-feet a year against 12,183 in the first ten — lower. And the number of points reporting any use moved from 139 to 153: the count of straws in the ground barely changes, whatever the year does to the volume.

Reported use in Saline 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	12,657	3,994	139
1991	13,897	4,199	142
1992	8,454	2,730	106
1993	8,368	1,656	73
1994	13,248	3,689	122
1995	12,551	3,548	116
1996	12,484	3,748	114
1997	12,484	3,746	115
1998	13,733	3,744	117
1999	13,954	3,058	100
2000	12,548	4,152	125
2001	13,120	4,231	130
2002	15,378	5,113	153
2003	14,643	4,934	150
2004	12,806	4,613	139
2005	13,176	4,704	145
2006	13,303	4,742	148
2007	13,532	4,571	147
2008	9,868	3,495	125
2009	10,372	3,913	134
2010	12,183	4,570	140
2011	15,326	5,005	158
2012	15,158	4,854	144
2013	9,915	4,658	138
2014	11,502	5,528	146
2015	11,477	6,124	150
2016	10,296	5,634	145
2017	12,689	6,440	164
2018	11,039	6,533	163
2019	10,098	5,871	134
2020	10,561	6,460	144
2021	11,550	7,050	158
2022	11,946	6,666	148
2023	12,209	6,751	153

Where the water comes from

Source	Points	Share
groundwater — a well	423	77.9%
surface water — a river, stream or reservoir	120	22.1%

Which management district

District	Points	Share
Outside any district	543	100.0%

⚠️ What a zero here does not mean

390 of the 543 points in Saline County report 0 acre-feet for 2023, and 490 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 Saline County?

543 points of diversion sit in Saline County, reporting 12,209 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

Saline 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
25772	Saline	surface	2,484	2,543	0	1
86435	Saline	ground	730	331	0	27
29885	Saline	ground	633	428	0	0
79920	Saline	ground	558	339	0	22
79921	Saline	ground	518	338	0	26
32732	Saline	ground	404	104	0	27
7153	Saline	ground	393	87	0	5
45849	Saline	ground	223	223	0	0
52720	Saline	ground	197	187	0	0
64947	Saline	surface	191	195	0	10
38991	Saline	ground	184	103	260	1
79670	Saline	ground	178	101	145	24
63225	Saline	ground	143	87	110	10
83292	Saline	ground	143	87	120	24
89603	Saline	surface	143	20	167	32
27862	Saline	ground	129	213	0	0
197	Saline	ground	125	76	110	1
83061	Saline	ground	104	80	112	24
84906	Saline	ground	103	63	130	27
77750	Saline	ground	102	78	100	21
48180	Saline	surface	94	70	130	5
17472	Saline	surface	94	12	130	10
65596	Saline	ground	93	65	0	13
34132	Saline	ground	93	67	137	2
68962	Saline	ground	93	82	131	13
77608	Saline	ground	90	72	75	21
43918	Saline	ground	88	60	95	0
48499	Saline	ground	88	69	100	2
31528	Saline	ground	88	49	56	10
16671	Saline	ground	87	27	75	2
81319	Saline	ground	87	86	223	27
24737	Saline	ground	86	57	108	1
80109	Saline	ground	86	101	140	23
30267	Saline	ground	84	62	75	1
28110	Saline	ground	78	32	50	10
5756	Saline	ground	77	94	83	1
79193	Saline	ground	75	91	0	23
67329	Saline	ground	75	73	112	13
46095	Saline	surface	74	55	100	14
83283	Saline	ground	72	40	68	25
2494	Saline	ground	70	40	75	1
89496	Saline	ground	70	14	70	32
18295	Saline	ground	69	19	65	3
1948	Saline	surface	66	34	55	5
47182	Saline	surface	65	39	80	10
66292	Saline	ground	65	51	60	11
19139	Saline	ground	63	52	55	0
89597	Saline	ground	63	8	0	32
70955	Saline	ground	61	56	0	16
50782	Saline	ground	61	36	45	2
80156	Saline	ground	61	66	0	23
14896	Saline	ground	60	53	125	3
70793	Saline	ground	60	57	77	14
26299	Saline	ground	58	41	119	6
69431	Saline	ground	57	58	72	13
82633	Saline	ground	57	65	206	25
44327	Saline	ground	57	39	85	2
81781	Saline	surface	53	23	79	29
89605	Saline	surface	53	5	60	33
23050	Saline	ground	52	30	0	1
78100	Saline	ground	49	34	87	27
47473	Saline	ground	48	44	0	13
63586	Saline	ground	48	67	87	11
8710	Saline	surface	46	28	54	10
22709	Saline	surface	46	8	40	17
37438	Saline	ground	45	43	45	0
70513	Saline	ground	43	28	0	14
63889	Saline	ground	42	54	53	9
9805	Saline	surface	40	11	52	5
5217	Saline	ground	40	21	60	2
22336	Saline	ground	40	32	57	1
3123	Saline	ground	39	48	111	6
80343	Saline	ground	39	36	46	23
14871	Saline	ground	37	24	0	0
78101	Saline	ground	36	19	63	27
13344	Saline	ground	35	34	54	1
26091	Saline	ground	34	23	0	10
10570	Saline	ground	34	23	53	0
24117	Saline	surface	34	6	105	4
28603	Saline	ground	33	33	60	0
32692	Saline	surface	32	24	58	6
81654	Saline	ground	32	41	65	24
53046	Saline	ground	31	28	40	6
22733	Saline	ground	31	19	70	0
48399	Saline	ground	31	41	130	4
80257	Saline	surface	29	5	43	22
20246	Saline	ground	29	23	0	0
63403	Saline	ground	29	18	68	10
1629	Saline	surface	28	4	28	9
70586	Saline	ground	27	33	0	14
11272	Saline	ground	26	23	17	10
83580	Saline	ground	24	36	25	24
79968	Saline	ground	23	45	25	22
23984	Saline	ground	23	23	33	2
12111	Saline	ground	22	29	50	2
80258	Saline	surface	22	55	32	24
44004	Saline	surface	19	9	40	5
75359	Saline	ground	18	14	0	19
86905	Saline	ground	17	9	40	28
63281	Saline	ground	17	17	0	13
6067	Saline	ground	17	16	26	13
41371	Saline	surface	16	7	22	5
7856	Saline	ground	15	19	0	24
38293	Saline	ground	14	7	0	4
36244	Saline	ground	13	18	0	16
36496	Saline	ground	13	12	0	2
44245	Saline	ground	12	40	0	6
24842	Saline	ground	12	13	0	14
76932	Saline	ground	12	5	0	28
17820	Saline	ground	12	6	0	1
43901	Saline	surface	10	9	18	5
24459	Saline	ground	9	9	12	4
48977	Saline	ground	9	17	60	8
83579	Saline	ground	9	1	10	28
53976	Saline	ground	9	9	0	0
64597	Saline	ground	7	9	0	10
37871	Saline	ground	7	4	15	6
31847	Saline	ground	7	6	12	1
7901	Saline	ground	7	1	0	33
7255	Saline	ground	6	16	0	15

Counties with a comparable file

Wallace 621
Morton 601
Shawnee 601
Kingman 599
Rush 558
Gove 554
Kiowa 554
Hamilton 525
Ellis 500
Butler 472
Dickinson 468
Ottawa 467
Decatur 418

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.