Water use in Thomas County

995 points of diversion — 1.7% of the Kansas file — reporting 73,772 acre-feet in 2023.

What the series actually shows — Thomas County

Reported use here peaked in 1990 at 145,326 acre-feet and bottomed in 2019 at 55,721. 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 90,221 acre-feet a year against 102,810 in the first ten — lower. And the number of points reporting any use moved from 755 to 786: the count of straws in the ground barely changes, whatever the year does to the volume.

Where the water comes from

Which management district

⚠️ What a zero here does not mean

209 of the 995 points in Thomas County report 0 acre-feet for 2023, and 311 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 Thomas County?

995 points of diversion sit in Thomas County, reporting 73,772 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

Counties with a comparable file

• Stafford 1,121
• Mcpherson 1,113
• Grant 1,103
• Stanton 1,064
• Sherman 1,019
• Pratt 1,015
• Seward 1,005
• Harvey 989
• Meade 967
• Sheridan 961
• Barton 902
• Norton 812
• Sumner 785

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.