Water use in Trego County

352 points of diversion — 0.6% of the Kansas file — reporting 6,507 acre-feet in 2023.

352Points

6,5072023, acre-feet

7,127Acres irrigated

101Reporting use

What the series actually shows — Trego County

Reported use here peaked in 1996 at 40,064 acre-feet and bottomed in 1993 at 1,594. 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 5,230 acre-feet a year against 8,426 in the first ten — lower. And the number of points reporting any use moved from 78 to 101: the count of straws in the ground barely changes, whatever the year does to the volume.

Reported use in Trego 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	6,603	4,171	78
1991	6,307	5,074	89
1992	2,531	3,546	66
1993	1,594	2,339	53
1994	5,176	4,590	89
1995	6,615	5,130	90
1996	40,064	4,792	91
1997	4,869	4,878	93
1998	4,865	5,557	92
1999	5,633	5,509	88
2000	6,997	5,848	88
2001	6,777	5,252	98
2002	8,510	6,087	114
2003	7,831	6,161	123
2004	7,863	6,153	104
2005	7,306	5,835	108
2006	7,937	6,545	110
2007	6,678	5,710	115
2008	5,110	5,424	105
2009	4,958	5,306	94
2010	6,584	5,636	99
2011	7,156	5,341	97
2012	7,810	5,232	101
2013	6,364	6,091	105
2014	5,447	5,453	114
2015	5,836	5,740	114
2016	4,754	5,744	110
2017	5,336	6,419	109
2018	3,723	5,770	102
2019	4,031	5,764	104
2020	4,543	6,028	108
2021	5,396	5,881	109
2022	6,728	5,609	110
2023	6,507	7,127	101

Where the water comes from

Source	Points	Share
groundwater — a well	298	84.7%
surface water — a river, stream or reservoir	54	15.3%

Which management district

District	Points	Share
Outside any district	352	100.0%

⚠️ What a zero here does not mean

251 of the 352 points in Trego County report 0 acre-feet for 2023, and 303 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 Trego County?

352 points of diversion sit in Trego County, reporting 6,507 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

Trego 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
3229	Trego	ground	324	278	250	0
3350	Trego	ground	219	86	137	0
41489	Trego	ground	205	80	125	1
81505	Trego	ground	178	127	126	24
34749	Trego	ground	176	208	180	1
25941	Trego	ground	173	98	114	12
6509	Trego	ground	169	107	126	0
33882	Trego	ground	169	87	130	1
45532	Trego	ground	167	59	142	1
72360	Trego	ground	166	113	120	16
63887	Trego	ground	164	120	175	10
29143	Trego	ground	161	108	130	0
35870	Trego	ground	152	110	120	0
37731	Trego	ground	152	111	98	0
60724	Trego	ground	137	75	130	8
31349	Trego	ground	136	72	103	1
21686	Trego	ground	132	82	125	1
31920	Trego	ground	121	81	116	4
54240	Trego	ground	119	60	127	0
40165	Trego	ground	102	116	0	7
53086	Trego	ground	100	152	220	1
15613	Trego	ground	95	81	100	19
65385	Trego	ground	94	78	83	11
81910	Trego	ground	93	62	0	26
81496	Trego	ground	89	61	0	26
50990	Trego	ground	89	81	80	0
76014	Trego	ground	87	63	360	18
45306	Trego	ground	87	62	69	0
60810	Trego	ground	86	51	360	8
12819	Trego	ground	78	54	41	4
34078	Trego	ground	78	56	64	1
15466	Trego	ground	76	29	60	14
33938	Trego	ground	74	65	0	12
22816	Trego	ground	70	63	65	0
33567	Trego	ground	69	81	117	7
88256	Trego	ground	69	25	70	30
72080	Trego	ground	69	50	0	16
86779	Trego	ground	68	47	70	28
5994	Trego	ground	66	52	92	0
73832	Trego	ground	63	48	44	17
40017	Trego	ground	61	49	0	12
66075	Trego	ground	61	54	360	12
19095	Trego	ground	60	63	55	2
51552	Trego	ground	60	51	75	0
11748	Trego	ground	59	38	0	13
17301	Trego	ground	58	56	57	0
25344	Trego	ground	58	43	58	4
12472	Trego	ground	57	44	57	1
61992	Trego	ground	57	51	48	8
12571	Trego	ground	56	50	0	12
37858	Trego	ground	56	26	40	0
44352	Trego	ground	51	74	106	0
24344	Trego	ground	49	32	41	0
63287	Trego	ground	49	55	59	9
9149	Trego	ground	47	58	75	1
66184	Trego	ground	47	36	360	12
23335	Trego	ground	45	46	54	1
83608	Trego	ground	44	32	50	26
5446	Trego	ground	42	23	83	3
14817	Trego	ground	41	53	80	1
31481	Trego	ground	37	31	120	3
53443	Trego	ground	35	38	0	12
25047	Trego	ground	35	45	80	2
63091	Trego	ground	34	19	360	15
18765	Trego	ground	32	30	0	12
42486	Trego	ground	30	26	48	3
26388	Trego	ground	28	23	32	1
53995	Trego	ground	28	26	40	1
22785	Trego	ground	27	27	82	0
34319	Trego	ground	26	33	35	0
40767	Trego	ground	25	26	0	12
38349	Trego	ground	25	53	0	7
9123	Trego	ground	24	26	28	1
22105	Trego	ground	23	12	26	14
80805	Trego	ground	18	18	25	22
21833	Trego	ground	14	16	0	12
19116	Trego	ground	14	22	0	12
30025	Trego	ground	13	14	0	9
22562	Trego	ground	13	4	10	5
9864	Trego	ground	7	56	71	2
65421	Trego	ground	7	3	4	11
26075	Trego	ground	5	5	0	0
27741	Trego	ground	5	5	0	1
3238	Trego	ground	4	2	0	6
68911	Trego	ground	3	2	0	13
76090	Trego	ground	3	1	3	18
31643	Trego	ground	2	1	0	19
86966	Trego	ground	2	8	24	29
20899	Trego	ground	2	1	0	6
79867	Trego	ground	1	2	12	22
35192	Trego	ground	1	1	0	10
23166	Trego	ground	1	1	0	24
43006	Trego	ground	1	1	0	24
42357	Trego	ground	0	9	0	13
49467	Trego	ground	0	3	0	13
4533	Trego	ground	0	19	0	13
14068	Trego	ground	0	0	0	10
30273	Trego	ground	0	6	0	13
41641	Trego	ground	0	0	0	24
13868	Trego	ground	0	4	0	13
22411	Trego	ground	0	0	0	25
532	Trego	ground	0	0	0	27
688	Trego	surface	0	0	0	34
1074	Trego	ground	0	0	0	5
1289	Trego	surface	0	0	0	16
1515	Trego	surface	0	0	0	34
1562	Trego	ground	0	0	0	20
1583	Trego	ground	0	0	0	32
1593	Trego	ground	0	0	0	16
1621	Trego	ground	0	0	0	29
1690	Trego	ground	0	0	0	34
1929	Trego	ground	0	0	0	32
1933	Trego	ground	0	0	0	16
2009	Trego	surface	0	0	0	32
2030	Trego	surface	0	0	0	34
2168	Trego	ground	0	1	0	8
2545	Trego	surface	0	0	0	34
3623	Trego	ground	0	0	0	34
3693	Trego	ground	0	0	0	16
3742	Trego	surface	0	0	0	34

Counties with a comparable file

Decatur 418
Brown 404
Rawlins 400
Cowley 394
Graham 379
Greeley 367
Marshall 359
Riley 347
Lane 334
Wabaunsee 312
Osborne 311
Douglas 310
Marion 298

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.