Big Bend GMD 5

6,850 points — 11.5% of the file — reporting 521,143 acre-feet in 2023.

What this district is

the Big Bend of the Arkansas River, where surface and ground water are closely tied.

What the series actually shows — Big Bend GMD 5

Reported use here peaked in 2011 at 705,627 acre-feet and bottomed in 1993 at 340,894. 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 509,642 acre-feet a year against 490,945 in the first ten — higher. And the number of points reporting any use moved from 3,897 to 4,085: the count of straws in the ground barely changes, whatever the year does to the volume.

Which counties

⚠️ What a zero here does not mean

2,765 of the 6,850 points in Big Bend GMD 5 report 0 acre-feet for 2023, and 3,995 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 Big Bend GMD 5?

6,850 points of diversion sit in Big Bend GMD 5, reporting 521,143 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 largest points

The other districts

• Outside any district 25,058
• Southwest Kansas GMD 3 15,740
• Northwest Kansas GMD 4 4,377
• Equus Beds GMD 2 4,186
• Western Kansas GMD 1 3,404