Western Kansas GMD 1

3,404 points — 5.7% of the file — reporting 110,980 acre-feet in 2023.

What this district is

the westernmost district, over the High Plains aquifer, where decline has been measured for decades.

What the series actually shows — Western Kansas GMD 1

Reported use here peaked in 1990 at 395,459 acre-feet and bottomed in 2023 at 110,980. 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 143,096 acre-feet a year against 274,309 in the first ten — lower. And the number of points reporting any use moved from 2,294 to 1,592: 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

1,812 of the 3,404 points in Western Kansas GMD 1 report 0 acre-feet for 2023, and 2,050 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 Western Kansas GMD 1?

3,404 points of diversion sit in Western Kansas GMD 1, reporting 110,980 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
• Big Bend GMD 5 6,850
• Northwest Kansas GMD 4 4,377
• Equus Beds GMD 2 4,186