There’s something hopeful about getting a rainstorm in Dodge City the night before a meeting to discuss the future of water efforts in Kansas.
It definitely puts one in the right frame of mind to tackle some big topics in three hours or less.
On Sept. 18, the Kansas Water Authority and its partner agencies and organizations came to town for the second round of local consult meetings. This was part of their two-week tour across the state hosting these meetings for water stakeholders to give their input in the “strategic implementation of the Kansas Water Plan.”
I was able to attend as a fly on the wall, listening to some of the input provided by stakeholders regarding water in southwestern Kansas. Now, each of these regional meetings will have different regional priorities, of course. But here’s some of the big picture things to keep in mind as our state looks to implement the Kansas Water Plan for all stakeholders.
How do we pay for it?
The first thing I took away from this meeting was that it’s going to be very challenging to address local needs unless there is some sort of revenue-generating process to keep this sustainable. Right now, there’s about a $60 million-per-year investment in water by the state. But to move the needle with the Water Plan, that investment is going to have to rise to $140 million per year, or $1.4 billion over 10 years.
How do we raise that extra $80 million per year? What’s fair to all regions and all stakeholders? Should there be a sales tax or a portion of the current sales tax that’s earmarked for water?
Much of the consensus in the room I was in was that the state needs to leverage federal dollars and private funds in making up the difference. One person brought up lottery and gambling money going toward the Water Plan implementation. Another proposed reallocating the state’s general fund to fund more water work.
But remember that although we have a surplus right now in our general fund, we may not always have that, so the funding needs to be economy-proof and politics-proof. After all, you can’t really plan for 50 years or two generations of water planning and work if it’s subject to the whims of political parties in power and lobbying interests.
Geographical balance
Second, if this plan is to get any buy-in at all, it’s got to be geographically balanced, taking into account both economic and human effects. As one person in the room pointed out, if you look historically at our state’s large projects — say, transportation for example — the regions with the highest population usually get the most support, right? That makes sense if your goal is to help the most Kansans.
As one person in the room pointed out, “cost-effective” in politician speak can often mean “largest population affected.”
Water, even agricultural use of water, affects all Kansans at some level. Our economy gets its start on the ground, in our fields and in our feedlots, and there are very few employed workers who don’t have some part of the chain from field to consumer.
So, we’ve got the aquifer in the west that supports a sparse population, but it has a greater effect on the overlying agricultural interests that rely on the aquifer. Remember, more than 84% of all Kansas water supports crops and livestock production, and the counties that are reliant on the aquifer account for $57 billion of our state’s gross domestic product. The northwest and southwest Kansas regions have the highest average annual water use in acre-feet per capita at 14.87 and 12.67, respectively.
Meanwhile, we’ve got reservoirs in the east that are facing serious sedimentation challenges that affect water capacity and quality standards. And although economically the reliance may not be as much as it is in the west, there are larger populations relying on that water for municipal and industrial needs. One person asked if they need bonds to address their reservoir needs, who pays for those bonds?
Implementing the Water Plan will have to be a delicate balance between these interests.
In three short hours, there was plenty of input gathered in this one local consult session. And all of it was taken down by staff to share publicly after the last meeting Sept. 30, so you’ll be able to see what others have said.
But my overall takeaway is that we shouldn’t just talk about water for three hours when folks from Topeka come to town. We need to have these conversations with our neighbors during our children’s ball games, in the stands at the rodeo, in the parking lot after church, and in our cafes and diners on main street each and every day, rain or shine.
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