LEMAs slow to catch on, but they can work

Home-rule efforts to preserve water, a vital economic resource in western Kansas, are showing promise, but the buy-in to LEMAs has been slow.

An acronym standing for Local Enhanced Management Areas, the voluntary program is designed for regions of irrigators and other significant water users to self-regulate in this state.

Neighbors do things differently, but are also boasting improvements in the decades-long battle to add years of usefulness to the Ogallala Aquifer.

The massive underground water source has kept semi-arid regions blooming and prosperous in western chunks of Texas through Oklahoma and Kansas, most of Nebraska and touches eastern New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, and southern South Dakota.

The advent of pumping water to irrigate in the mid-20th century raised those areas of the prairie from grassland to fruitful Plains.

But that life-giving source has been dwindling at varying levels since the 1970s, and many wells in those states have been shuttered, resulting in a return to dryland farming practices.

Various states have hatched ways to combat the decline beyond economic attrition. Kansas farmers, by far the largest consumers of Ogallala and High Plains aquifer water in the state, can conserve or pump wells until they are no longer economically viable.

Kansas attacked the problem more aggressively this century with a cocktail of technology. Included were upgrades of irrigation equipment and techniques; farming practices such as innovations in reduced tillage or no till; developing crop varieties with more drought tolerance; and searching for choices that offer higher cash value, among them melding animal agriculture into farming operations.

State regulators stepped in with alternatives as well, giving farmers the choice in irrigation intense groundwater management districts in western Kansas to voluntarily reduce pumping, or allow the government in by designating intensive groundwater use control areas.

“Most IGUKAs are top down and don’t have a whole lot of teeth,” said Brownie Wilson, water data manager at the Kansas Geological Survey, based in Lawrence.

Wet Walnut Creek IGUKA in Barton, Rush and Ness counties resulted in state-mandated reduced pumping in the early 1990s, he said, to improve flow in the creek. There were other river-related IGUKAs, among them Pawnee Valley, Lower and Upper Smoky Hill River, and the Arkansas River.

“Most of the other districts slowed down pumping or stopped further development,” he said, “or they made people report water use by putting on meters. Today, everybody has to use meters.”

LEMAs are a “ground-up” solution, Wilson said.

Eight years since the first LEMA was approved in Sheridan County—known as the Sheridan 6, which is comprised of 99 square miles, mostly in Sheridan County and one township in Thomas County—there is proof that it works in one of the areas of highest of decline in GMD 4.

“It has shifted from higher use and higher declines to lower use and lower declines, and they’re still making money,” he said. “They use 30% less water. Declines were in the range of 2 feet (in saturated thickness) before the LEMA, and since then it’s about half a foot a year.”

Data shows that even during wet periods prior to the LEMA being in place, water consumption was still high.

“That reduction in water usage after the LEMA is not just because they had a lot of rain. It’s because people are making a conscious effort to use less water,” Wilson said. “Sheridan 6 is by far the biggest success story we’ve seen in managing the Ogallala.”

A study by Bill Golden, Ph.D., agricultural economist at Kansas State University, determined that irrigators in the Sheridan 6 LEMA “made as much or more money from yields while factoring in the input costs,” Wilson reported.

Two other LEMAs in Kansas are still in the fledgling stage. One of them covers the entire GMD 4—all of Sherman, Sheridan and Thomas and parts of Cheyenne, Rawlins, Decatur, Graham, Wallace, Logan and Gove counties.

Not every township is drastically affected, Wilson said.

“They looked at annual rainfall, and based it on where the decline areas were and determined what corrective control was needed,” he said. “The district-wide LEMA was to bring down the pumping of high users. Most of these areas in GMD 4 still have plenty of time.”

The other LEMA is in Wichita County, part of GMD 1 that went live this past January.

“They’re still kind of cutting their teeth on it,” Wilson said, meaning that not enough data has been collected in that area to accurately determine its impact.

“That’s an area of the state where they are really close to the bottom in terms of where the aquifer’s at,” he said. “We’ll see where it goes.”

There has been talk of LEMAs in other areas, such as during 2017 and 2018 in GMD 3, which covers all or part of 12 counties in southwest Kansas.

“You had wells that pumped 150 gallons a minute and wells that pumped 1,200,” Wilson said. “I think that was too much diversity. Not everybody was on board.

“It was kind of the same in the Sheridan 6, but the majority won the day,” he said. “I think the culture is kind of changing a little bit in northwest Kansas.”

LEMAs come from the users and not the regulators, Wilson said.

“It’s one thing for the state to say we need to do something, but the hard part is putting it into practice for people on the ground,” Wilson said.

LEMAs smack of local control. The plans take time to propose, be adopted by the groundwater management district board and sent to the chief engineer of the Kansas Division of Water Resources in Manhattan, for approval.

The Sheridan 6 LEMA began with the consensus of the community that requested board action for a LEMA, Mark Rude, executive director of Garden City-based GMD 3, said. In other cases, GMD boards act without community input.

LEMAs are only possible within the confines of one of Kansas’ five GMDs, which cover all of the High Plains Aquifer in central and western Kansas.

The chief engineer decides if LEMAs meet criteria for public interest and is consistent with state law, said Rude.

“There are local discussions, that ‘We oughta do something to cut back on water use.’ We put together a local plan,” he said.

The chief engineer schedules two hearings and makes a determination according to Kansas statutes.

“He is restricted to what is proposed. He can deny it, but he’s not allowed to change it,” Rude said. “Once the chief engineer adopts the LEMA, that’s the assurance that they get what they asked for.”

LEMAs last five years, and then come up for renewal. The GMD 4 board renewed the Sheridan 6 LEMA from 2018 to 2022, according to the district website.

LEMAs do deviate from the first in time, first in right doctrine of Kansas water law, Rude said.

“As implemented, it’s sharing the shortage equally, rather than only impacting those with junior water rights,” he said. “If you have a LEMA, everybody conserves.”

In the failed attempt at a LEMA in GMD3, Rude said there were many debates.

“Anytime you deviate from first-in-time, first-in-right,” he said, “you have a whole diversity of thought and opinion on what’s fair and not fair.”

As underground water situations worsen, Wilson said more LEMAs are possible in western Kansas.

“My experience is people typically don’t want to do stuff until they’re directly affected,” he said. “A lot of them typically don’t have that sense of urgency until it’s right in front of them, but some do.”

Tim Unruh can be reached at [email protected].