Importance of playa lakes reviewed at workshop

Excess water and the Great Plains often don’t go together.

But throw in a playa—a small, round, shallow depression that’s important to supporting wildlife and a source of groundwater recharge to the Ogallala Aquifer—and you just might happen to be on to something.

The 6th annual Playa Lake Field Tour and Workshop was held Jan. 11 and 12 in Dodge City, Kansas. The tour looked at sites in Ford and Gray counties, visiting playas that are enrolled in various conservation programs. During the workshop, attendees learned about the latest research, why playas are important to the High Plains ecosystem and available conservation programs.

Kansas Department of Agriculture Secretary Mike Beam spoke virtually and said the playa effort is a collaboration with many farmers, ranchers and private organizations, along with friends at federal, state and public conservation organizations.

“From what I understand, there’s been more participation and progress in developing and enhancing our playa lakes in the last six years than there’s been in the last 30 years,” he said. “I think that is significant and it’s my understanding that most of these efforts have been done on the private lands, with the cooperation and support by those landowners, farmers and ranchers.”

Beam said there’s many benefits for the playa lakes and he appreciates the strides being made.

“But again, none of this could happen, especially in the conservation world without strong partnerships,” Beam said.

The secretary delivered what he called “good news” from Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly. Kelly mentioned in her state of the state address there’s full funding of the state water plan.

“So that means in her budget, she’s added $6 million in state general fund monies and $2 million in economic development initiative funds,” he said. “There’s going to be some additional monies for KDHE program and the Water Office programs. Wildlife and Parks is going to get some funding for the aquatic nuisance species management plan.”

Beam hopes good opportunities and projects will come from this funding with the work of the Legislature.

Next on the agenda was Mike Carter, coordinator of the Playa Lakes Joint Venture. Carter has been working for playas for a number of years, and said, “What we’re doing on playas today is completely different than what was going on 10 years ago.”

Carter said to think about playas in a certain way.

“These are not groundwater wetlands that are fed by groundwater,” he said. “They actually feed groundwater watersheds and watersheds can catch water and send it into the playa.”

By definition, playas are called recharge wetlands because of the activity in those basins is 10 to 1,000 times more than the surrounding area is able to recharge. The water that manages to get through the clay of the playa ends up being higher quality.

One of the biggest threats to playas is sedimentation due to general runoff from agricultural fields.

“About 90% of it happens in basin, in the bottom through those cracks. Sometimes along the rootlets,” he said. “Water has to get past the root zone. That’s kind of the definition of recharge. Once it gets past the root zone there’s nowhere else for it to go. It can’t be transpired back out. It’s on its way to the aquifer. The cracks don’t have to be that deep. They just have to get past the root zone.”

The message about recharge hasn’t always been a clear one. Carter said at one point the PLJV locked a bunch of hydrologists, geologists and conservation communicators in a room together and asked, “What can we say about playa recharge?”

“Because we wanted to get our messages straight and we wanted to make sure that everybody knew what was going on there,” he said.

The amount of recharge is different and through some playas it’s a major source of recharge.

“In some areas, like around Smoky Hill and where there’s alluvial recharge, you’ll also get a fair amount of water that way,” Carter said. “But anywhere where there’s not rivers and anywhere there’s not recharge, you’re safe saying that the playa is the main source.”

One thing to note is there’s not enough recharge to make up for irrigation.

“Be careful saying that we’re going to save an irrigation-based economy with our work on playas,” he said. “It’s more like good for people. It’s good for municipalities. It’s good for rain beds operations.”

The water does move underground to some extent.

“The water you’re recharging from your playa is yours,” he said. “It does stay there.”

In areas like western Kansas, where they get about 20 inches of rainfall a year, a very small portion of that rain doesn’t evaporate. It goes into the playa and makes it through the cracks and to the aquifer. The aquifer is about 60 to 70% rock, so a 3-inch recharge ends up being pretty impactful. And since the process is such a long one, it’s often questioned.

“Then the other thing is people say why would I work on it now because water is not going to be available to me,” Carter said. “The way to think about it is the water that your grandfather put in is water that you’re using. Water that your father put in is the water that’s going to be available for the future.”

It ends up being more like a cycle than pulses of water.

“So what we’re doing right now is going to be available for our grandchildren,” he said. “There’s not a gap. There’s not a disconnect. It’s a flow and it’s a system. That’s how we should be thinking about that.”

Carter said several years ago, the PLJV asked where the group should be working at and focusing on and that lead them to a map of towns that don’t have a lot of water to begin with. Some of these areas had playas around. One of those towns was Clovis, New Mexico. Clovis has around 35,000 people—an agricultural community with many dairies and ranches in the area.

“They’re worried about their future and they’re pretty sure that the town is going to run out of water,” Carter said. “So they started working with us and then they have their own programs.”

In an 18-mile-long ellipse around Clovis, there’s about 400 playas. Although the bed rock, the water still permeates. The group concerned about the water in the area hoped to restore all the playas in that ellipse. A biologist helped work with PLJV to see what the status of each playa was and what could be done to help it.

“Taking their playas from their current condition to a restored condition results in 8% more water over the next 100 years for that town,” Carter said. “Doesn’t sound like much but when we’re dealing with in this system, is all the indicators are negative.”

Any time there’s a net gain or a plus it’s “really, really important in any system,” he said.

“Understand that we’re going in the right direction,” Carter said. “That we get all the playas to go in the right direction. We can manage surface water a little bit and then we can cut back on irrigation. Then your system is all going in the right direction.”

The more factors going in the right direction, the better it will be eventually.

“I’m kind of saying no matter how small the gain is it’s incredibly important,” he said. “I think one person in this room said, well, if we can get our irrigation to the point where it’s sustainable, that your playas become incredibly important. That’s exactly right. And you’re on the plus side to generating water for people.”

For more information about the PLJV visit www.pljv.org.

Kylene Scott can be reached at 620-227-1804 or [email protected].