Advisory council discusses drought, budget

“This drought will show our vulnerabilities,” Tracy Streeter, director of the Kansas Water Office, said at the Smoky Hill-Saline Regional Advisory Council meeting on Tuesday afternoon.

Before rain fell this week, the entire state of Kansas was experiencing at least some level of drought. The northwest tier of counties was in an improving drought watch.

Saline, McPherson, Marion, Dickinson, Ellsworth, Clay, Lincoln and Ottawa counties were listed in a drought emergency. Trego, Wallace, Ellis and Russell counties were on the improving drought warning list.

Salina has received 0.48 inches of rain at Salina Regional Airport since Saturday, with a chance of more thunderstorms today. Normal rainfall through July is 19.05 inches, and Salina has received 8.34 inches to date.

Livestock producers in the drought emergency counties can apply for a permit to pump emergency water out of state lakes and federal reservoirs, Streeter said.

“People care a great deal about water,” Streeter said. Their expectations are high, but they tend to take it for granted, he said.

What to fund?

Streeter asked the regional advisory council for recommendations on the State Water Plan Fund he had brought from the Kansas Water Authority.

Streeter said the budget was based on the Kansas Legislature restoring an $8 million budget for the authority for 2020. The Legislature approved $3.25 million for 2019. The last time the office was funded for $8 million was in 2008, he said.

The authority asked the regional advisory council to boil about $15 million in projects down to $8 million, Streeter said.

Martha Tasker, chairwoman of the Smoky Hill-Salina RAC and director of Salina city utilities, said she didn’t see any bad projects on the list. She noted that most projects were statewide, not specific to a region.

The consensus of the group was to take administrative items, such as salaries, out of the funding plan and to ask for $15 million, to make up for lost funding.

Bank stabilization

One project specific to the Smoky Hill and Saline rivers watershed was Best Management Practice Implementation, budgeted for $900,000 for 2019. It includes the Oak Creek watershed, which runs through the city of Ellsworth.

People who stabilize the creek bank can be paid $50 for each ton of sediment they keep out of the watershed. The watershed eventually flows into Kanopolis Reservoir, which has one of the top four sediment problems in the state.

The project is proposed for $180,000 in funding for 2020. Ranchers interested in the program should contact Diane Knowles, Kansas Water Office planner, in the Topeka office.