Is It Time to Reduce Water Rights?

One western Kansas farmer says just figure out how much and do it

Published on: January 28, 2010
Western Kansas farmer Stan Townsend says we need to figure out how much we need to reduce the draw on the High Plains aquifer and then reduce water rights until we are there.

Townsend said his family has been in Kansas since 1885 and holds some of the earliest water rights permits. But, he said, he is ready to cut usage and other irrigators should be, too.

Making those reductions would take an act of the Legislature however, because the rights to water use are based in a law more than 60 years old.

Thoughts anyone? Do you need to rewrite the Water Appropriations Act?

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