There has been a rare sight in the normally dry Arkansas River south of Garden City lately – flowing water.
As The Garden City Telegram reports, as much as two feet of water has been running through the normally dried out river bed – the result of wetter weather conditions upstream.
Mark Rude, executive director of Southwest Kansas Groundwater Management District No. 3, said the six irrigation ditches near Garden City aren’t diverting water after the recent rains so the water stays in the riverbed.
Richard Rockel, a water resource planner with the Kansas Water Office, told The Telegram that 50 or 60 years ago, the Arkansas River flowed strongly and even flooded at its peak before the depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer, which has seen a reduction of approximately 70 feet in just the past 10 years.
Rockel said the water flow in the river will decline and not make it past Garden City because the water will slowly sift into the ground and back into the aquifer.