SHERMAN COUNTY, Kan. (KPR) - Much of western Kansas is dry. Seven counties are under a Drought Emergency; dozens more remain under a Drought Warning. Just how bad is the water situation in western Kansas? Commentator Rex Buchanan has a better idea than most.
(Transcript)
Out west of Goodland, just north of I-70, sits an irrigation well that pumps water from the Ogallala aquifer. The well is behind electric fence, mounted on top of a concrete pad. When the well was measured in 1966, the water table was about 95 feet below the ground. When it was measured last January, water was 157 feet deep, a decline of just over 60 feet in 60 years.
In some ways, that well is typical of many across the High Plains of western Kansas. It's part of a network of wells, most pumped for irrigation, that are measured each January by a program run by the Kansas Geological Survey, based at KU, and the Division of Water Resources in the Kansas Department of Agriculture.
A few weeks ago, the Survey released the results of the January 2026 measurement program across central and western Kansas. I was on the crew that measures those wells.
And this year, for the first time since 2019, water levels were up slightly across the area. In a state that relies on groundwater as much as Kansas does, that's good news.
Most of that increase was the result of rainfall last summer. Going into the spring of 2025, western and central Kansas were really dry. Then the rains came, especially in southwestern and south-central Kansas. Some of higher water levels in central Kansas are probably due to recharge, or the natural movement of precipitation back into the subsurface.
In western Kansas, where recharge is much less, timely rains meant that farmers didn't have to irrigate as much. And less irrigation meant that water levels didn't drop as much as they had, say, the previous year when it was drier.
But remember a couple of things about these numbers. First, a single year's results are interesting, but they're not as meaningful as long-term averages.
The wells we measure across all of central and western Kansas, for example, dropped an average of about a half foot per year over the past 30 years, compared to a rise of a few inches this year.
Also even this year, levels in southwestern and northwestern Kansas continued to drop, in spite of the increased rainfall and decreased pumping. Southwestern Kansas was down about 6 inches, and northwestern down just a tad. Smaller declines than usual. But still declines. That well west of Goodland, for example, dropped more than a foot last year.
Water has gotten more attention in the state lately. And rightfully so. More funding has flowed into water programs, another task force is gearing up recommendations. Kansans increasingly appreciate the importance of water and are trying to do something about it.
But here's something we know for sure: every day, we're that much closer to another drought. And so far this spring, at least out west, it's dry once again. The governor just declared a drought emergency for several western Kansas counties, and a drought warning for many more.
Now that could change any day. It may rain. But that won't solve the problem of declining water levels.
Let's not declare victory on the water front just yet.
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Commentator Rex Buchanan is a writer, author and director emeritus of the Kansas Geological Survey. He's also part of a crew that measures water wells in western Kansas every year.
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