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About a quarter of the United States’s irrigated cropland sits on top of the Ogallala Aquifer in the Great Plains. But water levels are dropping, and states are taking different approaches to monitoring how much groundwater irrigators are pumping out.
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Water levels in the Ogallala Aquifer continue to plummet as farm irrigation swallows an average of more than 2 billion gallons of groundwater per day statewide. But after decades of mostly inaction from Kansas leaders, the state’s approach to water conservation might finally be starting to shift.
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Farmers in the Walnut Creek basin have faced strict restrictions on how much they can water their crops since the early 1990s. Those limits have pushed them to change their methods and their mindsets.
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After decades of irrigation, the aquifer that makes life possible in dry western Kansas is reaching a critical point. Several counties have already lost more than half of their underground water. But a new plan could save more of what’s left.
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Some water users could be paid to conserve as Upper Colorado River Basin program gets planned rebootThe Upper Colorado River Commission – comprised of Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico – is set to announce details of an extended “System Conservation Pilot Program” through which water users could be paid to cut back on their use.
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For the first time, the state board voted Wednesday to say that Kansas shouldn’t pump the Ogallala aquifer dry to support crop irrigation. The underground water source has seen dramatic declines in recent decades.
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The Department of the Interior designated $4 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act for drought mitigation in the Colorado River basin.
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The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation announced plans to spend money from the Inflation Reduction Act on water conservation measures in the Colorado River basin. Sources told KUNC that could include buying water from farmers and ranchers to help boost levels in Lake Powell and Lake Mead.
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The water in the Ogallala aquifer is worth billions of dollars to western Kansas, but it’s rapidly disappearing. And it's been a challenge to find ways to slow the depletion.
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Farmers Trying To Save The Ogallala Aquifer Face Tension From Peers, But Their Profits Are ImprovingIrrigation practices are changing, partly because of economics and partly because of a cultural shift among farmers on the High Plains.