Kansas state representatives this spring voted for “historic” legislation spending more than $50 million a year on preserving groundwater and restoring the state’s reservoirs.
By the time the Senate finished with the bill, it was “watered down” but “a good start.”
Rep. Lindsay Vaughn, D-Overland Park, said when lawmakers and farm and environmental groups come together, sometimes the least common denominator is all everyone can agree on. She said the legislation didn’t accomplish everything she hoped.
“But I absolutely think they were things that we could all agree on and came together with a really strong compromise,” said Vaughn, who serves as ranking Democrat on the Kansas House Water Committee and introduced one of two major pieces of legislation on water passed this year.
For three years, the House has dedicated a committee to study the state’s many issues with water — disappearing groundwater in the west, reservoirs full of sediment and uranium contaminating drinking water, among others — and come up with legislation to help.
This year, they passed two bills increasing funding for water conservation efforts and strengthening accountability measures over local groundwater authorities managing use of the Ogallala Aquifer. But a number of amendments in the Senate weakened both pieces of legislation in the eyes of House proponents.
Still, proponents said, the legislation is a huge step forward for Kansas, which has watched its finite supply of water in the west dwindle for more than half a century.
“There’s the eternal battle between limited resources … and need,” said Rep. Jim Minnix, R-Scott City, who chairs the House Water Committee.
With Gov. Laura Kelly’s signature last month, Kansas dedicated $35 million a year toward the state water plan, which received $8 million in the last fiscal year. The funds will allow Kansas to restore storage in reservoirs that are filling with sediment, provide funds for farmers to acquire water-saving technology and improve research and modeling of the remaining aquifer waters.
At the time, Kelly said the state needs to conserve water as it has “powered our booming farming economy for generations.”
“I’m proud that Republicans and Democrats were able to come together to make progress on this pressing crisis, investing a historic level of resources into major water storage projects,” Kelly said in a news release.
Beyond that, she signed legislation that would require Kansas’ five groundwater management districts to identify priority areas within their territories and come up with plans to conserve water there. Three of the GMDs draw water from the Ogallala Aquifer and have varied widely in their efforts to conserve it.
But the bills didn’t do everything the House proponents hoped. The Senate version dedicated millions less to water priorities, and rather than dedicate a portion of the state’s sales tax for it, the Senate wanted to divert general fund dollars. Those funds are easier to redirect to other priorities. The House wanted a safer, more reliable funding source.
After they passed the Senate, the bills went to a conference committee of representatives and senators to work out the difference. Vaughn said the message from senators about their version of the legislation was essentially “take it or leave it.”
She suspected that came from the Senate leadership, not the three senators on the conference committee.
