NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
NEWTON, Kan. — In a presentation to the Harvey County Commission on Tuesday, Tim Boese said that the Equus Beds GWD 2 has had quite a bit of water usage in recent drought years in comparison to the average.
"Our 2022 usage was 238,000 acre-feet," Boese said. "I don't have the 2023 data, I'm working on compiling that, but our averages over, let's say, the last 30, 31 years have been about 177,000 acre-feet. Irrigation is usually in around 60% to 65% municipal, somewhere in the 20%, 20% to 25% industrial, in the 10% to 15%, and then other users, which are generally recreational, stock water, contamination, remediation, those sorts of things, make up less than 5%."
With that said, Boese also noted that most parts of the district can recharge fairly well when they do get rain. To illustrate this, he showed the commission maps that compare the distance to water back in 1940 to the distance in the last few years.
"Our area has been mostly, again, plus or minus 10 to 20 feet," Boese said. "Some areas are actually higher than was recorded. Some are slightly lower."
The last 20 years are pretty close to the same, as well.
"You can again see we're basically in the plus or minus, roughly about 5 feet, 5 to 10 feet over the last 20 years in our district," Boese said.
Boese also noted that state water plan fund money is not how the districts are funded. They actually get money from those that have the water rights. They pay an assessment per acre foot of what they're permitted or what they use, so the total budget for GMD 2 is between $750,000 and $800,000 annually, so if they are to do some of their long-term projects, they will need help from local and state governments to set aside funds for their future needs.