Federal Dilemma Discovered

Water rights in any state are usually complicated, but in Kansas they can be especially so.  Over the past 7 or 8 years Kansas has been working with the federal Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) on implementing a pretty savvy EQIP offering.  For the most part, we have worked and played well together, and the EQIP program that has resulted has been useful and used.

Basically, EQIP is incenting producers to set aside irrigated ground for non-irrigated production in order to achieve a water quantity resource goal set by NRCS at the recommendation of the Kansas Technical Committee.  The EQIP contract requires the water right to be set aside and not used for the contract period plus one "maintenance" year.  Moreover, the water from that water right cannot be used on any other land.  All this sounded pretty reasonable as the effort was being wordsmithed, as all Kansans were thinking water rights.   

However, we have just now reached one of those "humps in the road" with a program interpretation that, if not re-interpreted by NRCS, is going to be problematic.  NRCS has told program enrollees that the well itself cannot supply water for any other use during the contract period.  They have apparently linked the well to the water right in a black and white fashion.  They have obviously been thinking "water" when we were thinking "water rights".

The problem is that in Kansas multiple water rights can be, and often are, associated with a single well.  Even when an irrigation water right is forfeited, dismissed, sold or otherwise eliminated, nothing precludes the use of that well for domestic purposes, or any other water right or term permit that is associated with the well.  Each of these would have a different priority date, water right file number and use type, so using them would insure that no water from the contracted irrigation water right would be used.

What the current NRCS interpretation is actually doing, is preventing Kansas citizens from accessing any of their other valid water rights that may be associated with the subject well - including domestic uses - and we think this would be in violation of Kansas water law. 

I don't think this was the NRCS intent, and I'm holding out that they will listen to our concerns and eventually agree with us because they understand Kansas Water Rights better as a result of our discussions.  It'll end up being just a minor misunderstanding. But, if they refuse, one will have to wonder if this is not another federal incursion into state's water rights - by design.  More information later.

2012 Farm Bill Field Hearing - Wichita, KS

Kudos for Senators Pat Roberts (R-KS) and Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) for conducting their second 2012 Farm Bill field hearing in Wichita, KS last week.  I can't stress how much help a well designed farm bill could be for water conservation efforts in water stressed areas.

Historically the farm bill has been blamed for promoting fencerow-to-fencerow corn production due to it's design and implementation, which of course, does little for curbing water use in irrigated ag areas.  So, we were thinking that a farm bill that would promote less water intensive cropping choices - especially in water stressed or enhanced management areas - could conserve water at no additional program cost.  This is apparently a very difficult thing to do, but we asked again, anyway. 

We also asked for a crop insurance program that would insure limited irrigation operations.  This would actually reduce liability and be less expensive than the current program.  It'd allow irrigators to implement a water conserving, limited irrigation plan on land that had been fully irrigated, but also receive a critical level of crop insurance discounted proportionately with the expected yield goals of their limited irrigation plan.  This could save a lot of water as well, so we asked for it.

We also asked that NRCS EQIP and AWEP programs support partial water use set asides - allowing producers to enroll the least efficient portions of their irrigation operations rather than the entire irrigated acreages.  The water conservation would be the same, at reduced program costs, while returning a higher economic return for the producer. 

These are just three ways that the current fam bill could reduce program costs while resulting in water conservation.  We'd hope they'd only be offered in closed areas (where no new appropriations are being approved) and where the post program water use could be monitored enough to insure a true water savings.  We'll see.

How You Reduce Water Use Matters

Guess I have to hit this issue again because no action seems to be on anyone's planning calendar as of yet. 

The issue is the design of the Federal EQIP and AWEP programs which are supposed to be, in part, helping producers and states conserve water use.  They are doing OK - at least the way we're using them in Kansas, but they could be even better.

No one doubts the positive relationship between water application and crop production. Every Ag school in the nation produces crop production curves showing the normal yield associated with each additional inch of water made available to the crop - either by irrigation or by nature.  And all the curves look more or less the same - a steeper curve for the first 60-70% of the crop ET, then a flattening curve until it actually starts dropping when too much water is applied.  A grain crop production curve from Elsie, NE is provided above - click to enlarge.  Every crop in every climate has such a production curve.

If this is the case, it makes perfect sense that any decision to reduce water use in ag should reduce the least efficient water use from several users rather than the full water use from any user(s).  In other words, reducing 20% of water from 5 users will be the same amount of water reduction as reducing 1 water user fully (as long as they're all using the same amount) - but the former approach will yield more production at the end of the year than the latter.  This is because every inch of the reduced water in the first approach was being applied at the top of the production curve - when the crop's yield response is at its lowest.  There are actually other reasons such an approach is better economically, but not enough space to go into these now.  

Right now, EQIP and AWEP are only available to conserve water through the set aside of full water rights.  This, of course, is not as efficient a reduction of water use than if we could have more people involved in the reductions as suggested in the first approach.  I'll continue to work on NRCS to promote this relatively minor tweak in their programs.  I'd appreciate any help I can get because thus far they don't seem to be all that interested in this idea.

Again, we can conserve the same amount of water either way, but with more producers saving smaller amounts of water, our production levels are not reduced as much, and this is quite a bit better for the local economy.

Fed Program Changes?

I recently asked a host of entities (NRCS, KWO, DWR, SCC, GMDs, etc.) to begin a Kansas dialog on the potential benefits of tweaking EQIP and AWEP so that these 2 programs can be applied toward reducing consumptive water use (conserving water) AND minimizing any economic impacts as the water conservation is happening.

Both programs are now recognizing the much greater water conservation benefits of transitioning irrigated acres to dryland production – thus truly conserving 100% of the historic consumptive water use. To this end, the program developers are to be commended. But both programs have been focusing on complete water right set asides or conversions in order to qualify.

New economic and hydrologic modeling is convincingly showing that reducing the least efficient portion of water use from a number of irrigation systems will have less economic impact on a region than reducing the same amount of water use completely from fewer systems. These two approaches have the same hydrologic results, but different economic impacts.

GMD 4 is wondering if it is time to consider approaching USDA, NRCS and perhaps others in asking that water conservation programs such as EQIP and AWEP take fuller advantage of the modeling results to lower the economic impacts of their water conservation benefits? To do this, these programs will need to allow for partial consumptive water use reductions from a larger number of participants. This means that EQIP and AWEP are going to need changes accordingly. Are these issues important enough to start developing?

GMD 4 welcomes any comments, ideas or suggestions regarding an open dialog on this issue. Perhaps a specific set of AWEP rules should also be discussed as operating AWEP under EQIP rules has brought to light a few glitches – at least what we consider glitches.  Anyone else tracking these issues as well?

Oh, I sent the email request on July 7, and have not heard a word yet from anyone.  I hope they're still mulling it over.