The Great KS Aqueduct - $18 Billion To Build, $1 Billion/Yr To Operate And Water @ $470/Acre-foot

[hatrack]

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In 1982, the Army Corps of Engineers released the Plains Ogallala Aquifer Regional Resources Study, which detailed for the first time (in any official capacity) the cost and opportunity related to the construction of a 360-mile concrete aqueduct beginning at the Missouri River in the Northeastern part of Kansas and ending in Utica – traveling nearly three-quarters of the way across the state. This aqueduct would deliver approximately 3.4 million acre-ft (AF) of water annually (1 acre-ft = 325,851 gallons) to parched farmers and communities. In turn, the canal would require 15 pumping stations in order to rise nearly 1,750 ft in altitude to reach its ultimate, Utica reservoir. The cost? $18 billion up-front with an estimated $1 billion in annual ongoing expenses ($400 million in operational costs and $600 million in interest). The costs are exorbitant – resulting in a $470/AF price of new water for farmers who, according to a 2013 report by the US Department of Agriculture, currently pay approximately $47/AF for off-farm purchased water. Can an agricultural industry with shrinking margins due to increased competition and international trade tariffs handle a 10x increase in water prices?

And yet, there remains something romantic about the Great Kansas Aqueduct. Arizona has its 336-mile Central Arizona Project; California has its 701-mile State Water Project; why shouldn’t Kansas have its Great Kansas Aqueduct? After all, as the Kansas Aqueduct Coalition has stated, “With sedimentation reducing water storage in the East, and the Ogallala being rapidly depleted in the West, Kansas stands to lose more than 37 percent of its water in 50 counties across the state by 2062, or an annual shortfall of 1.86 million acre-feet.”

Thirty-six years after this project was first conceived in full, though, shovels and backhoes remain in their sheds as the Ogallala aquifer drops nearly two feet per year in some counties due to groundwater over pumping. If groundwater withdrawals continue at current rates, most of southwest Kansas will exhaust its water reserves within 25 to 50 years. One tends to think that in times of yesteryear, individuals would have begun construction on this project in February of 1982, begging for forgiveness later. But the time of unbridled infrastructure construction has passed and Kansas continues to stress its water resources.

As one sits and considers the need for the Great Kansas Aqueduct, three questions come to mind: 1) does the Great Kansas Aqueduct solve a problem? Yes – it would increase water supplies for Western Kansas. 2) would it solve the problem for generations? Yes – it would likely be operational for decades. And 3) would it be cost-effective? Unfortunately, not. While the volume of water delivered to Western Kansas may increase, very few people would actually be able to afford it. In fact, the $18 billion estimated to build the Great Kansas Aqueduct does not even include the legal, economic, and ethical costs inherent to initiating eminent domain and forcibly removing people in the way of the canal off of their land.

Ed. - Emphasis added.

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https://waterfm.com/great-kansas-aqueduct/

[Pope George Ringo II]

1. I've also heard it's possible that when the Ogallala gets depleted, we'll have another dust bowl.

Or at least the conditions to make it possible, assuming we're greedy enough and short-sighted enough. I'd almost swallow this kind of a boondoggle just as an insurance policy for that happening.

[NickB79]

2. If we were an intelligent species, we would largely abandon the central Plains

Use the remaining water in the Ogallala to irrigate native prairie restorations and reestablish deep-rooted prairie species.

Develop the most drought-tolerant oak trees possible (bur and bur-gambel hybrids) and plant them by the millions to build oak savanna within the prairie grasses. These would provide carbon sequestration and nut production.

In 10 years, start using the land for livestock grazing, running cattle and buffalo on prairie grasses and acorns. Done properly, their copious amounts of dung would build soil and sequester even more carbon.

It will never be done, but it's what should be done. The alternative path that we are currently on is farming the land right into another Dust Bowl.

[NCjack]

3. Every ranch and farm on the Oganllala that defaults on taxes should be purchased

by the USG and states for the purpose of establishing a park for the restoration of native plants and animals.

[hatrack]

4. I'm trying to think what you could grow profitably at $470 an acre-foot . . .

Other than pot, drawing a blank.

Of course, since when did irrigation policies/projects have anything to do with financial reality?