In politics, there are many artificial divides: liberal and conservative, rural and urban, insiders and outsiders, past and future. When we are faced with problems of extreme gravity, though, we often stand united and work together. In Kansas, water is one of these issues that calls us to action.
Through our bipartisan work on the Kansas House Water Committee, my co-authors and I have learned about the alarming decline in the quantity and quality of water in our state.
The Ogallala Aquifer is rapidly depleting. At current rates of extraction, some areas of the aquifer only have 20 to 25 years of usable life remaining, while others are already depleted. Key reservoirs are losing significant levels of storage capacity to sedimentation, and our aging water infrastructure needs an update.
