U.S. officials see no need to secure water for Quivira National Wildlife Refuge after ag deal

Wichita Eagle | Nicole Asbury

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has determined there is no need to secure water for a national wildlife refuge in south-central Kansas because voluntary solutions have fixed the refuge’s water impairment.

But wildlife advocacy groups say the solution doesn’t do enough to remedy a problem that’s gone on for years.

Kansas’ chief engineer in 2016 found that farmers and ranchers were infringing on the Quivira National Wildlife Refuge’s water rights. The refuge counts on access to water from along Rattlesnake Creek. However, pumping from local farmers and ranchers who needed to utilize the groundwater was taking part of what the refuge was entitled to.

The federal refuge is roughly 22,000 acres of land. It is inhabited by around 300 different species of birds, some of which are threatened or endangered.

Previously, the federal government chose not to submit a request to secure water in 2020, in an effort to work with local community members to come to a solution. In late July 2020, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reached a memorandum of agreement with local agriculture producers, the Kansas Department of Agriculture and Big Bend Groundwater Management District 5.

After discovering voluntary solutions to fix the water impairment issue, federal officials similarly decided in December not to submit a request for 2021.

“The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision to not request to secure water in 2021 for Quivira National Wildlife Refuge demonstrates their continued commitment to work towards fulfilling the water needs of both the refuge and local producers,” said U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, a Republican representing Kansas.

The agreement between local agriculture producers and state and federal officials helped secure a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service. This grant allows the development of a water augmentation work plan that will “supplements water distributed from groundwater wells, conduct water quality and quantity feasibility testing, and complete an environmental assessment under the National Environmental Policy Act,” according to a news release.

But the agreement made in July 2020 falls short of really solving the problems, said Dick Seaton, vice chairman of Audubon of Kansas, a nonprofit that focuses on promoting and restoring the state’s natural ecosystems. Seaton said the organization has sent out a number of letters to the U.S. Department of Interior, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the groundwater management district to restore the water to the refuge.

“The simplest way to say it is that the upstream land owners are depriving and taking more water than they’re entitled to, leaving the refuge short of water,” said Seaton, who is also an attorney.

Audubon of Kansas believes without a more robust solution, there are violations of federal and state statutes that “prohibit the reserve’s water rights, bar drilling and pumping of subsurface water to make up for the violations, and require environmental and administrative reviews,” as Seaton previously wrote.

The refuge is among 40 wetlands in the United States listed as Wetlands of International Importance, as designated under an international treaty signed in 1971. The treaty signed by 160 different countries during the Ramsar Convention provides a framework for international cooperation to preserve the wetlands, which groups like Audubon in Kansas believe especially makes the preservation of the wetlands’ water rights and flow critical.

“Our organization believes that they’re really in violation of a number of federal and state statutes,” Seaton said. “And our plan is to try to hold them to account for those violations.”