Released: June 11, 2001

Western Kansas Residents Raising Funds to Build Research Center

GARDEN CITY, Kan. – A western Kansas citizens group has begun a fundraising campaign to build a research facility so that scientists can study how best to conserve the region’s lifeblood – the large underground body of water known as the Ogallala aquifer.

The group hopes to raise $1.8 million for facilities and equipment.

The Kansas legislature and Kansas State University are providing operating and staffing resources for the project, said Jim Tangeman, the campaign coordinator for the Western Kansas Irrigation Research Project. Private funding will provide facilities and equipment.

The new facility will be called the Sandhills Irrigation Research Unit, and will be located on land provided by the Sunflower Power Electric Corporation on the site of their electricity generating plant south of Holcomb, Kan.

The citizens group is hoping both public and private groups – including residents – step to the plate to build this facility.

"We have a solid core of persons to aid in this fundraising effort and we will be recruiting several additional leaders to [raise] the finances necessary to implement this essential project," Tangeman said. "We are allowing people to invest over a five-year period since we want everyone to have a chance to participate in ensuring our future."

Much of western Kansas’ agricultural economy depends on the Ogallala aquifer. In southwest Kansas, which has the state’s richest reserves of the Ogallala, farmers draw from the aquifer to irrigate corn and alfalfa, both important components in that area’s feedlot, dairy and meatpacking industries.

Kansas is the nation’s sixth largest irrigated state with nearly 3 million irrigated acres. In western Kansas, irrigation accounts for nearly 95 percent of the total water use.

Larry Kepley, a Ulysses, Kan. farmer and chair of the project advisory committee, said protecting the Ogallala’s reserves will depend on learning more about how to conserve that resource.

"I believe the scientific research to be conducted by this project can improve water-use efficiency by farmers who grow irrigated crops in western Kansas," he said. "I am committed to supporting the Western Kansas Irrigation Research Project and encourage others to do so."

The fundrasing campaign represents "a tremendous opportunity to promote research that will conserve our natural resources, and will have a positive effect on all the consuming public in the near future," added Ray Purdy, President of Home National Bank in Garden City and a member of the project’s executive committee.

Scientists believe the Ogallala aquifer formed 10 million years ago by deposits from the Rocky Mountains. It underlies parts of eight High Plains states, including South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas.

The aquifer is not recharged except in a few areas such as the Nebraska Sandhills and the sand-sage prairie of southwestern Kansas. So, water that is "mined" from the aquifer is gone forever.

Kansas State University, which has committed personnel to conduct research at the Sandhills Irrigation Research Unit, has been studying methods to save the Ogallala’s resources. Among other projects, the university has actively promoted the use of sub-surface drip irrigation, a technology that eliminates traditional losses from drainage, runoff and evaporation.

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K-State Research and Extension is a short name for the Kansas State University Agricultural Experiment Station and Cooperative Extension Service, a program designed to generate and distribute useful knowledge for the well-being of Kansans. Supported by county, state, federal and private funds, the program has county Extension offices, experiment fields, area Extension offices and regional research centers statewide. Its headquarters is on the K-State campus, Manhattan.

Story by:
Pat Melgares, News Coordinator
pmelgare@oznet.ksu.edu
K-State Research& Extension News