The Great Kansas Aqueduct: Solution or Folly from a Bygone Era?

The United States has long been known as a country willing to take gigantic risks in order to build innovative infrastructure for future generations. The Transcontinental Railroad vastly improved cross-country travel, paying for itself through an increase in trade and transport across generations. The Hoover Dam helped tame the mighty Colorado River – creating an ongoing water and energy supply to open up the West for expansion. In modern times, there remain plenty of challenges that could be solved by new infrastructure.

One potential project, though, sits above the rest in its potential to ignite the American public’s imagination: The Great Kansas Aqueduct. But is it worth it?

The State of Kansas once again finds itself in a drought. While individuals and families living in big cities may choose not to notice – continuing to take long showers, water their lawns, wash their cars – those in the Western half of the state that remain reliant on wells and agriculture are struggling to make ends meet in an economy built upon a reliable irrigation supply. Could the Great Kansas Aqueduct provide the solution?

Can an agricultural industry with shrinking margins due to increased competition and international trade tariffs handle a 10x increase in water prices?

—Michael Warady

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 […]

Full article: The Great Kansas Aqueduct: Solution or Folly from a Bygone Era?