As water dries up, SE Kansas communities enact mandatory water conservation

WICHITA, Kan. (KWCH) - In parts of southeast Kansas heat and parched conditions are drying up the water supply for several Kansas communities.

This week, people living in Chautauqua County and parts of Montogmery and Elk Counties are under mandatory water conservation measures. That means no watering lawns, washing cars or filling pools.

Kathi Barlow has seen the impact of the drought drying up the land.

“People just say they haven’t seen it at this point ever. It’s hard. Yeah, it’s bad,” said Barlow.

She lives south of Chautauqua on a small farm with a few horses. The most noticeable impact of the evaporating conditions is a pond in the pasture. It’s now shriveled up - more sludge than water.

“The water would come up to the trees typically,” said Barlow of the pond that now sits far back from the trees and in a small recess. “It’s not what you’d want your livestock to drink out of.”

The water that comes to her house is also drying up.

Barlow said, “You can’t water your garden, your plants, fill your swimming pools. Very, very limited. So I’ve gone to artificial flowers, yeah, to have a little color.”

Barlow falls under Public Wholesale Water Supply District 20, which issued a stage three water emergency this week.

Communities impacted include Cedar Vale, Moline, Chautauqua, Elk Co. RWD 1, Grenola, Longton, Peru, Sedan, Chautauqua Co. RWDs 1, 2, 3, 4 and Montgomery Co. RWD 1C (3&5). KDHE said it serves about 6,700 people.

The water source for PWWSD 20 is Boy Scout Lake, north of Sedan.

Barlow said, “Laundry, I found out you can wear your pajamas more than once, and you don’t take long showers; you just get in and get out.”

Heading east, the City of Caney has also issued a stage three water emergency. That means no non-essential use of water. The city’s pool was closed in response, and initially, the city was planning to dechlorinate the water and put it into the system, but KDHE advised against it.

City Manager Kelley Zellner said the city’s water source - the Little Caney River - has gone from ample to a drip.

“As it got hotter and dryer, a river it evaporates from the top as well as from the river banks. It went from running over the dam to pretty much a trickle to nothing, and it happened in about a three-week span,” said Zellner. “We went two weeks ago to stage one, which is voluntary water conservation. Stage two, we still stayed voluntary, but we asked people to be a lot more frugal with the water. Stage three is absolutely no non-essential water use at all. This year we’ve had to go into a process of sharing with folks the first time we’ll give you a warning. The second time, it will probably be a citation because it’s got that serious for us here.”

The city’s backup water source is Timber Hill Lake, a few miles north, but even with that, Zellner said the city would have about four months’ worth of water.

Zellner said, “We dumped 20 million gallons into the water system last year. I don’t know how much we have left in Timber Hill, but we’re desperately, desperately praying for rain. The final resource would be to find other stored water. I talked to the state of Kansas and the regional Kansas Water Department, and they said that if we could find other water, they would probably help us acquire that water.”

The city faced mandatory water conservation measures last fall. The school district took the lead on the conservation efforts. Zellner said long-term, they’re looking to connect to Coffeyville for water.

“Once we go to the project phase, we have to acquire easements from here to there. Those 19 miles. That’s going to take a piece of time. We’re probably going to be lucky to get started within a year.” Zellner said, “It should go pretty fast after that. That’s probably going to be our main focus. We want to do distribution lines here, too, in the city, as the lines are really old, so we don’t waste that water.”

For the people living in this area, the sentiment is the same.

Barlow said, “Praying for rain and so thankful when we get some.”

Friday, KDHE issued a boil water advisory for Caney after a water line break, which has been repaired. Testing is still needed to make sure the water is safe.

The advisory means people should boil water for at least one minute before drinking or food prep, disinfect dishes and other surfaces that may come in contact with food and the water should be safe to use for bathing but watch children to make sure they don’t ingest the water.