KDA poised to introduce legislation to improve multi-year flex accounts program 

Efforts by the Kansas Department of Agriculture (KDA) and several stakeholders have been underway for several months now to improve the multi-year flex account program.  The “Flex” program has been around for about 10 years, offering water right holders the opportunity to file a term permit based off historic average use of an existing water right to provide greater flexibility of a volume of water over a 5 year period. 

The problem with the existing program is that even though it offers greater flexibility it is also a regulatory tool designed to cut water usage by a 10% reduction of the base average use.  Consequently, this has not been an attractive option and the program failed.  

To help remedy this, KFB and others have helped steer improvements in the program which KDA is now willing to introduce in the form of legislation during the 2012 session.  These improvements include:

·         Option 1: 500% of the water right holders base average use (with no 10% penalty) to be utilized over a 5 year period

·         Option 2: Use 5 times the county Net Irrigation Requirement (NIR) figures times the “flex account acres” to determine the quantity that can be utilized in the flex account (See NIR figures).

·         Option 3: Allow Groundwater Management Districts to establish an amount that can be deposited into a flex account based upon some calculation that will not increase long term average use.

Greater detail of the proposed legislation can be viewed here.

Quick action in passing this legislation is imperative due to ongoing drought conditions over much of the state and the need for creating options to producers who exhausted this year and next year’s water allocations with emergency drought term permits. 

Additionally, this legislation is the first step in allowing greater flexibility to water right utilization on a more permanent basis for greater economic benefit of the water we use while at the same time protecting the resource and respecting existing water rights.