From Barton County...
Members of the Barton County Commission attended Thursday's special coordination meeting in St. John to discuss the long-running and contentious Quivira National Wildlife Refuge water impairment issue. The meeting was held at the Stafford County Annex Building, 210 E. Third.
Commissioners from Pawnee and Stafford counties were also planning on attending the meeting, organized by the Kansas Natural Resource Coalition. Also invited were representatives from senators Jerry Moran’s and Roger Marshall’s offices, Groundwater Management District 5 and the Kansas Department of Agriculture’s Kansas Division of Water Resources.
Officials from the refuge, managed by the U.S. Department of the Interior since the 1950s, have maintained that water use upstream has impaired flow in the wetland. The augmentation plan approved in 2013 was aimed at solving this.
However, Barton County Commission Chairperson Tricia Schlessiger said the KNRC believes this plan will hurt area farmers and communities, and that the refuge has failed to follow the plan, contributes to the shortfall it is experiencing now.
The KNRC sponsors, promotes, and engages in meaningful government-to-government participation between its member Western Kansas counties and federal and/or state executive branch agencies during administrative policymaking and actions.
The NWR is over 21,000 acres in Stafford County with around 6,000 acres of marshes and wetlands which are created by an extensive irrigation water control system of over 30 water units.