By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
Some rain has been falling across Central Kansas in June but meaningful totals have been hit-and-miss. According to reports on the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, and Snow Network, since June 8, areas from Ellsworth to Ness City to Great Bend have seen between two to four inches of rain. The Kansas Wetlands Education Center reported 3.65 inches of rain had fallen near the facility from June 7-9. Cheyenne Bottoms Wildlife Manager Jason Wagner said that has not translated to large amounts of water at the Bottoms.
"Even though some of the rivers were flowing a little bit better out west, by the time it got to us, it soaked in and it's been slowed down by some log jams," he said. "There are irrigation wells going. Everything has just been so dry, it's soaking into the ground. I was kind of disappointed with the amount of water we actually ended up with out of the deal."
Getting water into the Bottoms is not instantaneous as it often travels down other waterways, including the Walnut Creek and Arkansas River. After long dry spells, Wagner and staff never know what kind of trash and debris they will have to remove from the dam grates to keep the water flowing.
"There's dead deer, dead raccoons," he said. "It seems like it gets worse a little bit later in the summer because then there's a lot more grass and vegetation that grows in the stream beds if they'd been dry for a long period of time. That really clogs it up."
Wagner said flow peaked at 126 cubic feet per second (cfs) last weekend and was still hanging around at 60 cfs Wednesday morning after Tuesday night's rain. With rainfall totals of around an inch near Great Bend Tuesday, and less than half an inch recorded in Russell, Ellsworth, and Ness counties, Wagner's remained less than optimistic. Much of the water coming into the Bottoms has been moved into Pool 1A but winds have pushed the water to one side of the pool. High winds and warm temperatures across the resulting mudflats have increased evaporation.