By Tracey Barton – Executive Director, Kansas Natural Resource Coalition
When the federal government threatens to seize private farmland to fix its own mistakes, Kansas counties pay attention.
That’s exactly what’s unfolding in central Kansas, where the U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have proposed a $60 million federally funded augmentation project aimed at pumping groundwater into the Quivira National Wildlife Refuge. The agencies admit that if landowners don’t voluntarily surrender their property or water rights, eminent domain may be used to take them by force.
This isn’t just a water management issue. It’s a full-blown federal overreach—an unlawful and fiscally reckless plan to take private property and repurpose public funds to correct a problem created by the federal government.
Officials at Quivira National Wildlife Refuge allege that nearby agricultural use is reducing water flow into the refuge. Their proposed cure is to take the water used by agriculture producers.
This has led to a costly proposed plan to create an augmentation area outside the refuge, now in the environmental review process. It requires digging new wells, building pipelines, and forcibly acquiring easements across private lands—all to deliver thousands of acre-feet of water annually to the refuge.
But the real cause of water impairment on the refuge, if it is actually occurring, is not agriculture use, but decades of federal mismanagement.
Despite overseeing more than 6,000 acres of wetland infrastructure, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has no record showing its canals, ditches, or water control systems are being maintained as required by the refuges comprehensive plan. There’s no evidence of routine vegetation clearing. Grazing permits—a key management tool—have been suspended.
The steps neighboring private landowner use to conserve and properly use water resources have not been deployed by the federal government. Nevertheless, instead of correcting their management practices, the agencies want to sink tens of millions in taxpayer funds into new construction and strip neighboring landowners of their water rights, while offering no assurance the plan will cure the alleged problem.
“This is a manmade canal system flowing from an intermittently flowing creek,” said KNRC President and Pawnee County Commissioner Bob Rein. “It’s indefensible for the federal government to demand more water from Kansas producers while refusing to maintain its own infrastructure.”
The proposed plan would retire 2,500 acre-feet of agricultural water rights, eliminating irrigation across tens of thousands of productive acres. The environmental review fails to account for the economic fallout—reduced yields, lower land values, and cascading harm to rural economies.
Federal law requires federally funded watershed projects to benefit agriculture and rural communities, but this plan does the opposite. It strips rural Kansas of its most vital resource while offering no measurable return.
Meanwhile, Kansas law and a Presidential Executive Order requires a takings analysis whenever government action threatens private property. No such analysis was included. No financial assessment. No review of the cost imposed on the landowners who stand to lose everything.
Let’s be clear: this is not about conservation—it’s about accountability. The federal government is attempting to bypass local oversight, ignore required coordination with county governments, and take property under the pretense of environmental necessity. That’s not conservation. That’s coercion.
KNRC has formally requested that the NRCS prepare a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement in full coordination with the five affected Kansas counties or restart the process entirely.
Kansans believe in stewardship. We manage our land, we protect our resources, and we honor our responsibilities. But we also believe in boundaries—legal, financial, and constitutional.
Until the federal government proves it can manage its own refuge responsibly, it has no business asking Kansas farmers to give up their water—or their land—to cover federal mismanagement. When Washington refuses to maintain its own manmade wetlands, it has no right to drain ours—especially not with our water, our land, and our money.
