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We should care

No water? Can we even fathom what that might mean to our children and grandchildren? No water from Marion Reservoir within 50 years.

That was the message given at the recent Marion County Surface Water Board meeting.

You're probably thinking, "OK, 50 years is a long time. Somebody will fix it before then." What about five years from now — the demand for water will be more than the supply.

Does that concern anyone?

People in Wichita "get" this. "Oh who cares about Wichita?" you ask.

An editorial in the Wichita Eagle this past week, urges a statewide focus on water planning.

Wichita leaders plan to ask the Legislature to help fund their Equus Beds project, which will ensure that area's water supply.

The premise of the project is to store and treat millions of gallons of water from the Little Arkansas River in an underground aquifer.

That's an expensive undertaking — but as they see it, a necessary, proactive approach to water planning.

Leaders in Topeka also are starting to see the need for innovative water planning. State leaders are meeting to discuss how to protect Kansas' reservoirs.

"The 24 federal reservoirs in Kansas that provide 60 percent of state water needs are slowly but surely silting up and becoming obsolete," the editorial states.

"Extending their usefulness will require dredging, raising the water level in the reservoirs, runoff conservation or some combination of the three."

That means Marion Reservoir — our water supply. We cannot rely on the reservoir forever. We cannot go back to the "good ol' days" when we drew water out of Luta Creek — that isn't a viable option either. We'll need some new, innovative, "outside-the-box" solutions.

We may not have the answers right now, but there are groups like the Marion County Surface Water Board and the Kansas Water Office who are working on it.

What can we do? At least recognize that our water supply is an issue. At the very least — we should care.

— DONNA BERNHARDT

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