Ogallala

After the end of pandemic-era free school meals, kids in Midwest states are eating fewer lunches and meal debt is rising. Plus: After decades of inaction from Kansas leaders over the Ogallala Aquifer drying up, the state's approach to water conservation might finally be shifting.

Water levels in the Ogallala Aquifer continue to plummet as farm irrigation swallows an average of more than 2 billion gallons of groundwater per day statewide. But after decades of mostly inaction from Kansas leaders, the state’s approach to water conservation might finally be starting to shift.

Record-setting lack of rain in 2022 transformed parts of western Kansas into a temporary desert. And it'll take a while for the region's fields, towns and mindsets to recover.

Shayla Curts was pregnant with her third child when she was shot and killed in December. Her family says this might not have happened if Jackson County's child welfare system had worked like it was supposed to. Plus: The plan to conserve water in western Kansas and save the region from drying up altogether.

After decades of irrigation, the aquifer that makes life possible in dry western Kansas is reaching a critical point. Several counties have already lost more than half of their underground water. But a new plan could save more of what’s left.

Lack of rainfall and water restrictions are two early signs of the future that are causing water worries to bubble up in Lincoln. As drought plagues the state, and with climate change promising more of the same, there is a plan to have a second water supply in place by 2048.

For the first time, the state board voted Wednesday to say that Kansas shouldn’t pump the Ogallala aquifer dry to support crop irrigation. The underground water source has seen dramatic declines in recent decades.

The project is meant to prove that large transfers of water could be a tool to help save the disappearing Ogallala Aquifer, which provides irrigation and drinking water to western Kansas. But other groundwater management officials say it’s a distraction from the far more urgent task of conservation.

Anthropologist and author Lucas Bessire says the influence of corporate agribusiness over the political process in Kansas has prevented policymakers from saving the Ogallala Aquifer.

The western Kansas cities of Hays and Russell bought up a ranch so they could pump away water that belongs to the property. Farmers who live near that ranch see the practice as a threat to their irrigation.

GARDEN CITY — Zion Roth farms with his uncle, father and brothers near Garden City. Roth uses tools that monitor weather and the soil moisture on his...

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