DODGE CITY, Kansas — To enter most towns in southwest Kansas, one will first drive across bridges seemingly built over sand and briar.

Tanner Rutschman, a city engineer for Dodge City, jokes that no one really knows what it is.

“It doesn’t look like it,” Rutschman said, “but I have to tell people when they come to town that they just drove over the Arkansas River.”

Rutschman and the city are proposing a new wastewater plan that could help conserve water for the town on the High Plains. That plan will feature the bone-dry Arkansas River.

The community also wants to remember the river that shaped southwest Kansas and helped build the towns that dot the grassy desert. Today, the river is just meandering sand from Deerfield to Great Bend — more than 100 miles — which serves as a warning about water security for western Kansans.

The agriculture industry’s water usage has evaporated the once-sparkling river. In the early days it was used for ditch irrigation to help grow watermelons and sugar beets.

But now locals better understand that the river is connected to the underground water source, the Ogallala Aquifer, beneath it. And they know that pumping billions of gallons from that aquifer each day to irrigate crops like corn and alfalfa is depleting the important water source too.

“In this well just west of town, in the year 2000, the depth was about 12 foot to water,” Rutschman said of access to the aquifer. “In 2020, we’re down over 45 foot depth to water, so it’s declining.”

That’s why Rutschman and towns like Dodge City have started to look for ways to be more efficient with their water usage, and prepare for the area to become classified as a desert if water runs out completely.

The river plan

The Ogallala Aquifer is the only source for drinking water for Dodge City and many other towns in western Kansas. The city’s proposed system would dump treated wastewater into the riverbed so it can trickle down to the aquifer.

“I would say the city has been good stewards of that water resource since the early 80s,” Rutschman said. “We’re always thinking about ways to enhance or broaden our reuse practices.”

This closed-loop system has also been adopted by other cities like nearby Garden City. With this system, the cities hope to become “water neutral” by taking used water — like the treated wastewater and water from sources like a new cheese plant — and sending it back to where they drew it from.

Currently, that water is also being used by nearby farmers to decrease how much the agriculture industry pulls from the aquifer.

The project would take millions of dollars from both state and federal grants to upgrade the city’s water treatment facilities. The city is requesting a total of $34 million from state and federal funds and providing $22 million of its own. If approved, construction is slated to begin in 2027.

But the Dodge City plan still may not revive the Arkansas River or the aquifer, but could make the city less dependent on the shrinking resources.

Recharging the aquifer is a very slow process and would take thousands of years without human intervention. Municipal water use makes up only 5% of the water taken from the portion of the Ogallala Aquifer that sits under western Kansas, but the project encourages recharge efforts to secure water for the city.

“This project is setting the city up for direct water reuse, which will become more and more necessary in the coming years,” Rutschman said.

Remembering the river

Not that long ago Dodge City and other communities could rely on the Arkansas River for water. It was even navigable with kayaks and canoes.

And some locals still remember when the Arkansas River flooded in 1965.

Dodge City native Hannes Zacharias kayaked down the river twice. The first time was in the 1970s when there was still water in the western Kansas portion. But the river looked much different during his more recent attempt, which required him to use an ATV to navigate the dry parts of the river.

“I don’t know what you call a river that doesn’t have any water in it,” Zacharias said, “except you call it anything but a river, and that breaks my heart.”

He recently spoke to the locals about the power and significance of a river that no longer flows as part of a cultural project for Humanities Kansas.

Indigenous tribes like the Ute, Arapaho, Kiowa and Osage used the river for many years as a natural resource, and for travel and trade.

Then most populous towns in western Kansas were built on the Arkansas River.

“This river was a geographical feature throughout history that people recognized, and still recognize today,” Zacharias said.

Zacharias said he has seen a change in attitude towards the conservation of the aquifer and he has not given up hope on the river someday flowing again. But for now, he is focused on ways the riverbed can be used for recreation, like a walking trail, to bring more connection to the river with the communities it helped establish.

Humanities Kansas is launching a podcast with Zacharias that will focus on the river’s historical significance and its environmental impact.

“My goal is letting people know it was not an inconsequential river and deserves to be remembered,” Zacharias said.

Calen Moore covers western Kansas for High Plains Public Radio and the Kansas News Service. You can email him at [email protected].

The Kansas News Service