Living Off the Water: ​The Challenge to Tame and Sustain Life in the Solomon Valley
Shared human experiences with water along the Solomon River from Glasco to Hoxie, Kansas.
Ground Water Issues
Hoxie, Kansas

A Sacred Promise
In one small section of northwestern Kansas, farmers now have agreed to do something unprecedented:  For the next five years, all the farmers in this area, covering 99 square miles, will pump 20 percent less water out of the ground.
 
It’s a remarkable agreement, but it’s also fragile.  Whether it survives will depend in large part on whether other farmers follow their lead.
 
Hoxie, the small town where farmers have taken this bold step, is the kind of place where people keep track of how many children go to the town’s school.  It’s a barometer of the town’s health.  “When I was in high school, we had 36 to 42 in every class,” says farmer Mitchell Baalman.  “Now, these classes are down to 15.  Ten to 15 in each class.”
Michael Baalman
​But things have been turning around lately, Baalman says.  There are more kids in the younger grades.  There are a few more jobs in Hoxie, keeping families.
 
Corn and cattle are what bring money into Hoxie.  And those businesses are built on water.  “Rain makes grain!  I mean, we are in an arid climate.  We’ve been averaging, I think, 18 inches of rain a year,” Baalman says.
 
That rainfall is enough to grow a modest corn crop, but not a big one.  And sometimes the rains don’t come at all.  So the most productive fields around here have those pivot irrigation rigs.
A few years ago, officials from the state of Kansas who monitor the groundwater situation came to the farmers of Hoxie and told them that the water table here was falling fast.  They drew a line around an area covering 99 square miles, west of the town, and called together the farmers in that area for a series of meetings. 
 
Proposals to cut back water for irrigation have not been popular, to say the least.  But in Hoxie, the conversation took a different turn.

Some influential farmers, including Baalman, pushed for everybody to pump less water.  Baalman talked about his four children, how he wanted to preserve water for them.  He also talked about the town, how it depended on irrigated agriculture.  He argued that it would be better for the town to manage that water, to keep it flowing in the future.  “We want to keep people moving back.  We want to keep our businesses going, and our downtowns, in these little towns,” he says.
This agreement is just for five years.  There are a lot of questions about whether it will continue beyond this trial period.  Baalman certainly wants it to.  “I’m going to fight hard that we renew it,” he says.  “It’s my name at stake.  And I don’t want to sound selfish, but I don’t want to let my kids down.  We’ve got a great corps of youth in Sheridan County and Thomas County, and I don’t want to let them down!”
*From NPR broadcast, Kansas Farmers Commit To Taking Less Water From The Ground, October 22, 2013.
Photos courtesy of Ft. Hays State University Alumni
October 21. Water Clear and Pure, and excellent for drinking.
​      *from McBratney Diary Quotes – Continuity in Water/Ways Exhibit From the Original 5 x 7 inch red leather receipt book
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R. McBratney  |  Bridging The Solomon  |  Water Power  |  Journeys End  |  Webster Dam  |  Ground Water Issues  |  A Sacred Promise