Comprehensive Overview of Water Quality

Kansas, a central state in the United States, is also highly dependent on groundwaterand surface water due to their use in agriculture, municipal processes, and industrial processes. The profile of water quality in the state depends on a mixture of natural occurrence, the use of the land, and climatic changeability. The main river sources are the Kansas, Arkansas, and Republican Rivers, and some notable reservoirs such as the Milford Lake and Clinton Lake. Most groundwater is pumped out of the Ogallala Aquifer that supplies irrigation water across western Kansas and rural drinking water.

Kansas has regional variations in water quality. Whereas some are comparatively clean supplies, numerous bodies are ranked as impaired according to the Section 303(d) list under the Clean Water Act drawn up by the EPA. Such impairments may involve contamination of nutrients, bacteria, sediment, and the presence of pesticides. The Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) manages the water quality with the help of an extensive program concentrating on the protection of the environment, recreational safety, and public health. To improve the conditions of the water, the local conservation districts, state agency, and federal partners cooperate to manage the water. Even as these efforts proceed, other issues such as nonpoint source pollution, old infrastructure, and climatic pressure still hamper the quality of water in rural and urban Kansas.

Kansas Water Quality Challenges

Agricultural drainage, municipal effluents combined with industrial production, along with a semi-arid climate in the state and frequent droughts in it, are the largest contributors to the popularity of the Kansas waters.

Nutrient pollution, particularly high concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus in the groundwater and the surface water, is one of the most common problems. These nutrients, mostly through fertilizer and manure runoff, have aided in causing harmful algal blooms (HABs) in lakes like the Milford and Marion lakes and also in the Cheney Lake. The blossoms do not only destroy the waterways environment but also endanger recreational security as well as community health.

The sources of bacterial contamination include livestock activities, nonfunctional septic tanks, and urban runoff, which raises the E. coli levels across several rivers and streams to unsafe levels, particularly during severe rainstorms. Even more vulnerable are waters that are to be used for primary contact recreation.

Sedimentation is also of major concern, especially in reservoirs, whereby due to over-erosion of soil by upstream agricultural activities, higher levels of soil end up, which lowers storage and affects underwater ecosystems. An example is the Tuttle Creek Lake, which has over the decades reduced significantly in terms of volume as sediments accumulated.

The degrading Ogallala aquifer is a two-fold threat to western Kansas: the loss of water quantity and the growth of water contaminants such as nitrates, which pose a risk to drinking water in rural areas. Pesticides, mostly herbicides such as atrazine, are also detected in the surface and groundwater systems and pose a threat both to ecological health and to the safety of water from a long-term point of view.

An additional challenge is aging infrastructure supplying water to the small towns and the rural areas. The ability of many systems to treat current pollution sources or meet changing drinking water requirements has been a financial burden on communities.

State and Local Efforts to Improve Water Quality

Kansas has also come up with various statewide and local programs to promote and develop the quality of water by concentrating on collaboration, education, and using the land in a sustainable manner.

Kansas Watershed Restoration and Protection Strategy (WRAPS) is one of the most prominent programs. This locally oriented strategy works by identifying high-priority watersheds, working with stakeholders, and employing the use of best management practices (BMPs) to minimize the loading of the pollutants. WRAPS has played a major role in curtailing the nutrient and sediment runoff in watersheds such as Upper Wakarusa and Cheney Lake.

The KDHE Nonpoint Source Pollution Control Program, which receives its funding through the Clean Water Act Section 319 funds, collaborates with farmers and ranchers to implement conservation tillage, cover crops, buffer strips, and nutrient management planning practices.

A current version of the Kansas Water Plan is a set of goals and funding strategies, updated by the Kansas Water Office and issued every five years (in 2014 the plan was due to be updated). The areas of focus are aquifer sustainability, reduction in sedimentation of reservoirs, and investment in infrastructure. Local conservation districts and Kansas State Research & Extension have direct contact with landowners on the ground and offer education to landowners to take up conservation practices that ensure the well-being of both water and ground.

The Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (DWSRF) and Clean Water State Revolving Fund (CWSRF) facilitate the funding of the improvements of the water infrastructure, such as the refurbishing of the treatment systems, repairing of old pipelines, and increasing wastewater treatment capacity.

As a reaction against harmful blooms of algae, the state of Kansas has formulated a HAB Response Program that observes and issues real-time advice in protection of human health in lakes. The KDHE works with local governments as well to limit the blooms and phosphorus load reduction by carrying out watershed activities.

The state also encourages groundwatermanagement districts (GMDs) in western Kansas to help deal with aquifer level and groundwaterquality issues by using conservation measures and policies on water use and consumption.

Impact of Climate Change on Water Quality

The rising effect of climate change in Kansas on water quality is likely to be related to the changes in precipitation patterns, worsening of droughts, and rising temperatures, which aggravate the current pollution issue.

More runoff may be caused by heavier rainfall episodes, and this would imply that increasingly more fertilizers, pesticides, and sediments will be washed off farms onto streams, rivers, and lakes. This exposes it to nutrient exceedances, algal blooms, and drinking water sources.

The opposite is, however, true because when it comes to drought/arid conditions, water can be lessened, pollutants can become concentrated, and the surface and groundwatercan become stressed. The lower dilution capacity of dry spells has the ability to compound the severity of contaminant concentrations, particularly in smaller bodies of water, like nitrates and pesticides.

Higher water temperatures accelerate the environment that is favorable to the growth of cyanobacteria, and as such, toxic algal blooms become more prevalent and much worse in Kansas reservoirs and recreational lakes. Such flowers will present a health hazard to people and animals, cause imbalances to an ecosystem, and close down a water supply.

Climate change could also cause increased intensity in sediment erosion, particularly when there is extreme weather occurrence. The runoff of sediments is able to not only cloud the water but also cause the transport of associated pollutants such as phosphorus and heavy metals. In dealing with these threats, Kansas agencies are starting to incorporate policies of water management to incorporate climate resilience. This would involve enhancing soil health practices such as those that enhance water retention buildups, flow reduction, and weather extremity buffering effects.

The Kansas Water Office (KWO), together with universities and local agencies, is also investigating the effects of climate change on the long-term supply and quality of water via future climate scenarios. These facts are shaping the future plans for investment in conservation, infrastructure planning, and emergency response.

Constructed wetlands and riparian buffer zones can be classified as green infrastructure, which is currently promoted as a type of nature-based solution allowing the capture of excess nutrients and mitigation of the effects of flooding. These projects not only work towards providing water quality but also on ecological resilience changes within the climate.