KANSAS

Warning about aquifer’s decline sets up big fight

TOPEKA – Kansas water experts are sounding an alarm decades in the making: Farmers and ranchers in the state’s western half must stop pumping more water out of a vast aquifer than nature puts back each year or risk the economic collapse of a region important to the U.S. food supply.

The Kansas Water Authority is telling state lawmakers that Kansas needs to break sharply with its decadeslong policy of slowing depletion while still allowing water levels to drop in the Ogallala Aquifer. The aquifer covers roughly 175,000 square miles in the western and Great Plains states of Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska, Wyoming and South Dakota.

Most of those states have areas where depletion is a problem, but the call in Kansas to “halt” the declines has farmers, ranchers and politically influential agriculture groups preparing to battle proposals that would give them less control over water and possibly could force them to cultivate fewer acres, buy expensive new equipment or turn on a dime to grow different crops.

Imposing the Water Authority’s policy means agribusinesses that drive the region’s economy would have to consume less water – perhaps as much as 30% less in some areas. Lawmakers also would have to decide whether local officials would keep driving conservation efforts or if the state would be in charge.

Kansas produces more than 20% of the nation’s wheat and has about 18% of the cattle being fed in the U.S.

The recommendation on the Ogallala from the water authority is a response to data showing that since widespread pumping began around 1940, much of the Ogallala has lost at least 30% of its available water and more than 60% in places in western Kansas.

WYOMING

Governor tells state to ‘make hay’ amid near-$1B surplus

CHEYENNE – Booming oil and gas revenue has put Wyoming back among states with big budget surpluses but Republican Gov. Mark Gordon cautioned lawmakers on Jan. 11 to save, not splurge, out of concern that tough times will eventually return.

“As a Wyoming rancher, I know the value of a good hay year. Because they do not always come around, it is important that we make hay when the conditions are right,” Gordon told a joint session of the Wyoming Legislature in his annual state of the state speech.

A year ago, Wyoming was still clawing back from a deficit that threatened to top $1 billion, amid struggles with low oil prices and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Now, Wyoming’s looking at a surplus approaching $1 billion, thanks to higher energy prices. Wyoming is a leading producer of oil and gas and the top U.S. producer of coal, an industry with fewer gyrations but in steady decline nonetheless.

Gordon cautioned against big spending, asking legislators who kicked off a two-month session on Jan. 10 to set aside half of Wyoming’s surplus in state savings accounts. Wyoming has a two-year budget.

He also outlined a few spending priorities in the speech. They include more raises for state employees including snowplow drivers, troopers, nurses and social workers; maintaining funding for the state economic development agency; and storing water amid pressure to send more down the Colorado River drainage.

Even if Gordon wanted, the state’s overwhelmingly Republican statehouse would be unlikely to bulk up a budget he described as the leanest in a decade, with an eye toward the state’s boom-and-bust economy eventually sliding back to bust.

NAVAJO NATION

Buu Nygren sworn in as tribe’s youngest-ever president

FORT DEFIANCE, Ariz. – Buu Nygren was sworn in on Jan. 10 as the next president of the vast Navajo Nation, a job that will test his ability to make good on promises to deliver water, electricity and broadband to tens of thousands of residents who don’t have it.

Nygren beat out incumbent President Jonathan Nez in the tribe’s general election by about 3,500 votes. Nygren, 36, took the oath of office during a ceremony that highlighted the challenges he grew up with and, later, academic and business successes that helped him ascend as the youngest person to hold the tribal presidency.

Nygren stood amid hand-woven Navajo rugs and blankets as he addressed the crowd in a mix of Navajo and English, saying his administration’s mission is simple: bring basic services to Navajo people so they can do more than survive.

The inauguration took place at an indoor arena in Fort Defiance, just north of the tribal capital of Window Rock, and featured an all-women color guard. Thousands attended the ceremony, many donning turquoise and silver jewelry, moccasins, crushed velvet or ribbon skirts, or business attire.

Nygren is half Vietnamese but never knew his father. He was raised on the Utah portion of the reservation in a home without electricity or running water, he said, and has a background in construction management.

NEW MEXICO

State lawmakers seek to prohibit local abortion bans

SANTA FE – Local governments across New Mexico would be prohibited from placing restrictions on abortion access under initiatives outlined by Democratic state legislators on Jan. 13.

A companion initiative aims to protect doctors who perform abortion and patients from harassment and investigations by out-of-state interests.

The two legislative proposals, still in the drafting stage, would shore up abortion rights across the Democratic-led state in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last year that overturned Roe v. Wade and left legalization up to the states.

In 2021, New Mexico lawmakers repealed a dormant 1969 statute that outlawed most abortion procedures. But the city of Hobbs in the state’s southeast has adopted an ordinance designed to block abortion clinics from operating, and at least one nearby county has approved an anti-abortion resolution.

The proposals build on an executive order from Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham barring cooperation with other states that might interfere with abortion access in New Mexico, including any possible arrest warrants or requests for assistance and information in seeking sanctions against local abortion providers.

Lujan Grisham won reelection in November while casting herself as a staunch defender of abortion access and vowing to channel $10 million in public funding toward the construction of a reproductive health care clinic in southern New Mexico that will offer the procedure.

Republicans in New Mexico’s legislative minority have characterized as extremist state laws that protect access to abortion at all stages of pregnancy.

Feral cows face removal from national forest

ALBUQUERQUE – Federal authorities have a plan to remove feral cows that are roaming New Mexico’s Gila National Forest and causing damage by over-grazing and trampling stream banks.

The Albuquerque Journal reports feral cattle have inhabited the forest since the 1970s and the U.S. Forest Service began its efforts to remove them in the 1990s.

More than 700 cattle have been removed and the U.S. Forest Service estimates there still are 50 to 250 feral cows roaming the Gila.

The Forest Service used lethal methods to remove 65 cattle in one operation last February, according to the Journal.

The Forest Service’s proposed plan would make both lethal and non-lethal methods available to remove the remaining population of unbranded cattle, according to the Journal.

New Mexico Cattle Growers’ Association President Loren Patterson disagrees with the plan to use lethal on-site measures.

He said the carcasses are left in place and the meat is wasted as opposed to the cattle going to auction, and the practice poses a risk of giving predators a taste for cattle.